Disney’s New Coco Restaurant SECRETS Revealed by Imagineers and Pixar Movie Director

Disney's brand-new Plaza de Coco restaurant debuts this month with dinner shows and beautiful decorations that make it feel like you are in the middle of a festive family gathering.

We had the opportunity to experience this new Coco dinner show and hear from the creatives behind the show and the Coco film. There are two different dinner shows at the venue, which pays homage to the film with details like the Rivera family's Ofrenda brought to life. Performers play songs from the movie and interact as the characters.

The Plaza de Coco is one of the three dinner restaurants on the new Disney Treasure ship that will be embarking on its inaugural voyage later this month. Below, we will share our thoughts on this new Coco dinner experience and details revealed about the making of the show!

Secrets of New Immersive Coco Dinner Show

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There are two distinct dining experiences for this new Coco show aboard the Disney Treasure. The first night continues the story where it left off in the film, as Miguel and his familia participate in a festive gathering featuring the town's mariachi band and town members who perform song and dance.

On the second night, Miguel reunites with Hector and Mama Imelda as they celebrate Dia de los Muertos and honor all celebrations including any birthdays, anniversaries, and more.

The food was actually our least favorite of the three restaurants here – that just may be that it's difficult to do great Mexican food at this scale, but the ambiance was the most immersive and impressive. It really felt like an outdoor Mexican restaurant set out under the stars. It is the perfect setting to bring to life the story of Coco.

There are touches throughout the restaurant pulling in real stories that inspired the film like the Ofrenda, different signs, and certain other details from the movie that were based on real-life research trips.

As part of the media sailing on the Disney Treasure, we had the opportunity to hear from the creatives behind the Plaza de Coco show and the Coco film who shared further details about the experience and the space. The below quotes have been lightly edited for clarity.

Lee Unkrich, Director of Coco, described how in the six years he spent making the film, he embarked on various research trips to different parts of Mexico and spent time with several families there. “A lot of the look of the movie, the design, very specific details, came directly from families who I spent time with, who we were embedded with, and by extension, this space, Plaza de Coco, reflects that.”

Unkrich spoke about how he sees elements from that research in this new Coco restaurant aboard the Treasure. “I look around this room and I see little details that I know are from very specific research trips that we went on to Mexico. So, in the same way that Coco was an opportunity for us to bring to the world a beautiful culture that maybe a lot of people didn't know about or didn't understand completely, now, with Plaza de Coco, there's an opportunity for guests from all over the world to be able to learn a bit more about Mexican culture and certainly just being enveloped in the beauty of it.”

The Rivera family's Ofrenda is a particularly incredible part of this new Coco dining experience and the first time that you can experience it in person. Unkrich talked about the inspiration behind the Rivera family Ofrenda and the transition from film to its physical place on the Disney Treasure.

Unkrich said, “We spent a lot of time creating the Ofrenda, as Miguel's Rivera family Ofrenda, in our home, and we based it again upon elements of the most beautiful Ofrendas that we saw in rural Mexico. I mean, we would be with families that were very, very poor, yet they would give over whole rooms in their homes to these beautiful Ofrendas and we wanted to kind of capture that beauty, and it was crazy for me to walk in and see that Ofrenda there that the Disney team put together because it looks so much like the one in the film, but I've only ever experienced that Ofrenda digitally. It has always just been in the computer while making the film, so it was really amazing for me to be able to walk up to it and touch it, and just see the actual framed photos and everything, it was very surreal.”

Anthony Gonzalez, the voice of Miguel in the film, shared that seeing the Ofrenda was “such a very special moment, just because it represents the love that Miguel has for all his family and represents the love that we have for our ancestors. To see Miguel's family there, Mama Coco in the middle, it's a very special moment to see that in real life.”

Juan Cantu, Show Director of Plaza De Coco, spoke about what he hopes guests will take away from this new Coco dining experience. “The fact that this film deals with Dia De Los Muertos and celebrates it, we have a beautiful opportunity as storytellers to then share that with our guests here on the Disney Treasure. And that's been my biggest goal, is just to share this in a way that people take away not just the satisfaction of reliving an experience with the Rivera family but then taking away what Dia De Los Muertos means and honoring your loved ones, and inviting you to bring that into your life.”

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Great care was taken to ensure that this new show is an accurate representation of Mexican culture. Mario Trujillo, Cultural Consultant for Plaza de Coco, described how it was important for this show “to really focus and hone in on the authenticity of the musicians that we were bringing on board, the performers, and respecting that culture of musicians(…)”

Trujillo went on to say how “it was such a critical part to find authentic musicians that played the instruments,” ensuring that everything from the instruments to their mariachi outfits and the melodies played was authentic and respectful to the culture.

As part of the media event, there was a cool opportunity to take a picture with the Oscar from the Coco film! This was a full circle moment for Gavin Doyle, our Mickey Visit founder seen below, as when the movie came out he wrote the review that called Coco the “best movie of the year”. That quote was used in trailers and other marketing material when it was first showing in theaters.

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