There are lots of hotels along International Drive.
Photo by Jim Hill
But there’s only one hotel in Orlando
that has ducks etched in its front windows …
Photo by Jim Hill
… and a marble mallard inlaid right in the floor of its lobby.
Photo
by Jim Hill
When you see this many ducks outside of WDW‘s Magic
Kingdom, there’s really only one
place that you can be. And that’s the Peabody
Orlando.
Photo
by Jim Hill
he story of this I-Drive hotel doesn’t actually start in Orlando.
But — rather — in Memphis, Tennessee.
Which is where the original Peabody Hotel is located.
Copyright Peabody Hotel Group. All rights reserved
When this 12-story, 615-room hotel originally opened back in
1925, it quickly became famous for a lot of things. Its elegant appointments.
Not to mention the Peabody’s
superior service. But for a lot of folks who were visiting Memphis,
the reason that you just HAD TO visit this hotel could be found in the lobby.
Copyright Peabody Hotel Group. All rights reserved
To be specific, could be found swimming around in the ornate marble fountain
that stood / stands at the very center of the Peabody Hotel.
Copyright Peabody Hotel Group. All rights reserved
Your eyes aren’t deceiving you. Those really are live ducks swimming around in
the fountain that’s located in the lobby on the Peabody Hotel. As the story
goes, this tradition dates back to the late 1920s / early 1930s. Where — after
they’d been out duck hunting (not to mention knocking back a few to stay warm
in that duck blind) — hotel manager Frank Schutt & his friend Chip Barwick
placed their decoys in the Peabody’s
fountain. Which then (for some reason) created a lot of publicity for the
hotel.
Well, if fake duck decoys could get the Peabody
written up in Memphis’ newspapers
and mentioned on the radio, Schutt wonder how people would react to real ducks
swimming around in the fountain in his hotel’s lobby. So Frank reached out to a
local farmer. And then next thing you know, the Peabody Hotel in Memphis
was famous for its fine furnishings, its attentive service AS WELL
AS the ducks that swam around in its
fountain.
Now jump ahead some 50 years. And the folks who own the
Peabody Hotel in Memphis are now
looking to spread their wings. They’re looking to add a second hotel to the
chain. Only this custom-built hotel will be located in the South’s new center
of tourism: Orlando, FL.
So the Peabody Orlando opens on November
1, 1986. And back then, I-Drive wasn’t nearly as developed as it is
today. So this 891-room luxury hotel was kind of out there on the Central
Florida frontier — miles from both downtown Orlando
as well as the Walt Disney World Resort.
So how did the Peabody Orlando get tourists to come by and
check out this brand-new hotel? By doing just what the original Peabody Hotel
in Memphis did. By laying down the
red carpet every morning at 11 a.m. …
Photo
by Jim Hill
… so that the ducks would first take the elevator down from their
pagoda-shaped “duck palace” up on the roof. They’d then exit the
elevator and waddle down that red carpet into the lobby. Where these water fowl
would then encounter a short set of stairs.
Photo by Nancy Stadler
And after hopping up that set of stairs …
Photo by Jim Hill
… jump down into that fountain for a swim & a snack.
Photo by Jim Hill
And just like it did in Memphis,
this twice-daily walk (i.e., the ducks enter the lobby and waddle down the red
carpet each morning at 11 a.m. They
then exit the fountain and return to their duck palace on the hotel’s roof at 5 p.m.) became a huge draw for the Peabody
Orlando. With hundreds of tourists making a special trip to this hotel in the
morning & the afternoon. Just to get pictures of those famous ducks …
Photo by Jim Hill
… splashing around in that fountain.
Which is why — in order to help Central Florida visitors commemorate this quack-filled occasion — Viaggi, the Peabody Orlando’s
main gift shop, always made sure that it kept plenty of duck-related
merchandise for adults …
Photo by Jim Hill
… and kids in stock.
Photo by Jim Hill
Remember how I mentioned that the Peabody Orlando used to be
located out in the middle of No Man’s Land along I-Drive? Well, once the Orange
County Convention Center
was expanded …
Photo by Jim Hill
… and was then connected to the Peabody via overhead
walkways …
Photo by Jim Hill
… the Peabody Orlando tried to take advantage of its extreme good fortune
with a $440 million expansion & renovation. Where it was hoped
that this hotel’s new 32-story
building and its additional 750 rooms would help the Peabody Orlando capture even more
convention business.
It sounded like a great plan. And after
2 1/2 years of construction, all of the appropriate pieces (including
three beautifully landscaped pools) …
Photo by Jim Hill
… were in place for the Fall 2010 grand relaunch of this I-Drive hotel. But
something must have gone wrong (The rumor is that UST Hotel Joint Venture Ltd., the
parent company of the Peabody Orlando ran into some pretty serious financial problems), because Hyatt
Hotels Corp. swooped in back in August and bought the Peabody Orlando for $717
million.
“So what’s going to become of those ducks that have
been marching back & forth through the lobby of the Peabody Orlando since
November 1986?,” you ask.
Copyright Peabody Hotel Group. All rights reserved
Well, since Hyatt is planning on rebranding this I-Drive as
the Hyatt Regency
Orlando Convention Center,
the current plan is that this hotel’s duckmaster …
Photo by Jim Hill
… will lead her charges one last time through to the lobby of the Peabody
Orlando one week from today. On Monday, September 30th, to be exact. And after that, the hotel will close for a
brief rebranding / renovation while the three groups of five ducks who
regularly paraded back & forth to this beautiful marble fountain …
Photo by Jim Hill
… will then retire to a yet-unnamed Central Florida
farm.
So if you want to experience this unique I-Drive
tourism tradition, you have just seven
days to make your way to the lobby of the Peabody Orlando to see these ducks in person. Not
to mention picking up some deeply discounted duck-themed merchandise in the
Viaggi gift shop.
Photo by Jim Hill
Of course, if you’re one of those folks who just hates to see traditions like
this fade away, I guess you could always head on over to Charge.org and then
sign that online petition which is trying to persuade the Hyatt Hotel Corp. to hang
onto the ducks. Make them a feature of
the Hyatt Regency
Orlando Convention Center.
Photo by Jim Hill
Whichever thing you decide to do here (i.e. visit this hotel this week to see the Peabody Orlando’s ducks in person and/or sign that
online petition), now is not a time to dawdle, folks. So you’d better get
quackin’ … er … crackin’.
Your thoughts?