Get immersed at Disneyland Resort’s new Pixar Place Hotel.
Splashes of color are everywhere you look at Disneyland Resort’s Pixar Place Hotel. The bright saturated spaces don’t even feel quite like a hotel when you first walk into the lobby.
The atrium is framed by color above, and 16 characters from Pixar films embedded around the floor and elevator below, with a giant lamp balancing atop the ball — part of the Pixar logo — looming large in the center as the doors open, in a nod to the details found at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif.
The resort’s newest accommodations are a complete transformation of the former Paradise Pier Hotel into the first fully Pixar-themed hotel in the country. It opened in January, right next door to the new Villas at Disneyland Hotel, with a similar idea at heart. Where The Villas wrapped a hotel around the characters, scenes and even decor of decades of Disney films, Pixar Place has wrapped its hotel around the Pixar films as well as the work of animating.
“For those who are into the creative process, I think you’ll be really happy,” says Pete Docter, chief creative officer for Pixar Animation Studios since 2018 and director of the Oscar-winning animated films “Up,” “Inside Out” and “Soul.” “This hotel really celebrates that. You get to see rough drawings, color studies, animation sketches as the animators were working. It kind of feels like you’re walking into Pixar.”
Roger Gould, creative director of theme parks at Pixar/Walt Disney Animation Studios, says the artists “love seeing their stories come to life” and the hotel allows them to share “the story of how we create our films. There are amazing, never-before-seen pieces of concept art and storyboards as well as wireframes, maquettes and other elements that illustrate how our films go from an original idea all the way to the finished image.”
Ken Potrock, president of Disneyland Resort, called the hotel “a milestone years in the making” at the hotel’s opening celebration — thanking the animators for “giving us this amazing storytelling, wonderful characters and really all these wonderful emotions that are part and parcel of telling a great tale.”
In Pixar Place Hotel’s 479 guest rooms and various spaces, the idea is translated into what Docter refers to as “truly immersive” experience packed with Pixar imagery, including a rooftop recreation area called the Pixar Shorts Court featuring outdoor games. At the new Pixel Pool area, there is Nemo’s Cove, a “Finding Nemo”-themed splash pad, and the 186-feet-long Crush’s Surfin’ Slide. Rooms start at $522 a night.
“The different spaces in the hotel tell the story of how art and technology come together in the process of making Pixar films,” says Tasha Sounart, theme park creative director at Pixar Animation Studios. “Starting in the lobby with the mobile representing minimalist character sketches, to the rear entry hallway murals showing how animation thumbnails evolve into wireframes built in the computer. For the pool area, we had a lot of fun creating pixel-art versions of the characters out of tiles, to further represent the role technology plays in our art process.”
American comfort food is the basis for the Great Maple Restaurant, The Sketch Pad Cafe is a grab-and-go coffee shop, but lighter fare is available near the pool bar at Small Bytes. And it wouldn’t be Disney without merch for sale close by. That is handled at STOR-E — a nod to Pixar’s “WALL-E” — with Pixar-themed toys and apparel, as well as some Disneyland souvenirs for sale.
Guests at Pixar Place, like guests at the Grand Californian, The Villas and Disneyland Hotel, can also enter California Adventure 30 minutes before the park officially opens via a dedicated walkway, a perk long used by hotel guests.
But for those willing — or able — to spend more, but not able to get a room at the more exclusive Villas, there are suites available. Guests on the concierge level will also have access to a concierge lounge, called the Creators Club, with snacks and beverages available throughout the day, arriving later in 2024.
On your way out the door, you might catch Joe Gardner from Pixar’s “Soul” playing the piano near the staircase. A sweet refrain and an anecdote could get almost anyone into “The Zone” on your way to the parks.
By Shawn Price
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