Just released a new video about the Hard Rock Hotel collapse in New Orleans! ukposts.info/have/v-deo/spyhiaqaoo6rlYU.htmlsi=hzA3achMbbrDC0Sk

Any hotel that advertises itself as luxury but offers rooms with only Murphy beds is absolutely bonkers.

I feel like this room is the perfect representation of today's disney. Crowded, uncomfortable and over-priced.

Former 23-ish year Cast Member here. Disney keeps bringing the bar lower and lower domestically while charging astronomical prices and people just keep eating that crap up.

The moment you said we had to make our own bed I laughed. No way in hell I'm spending money for hotel that DOESN'T have turn-down service. I'm on vacation, why tf do I want to do chores?

It is incomprehensible to me how Disney has systematically removed every single competitive advantage from their hotels. No theming, no airport transfers, no extra magic hours, and no FastPass. And since I’m forced to rent a car now because they killed the Magic Express I can just as easily drive to a bland corporate hotel or a bland Disney hotel. The only difference between these options is that the bland corporate hotel has a bigger room for 1/3 the price. Otherwise they are identical in virtually every way, and many of the corporate hotels are only a few minutes farther from the parks. Hmm.. what should I choose?

Nothing says “Disney magic” like doing your own housekeeping 😂

My woman wanted to go to Disney world and quickly found out it would cost us around $9,000 for us to spend a week in Disney world, including food and airfare… Compared the cost of a week at Disney Tokyo ( a larger more modern Disney park ) and with airfare from New Jersey to Tokyo included, the price would cost us $4,500… clearly an American Disney issue on the price, not a Disney issue themselves. Disney knows to many Americans with more money than brains walk around looking to spend it on literally anything so they jack the prices up.

You'll never go wrong by avoiding all things Disney.

The steep cost of luxury hotels is not really for the room, but for the service. I've worked housekeeping for actual luxury places- I would literally iron and fold guests' clothes during room service, on top of 50 other things. This steep of a cost does not justify the room at all, and then not even including turndown service?? Is CRAZY.

Why the hell do they have you make your own bed? This whole thing reeks of cost-saving, which sounds about right for Disney as a whole at this point. The actual price makes it even worse.

I worked at a Castle Hotel in Germany frequented by Disney travel groups. When a guy told me what his family paid for getting driven around in a bus from one tourist location to the next being accomodated in regular 4* hotels i couldn't believe it. Disney is the greediest company i ever dealt with.

LMAOOOOO! $500 for a broom closet you have to upkeep yourself! And make toast on the floor! XD XD XD

“Aggressively Bland,” could describe Disney’s entire approach to their hotel & restaurant remodels/builds in the past decade. The Vegas team seems to believe people don’t really want theming when they go to a Walt Disney resort (a company formally known for its incredibly detailed theming). I 100% agree with you about how Disney has become so costly it’s no longer worth going. Last year my family DID go to Europe instead of going to Walt Disney World. I’m sure we saved a ton of money for a better experience.

My hot take is that the quality of Disney as a whole has gone down significantly and sometimes the 'sunk cost' for what people have paid (hotels, parks as a whole, food) makes them overinflate how much they actually liked something in their mind so it's not as disappointing.

This doesn’t scream “Disney” to me, it screams “developer.” And therein lies the current downfall of the company.

i HATE EVERYTHING that Disney stands for. All they do is rip people off time and time again. I 100% emphatically agree with EVERYTHING you've said about this review. Your lowest score of 1/10 should have been 0/10. The room isn't even worth $100/night. It's outrageous.

I lost it at the toaster on the floor😂 honestly their idea of “luxurious” just reminds me of “luxury apartments” that you see. The ones that all look the same, are cheaply built, and you don’t realize it until they sucker you into a year long lease.

Disney has lost its artistry over the years. It’s a shame.

I didn't realize that some of the Caribbean Beach Resort buildings had to be demolished for the Riviera. That really bothers me. I've stayed at Caribbean Beach Resort twice. 1989 and 2023. I love that resort.

