DISNEYLAND HOTEL (CALIFORNIA)

The 'Disneyland Hotel' is a hotel in Anaheim, California, notable as the first hotel to officially bear the Disney name. It has been in operation since 1955, although it was not owned by The Walt Disney Company until 1988. When Walt Disney constructed Disneyland in 1955, the costs to build the park exceeded $17 million, and Disney did not have the money to build and operate a hotel. Walt Disney negotiated a deal with Jack Wrather to build and operate the hotel. The contract gave Wrather the rights to use the Disneyland Hotel name on any hotel in the state of California until 2054.

Contents

History

The Property

Hotel Facilities

Restaurants

Bars

Stores

Trivia

External links

History

The hotel was designed by the firm of Pereira & Luckman, and originally featured a then-futuristic marketplace known as Monorail Plaza, which was demolished in the late 1990s to make way for Downtown Disney.
When Michael Eisner became Chairman & CEO of Walt Disney Productions in 1984, he desperately wanted to get out of Disney's agreement with the Wrather Corporation and bring the Disneyland Hotel under the Walt Disney Company's umbrella. However, every time Wrather was approached by Disney he said that he was happy with the contract. When Jack Wrather died in late 1984, The Walt Disney Company bought the entire Wrather Corporation. As a result, Disney owned the Disneyland Hotel, along with the ''RMS Queen Mary'', ''The Lone Ranger'' and the TV series ''Lassie''.
The hotel is rumored to begin a massive renovation in 2008, in order to integrate the hotel with the themed areas of Disneyland. The three towers of the hotel have now been renamed:

★ Magic Tower (previously Marina Tower)

★ Dreams Tower (previously Sierra Tower)

★ Wonder Tower (previously Bonita Tower)

The Property

The hotel is comprised of three guest room towers: Magic Tower, Dreams Tower, and Wonder Tower. Other buildings in the sprawling hotel complex house restaurants, stores, offices, recreational facilities and convention/banquet facilities. The Downtown Disney Monorail Station, which takes guests to Tomorrowland inside Disneyland Park, and an exclusive entrance to Disney's California Adventure for guests staying at Disneyland Resort hotels are a short walk away. The hotel uses Mickey Mouse theming in many interior furnishings and details.
The Disneyland Hotel Complex also features a beautful gazebo area that is used for Disney's Fairytale Weddings. Several weddings take place weekly on the Resort Property, as Disney's Wedding planners can handle most any request a Bride and Groom could want.

Hotel Facilities

Restaurants

★ Goofy's Kitchen

★ Steakhouse 55 (formerly Granville's Steak House)

★ Hook's Pointe

★ Captain's Galley

★ Croc's Bits 'n' Bites

Bars

★ The Lost Bar

★ The Wine Cellar

★ The Coffee House

★ The Lounge at Steakhouse 55

Stores

★ Disney's Fantasia Shop

★ Donald's Gifts and Sundries (not signed, near the main lobby in the Magic tower (formerly Marina)

★ Euro Gifts and Collectibles (leased by Arribas Bros.)

Trivia

★ When the Sierra Tower was first constructed, the off-center placement of an exterior elevator shaft facing West Street (now Disneyland Drive) created space constraints which required the neon sign mounted atop this side of the building to read "Hotel Disneyland." The tower was expanded several years later and the sign was changed to correctly read "Disneyland Hotel." The sign was removed when Monorail Plaza was demolished and replaced with a mural featuring shooting stars.

★ The remaining "Disneyland Hotel" neon signs atop the Marina and Bonita Towers were removed in December 2005. Neon signs, which had been cited as blightful in the area surrounding Disneyland during the resort area's early years, were eventually outlawed in the Anaheim Resort District. Ironically, this outlawed Disney's own neon signs topping the hotel towers. The signs were replaced with smaller signs atop the Marina and Sierra Towers, which are not easily seen from outside Disneyland Resort property.

★ Signs from several of the stores and restaurants demolished with Monorail Plaza were retained and are on display in the hotel's employee cafeteria. Included is a large "End of an Era" posterboard signed by visitors and employees of the venerable Monorail Cafe during its last months of operation.

★ The Disneyland Hotel was one of the first hotels in the region to offer accommodations for four persons per room.

★ A couple of locations at the hotel were named after Jack Wrather's wife, actress Bonita Granville: Bonita Tower (her first name), now known as the Wonder Tower. Steakhouse 55 used to be Granville's Steak House (after Wrather's wife's maiden name).

External links

★ Disneyland Hotel Home Page