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(For the first page of this review of Disney’s Riviera Resort, click here.)

THEMING AND ACCOMMODATIONS AT DISNEY’S RIVIERA RESORT

Disney’s Riviera Resort is one of many Disney Vacation Club options at Walt Disney World. These resorts are available not only to DVC members, but also to everyone else, just like any other Disney World offering, through the regular Walt Disney World website or resort reservations phone number at 407-939-7675.

Kelly, the long-time travel agent partner of this site, can also book them for you. See the form near the bottom of this page for how to contact her.

They also are sometimes available to the general public at a discount through renting points from a Disney Vacation Club member or point broker.

Because the two sets of options at the Wilderness Lodge, Animal Kingdom Lodge and Saratoga Springs are so different, for review purposes I count thirteen options among the Disney Vacation Club resorts at Walt Disney World.

The overall ranking among them for first time family visitors is as follows:

1. Disney’s Polynesian Villas and Bungalows (studios only)
2. Copper Creek Villas at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
3. Boulder Ridge Villas at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
4. Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas–Jambo House
5. Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas–Kidani Village
6. Bay Lake Tower at Disney’s Contemporary Resort
7. The Villas at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa
8. Disney’s Riviera Resort
9. Disney’s Beach Club Villas
10. Disney’s Boardwalk Villas
11. Disney’s Old Key West Resort
12. Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort and Spa, main resort
13. Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort, Treehouse Villas

The next DVC offering to open will be Reflections, located on grounds that were formerly part of Fort Wilderness.

THE THEMING OF DISNEY’S RIVIERA RESORT

Disney’s Riviera Resort has what to me is frankly confused theming. The language on Disney’s website emphasizes its European theming…

Disney’s Riviera Resort is designed to capture the magic of Europe that Walt Disney fell in love with once upon a time…Disney’s Riviera Resort is a modern masterpiece of imagination, with each detail drawing upon the influences of Europe and the Mediterranean…You’ll also discover a unique art collection celebrating beloved Disney Characters and icons…

…but the name itself centers attention on the Riviera, which most people will think of as part of France and Italy on the Mediterranean. (There are other places that call themselves “Rivieras” as well, and not just in the obvious spots–you’ll find such in Russia and England.)

So your reaction to the actual theming you find may vary based on what you expect.  On the “Riviera” front, there’s next to nothing except a beach at the side (above) that is not even on the main resort map (below)…

…although this beach is on the physical map of the resort shown in its courtyard area, in the left center of the map:

Beyond that, in basic architecture there’s nothing distinctive about the exterior that much suggests the Riviera or Europe, either, except some gestures to mansard roofs.

Perhaps the pastels in next-door Caribbean Beach prevented a color other than grey. But grey adds no festivity, no charm, no reference to the Riviera, and little reference to Europe.

(c) Loews

To see what was possible on the Riviera theme, contrast this with the Italian-Riviera inspired Loews Portofino Bay Hotel at Universal Orlando, above…

Or a more distinctively “European” looking design good have been chosen, even within the rough massing of the current building.

Disney could have mimicked, for example, the rich architecture details of famous old world hotels such as the Savoy.

Instead we get little detail.

The pools represent another un-taken theming opportunity. A beach theme could have tied the pools and waterside portion of Disney’s Riviera Resort to the Riviera concept.  But instead we get a basically un-themed and generic set of pools.  There is nothing substantively wrong with the Riviera pools–they have all the amenities you’d hope for. They just have next to no theming.

At Disney’s Riviera Resort, we get a lot of gray, little Europe, and even less Riviera. There’s nothing wrong with the exterior architecture and detailing; it’s just un-interesting and charmless

Inside, things are different.  The generally lovely public spaces have no particular architectural theming to them, but Disney’s Riviera Resort is infused with delightful art that references Disney characters from European settings, and multiple, stylistically varied imaginings of castles.

A few more examples, including from the outdoor mosaics in the breezeway to the Skyliner:

I could publish dozens more; the public art at Riviera is as well done, extensive, and fun as the two standard-setters at Disney World, the Wilderness Lodge and Jambo House.

Room art does not live up to this high standard, but is still more “Disney” than you’ll find in many other settings. Some examples:

In total, the conceptual and architectural theming and exterior coloring and detailing of Disney’s Riviera Resort are dull and confused, but the interior includes delightful art.

