There’s something coming to Disneyland that’s more rare than Oswald, Rocket Rods, and Skyway buckets combined: alcohol. Yes, at long last, you can finally have an alcoholic drink at Walt Disney’s first theme park. After sixty-three years, the Mouse will serve its first libations within Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, the long-awaited theme park land opening at Disneyland next summer. When Oga’s Cantina debuts, the menu will include themed alcoholic beverages, letting guests live their best Han Solo-style lives within an over-the-top Star Wars bar. Walt Disney World’s version of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge was always planning to sell alcohol (there will be a Cantina at both parks), but Disneyland Park, which opened in 1955, has never sold booze to its guests. A long-held over standard, popularly attributed to Walt’s sensibility towards “family values”, has rendered Anaheim’s theme park the lone Disney location that’s completely dry to day guests, until now. Walt Disney Parks & Resorts sell beer, wine and liquor at Disney’s California Adventure, Epcot, Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Disney’s Animal Kingdom, but alcoholic drinks only began being served at Magic Kingdom in 2012, when the “Beauty and the Beast”-themed restaurant Be Our Guest opened.
The addition was credited to wine and beer being standard offerings at traditional French restaurants, and thus, it fitting within the establishment’s background story. Since then, Magic Kingdom in Florida has expanded to serve a selection of wine, beer, sangria and champagne at all of its table-service restaurants, making Disneyland the lone holdout — until Star Wars’ debut next year. Non-alcoholic drinks and cocktails will be for sale at Oga’s, though Walt Disney Imagineer Scott Trowbridge, who is leading the project, mentioned “proprietary beer and wine options”, alluding to some out-of-this-world offerings. Alcohol has always been available within the lounge and restaurant of Club 33, Disneyland’s elite private members organization, and is served as part of luxe 21 Royal dinners, but has long been off-limits to the vast majority of guests coming through park gates. (There was a small exception with bottomless beers at structural rivets Holidayland, a short-lived space for picnicking just besides the parks in the ‘50s, but it doesn’t fully count.) The addition of alcoholic drinks at Oga’s Cantina will be a shift, one that will likely expand to the rest of the park over time. If you’ve ever hoped to have futuristic cocktail concoctions in Tomorrowland or some whiskey in that New Orleans Square mint julep, your Disney dreams may finally be coming true.
To see what really makes the White City tick, book a boutique hotel in a Bauhaus neighborhood and absorb the design and architecture of some of the spots that have been blooming in this Middle Eastern metropolis that sometimes feels like Miami-on-the-Mediterranean. While staying at the Alma may feel like slipping into satin stilettos, Brown Urban Hotel screams suede hush puppies. Alma Hotel, the newest of the bunch, opened in November 2012. The old-school cocktails served in either the hotel lobby’s newly opened “baryard” (which overlooks a seventies-style garage) or, on its rooftop attract local hipsters after sunset. structural rivets Suppliers Alma also lures wealthy foodies, ranging from Israeli socialites to Russian businessmen, to its ground floor bar and restaurant..
Its celebrity chef Yonatan Roshfeld (also a judge on Master Chef Israel) serves Mediterranean tapas in microscopic yet succulent portions. Its restaurant offers one of the city’s most soothing spots for brunch, dinner or a glass of Israeli Petit Castel wine. It was founded by siblings, Adi and Irit Strauss, who also run three of Tel Aviv’s most popular restaurants.March 04, 2013 Forget the beachfront, skyscraper hotels overlooking Tel Aviv's historic Jaffa. In March 2013, an annex-restaurant will open up with chef Yaron Shalev, of the award-winning Italian restaurant Toto’, at its burners. A rooftop terrace, sandwiched between synagogues and skyscrapers, provides an urban oasis for sipping any of the Israeli boutique wines available in each room's mini-bar. Each luminous room, some with balconies, meshes traditional décor with the contemporary, blending Eastern and Western cultures that recalls the intimate sexiness of hotels in Paris’s Le Marais district. They have woven together a patchwork of bohemian luxury in 15 studios and suites with elegant, zany decor that mirrors the eclectic architecture of its newly renovated 1925 building. On the tree-lined Rothschild Boulevard, where surfers saunter past rabbis, there are a number of cafes and restaurants that distinguish Tel Aviv as a city of harmonious hamlets unique in its Bauhaus style. Its lobby is a time warp of seventies mahogany décor, with cowhide rugs, plaid-upholstered chairs, a mustard-yellow refrigerator and background disco music. Never to be overlooked is Tel Aviv’s original boutique Hotel Montefiore, whose success over the past five years (with its twelve modern colonial suites) continues to inspire its neighbors. A five-minute walk from the beach yet still in the thick of the Bauhaus backyard in Neve Tzedek, The Varsano Hotel offers 10 ground-floor suites that feel like Mediterranean bungalows, each with outdoor space
Even before its January debut, everyone was buzzing about weld studs this Miami outpost of the trendy L.—Peter Jon Lindberg CONTENDER IAN SCHRAGER Shore Club 1901 Collins Ave. bar. Sagamore Hotel, Miami Beach A sweeping porte cochere greets visitors at this graceful Modernist hotel from the 1940s, which also functions as a contemporary art gallery.A.; 800/848-1775; www. Guests can take refuge from the thumping Miami Beach soundscape in one of the 93 art-studded studios and suites, or sample lobster cocktails by the beachside pool.THE ODDS A branch of Nobu downstairs, with a guest list that reads like Us Weekly—Schrager's latest venture is a shore bet. CONTENDER ANDRÉ BALAZS Raleigh Hotel 1775 Collins Ave.May 11, 2009 Are those champagne corks or cannonballs flying over Collins Avenue?A turf war is brewing in Miami as three of the nation's hottest hoteliers—Ian Schrager, André Balazs, and Jason Pomeranc—transform landmark properties and vie for the coveted SoBe clientele.
The minimalist aesthetic serves as backdrop to site-specific installations, paintings, and photography—including a cheeky tribute to hallucinogenic mushrooms over the front desk by Roxy Paine (the sculptor whose writhing morass of steel branches once filled the roof of New York’s Met)..THE ODDS If Pomeranc's young, arty set follows him south, it could put him ahead in a crowded field.SECRET WEAPON A top-quality contemporary art collection (Massimo Vitali and Tina Dietz) is displayed throughout the hotel.A.'s Chateau Marmont.A. Murray Dixon.SECRET WEAPON That opulent swimming pool, like the rest of the 1940 property, was designed by Art Deco icon L. CONTENDER JASON POMERANC Sagamore 1671 Collins Ave.com PEDIGREE Balazs, with his Standard properties in L.; 877/640-9500; www.ianschragerhotels.
THE ODDS Balazs won raves for his redo of L.com PEDIGREE Industry veteran Schrager, who took over recently, invented the concept of the hotel lobby as the place to be seen. and the chic Mercer in Manhattan, is Schrager's toughest competitor.thompsonhotels. Let the games begin. Can he repeat the trick in a new locale?Count on it.; 800/950-1363; www.SECRET WEAPON One word: SkyBar.com PEDIGREE Pomeranc, 31, might seize the keys to the hip-hotel kingdom with this follow-up to his 60 Thompson in New York