It never ceases to amazing me how much people blow at corporate entertainment venues. For $1,000, you can fly 12 time zones away and see somewhere amazing that has $20-$25/night rooms (Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, etc). I know people who spend thousands per trip per person to visit a theme park (including all costs) when for the same money, they could go spend a month in Asia or South America touring all kinds of cool cultures and eating amazing food. But there is a large segment of the population who thinks a theme park, cruise ship, or all inclusive resort is traveling.

Don't know if there's a better representation of modern Disney than a toaster sitting on the floor of a 540 dollar a night closet

That room gives me visiting a friend and sleeping in their office "guest room" vibes. Sums up everything I dislike about this era of Disney.

Never understood why people spend so much for one room…per night. I can rent a 3 bedroom cabin in the mountains for a week for the price of two nights at that hotel (and have a wayyy better time) lol. I appreciate your videos and hope it will help others :)

Maybe in 20 years, will be seeing a abandoned video, Jake will explore his abandoned room he stayed, and the toaster will still be on the floor plugged in

Just because you slap the word “luxury” onto it does not automatically make it luxurious, Disney. I don’t think it’s dramatic to say that if I have to make my own bed, then it is not a luxury hotel. It’s honestly kinda insulting, but hey. Sometimes expensive things… are worse.

As much as it might harm your sanity, watching you review bad luxury hotels and cruises is extremely entertaining. There's something surprisingly intriguing about seeing the bad side of an industry meant to make people forget their worries entirely.

Bit of a personal story here, had a partner once that had a theme park hobby. When pointed out traveling to the real places those theme parks tried to replicate would be both more rewarding and less expensive, they got confrontational enough to eventually dump me. It hurt like hell, but some time later it kinda feels I’ve dodged a bullet- at least I know my wallet has

My biggest head scratcher moment was the staircase that leads up to the lobby that was showcased in this video. It’s a major thoroughfare that a bunch of people use and it doesn’t feel elegant whatsoever. I’m glad I walked through it but yeah would not have enjoyed staying there.

Fun fact: I'm typing this from a Marriott in Florida that I flew down to for my stepbrother's wedding. It was ultra luxury resort with lots to see or do and even a walk right to the beach. The rooms here are almost $100 cheaper for a 2 bed than the dinky tower room you got. At this point, 'Disney' does not justify the prices they are charging when others can outclass them.

Every time I heard "otterman" instead of "ottoman" I chuckled.

The loud AC unit would have drove me crazy. That would have been the one thing that would have had me checking out and disputing charges. 🤣

That room would make sense in a ridiculously crowded area like New York City or Tokyo (at a much lower price), but Disney World isn’t exactly running low on space for large hotel rooms.

This resort seems to me to exemplify everything wrong with Disney as a corporation in the post-First Iger Era: Drab, soulless, devoid of all imagination and originality, overpriced, overhyped, banking on its reputation and brand recognition while having nothing to keep that reputation from declining, wringing every last penny out of their most die-hard fans to try and bail out their sinking ship while their halfhearted attempts to actually stop the leaks often only lead to more holes.

I totally agree. Disney although very expensive built highly themed resorts which you then can maybe justify the high price point because they looked special and different. Now they are building generic hotels costing them as little as possible and giving you in return as little as possible but charging you the same extortionate prices. Greed?

It actually kinda looks like that swedish or Norwegian prison that's meant for rehabilitation

Those were not DVC kiosks. They were pre flight check-in desks that you can use for your outgoing flight. Those closed out at the pandemic and probably won't come back considering Disney doesn't offer free transport to the airport.

I love how you went for an unsensational, honest title and review - avoiding both the "OMG MY FAVORITE RESORT" and "Disney’s hotel is a SCAM" clickbait in favour of a review that was about showing why you arrived at your conclusion, rather than telling the viewers how to feel. I appreciate that very much.