ACCOMMODATIONS AT DISNEY’S RIVIERA RESORT

All Disney Vacation Club resorts except the Polynesian Villas and Bungalows have studio rooms, One-Bedroom Villas, and Two-Bedroom Villas. Most have Grand Villas as well.

Disney’s Riviera Resort has all four of these room types, as well as a distinctive and perhaps not all that successful two person studio offering, Tower Studios. All, and their principal variants, are discussed below.

STANDARD STUDIOS AT DISNEY’S RIVIERA RESORT

Disney’s Riviera Resort has two very different types of Studios:

• What I’ll call Standard Studios, which are comparable to those in the other DVC offerings, and
• Tower Studios, unique to Riviera.

Standard Studios at Disney’s Riviera Resort, which I’ll discuss first, are larger than those at any DVC resort other than Old Key West and the Polynesian, with most of the extra space in the bath area, and some (particularly compared to the Grand Floridian, which has studios with a similar bath layout) in the living/sleeping area.

They are also one of only a few DVC Studios that sleeps five and has three sleeping surfaces (the others are the studios at the Grand Floridian, Boulder Ridge Villas at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge, the BoardWalk Villas, and the Beach Club Villas.)  Two sleeping spots are on the queen bed, two more on the queen that folds out from the wall above the couch, and the fifth sleeping spot is a fold-down bed that swings down below the TV.

Another distinction in these spaces is the tub/shower/sink combo on one side of the divided bath, and a toilet/shower on the other side. This creates a much more flexible bath. Baths at the Grand Floridian are comparable; Polynesian Studio baths are also divided but in a less useful way.

Like all DVC studios, these spaces also come with a kitchenette including a sink, mini-fridge, microwave, toaster, and coffee pot. A different orientation of the closet, using space stolen from what would otherwise be the entry from a Lock-Off One Bedroom, increases the size and accessibility of the closet compared to most studios.  Reportedly there are dedicated Studios at Rivera as well, which might have a different closet plan.  If you stay in such a room (I am not convinced they exist) please let me know any ways they are different than the floor plan!

Standard Studios at Disney’s Riviera Resort have little in the way of traditional storage, but using the large closet and the non-traditional storage spots Disney has designed into these rooms should make storage in them just fine for most.

A photo tour of a Standard Studio at Disney’s Riviera Resort begins here.

TOWER STUDIOS AT DISNEY’S RIVIERA RESORT

Tower Studios are a distinct offering at Riviera.  They sleep two in a reportedly cramped space (I have not stayed in one yet, but co-author Josh of easyWDW.com has; I’ll link to his review once it is up.)

The sleeping spot is a queen that folds down from the wall behind the couch. This leaves one chair–plus whatever you can pull in from the balcony (and fit). Tower Studios provide a slightly less expensive way to access Rivera for one or two person parties willing to fit into them than Standard Studios, at the cost of some required openness to experience the space itself.

Like all other Walt Disney World rooms, in addition to the (two) folks you can officially book into a Tower Studio, you can also add another person younger than three who sleeps in a crib.  I’m not sure where a crib might best fit–perhaps on the door side of the bed.  If you’ve successfully added a crib, let me know where you put it in the comments below!

The area with the Tower Studios could have been simply another three bay addition to the general Riviera layout.  See the image below, where the Tower Studios are in the upper left corner, circled in red.

Making these Tower Studios instead adds much needed visual interest to the facade, and makes Riviera slightly more economically accessible.

ONE BEDROOM VILLAS AT DISNEY’S RIVIERA RESORT

One Bedroom Villas at Disney’s Riviera Resort are larger than any other such DVC spaces except those at Old Key West and the Villas at the Grand Floridian. They sleep five–two in the king in the master, two on a fold-down queen in the living room, and the fifth in a living room fold down bed under the TV.

Like most DVC offerings except Kidani Village and Bay Lake Tower,   One Bedroom Villas at Disney’s Riviera Resort have only one bath for the five people they hold. But that one bath is large, divided, and easily accessible from all points in the villa.

The kitchen, dining and living rooms spaces are quite comfortable for a family of five, so on balance I’d say that for most families Riviera livability is comparable to that at the villas with two baths.

See this page for a photo tour of the master bedroom and bath, and this for the combined kitchen/dining/living area.

TWO BEDROOM LOCK-OFF VILLAS AT DISNEY’S RIVIERA RESORT

Two Bedroom Villas at Disney’s Riviera Resort  come in two variants–lock-offs, that combine a studio and a One Bedroom Villa, and “dedicated” Two Bedrooms Villas that have a slightly different layout for the second bedroom and the hall that links it to the entry.

