Disney’s Art of Animation Resort to Begin Opening on May 31; New Details Released

The first wing of the new Disney’s Art of Animation Resort will open to Guests on May 31, 2012, as construction on the 25th resort hotel at Walt Disney World continues on schedule.

In size and scope, the construction of Disney’s Art of Animation Resort is a major project at Walt Disney World Resort and has created up to 800 construction jobs. Once open in 2012, Disney’s Art of Animation Resort will also create 750 ongoing resort hotel jobs.

At a media gathering today, Walt Disney Imagineering and Walt Disney World Resort Operations released images of new icons arriving at the resort this fall and shared some of the details Guests will see when Disney’s Art of Animation opens next year. For example, Guests exploring The Lion King courtyard will see characters from the film, such as the hyenas and the evil Scar, through the eyes of Simba and in the same size and scale as the young cub would experience them.

“Here at Disney, we are in the Guest experience business,” said Kevin Myers, vice president of resort operations for Walt Disney World Resort. “When we develop a new resort hotel, we draw on Guest feedback about our parks, entertainment, special events and every aspect of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts to provide a resort hotel experience that only Disney can deliver.”

Examples of enhancements based on Guest feedback will be evident at Disney’s Art of Animation Resort in the food-and-beverage and recreation offerings. The dining area will feature items such as fresh smoothies, hand-scooped gelato and Mongolian barbecue. The resort also will feature the largest swimming pool outside of Disney’s water parks, as well as an extensive children’s water play area at the larger-than-life icons for the Finding Nemo wings of the resort.

Located adjacent to Disney’s Pop Century Resort, the new resort will include 1,120 family suites in The Lion King, Cars and Finding Nemo wings, and 864 themed rooms in The Little Mermaid wings. Suites will feature both a living room and bedroom, offering added space for families.

The family suites and rooms at Disney’s Art of Animation Resort will fit into the “value” category of lodging, with nightly rates similar to Disney’s All-Star Resort and Disney’s Pop Century Resort.

The phased opening of the resort will begin when the Finding Nemo wing opens May 31, 2012. Next, the Cars wing of the resort will open near the end of July. The Lion King suites will open a short time later in September, and The Little Mermaid value rooms will open by the end of next year.

Some fun facts about Disney’s Art of Animation Resort:

• With an area of 11,859 square feet, the feature pool at the Finding Nemo wing of the resort will be the largest swimming pool at Walt Disney World Resort outside of the water parks.
• The new resort hotel will feature 9,400 doors, which if stacked flat would be taller than the Empire State Building.
• The 227,000 lineal feet of carpet being used on the project would be enough carpet to stretch from Orlando to the Kennedy Space Center in Titusville.

Disney’s ‘Art of Animation Resort’ to Immerse Guests in Animated Film Classics (Concept Art, Room Photos)

During the Walt Disney Imagineering presentation at the Disney D23 Destination D: Walt Disney World event, Imagineer Gary Hoffman provided new insight into the resort’s newest hotel, Disney’s Art of Animation Resort, expected to open in stages, beginning May, 2012.

On the site of what was once destined to be the second half of the Pop Century resort, the Legendary Years, the Art of Animation will allow guests to step into the world of their favorite Disney films and come face to face with their favorite characters from The Little Mermaid and The Lion King and Disney/Pixar’s Finding Nemo and Cars — with some major exceptions.

The magic begins at the central building, where guests are first greeted by Lightning McQueen, Ariel, Nemo and Simba on the facade. Inside the check-in building, guests enter into the mind and studio of an animator, surrounded by character sketches and images in all stages of production.

The buildings themselves, like the rest of the value resorts, are courtyard-centric, however rather than just having large figures representing the resort section, the courtyards are set to be immersive experiences with even the building facades feeding into the theming and feel of the resort and each section is designed with a different point-of-view and scale in mind. With exception to The Little Mermaid, the building facades facing the courtyard have images of the film’s characters created exclusively for the resort which play into the theming of the area of the courtyard they are near. The sides of the buildings not facing the courtyards instead portray sketches of various characters from the film, also created exclusively for the resort, which gradually appear to jump off the pages they’re sketched on to eventually appear to join in on the courtyard fun.

The hotel rooms themselves continue the immersion process. Rather than one quasi-generic configuration and decor for the entire resort, each section is meticulously detailed to the film it represents, right down to attempting to hide all references to things that exist outside the environment, such as furniture and televisions.

In Finding Nemo, guests are Nemo-sized which means they’ll come face to face with a giant Crush, but the other characters will be much smaller in relation to Nemo. Nemo and his friends have a water play area while there’s another dry playground hosted by Squirt.

In the Cars courtyard, guests are car-sized, so each character from the films, eleven in all, is at a lifesize scale. The three buildings are each named and themed, including Luigi’s Tower of Tires. The Cozy Cone Motel not only serves as the pool for the section, but the rooms as well.

The Lion King courtyard features scenes from both Pride Rock and the Jungle and even features the elephant graveyard. Guests are Simba sized in this section of the resort which even includes a log bridge guests can walk under while Timon, Pumbaa and Simba stroll across it, just like the Hakuna Matata scene from the movie. Note there will be no pool at this section.

Lastly, The Little Mermaid section is where you’ll find the standard rooms (the rest of the buildings are the suites). Instead of the murals along the facade of the buildings, guests will find more than 600 cutouts adorning the sides. Here, guests are Sebastian size as they go under the sea to explore the courtyard which features a (naturally) huge King Triton.

[View with PicLens]

‘Disney’s Art of Animation’ Resort to Open Summer 2012; WDW Site Offers Update

Walt Disney World has added a page for its Disney’s Art of Animation Resort to the official website. The resort, which replaces the original proposed Pop Century: Legendary Years resort, is slated to open in summer of 2012.

According to the site, it will be a value resort that will consist of mostly family suites, as was rumored for Pop Century: Legendary Years after a pilot program at All Star Music. While The Little Mermaid section will consist of 864 ‘sea-inspired’ rooms, The Lion King, Cars and Finding Nemo sections will offer a total of 1,120 family suites, each consisting of: 1 master bedroom; 2 bathrooms; and 3 separate sleeping areas which includes a ‘Inovabed,’ a pull-out bed that transforms from a dining or work table as opposed to a sofa. The suites will sleep up to six.

The remaining announced details lend themselves to a typical Value resort at the Walt Disney World Resort, including the support for Remote Airline Check-In Service, which is somewhat telling since its companion service of Disney’s Magical Express is currently set to expire in 2011 pending a renewal.

[via Disney Parks Blog]