Aside from the bathroom and the mural being different, this room is almost indistinguishable from the one I stayed in at the All-Star Movie Resort, their budget motel-style hotel. Edit: I shouldn't have commented this before finishing the video lol

I went on a big road trip this year to visit my cousin who was getting married, as well as visit and travel the province the wedding was in. We paid around $800 or so in multiple hotels along the way, and every single one was easily higher quality than this “luxury” Disney resort. Can’t say I’ve *ever* had to make my own hotel bed before, plus, they all had plushy duvets, good for keeping us warm in late October

We need to normalize a simple lifestyle and stop normalizing debt. Huge SUVs, huge houses and private universities are simply not necessary. I live within my budget and I sleep better at night knowing that if I lose my job tomorrow, ' be fine. I didn't buy the biggest house. I bought the one I could comfortably repay

That is one of the worst layed out hotel rooms I think I've ever seen. It seems like someone said lets have a tower and then not thought about what to do with the tower until an accountant came along to explain the best floor space to profit ratio and they had to go along with it. However impractical and poorly proportioned it was.

Universal will give you a night at their PREMIER, LUXURY royal pacific for 400-600 dollars that includes TWO DAYS of UNLIMITED express, and the room sleeps 6. This just shows the shift in today's disney's value.

Even as an architect I can´t really point out what really went wrong here and what their intent was. The materials and designs are just mixed all over the place and look cheap. It just has no message or style at all. Nothing fits together. A complete mess that somehow results in an extremely gloomy and uncomfortable feeling. No thoughts went into anything in the shown rooms. Not in the bathroom, not in the AC, not in the lighting or windows. And certainly not into the bed or the "kitchenette" It looks like a cheap apartment block somewhere in the suburbs Las Vegas. Oh and that marble are just tiles, I don´t even have to touch it or have a close look in real life to recognize them. They are a typical builder grade tile for only a couple $ / sq ft. If you look really close you would even see the printing pattern / dots on them.

As someone who used to do housekeeping for the Disney College Program, I'm never surprised if a speck of dust gets missed in a hotel room. You were given two hours to essentially clean an entire apartment building. You'd be given three of those and a normal hotel room. And if one of those rooms was especially messy, it could easily take you twice as long.

I just came back from a trip to Japan that ended with a visit to Tokyo Disneysea, and it's offensive that Disney can brand two premium products with such a similar theme yet such disparate quality. If you're comparing USD prices, rooms are cheaper at the (nicer) hotel that's inside that park, too. With the current exchange rate, it's possibly cheaper to fly all the way to Japan and visit Disney there than a comparable trip in Florida. You could tour other non-Disney places while you're in the country too, and you'd still probably save. It's pitiful how much Disney keeps dropping the ball in their domestic market, and yet fans still keep lapping it up.

My wife and I stayed in the exact room you stayed in last year for our anniversary and we absolutely loved it. Granted, we had previously only ever stayed in Disney value resorts, so we had nothing to compare it to. But it wasn’t all rosy for us. We did find a cockroach in our room (which to be fair was on the ground floor) to which the front desk quickly dispatched an actual Disney bug specialist to fetch it for us, which I thought was pretty neat.

9:33 - Someone should be fired for printing that poster with compression artifacts.

The most insulting thing about this is the fact that you pointed out that Disney chose the theming/building layout they did so they themselves can save on construction cost. But then they have the sheer audacity to transfer the costs they DIDNT PAY onto their guests. I mean really??!!

You were straight up robbed. Jake, even at a discount of $250 you were robbed. I grew up in Tampa. It’s sad how far they’ve fallen. I stayed in Paris once for a week for $2100 and my bathroom was real marble, EVEN ON THE CEILING!

The toaster on the floor frame goes hard.

Thank you a honest review. It's hard to find these days. Please keep it up.

As a Floridian who lives in the Central Florida area, this sounds like a stereotypical average tourist trap hotel you can find in the Kissimmee area that Disney thought they could get away with considering the success of their other resorts on property.

As typical with Disney hotels, this place seems more like a shelter away from "poorer folks" than an experience. Thanks as always for the legwork!

truly a shame how endless greed and lifeless corporate executives ruin everything fun in the name of short term profit. everything disney has a hand in anymore turns out to be absolute garbage and people are finally getting fed up with it.