The floor plan for a lock-off is above; a floor plan of a dedicated villa–and discussion of the differences between the two types of second bedrooms–is below.

Lock-off Two Bedroom Villas sleep ten.

On the one bedroom side, the master sleeps two and living room three.  The Studio side sleeps five.

These two bedroom villas are comfortable for larger families, having more seating spots both at the dining table and in the living room than many other DVC two bedrooms.

Only Old Key West, Kidani, Grand Floridian, and Bay Lake Tower villas are comparable in their effectiveness for larger families, and only Old Key West Two Bedroom Villas are larger.

TWO BEDROOM DEDICATED VILLAS AT DISNEY’S RIVIERA RESORT

Dedicated Two Bedroom Villas at Disney’s Riviera Resort villas sleep nine. The master sleeps two and living room three.  The second bedroom sleeps four.

All the differences compared to a Lock-Off are in the hall to the second bedroom, and in the second bedroom itself.  The hall has an extra closet.  The second bedroom is missing all the kitchen gear, the couch, and the fold-down fifth sleeping spot. It replaces these with a larger closet, a second queen, and much more storage than you’ll find in a Studio.

For a photo tour of the second bedroom in a dedicated villa at Riviera, see this.

GRAND VILLAS AT DISNEY’S RIVIERA RESORT

Grand Villas at the Disney’s Riviera Resort are distinctive for having a three bay Living-Kitchen-Dining area.  All other Grand Villas that I can think of except those at Copper Creek use only two bays for the Living-Kitchen-Dining space.  The missing bay is a variously a game room, a media room, or most commonly an empty space that allows for a two story living room.

This extra size in the living-dining area makes these spaces more livable than most DVC Grand Villas

Like most other Grand Villas, these rooms sleep 12. They are stacked on top of each other beneath Topolino’s and its viewing terrace.  In the resort map higher on the page, they are center-right, and circled in gold.

There are some flaws in the design.  One is big differences among the two queen bedrooms–one has a private balcony and a private bath, the other shares a balcony and shares an across-the-hall bath. This could lead to simmering jealousies and bitterness among family members, which is either a bug or a feature.

But overall, like the other room types at Disney’s Riviera Resort, these Riviera Resort Grand Villas are among the best designed among all the Disney World DVC Grand Villa options, with only the Copper Creek Grand Villas and the Grand Floridian Grand Villas in the same class.

PHOTO TOUR OF A STANDARD STUDIO AT DISNEY’S RIVIERA RESORT

This review continues here.

The long-time travel agent partner of this site, Kelly, can book you at Disney’s Riviera Resort or anywhere else at Disney World.  Contact her using the form below!

PAGES IN THIS REVIEW OF DISNEY’S RIVIERA RESORT

• Overview of Disney’s Riviera Resort
• Theming and Accommodations at Disney’s Riviera Resort
• Photo Tour of a Standard Studio at Disney’s Riviera Resort
• Photo Tour of the Living/Dining/Kitchen Area of One and Two Bedroom Villas at Disney’s Riviera Resort
• Photo Tour of the Master Bedroom of One and Two Bedroom Villas at Disney’s Riviera Resort
• Photo Tour of the Second Bedroom of Dedicated Two Bedroom Villas at Disney’s Riviera Resort
• Amenities at Disney’s Riviera Resort
• Dining at Disney’s Riviera Resort
• The Pools at Disney’s Riviera Resort

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WHAT IS OCTOBER LIKE AT DISNEY WORLD?

Late October has some of the best times of the year to visit Disney World, with nice weather, low-ish crowds, low-ish prices, and fun special events.

The rest of the month is not so good, as

• The first two weeks are still in the peak of the hurricane season
• The second through fourth weeks see extra crowds from fall breaks, and
• The weekend beginning 10/9 sees both higher crowds and higher prices from Columbus Day.

Note also that picking the right park to visit each day is critical at this time of the year. See this, and use the comment form below to ask me about your specific dates!

[Read more →]

Welcome back to Fridays with Jim Korkis! Jim, the dean of Disney historians, writes about Walt Disney World history every Friday on yourfirstvisit.net.

SPIKE THE BEE

By Jim Korkis

Spike the Bee is an appealing little character who appeared in a supporting role in several Disney animated shorts released during the 1950s. Since 2018, he has become a sort of unofficial mascot of the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival.

