"You have to understand that the Disneyland Hotel was built in bits and pieces over the past 50 years. Which is why - while this Resort has some great individual elements - it doesn't have great flow-thru. The Disneyland Hotel doesn't tell one cohesive story," Mauro explained. "That's why Imagineering is abandoning the piecemeal approach that we typically took when dealing with the Disneyland Hotel and are now facing all of these issues head on."
Back in the WestCOT days, the plan was to build The New Disneyland Hotel over by Harbor Blvd on the land now used as shuttle bus loading/unloading. When the Resort expansion plans were halved in the lead up to California Adventure, The New Disneyland Hotel was left on the drawing board.
When plans were being drawn up more recently for the current rebuild, one of the initial proposals was to level the existing Hotel and start from scratch.
I understand why they opted against it. Logistically, it wasn't feasible to keep portions of the old Hotel operating while trying to construct a new and very different hotel at the same time. But compare the Disneyland Hotel at Disneyland Paris, Hong Kong Disneyland or Tokyo Disneyland to Anaheim's relic and you can see how razing the towers would allow the land to be transformed.
But the Disneyland Hotel has needed a major rethink for over twenty years. It's nice to see it finally being tackled at large. Hopefully once completed it will be worth staying there again.
And maybe the dreadful Paradise Pier Hotel will get similar treatment next.