One of the missions of the Lake Buena Vista Historical Society is to preserve the history of not just the Walt Disney World resort but some of the ancillary developments surrounding the resort. When a set of photographic slides taken in November 1984 of the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress recently became available to us we jumped at the chance. The gallery appears at the bottom of this post.
When it opened in February 1984 the Grand Cypress was the resort area’s first 5-star, 5 Diamond resort. Michael Eisner and his team of budding hotelier Imagineers reportedly stayed there and took notes, incorporating aspects of the Grand Cypress into Disney’s Grand Floridian and other Disney resorts built in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.
There are a lot of legends associated with this property. One is that the original owner/developers (there have been a half dozen, though it’s always been managed by Hyatt) were Japanese and filled the resort with an extensive oriental art collection. Many of the statues remain on the grounds and add to the unique and lush atmosphere. You can see in the photo album they were present in 1984 when the resort opened.
Second, the property used to have it’s own trolley. This is true. A trolley used to service the whole Grand Cypress complex which included the Hyatt, a golf resort community and a planned community that was not built (but the undeveloped land was recently sold – again – with big development plans) The trolley has been gone since the early 1990s but there is amazing Super 8mm movie footage shot of it in 1988 you can see here. One of the trolleys from Grand Cypress ended up at the National Capitol Trolley Museum in Colesville, Maryland. If you manage to check it out please send us photos!
There’s a reason the photographer in 1984 took so many pictures of the pool area in 1984. It’s enormous by any hotel standards. It includes a grotto (cave) you can swim through that leads to a few nooks and a hot tub. There’s a suspension bridge over the shallower pool and Disney-quality rock work surrounds the entire pool complex on one side while the beaches of Lake Windsong, a sizable area for boating and fishing, borders the other side of the pool area. Chairs, hammocks, walkways and bridges abound. One friend told of horse competitions that were held on the grounds in the 1990s and the western town ruins of that area are visible if you visit today.
The hotel was built with a convention center and both indoor and outdoor event spaces in mind. It remains a popular location for conferences and conventions. As you can see from some of the aerial photos in the album it is built right on the border of Disney property. It is set back and isolated from a lot of the chaos that now surrounds it but it’s physical location is just across the street from the Disney Springs-area resorts and Hotel Plaza Boulevard.
Let’s talk about dining. The Grand Cypress WAS legendary for an elaborate Sunday brunch that used to be served each week at La Coquina. The brunch and the restaurant have been gone for about a decade but they reenacted it for the resort’s 30th Anniversary in 2014 AND I caught a glimpse of that white grand piano that was a lobby feature in our 1984 slides and is now tucked away in the defunct restaurant! A nice review of that anniversary brunch and brunch history is here. The semi-casual dining spot Cascades which featured a large waterfall on the far wall has been renovated in recent years to become the Lakeside restaurant. The food is still good but the waterfall no longer cascades.
Hemingway’s deserves its own paragraph. It is featured prominently in many of the 1984 photos in this album. It’s named after some-time Floridian (and my personal favorite) Ernest Hemingway who fished the waters of Key West, Florida while writing some of his best novels. I adore this restaurant. Shuttered during the 2020-21 pandemic and recently renovated inside, the restaurant still features stellar Florida cuisine. It is the resort’s high end restaurant that channels both elegance and, at the same time, a relaxed atmosphere. Whenever someone asks me for a unique dining suggestion “near Disney” I always suggest Hemingway’s. It’s perch over top of the pool gives resort views without ever feeling like you’re in a hotel (and the crab cakes are justifiably famous). When it reopens please go and have a Papa Doble on my behalf.
Tom and Sarah Bricker’s Disney Tourist Blog has a terrific review of the hotel, it’s current-day features and a very nice recounting of a meal at Hemingway’s. It’s worth your time.
Finally — A longtime feature of the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress resort is the mascot: Merlot the Parrott. He holds court over the lobby each day from mid morning until early evening and sometimes he’ll say hello to you.
Fantastic article! The Trolley is amazing.
Thanks for this! My father was the Director of Security at Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress on the opening team and for a decade after (he left Hyatt in 1994 to take the same role with Sea World). I spent much of my childhood roaming the resort and have so many vivid memories. I can remember what piece of artwork/sculpture was where at what point in time lol. I remember riding the green trolly quite often as well. I have so many random and fascinating stories, both from my own experiences and from my father and his various interactions over the years helping to manage the resort and his role providing executive protection to many dignitaries and celebrities. At one point in the 90s we even purchased a grey Cadillac limousine from the resort and it became a family car. I remember so many friendly hotel staff members. Too many memories to mention. If you’re ever curious to hear any of them or find yourself with a random question about the resort don’t hesitate to email me. 🙂 Thanks again for posting this!