Spike’s Pollen Nation Exploration scavenger hunt was part of this year’s Festival, where guests could purchase a map and search for Spike around the park and then return their completed map for a prize.

Annual Passholders could pick up two complimentary magnets during the 2020 Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival. One of them was the Orange Bird. The other was “Donald Duck with Spike the Bee”. In addition, a cute Spike the Bee Sipper was available at The Honey Bee-stro and contained Honey-Peach Freeze.

The National Honey Board sponsors The Honey Bee-stro where it promotes the story of honey bees, honey and the importance of bees in the ecological system and the importance of protecting those bees.

In the cartoons, Spike has stung multiple times, meaning he’s a bumblebee, as honey bees can only sting once before dying. However, strangely, several of his cartoon adventures show him gathering honey suggesting he is a honey bee.

In recent years, the Spike character has reappeared in episodes of the animated series Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (Goofy’s Bird, Minnie’s Bee Story, Mickey’s Little Parade) and in the Disney Channel Mickey Mouse short cartoons (Bee Inspired, New Shoes). In Bee Inspired, Spike continually disrupts Mickey from posing for Minnie’s painting. However, by the end, he saves Mickey from an angry swarm of bees.

Over the decades, I had the opportunity to interview some of the people involved with creating Spike, who was originally called “Buzz Buzz”.

Jack Hannah was an animator, storyman (with Carl Barks) and director of classic Donald Duck cartoon shorts.

Jack told me that when he became a director on the Donald Duck shorts “one of the first things I did was begin to find some foils for the Duck. There are only so many stories you can come up with for him, but if you have a strong supporting cast, that provides so many more interesting springboards for stories.

“To bring some variety to the Duck shorts, I tried to develop some interesting supporting characters. We used a bee character we called ‘Buzz Buzz’ a lot to antagonize the Duck. Probably the idea was that the bee is a menace with that stinger as a weapon and is much smaller than the Duck so it would be funny having the little guy battling a big bully. You can get a funny sound effect out of a bee. They can cuss you out with that little bee noise.”

That bee-talk was the work of Disney sound effects expert Jimmy MacDonald who always found unusual solutions to difficult problems like blowing through a rubber tube and rubbing on a taut rubber membrane stretched across an old wooden spool to create the bee sound.

Spike was not an aggressive menace. He was actually quite innocent and just did what a bee would instinctively do. However, if he found himself the victim of malicious actions, he had no hesitation to defend himself with his sharp stinger.

If not for the fact that Disney was getting out of the business of making theatrical cartoons in the 1950s, Spike might have ended up with his own series like Pluto, Humphrey the Bear and others.

He appeared in Inferior Decorator (1948), Bubble Bee (1949), Honey Harvester (1949), Slide, Donald, Slide (1949), Bee At the Beach (1950), Bee on Guard (1951) and Let’s Stick Together (1962). He has also made brief cameo appearances in other cartoons over the decades.

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Thanks, Jim! And come back next Friday for more from Jim Korkis!

In the meantime, check out his books, including his latest, Disney Never Lands, and about planned but unbuilt concepts, and Secret Stories of Walt Disney World: Things You Never You Never Knew, which reprints much material first written for this site, all published by Theme Park Press.

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The parks and hotels are closed until further notice.

My best guess today–and it’s just a guess, and just for today–is that the earliest we might see partial operation of the parks (along the lines noted towards the end of this post) is Monday May 4, with later than that much more likely.

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AN EXTENDED ROOM RATE DEAL AND A NEW FREE DINING OFFER

Walt Disney World last week extended its spring and summer room rate offer. It now covers stays through August 31, rather than July 9, and needs to be booked by August 31, rather than July 9. Details of this offer are here.

For those who have had to cancel their upcoming stays (or have already canceled them) Disney is also offering a new Free Dining Deal to those who re-book. Disney’s exact language on this is as follows:

• “Eligible Guests can take advantage of a vacation package offer that includes accommodations at a select Disney Resort hotel, park admission and a Disney dining plan – valid for arrivals most nights June 1 through September 30, 2020 when you book through May 31, 2020.
• “This offer is valid only for Guests who booked a vacation package or room reservation to stay at a Disney Resort hotel from March 16 through May 31, 2020 (even if the park opens before then). Offer not valid for reservations cancelled before March 1, 2020.”

Some other details worth noting:

• The usual free dining is in place—The Quick Service Plan for those who book a value or a moderate, the regular Dining Plan for those who book a deluxe or a DVC resort.
• The requirements to get the deal seem to be much more relaxed than in recent (normal times…) Free Dining Offers. The minimum room stay seems to be just two nights, and the minimum ticket buy is a regular ticket, not a Park Hopper or Park Hopper Plus.

