Abandoned - Disney's Legendary Years Resort

[Music] what's up guys my name is Jake and welcome to abandoned episode 45 this is the show where we talk about some of the most interesting abandoned places in the world if you've watched all the episodes I have abandoned you may recall that I did an episode on the abandoned legendary errs resort in Walt Disney World since that was one of the earlier episodes today I'm going to redo that video and talk about the sort of bizarre situation going on with a Disney hotel that was a literally left abandoned right and plain view of Disney's pop century resort actually this was the never finished and eventually abandoned Phase two of that very resort so let's take a look at why there is currently only half a century represented at the resort and why the legendary years portion was ultimately abandoned it all started in the early 1990s when the Walt Disney Company was making massive investments in their Florida Resort around this time Walt Disney World only had moderate to deluxe hotels with no real option for economy lodging on-site and with management's mentality that keeping guests on property equals higher profits they needed to extend out to this potentially lucrative markets so in 1994 Disney opened the first of its eventually three sister hotels with Disney's All Star Sports Resort it was comprised of over 1900 rooms all priced much cheaper than any other Disney hotel that they had been offering today these resorts I would say are a little tacky and very 90s but at the time and I guess even now the benefits of a Disney Resort coupled with the extremely modest prices per nights proved to be exceedingly successful even after a combined total of over five thousand rooms between all three all-star resorts Disney was still planning to expand and this time very aggressively in December of 1999 Disney officially announced their plans for an enormous brand new valley resort placed just below the Caribbean Beach Hotel this new resort would focus around pop culture through the decades of the 20th century celebrating key moments in each and presenting them in dramatic oversized props the now named Disney's pops entry resort would be split into two halves the first being the legendary errs comprised of ten four-story buildings celebrating the decades from the early 1900's to the 1940s mirrored on the other side of a body of water called hourglass lake would be the classic years laid out in an identical style to the legendary errs this side of the resort would showcase the 1950s to the late 1990s and connecting the two sides of the resort would be the generation gap bridge altogether these two massive halves of one resort would hold over 5760 rooms more than doubling the Aubert existing value rooms on property each side would have its own dedicated check in building complete with a food court and an arcade and soon construction began in February of 2000 with the master plan being built in phases the classic years portion of pop century would begin first with an expected opening date of winter 2001 and the second phase that being the legendary year's opening in 2002 by June of 2001 construction was very far along with the classic years portion of pop century most of the buildings were already vertical and some even finished with paint and exterior theming put in place site prep foundations and even some vertical construction also began on the legendary errs portion reservations were then opened up to the public for the classic year's grand opening in December of 2001 however Disney decided to push the opening dates until 2002 citing they wanted to complete more of the lodging structures before opening our newest value resort is Disney's pop century resort featuring bigger than you can imagine symbols of some of the 20th century's most popular icons it opens March 2002 as the resort's construction continued closer to completion the attacks in New York City on September 11th brought the whole country to a standstill the rippling effects of the disaster caused tourism numbers in America to fall dramatically Walt Disney World was devastated by the sudden drop in attendance and with their huge operating costs it was only a matter of time before things were cuts Disney began closing riots across the resort cutting some transportation methods and even temporarily shutting down and tie hotels like French Quarter over at pop century things were not looking good immediately after September 11th construction was halted at both the classic and legendary years as Disney now had a multi-million dollar five thousand room hotel almost finished construction presumably with people already canceling their reservations there Disney had postponed construction on the resort until further notice for over two years after construction was abruptly stopped both sides of Disney's pop Century resort were left abandoned what the classic years looking like it was almost finished finally Disney resumed construction on the almost finished resort and opened the pop century resort on December 14th 2003 the only problem was the legendary side was still abandoned right across the lake from the now open resort another two thousand eight hundred rooms likely couldn't be filled at the time and finishing the relatively early stages of construction would have been a poor investment to make however guests began to wonder why