I saw this monstrosity when I stayed at the Pop resort this past Christmas. We passed it via the skyway. I couldn’t believe that Disney built it. I concluded that thoughtful and whimsical architecture is not part of Disney’s talent base anymore. As far as dark rooms, it was the same in Pop century. The rooms only had a few lights and they were lousy led bulbs too. Disney can tout itself as being energy conscious meanwhile their guests need night vision goggles inside their rooms at night. They are using the same bulbs in their attractions which means they are dark and the fluorescent paint in some attractions are not responsive to the leds. In many sections they don’t bother to replace the bulbs. Disney is on its way out unless there is a major course change.

The price comparison to going to the ACTUAL French Riviera instead was incredible!!

I'm glad you brought up the design because as an architecture buff, the design of it is my number one criticism. Although I appreciate the beautiful Tangled and Peter Pan mosaics (though neither of those movies take place in the French/Italian Riviera) you see when you enter from the Riviera Skyline station, the overall design just isn't great. Either they confused the French Riviera with Paris or they assume all of France just looks like Paris, which couldn't be more wrong. Disney's Boardwalk Inn actually feels like Coney Island and the Jersey Shore! The Polynesian Village actually feels like Polynesia! The Riviera....doesn't feel like the French nor the Italian Riviera. You know who ACTUALLY did a great job replicating the Italian Riviera as a resort? UNIVERSAL ORLANDO with Portofino Bay! Portofino is an actual village in Genoa, and Steven Spielberg loved to vacation there, so he asked Universal to replicate it and they did it spectacularly! My favorite Disney resort for theming remains the Animal Kingdom Lodge. The lobby itself has chandeliers created using eight enormous Maasai shields! The resort is home to the largest collection of African art outside of the African continent. Many of the most impressive pieces, like the 16-foot-tall Igbo Ijele mask, are in the lobby. Not to mention the rear window facing the savanna offers stunning wildlife views!

I don't understand how they can justify treating people like this. As if you deserve whatever bs they give you because you decided to stay at a Disney hotel. We stayed at one of the other DisneyWorld hotels last year and were very disappointed. Not worth the money at all.

The coolest places at WDW are the ones built 30 years ago, when Disney was actually investing in unique and interesting properties. The new resorts are pure CRAP on which we won't spend a DIME.

Bland is absolutely the best word to describe it. I work in historic hotels so I'm a little biased towards older construction (one guest today spent 15 minutes just photographing a load-bearing pillar in our lobby) but even without that, there's nothing that stands out about this place. This is particularly true when trying to see it through "French Rivera" style. It reminds me more of the resorts that high-ranking Soviet officials could go to...a bootleg version of the real thing.

The grey dirty looking exterior and bland from a distance look made me think it was part of your abandoned series. From the video I see when you get close you see they've added random bits of colour and some detailing to make it not as generic a building, yet it does still feel quite generic.

I'm glad you mentioned JW Bonnet Creek. The whole family wanted to stay there when they visited for my late grandfather's 90th b-day party in 2009.

We took the family to Disney last year (animal kingdom), and went to different parks each day. I'll never go back. Disney makes things expensive just to reduce the number of visitors. They would rather have people who want to spend extra money than those who go there on the cheap. We weren't being cheap at all, but the prices and lines are ridiculous for what you get. But, chalk it up to a family memory and go somewhere else next time. Like you said, there are a lot of options when comparing the total cost of going to Disney resorts.

I could go on and on about the rapid decline of Disney but honestly I think this resort captures it perfectly. Cheap, fast, with absolutely none of the creativity and magic Disney has become synonymous with. I mean, Iger said it himself; they're focusing almost solely on the bottom line. And it certainly shows in their new resorts, movies, rides, etc.

I don't understand why Disney didn't just design your room with a standard bed. Like you said, it's geared toward couples anyway, not families. I understand maximizing space, but most people staying at a Disney hotel are going to spend a lot of time outside their room anyway. Give them the best night's sleep possible for that price.

Really glad I saw this video. You were actually pretty generous with your rating. Best thing to do is find a gorgeous nearby resort and visit Disney’s theme parks spread into multiple days. This will allow plenty of rest and relaxation, and you can go play at the parks during times that have better weather or less crowds.