Disney is at the moment taking reservations for stays beginning June 1. That does not mean the parks will re-open then–it could happen earlier, it could happen later, it’s still too early to say.

Those interested in getting the room rate deal might want to contact the long-standing travel agent partner of this site, Kelly. Frankly, given all the uncertainty out there, there’s never been a better time to have a great travel agent like her on your side.

Those wanting to re-book their canceled (or not-yet-canceled) reservations into the Free Dining deal can also work with Kelly, even if you used no travel agent for your first reservation.

As with the room rate deal, Kelly can help you navigate your options if future deals better for you come out, or if your dates become ineligible due to longer closures.

Contact Kelly using the form below.

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YOUR PERSONAL DISNEY LIBRARY (27)

By Jim Korkis

• Power and Paradise in Walt Disney’s World by Cher Krause Knight

In my personal Disney library, I have an entire shelf devoted to books that I call “academic studies” of Disney. In general, they are filled with footnotes and, more often than not, reference other academic books in their bibliographies, rather than any Disney specific books other than a handful of the most familiar common books like Walt Disney: An American Original by Bob Thomas.

This book clearly falls into the “academic studies” category which is why I just recently discovered it even though it was published in 2014. It simply wasn’t mentioned or reviewed in the usual Disney communities, even those devoted to documenting all Disney related books.

The book includes twenty-six pages of small type footnotes and a twenty-six page bibliography (but little evidence in the actual text that all of these resources were consulted).

It is amazing how much additional material has been discovered and published about Disney in the years since this book was first released although I doubt whether any of it would change much of anything the author has written.

For instance, I just recently learned that the term “Imagineering” was actually coined by the Alcoa Corporation in 1942 where an advertisement in Time magazine proclaimed, “Imagineering is letting your imagination soar and then engineering it down to earth.” Later in the 1950s, it was used by Union Carbide.

Author Knight is a professor of art history at Emerson College, and has also written the book Public Art: Theory, Practice and Populism. and is also co-editor of A Companion to Public Art and Museums and Public Art? None of the positive reviews for this book are from any Disney related source but all come from scholarly sources.

Knight considers Walt Disney World “a pilgrimage center, a utopia, a fantasy city and a technological and global microcosm” and proceeds to explore those comparisons in different chapters. There is a chapter where the author discusses the comparisons between WDW and Las Vegas where both “seem to transcend space and time, most especially in their retail outposts”.

Knight also spends time covering the “falsifications”, simulations and replicas (to make things more “palpable and potent”) that are used at WDW to create an unreal reality or “hyperreality” and its own moral universe. Basically, not duplicating the real, but fabricating the ideal for its own purposes.

Knight asserts that “Disneyland and the foreign parks are satellite shrines. Disney World is the seat of power. No Disney park fully replicates another and none of the others can rival Disney World in its wide-ranging themes and vast physical terrain. Disney World is where the company’s clout is most visible, accumulated in its most-concentrated form and implicitly consecrated by millions of loyal devotees. Walt spent the last years of his life planning for and fixated on Disney World; it represents not only his vision but also his heart.”

That is only one of several premises in the book that I feel are certainly open to debate. Another concern I have is the following premise.

Knight spends six pages near the end of the book intensively detailing a Keys to the Kingdom tour at the Magic Kingdom and finds it “refreshing” when the guide describes Walt as a “tremendous failure” saved only by his brother’s business savvy since Walt was only a dreamer but Roy was the do-er who made things happen.

I was also concerned that the book gives equal credence to Marc Eliot’s Walt Disney: Hollywood’s Dark Prince as it does Bob Thomas’ Walt Disney: An American Original. Basically, as far as the author is concerned, all the books cited in the text are of equal accuracy.

Actually, despite some of the examples that I have shared, the author often states liking WDW and that it is a “whole dream” that delights the mind and heart. Those readers looking for new information may be disappointed since the familiar tales of Walt’s life story, his being influenced by World Fairs and more are once again trotted out with no original research or new insight.

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Thanks, Jim! And come back next Friday for more from Jim Korkis!

In the meantime, check out his books, including his latest, Disney Never Lands, and about planned but unbuilt concepts, and Secret Stories of Walt Disney World: Things You Never You Never Knew, which reprints much material first written for this site, all published by Theme Park Press.

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