their Lakeview hotel room now looked over an abandoned hotel so now the eerie unfinished go structures sat desolates in an overgrown field theming elements were left outside the lobby structure and the outlines of where the original hotel buildings were gonna go were slowly broken through by Nature while the generation gap bridge was built when he crossed over to the other side you would be met by a wooden work wall and eventually by overgrown foliage so the vacant hours sat dormant with no real future announced and the tourism crash gave Disney no motivation to finish what they had started in 2005 Disney began to toy around with the idea of introducing new family suites in their value resorts they began doing this as a test in their all-star resorts and that proved to be a potentially lucrative and popular offering at their value hotels sites around the area as well had seen very positive results with introducing family suites at their hotels as they offered more room at a more economical price so as the tourism market recovered and as Disney look to do something with their abandoned structures at hop century in May of 2010 the company finally announced their intentions for their former phase to cite Disney's Art of Animation Resort would now take the place of the former legendary years hotel now theming the resort to Disney Animation properties with four main sections cars Finding Nemo The Lion King and The Little Mermaid most of the new resort would feature brand new suite only buildings with interior corridors adding 1120 family rooms corresponding to their own section of theming interestingly the new resort was going to keep what Disney had already built despite the structures being abandoned for over a decade they had always been taken care of and now we're still salvageable so the northern portion of the resort would have 864 standard guest rooms utilizing the two already built towers the new hotel would also keep the exact same layouts as the original so finally after 12 years since the legendary years portion a pop Century was first announced the Art of Animation Resort finally opened to the public with interestingly the last phase of the resort being the original already built towers finally opening in September of 2012 now Disney's pop Century resort stands today as a hotel showcasing well half a century the intended vision behind the resort was well-executed and really it was only caught at the absolute worst time literally one of the most devastating tourism crashes in history Disney was building a resort that would double the value room capacity from three existing all-star resorts and when all of this happened room occupancy shot down and Disney was left with a brand new resort that they couldn't fill today there isn't much evidence of the never finished resort obviously the shells of the former legendary years lodging buildings as well as the lobby structure were changed into the new hotel and probably most people staying there would have no idea really some of the only evidence can be seen from the air the two existing buildings clearly have a different roof than the newly built structure also over a Pop's entry the lobbyists still named the classic hall originally meant to distinguish the lobby buildings from each other honestly I don't really think the legendary years was anything special and art of animation despite it being based lazily around Disney characters and having hideous sweets the hotel does continue with the bold and bright buildings with oversized characters however I'd say in a more timeless and modern way personally I don't like that sort of thing but I'm sure kids and families really enjoy it I think at the end of the day this whole situation really showed how bad things had gotten in Walt Disney World it's pretty telling that it got to the point where Disney's best possible conclusion was to postpone the opening of a nearly finished resort for two years and to completely abandon the other half of the resort entirely for over a decade in itself the whole bizarre situation left a never finished master plan for a popular resort and a Disney hotel completely abandoned I hope you enjoyed this video everyone I was going through my older videos and I rewatched the legendaries video and because it's such a crazy and interesting topic and because my video on it it's it's not very good I figured I should redo it if you enjoy this video please share it with people who also might find it interesting as it's a pretty crazy topic and if you're ever at pop century or art of animation it'll be an interesting thing to think about anyway guys my name is Jake follow us on Twitter Instagram and snapchat and thank you very much for watching [Music] [Music] you [Music] [Music]

Channel: Bright Sun Films

Views: 2,087,440

Keywords: ABANDONED 45, walt disney world, family, friendly, creepy, disney abandoned, abandoned by disney, theme park, abandoned hotel, motel, abandoned theme park, disney pop century, disney legendary years, pop century resort, clean, PG, safe, documentary, commentary, flurbex, urbex, all star resort, hotel, disney hotel, disney resort, walt disney company, orlando, abandoned disney theme park, 2019, legendary years resort, walt disney, disney world abandoned, bright sun films

Id: n0cUEZ9I_gY

Length: 10min 55sec (655 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 05 2019