Disney's Contemporary Resort
Disney's Contemporary Resort is a deluxe resort hotel at Walt Disney World in Bay Lake, Florida, recognised by its A-frame main tower beside Bay Lake and by the Walt Disney World Monorail System, which passes directly through the building. It opened on October 1, 1971, the same day as the Magic Kingdom, and is one of the two hotels that opened with the resort, the other being Disney's Polynesian Village Resort. Its site, a short walk from the Magic Kingdom entrance, places it on the monorail loop serving the park and the Transportation and Ticket Center.
History
The Contemporary was planned under the working name Tempo Bay Hotel. It was developed with the United States Steel Corporation and designed by the Los Angeles firm of Welton Becket, with room modules designed by California architect Donald Wexler. Construction used an unusual modular method: a steel A-frame skeleton was erected on site, largely finished guest rooms were built separately, and cranes then lifted each module into its slot in the frame. A persistent story holds that the rooms were intended to slide out again for refurbishment; historians who have examined the project records have found evidence for the modular installation but not for a plan of repeated removal, and settling of the structure in any case left the modules permanently in place.
The hotel entered American political history on November 17, 1973, when President Richard Nixon held a press conference in its Ballroom of the Americas and, answering questions about the Watergate scandal, declared that he was "not a crook."
The resort has been renovated repeatedly, including a major refurbishment of rooms and public spaces between 2005 and 2009. In 2021 the tower rooms were redesigned with motifs drawn from the monorail and characters from The Incredibles.
Layout
The main tower contains 383 of the resort's rooms along its outer walls, arranged around a large open atrium. The fourth-floor level, the Grand Canyon Concourse, holds shops, restaurants and the monorail station, and is dominated by a mosaic mural by artist Mary Blair. The mural, about 90 feet (27 m) tall, is made up of more than 18,000 hand-painted ceramic tiles and depicts stylised figures, animals and a Grand Canyon landscape, including a five-legged goat that has become a small point of folklore among guests.
South of the tower stands the Garden Wing, a lower-rise building with additional rooms overlooking gardens, pools and Bay Lake. An earlier north wing was demolished to make way for Bay Lake Tower, a Disney Vacation Club building that opened on August 4, 2009, and is connected to the main tower by a covered walkway across its upper floors.
Dining
The tower's top floor is occupied by California Grill, a full-service restaurant with views over the Seven Seas Lagoon toward the Magic Kingdom. The Grand Canyon Concourse is home to Chef Mickey's, a character buffet restaurant positioned so that monorails pass overhead, and to the Contempo Café quick-service location. On the ground floor, Steakhouse 71, named for the resort's opening year, replaced the earlier Wave restaurant in 2021.
Transport
The resort is served by a station on the Resort Monorail line, by buses to the other parks, and by boat across Bay Lake to Disney's Wilderness Lodge and Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground. A pedestrian walkway links it to the Magic Kingdom, making it the closest Walt Disney World hotel to that park's entrance.