Pirates of the Caribbean Beach Resort
According to Scott Powers at the Orlando Sentinel:
Walt Disney World has unveiled a rendering and a few details of some retheming and renovations in the works for Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort — theming it after the hugely-popular Pirates of the Caribbean ride/movies/games franchise.
Beds that look like ships. Dressers that look like old crates. Curtains that look like tattered sails. The attached artist’s rendering shows a few of the details.
Disney is planning the look for 384 rooms in the Trinidad South Village Area, set to be ready sometime next year. The resort has a total of 2,112 rooms.
Disney also announced a revised Magic Your Way plan. For fixed price per day, guests can add a Quick Service Dining starting Jan. 11, 2009. The package offers two quick service meals and two snacks for each night of stay, as well as a refillable drink mug for unlimited refills of non-alcoholic beverages at Disney resort hotels.
Clients who book through Walt Disney Travel Co. also will receive a new benefit — 30 minute play-cards for Disney’s resort hotel video arcades.
Some interesting changes coming! Shannon and I aren’t huge fans of the WDW quick service (QS) establishments. There are some fine QS places. But we chose the Dining Plan to “afford” better food at the table service (TS) restaurants. And the Dining Plan gives us QS credits. So not sure if we’d only want to eat at QS while at WDW.
But I do see a benefit to this plan. It takes people away from the sit-down establishments and shuttles them towards the quicker moving counter service. It’s a big boom in potential revenue for Disney. Disney gets the guaranteed money from the QS Dining Plan without negatively affecting any potential walk-up customers as the previous Dining Plan did to the sit-down restaurants. QS places might experience a higher volume though but so much that people can still eat at their favorite QS spot.
Additionally those that wanted to participate in the savings from a Dining Plan can now do so. Or tempt those that were on the fence before about purchasing a Disney Dining Plan. While no price is quoted, it is QS after all and probably be around $30/person for each night of their stay.
The re-theming of Caribbean Beach Resort will probably generate some groans from the general public. More, pirates?! I like pirates! I am unsure why Disney didn’t think of this sooner. I’m more interested in staying at CBR with the pirate theme.
Plus, again, we look at the money angle. Most boys love pirates. They want to be pirates. Now the little Disney boys will want to stay at CBR, an under-performing and often criticized resort. This also might tempt families to upgrade from a value to a moderate resort.
Disney has tempted me again. Although not a fan of QS places so much, I want to test out this new dining plan. And I love pirates so I want to stay at CBR. Guess that means more “research” trips!