As a frequent lux traveler, I'm paying for actual build quality, amenities, space, and above all service. 1/10 for value on this is outrageously generous. The lobby gives suburban Holiday Inn. The murphy bed is big time European (at least they got that right) hostel with a "private room" option. The architecture and amenities are... again a suburban Holiday Inn. But not even having turndown for a murphy bed? That's... Motel 6. I'd call it a rip-off if "vacation clubs" weren't already a rip off. Crazy.

I think the hotel takes its inspiration from “we might have to sell it later”. It’s a big investment by Disney. That way if it flops, and isn’t making money, much easier to pull down posters than Mickey Mouse statues. A generic building is much easier to sell.

$540 a night to make your own bed that is in a wall and have the luxury of toasting your bread on the floor . Then those sheets were so cheap. Outrageous 😮

THANK YOU!! I have seen so many Disney youtubers praise this place so when I was staying at Caribbean Beach I was excited to visit. It is AWFUL. The building looks more like a European office building, but maybe it's just more obvious to me as a European. And the lobby was so awkwardly laid out. We wanted to get drink at Toppolino's but didn't find the time and, honestly, after a wee 10 minute walk around it I'm glad we didn't

what an excellent review, truthful & revealing as it is I'm really sad that Disney has gone so far downhill & that the cost of a resort stay is so much without the service & typical amenities to go along with it. They have definitely turned against their guests with offerings like the one in this video. Thank You Very Much for doing this so we don't have to.

Theres a decent amount of respect in the statement "i had a few situations that shouldn't have happened, but i know this company too well and they have a nasty habit of firing employees rather rhan handling the manigerial problems" (which yes, i know that's in quotes and isnt a DIRECT quote. Its a summary and its in quotes to denote im referencing a general theme that was expressed and am referencing that general theme). I say theres respect in that because my mom used to work an attraction at Disney World. She had very little control over her day to day and had to follow strict rules given down from corporate to managment, and then from managment to the employees. Events thay were entirely out of her control would have her written up and reminded that she was lucky to be in one of the more "useful" roles, since her job required an actual drivers license to operate the ride and they were having issues getting people to work that ride. One example I remember her telling me about (because it made her late getting off work and meeting us in the animal kindgom) was one man got incredibly intoxicated before getting on the ride, and the ride has live animals. A steict rule was all hands and bidy parts stay in the vehicle during the ride. Well the intoxicated idiot decided to hop out of the vehicle and try to mingle with the elephants. Luckily my mom did exactly what she was supoosed to: stopped the vehicle, radios the animal handlers, and the guy was retrieved before anything bad could happen to him. What was insane was my mom was being interrogated by her management over the incident, stating she souldnt have let him on in the first place. She told them they literally had a no confrontation policy that prevented her from doing anything, she had no choice but to let him on and keep a close eye. I think her comments lead to the rule being changed or amended, but people dont understand the level of pressure disney employees across rhe board are put under. Yes, some people working for disney suck, im not saying they get a pass. But being able to tell that it wasnt their fault and they are putting up with nonsense too is a very human approach i wish more people took.

I've stayed in hotel rooms that were smaller, but still were better designed and didn't expect me to have to make the bed. And for that price. Unbelievable.

Funny, at first, as someone from Europe I see this room and think to myself cmon it’s not that bad or that small, I rather like it… Until you revealed the price and I spat out my coffee. Wtf? How is so expensive??

Thank you Bright Sun Travels for this hotel review! The concluding comments that the video "got a little negative" caught my attention. Why? Because I enjoyed the HONEST review! Truthful is not negative in my opinion!

As a hotel housekeeper, those dust bunnies are inexcusable! I work at a budget hotel and I would be embarrassed if that was my room. In fact, this entire room is below the quality of our rooms... And we don't charge an arm and a leg to stay with us.

NOTHING at Disney is worth the price anymore. We stayed at the Caribbean resort in 2021 as COVID was winding down. In comparison to our last visit 10 years prior, they had added a surcharge for EVERYTHING; and that's on top of their already outrageous prices. Sorry Disney, we're done. FOREVER.

The toaster on the floor cracked me up. I've stayed in budget roadside motels that have better thought out room amenities! I hope whoever the target market is for this room watches this video and stays away. Nobody deserves floor toast.

