Cancelled - Disney World's Never Built Hotels

An anonymous viewer sent in a really interesting site plan for the eventually constructed, Boardwalk Hotel. Though, in this 1993 master plan, a curious dotted line depicts an intended monorail beam. It's something i've never seen before, and I posted it over on Twitter. Give me a follow while you're there to get updates on stuff like this! twitter.com/BrightSunFilms/status/1671234101217488…

I hope to get to a point where I can throw out entire hotels like those socks I never liked 😂

I’m glad you pointed out the horrible trend of Disney’s hotel “updates” removing theming.

That white Mediterranean resort was STUNNING and so ahead of it’s time! I’m so sad it doesn’t exist

As a Defunctland regular, it's weird to see Michael Eisner in the beginning and not immediately go "what shit did he do this time"

I actually work for the architecture firm that designed the Dolphin hotel. Its weird seeing how many other architects designs were left by the wayside while Michale Graves got his over the finish line.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but the few places on Disney property that DON'T have IPs awkwardly shoved in, are the most magical. Iger NEEDS to go and they need someone in place who understands and respects the company history, legacy, and philosophies Walt and Roy had.

I think the star wars hotel is a great example of giving the fans something they want, then pricing them out of it. I loved the concept and wanted to go, but when i started planning a disney trip i found it was way too expensive. if you want to cater to a niche fan group you have to make it so they can participate, pricing it at the same level as the top tier resorts makes no sense, and people will just choose to go there instead

Disney has slowly lost its immense integration of theming over the years in various projects and it's really sad. I get it's a money problem, but just not as much magic going into projects as they used to.

It's refreshing to hear "the oil crisis of the 70s caused issues" instead of the running theme of this channel "the crash of 2008"😂😂

Very interesting to see how many of the cancelled concepts such as the Mediterranean, Venice one, and Asian resort in comparison to today's more modern and bland hotels had a holistic theme to the whole building, and not just a regular design with some disney characters placed around as the theme. As said in the video, it just goes to show how before the 90's Disney had the architecture and experience in mind instead of Disney+ and other commercial expansions

With regards to Galactic Starcruiser, I'm amazed they haven't just designed and built a general hotel just with a Star Wars theme that wasn't ridiculously expensive. It doesn't have to have the big production value, but they could essentially blended the Venetian idea into a hotel styled after Naboo for example.

The Mediterranean Hotel was a beautiful design that would have given a lovely and eye catching scenery for Disney World.

Say what you want about Eisner but there’s no denying that some of the best and most iconic resorts on WDW property were built because of him.

Modern Disney usually makes the mistake of thinking you should be there for their characters. Walt understood that you are the character. I hope they get better at channeling Walt in their future projects. The Star Wars one seems to have the earmarks of something they thought might do this but didn't do it effectively or at a price people could afford. Walt managed it by buil;ding a frontier town and a castle instead of making you stay in a windowless oddity. When I was a kid you got Swiss theming on the skyway entrance and a mountain with a brief glimpse of a yeti. That's because it was built to let you become part of it. Then you'd saunter over to Big Thunder where there weren't characters, there was you, a train, and a strange mining operation. Characters are fine, and I met a bunch of them, especially by the carousel. I pulled the sword from the stone and now decades later I still remember it. If not for pictures my parents took, I would not remember which characters I met but I did have a magical day because even then, I knew I experienced things, not just saw them. If riding a submarine isn't fun unless you see Nemo or Ariel, you're not taking advantage of the submarine itself.

The recent regimes are making Michael Eisner look like Steve Jobs. He should receive much more credit than he does for reinvigorating the company, both in the animation studio and in the resort hotels. The current regime could learn a lot from him.

I NEVER get bored of these amazing productions. We even have viewing parties here in the UK. Top notch content. Keep it up mate!

I'm glad that you weren't afraid to call out the uninspiring design of Riviera. During my last visit to WDW I decided to check out their newest "premiere resort". I was less than impressed. It's so unfortunate to see what could have been, but at least the classic resorts that were made have such unique identities.

I still remember the original video of the abandoned hotels! Used to listen multiple times at my old job. Jake, the amount of times I bring up these hotels, people look at me like I have a second head, they're shocked and it's thanks to you I get to experience those reactions, keep it up mate!

A coworker of mine did some landscape architecture work for for a firm contracted by DDC in the 90s and I found some of the drawings on a company server. As an LA myself, I love looking at the hand rendering style which was predominate at the time for master planning. It's also fascinating to see the items that were planned but weren't included in the built resorts, like a monorail at Boardwalk.