Oh my gosh…please tell me you recall the beautiful mermaid artwork on the wall…I can’t remember if it was a painting or sculpture but it was near the escalators!
Just now saw your comment re: mermaid art near escalators and omg my head just exploded from this memory haha! 🧜🏻♂️🧜🏻♀️🧜🏻🤯
I know EXACTLY which mermaids you are referring to and it’s sooooo weird/awesome to think about those mermaids now as an adult and as someone who appreciates art and understands all of the work that goes into it and just thinking about the scale and massive size of that artwork when it was something that I was just used to seeing all the time (and frankly which creeped me out a bit as a child lolol) it’s just kind of mind-blowing and I’m really happy you mentioned those mermaids! So yes… walking in the main entrance of the hotel and taking a left and exiting the main atrium area (can we also talk about that giant-ass jade ship sculpture across from the concierge area/in front of the bar where the white piano was that was basically like a story and a half tall and acted as a partition?) you entered a long hallway (which went past the business center on the left)(and also which had the elevator which led to the main ballroom and also went up to the hair salon/spa – which if you walked into the hair salon reception area and went through a nondescript store on the right you would find yourself in birdland lol, the back of house area where all the parrots and macaws lived and were cared for when they weren’t hanging out on their giant golden ring stands in the lobby)… anywayyyy, if you continued down this hallway (which always had gorgeous fresh flowers in ridiculously beautiful and ornate arrangements on various console tables aligning the sides and on big tables in the center of the hallway) you would eventually reach the escalators lowering down to the main conference area level (in front of the childcare facility, or “Camp Hyatt” aka where I was dumped as a child for endless hours while my father was working lol) and above these escalators (with giant stairs in the center) there was a super huge and detailed multi-paneled tapestry (/mural?/ mosaic? / sculpture ? I honestly feel like it was kind of all of these things…?) art piece featuring a multitude of merpeople (lol) and I think if I recall the central theme of it was basically King Triton (I always thought it was Ariel’s dad from The Little Mermaid lol) but I remember he was like the biggest mer-person in the center and he had big nipples (lol) and a crown and his giant staff/scepter/golden aquatic pitchfork thing lol and I want to say there was like a sea dragon or some other creature, serpent maybe(?) and other mer-people all around…? Now that I’m thinking about it more I really want to say there was also a green serpent or something and I think it was a sculpture? I remember that there we’re hundreds of little silver mirrors or giant sequins that made up part of it as well so it wasn’t just a tapestry because I distinctly remember those mirrors being actual little tiny mirrors that dangled kind of like sequins?
That’s got to be the mermaid artwork you’re thinking of, right?? Now I really really want to find a photo of this haha. There must be one somewhere!
Richard–Please give my very best to your Dad–he TRAINED me in Security back when I started in ’84…I remember when you were born, but do not recall seeing you on property–that is what getting old does to you. Thank you for the lovely write up and the mention of your wonderful Dad.
What became of the jade boat in glass case in lobby?
I stayed here in the early 90s..does anyone have a photo of the beautiful mermaid and hippocampus art that was near the escalators? I have been searching for it for many years!!!!!
Here are a couple of photos from the Presidential Suite of the hotel (I want to say there maybe two, that were identical?) featuring my mother and myself as a baby. Every once in a blue moon we would get the chance to stay there as a family. It was gigantic, multiple floors (I remember the bathroom was upstairs and very fancy) and had a white grand piano just like the one in the lobby and also a humongous humongous humongous terrace.
Lame, for whatever reason they won’t let me post my photos so I’m trying a different way…
https://imgur.com/a/iRcCnsy
Enjoyed the jogging course this morning in this beautiful hotel. I saw the trolley tracks and became curious. What a wonderful website. Thank you so much for this great read!
We flew in from the UK in mid 1984 and were immediately overwhelmed by the welcome we received. My wife, and children aged 7’and 4, got out of our taxi from the airport and were welcomed by porters in white tails who put our luggage onto fur lined trolleys…
We checked in for the Regency Club and entered the glass lifts where we were shown how to enter our key cards to select the restricted floor access. The lifts shot up above the atrium where a pianist was playing a white piano beneath a Boticelli -‘ type shell cascade waterfall..