Disney has absolutely no pride anymore. Everything in themeing and quality has completely gone in the toilet. There is no way they’d have built a hotel like this 30 years ago At any rate for any price

My mother and I went on a short disney trip last January. we used a friend's DVC points to stay at Saratoga Springs for around $200/night. our room was twice as big as this Riviera one, and had both a queen bed and a Murphy bed. the only thing Riviera seems to have over Saratoga is location/transportation. we also stayed at the Dolphin for a similar price point, and that resort is genuinely beautiful with a great restaurant and walking distance to epcot and hollywood studios! i cannot imagine why the Riviera is worth it for anyone. at least the contemporary has the monorail

As soon as you walked in and said "Welcome to our tower studio" I just had to pause the video and blink in shock, looking for where the rest of the room was. I've stayed at business hotels in Japan (known for its tiny rooms) that had more space and cost under $100 a night. I would stay in this room if it was a budget option but it looks more like someone's AirBnB listing than a nearly $550 luxury hotel room.

It's really sad that Disney put so little effort in the design to immerse guests into the Riviera, compared to Universal with Portofino Bay Resort

I’m confused bc me and my family stayed their and it was awesome. We loved everything about it. But granted we stayed in a much bigger room with lots of decoration and it had a beautiful view.

Disney has reached a new low. Most expensive broom closet ever.

Disney is just out of control concerning their resorts and hotels. What regular person would consider a $800 - $1200 a night hotel in any other circumstance. Why do we accept these prices at Disney. It's insane.

It’s honestly insulting that Disney thinks this is ‘luxury’ and it’s even more unfortunate that this isn’t the only example of this. I miss when Disney was ambitious and bold. The Greek hotel would have been a wonderful experience and I would have paid for it. I will never pay for the Rivera. Thanks for the wonderful reviews again and can’t wait for the next one.

They couldn’t even bother printing the posters of their own movies on good quality, that feels like a perfect example of everything wrong with Disney today - they’re banking on their legacy with no actual care or respect for it.

Let’s not forget how Star Wars hotel failed not even a year after opening. Once the magic was gone and replaced with identity politic, half their customer base stopped going.

The “sales kiosk” area used to be used for flight checkin. You could check your luggage and check in for your flight before hopping into a shuttle to the airport. It was an awesome perk that went away during COVID.

This is insane, I frequent hotels and I would not even consider spending 100$/night on a room like that..

Also, I already dislike calling big bungalows "Villa's". Call those apartments loft if you want to use a different word for merely a part of a floor, Disney.

The unused room off the lobby that you thought might have been a DVC kiosk was meant for the airline luggage checkin desk as part of Magic Express. The hotel was finished after ME was suspended due to COVID but before they outright abolished it. Hence why it was included as part of the finished hotel, but never used.

I spent three weeks travelling through Europe and stayed in moderate accommodations in Paris, London and Rome. Disney doesn’t know what real luxury is. They are selling their version of luxury accommodations to guests at premium prices but they giving them cheap rooms and service levels. Save your cash and visit anywhere else than WDW.

I love that you priced out a trip to actual French Riviera. Great idea and now I want to skip Disney and go back to Europe👏

Yeah, definitely agree with you. The Riviera looks nice sure, but what you get in exchange for the amount you pay to stay there, it just doesn’t make sense. Any of the other Deluxe hotels are a better choice, imo. And those tower rooms are a joke. You might as well stay at a standard Pop Century room. You get the same amount of sq/ft, but 2 beds, a table to sit and eat, and for half the cost. + it’s still on the skyliner route.

Over $500/night for a closet with a balcony? It makes me want to look at the room first, with a CSI light thing.

A 500 Bucks a night room cant NOT have a murphy bed you have to make yourself on top of that PERIOD!

I remember touring it when I was considering joining DVC, then snapped back to my senses when I realized the length of the commitment and the control Disney has over it. It seemed like any old apartment building with a few higher end touches but not a place I'd want to spend my vacation. Thanks for the honest review of your experience there.

I haven't watched your vids in a while but I love the new intro with your logo! It's very retro and fun