Rebranding Pop?

According to rumors coming out this past week, there's a rumor that Disney is building a mock up of a room for what will be known as Disney's Animation Inn & Suites. Word for this came about because Disney recently filed a permit for said mock ups.

Now, of course, a certain blogger, (Jim Hill) believes that the Disney's Animation Inn & Suites is going to then be turned into the second half of Pop Century and then the whole hotel complex will be re-named, as work will be done on the Classic Years to make it fit with the new theme. Let's take a brief look at this, as if we were to believe this is indeed what would happen.

Building this new resort is a very interesting idea. Disney has the other half of Pop Century completely unfinished. Matter of fact, you can still see the vacant shells from some of the rooms from the current Pop Century.

Also, since building the family suites at All-Star Music, Disney has increased it's chances of getting families of 5 or 6 to stay on property at a reasonable cost, which as given these families a Disney option, instead of them being forced to stay offsite. I'm sure Disney wants to attempt to build more hotel rooms like these to capitalize on this potentially huge market. This old Pop Century Legendary Years area would be perfect. And Nickelodeon has a similar version of this kind of hotel that is wildly popular.

The other reason I think this re-theming would work, is because, for me, I'd always wondered how they could entice people to want to stay in the Legendary Years. The Classic Years wasn't as big of a stretch to stay in for me...people want to stay there because they grew up with the stuff they'd see in that portion of the hotel. It is has a fun and kitchy feel to it.

But the Legendary Years...while it would probably be cool the way Disney had intended to build it, that same appeal that the Classic Years has, I don't think would necessarily be there with the Legendary Years section. I mean, can you imagine a Great Depression 30s area? Or a WWII 40s area? The stuff that they could potentially put in there, it just doesn't have the same zing to me. (Once again, Disney could have potentially made a liar out of me...I just always thought it was a weird second half concept.)

Now, the one thing I wish they wouldn't do, is to re-brand the whole resort complex. I would really like for them to leave Pop Century alone and build the Disney's Animation Inn & Suites as a totally separate hotel. I think it would work better that way, however, I understand if they do decide to just combine the two under one unifying themed umbrella. But both resorts would be big enough and I think both have enough appeal that Disney could sell both separately.

So, in all, this is a very interesting development. We'll see what happens!