The new Pixar Place Hotel next door to Disneyland and Disney California Adventure is designed to look like you’ve walked onto the Pixar Animation Studios campus in Emeryville with concept drawings, character maquettes and final designs sprinkled throughout the hotel.
“For those of you who are into the creative process, I think you’ll be really happy. This hotel really celebrates that,” Pixar Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter said during the opening ceremony for the hotel. “You get to see rough drawings, color studies and animation sketches as the animators were working. It really feels like you’re walking into Pixar in a way when you step in here.”
The multimillion-dollar transformation of the former Paradise Pier Hotel into the new Pixar Place Hotel debuted on Tuesday, Jan. 30 after three years in the making at the Disneyland resort in Anaheim.
From the outside, the hotel exterior suggests a vast white canvas trimmed with black pinstripes and accented with red, blue and yellow pops of color.
The front lobby of the hotel is intended to feel like a gallery of curated artwork and custom creations inspired by Pixar’s famed studio in Northern California. The rear lobby takes visitors through the animated filmmaking process from hand-drawn sketches to wire-frame character designs.
Red, yellow and blue bursts of primary colors serve as bold accents at the front desk in contrast to the muted colors of modern hotel designs.
The Luxo Jr. lamp balancing atop the red-starred blue and yellow Luxo ball serves as the centerpiece of the hotel beneath an atrium mobile featuring colorful stick figure characters from “Finding Nemo,” “Monsters Inc.,” “Wall-E,” “The Incredibles,” “Toy Story,” “Soul” and “Coco.”
“We really wanted to create a new wonderful location at the Disneyland Resort that celebrated the incredible creativity and imagination that goes into our Pixar films and really embrace all the joy, whimsy, optimism and wonder that lives within those stories and all the amazing characters that live in those worlds,” Walt Disney Imagineering’s Kirstin Makela said during the opening ceremony of the hotel.
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The cleverest Easter Eggs are hidden in plain sight throughout the hotel — 16 stainless steel silhouettes of familiar Pixar characters set into the floor for treasure hunters determined to find them all. Here’s a hint: Don’t forget to check the elevators.
Upstairs in the 15-story hotel, the hallways are lined with Luxo Ball lights and hand-drawn sketches in the carpeting that suggest Pixar characters like Nemo, Buzz, Edna and Sulley.
Inside the rooms, the highlight is a headboard that moves from warm to cool colors with sketches of “A-ha moments” from Pixar films like “Inside Out,” “Coco,” “Soul” and “Ratatouille.”
Subtle and obvious nods to the Pixar ball and lamp icons show up in the bedspreads, pillows and carpets in each of the rooms.
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The Creators Club will serve as an exclusive lounge for guests once construction is complete on the club level rooms. The lounge is filled with ride models of Alien Swirling Saucers at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Florida, the blue snake carousel “horse” from Jessie’s Critter Carousel at Disney California Adventure and attraction posters for Monsters Inc. Ride & Go Seek at Tokyo Disneyland.
Rooms with a theme park view are perfect for watching the “World of Color” water show at Disney California Adventure while the outdoor pool deck provides the ideal spot to catch Disneyland fireworks from an unusual new perspective.
The custom-tiled rooftop pool is surrounded by cabanas, daybeds and pods with a mini water park nearby featuring a water slide and splash pad play area. Seaweed light stanchions with water bubble lights help establish the kelp forest motif and the “Finding Nemo” theme.
The Small Bytes grab-and-go food stand next to the pool opens in March with a small selection of burgers, salads, wraps, nachos and snacks on the menu, along with margaritas and mimosas.
The Pixar Shorts Court on the swimming pool level is filled with games themed to “Bao” (cornhole), “La Luna” (shuffle board) and “Geri’s Game” (chess boards).
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Disney hotel without a little live entertainment.
Bing Bong makes his first ever character appearance at any Disney theme park resort in the world — hanging out for photos near the rooftop pool.
Joe Gardner — the central character in Pixar’s “Soul” — plays jazz songs from the animated movie on a piano under a staircase just off the main hotel lobby.
The rest of the lobby is filled out with the Great Maple restaurant, the Sketch Pad Cafe grab-and-go coffeehouse and Stor-E gift shop — a play on the “Wall-E” Pixar film.