We disembarked and were shown to our room. My son – aged 4 – decided he was hungry and we picked up the phone for room service. We had been in the hotel for 10 minutes and room service answered my call with “welcome Mr Thomson, how was your flight? Guess its morning where you have come from!” We ordered and an apologetic voice said that it was peak dining time and our meals would therefore not be delivered for 12 minutes. …
10 minutes later another Gene Kelly lookalike appeared, engaged my kids in conversation and proceeded to magic a series of dishes and complimentary strawberries and JLohr wine from his trolley.
If ever there was a better start to a holiday I haven’t come across it, and that was almost 40 years ago!
Wow. I got tears in my eyes reading about your experience. That level of service is truly lost these days. Incredible write up. Thank you.
I’m at the Hyatt grand cypress now! Just checked in today. I tend to have strong feelings when I go somewhere has history. Somehow I’m able to feel things. Moments, memories and life events of people that I e never met. I sense and I can’t explain the feeling. I felt this today and that’s why I searched this hotel and voila! Here is many people sharing their personal memories.
This place has a presence and very strong energy of families stays here and spent wonderful time. I can feel lots of memories.
It’s sweet sadness to think how grown up adults remember their parents who took them to Disney.
I brought my 11 year old son and we are building amazing memories as well
What a great article and comments/memories by all. Our family would stay here from the mid-80s to early 90s. My parents used to spend 3 days at a Disney resort and then 3 days at the Hyatt to recover and relax.
I have vivid memories of the grounds. There was a blue (wooden?) hippo in the lobby and a jade Buddha with a big belly we used to rub ‘for luck’ as kids. Outside there were lush gardens with a black horse sculpture and a black kangaroo sculpture too. Might have been iron. I also remember a stone turtle that had a snake carved onto its shell too. I remember the bus/shuttle pickup had two large stone ‘fu dog’ outside the doorway. They each were carved with a stone ball in their mouths that moved around but could not be pulled out. Again, fascinating as a young one.
The grotto had lots of nooks & crannies, with a ‘secret’ cave leading to an arcade and ice cream stand. Always remember the pool in the grotto was much colder than the pools outside and under the bridge. Fun water slides there too.
I vaguely remember a restaurant ‘downstairs’ from the lobby. It was fancy and usually had a woman playing the harp. First time (maybe last time) I saw a harpist in person. There was also a sports bar/pub called White Horse Saloon. I was too young to go there but thought the name was cool.
Cascades was such a unique experience. The large waterfall was so cool. There was also a piano player in that restaurant and she would let me sit next to her as she played. It was fascinating to watch as a young boy.
Loved the trolley too. We didn’t golf or play tennis but would take the loop as a ride. Miss that place but have these memories as forever souvenirs.
Ja; so the architect was John Portman ? Just wondering.
Hemingway’s was a personal favorite date spot for my wife and me. I loved how it was tucked away in the corner and made to feel off the beaten path. We visited recently after it was renovated into the Four Flamingos. It still feels the same, more old Florida than Key West, but sadly way more overpriced. We will still return just not as often.
Brian, sadly I did not remember seeing Papa Doble on the menu. Not that a well-trained bartender could not replicate something like that.
Thank you for this memory. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress every year for about 7-10 days/year for about 14 years from 1987. My Son celebrated his 4th Birthday in the Regency Club and we loved “The Girlfriends” who were resident in the lobby for most of that time. We loved La Coquina and Hemmingways, as well as The White Horse restaurants and of course the Cafe. We played pitch and putt, tennis and rode the Horses that were there originally. I recall staying there a week after 9/11 when there were only a few guests and most restaurants were closed! We have returned a few times since and when my Wife and Daughter brought my Grandson, a few years ago, he walked his first steps along the Regency Club Level corridor. We used the Tram regularly. We also had meals at the Golf Club restaurant in the grounds. One year we were staying at the Regency Grand Cypress, we had a Hurricane (I think it was a year after Hurricane Andrew had hit Miami) and our Widow curved in flooding the carpet for about a third of the room. The roof was damaged by the wind.
My husband Jim Hanagan was project manager for the Dee Shoring Company (the concrete construction company) on the Grand Cypress Hyatt Regency project beginning in 1982.