Tag: Disney’s Art of Animation Resort

From the Disney Insider:

One of the delights of a Walt Disney World Resort vacation is that the magic doesn’t end when you leave the Theme Park gates and return to your room. At every Disney Resort property, Guests are greeted with the friendliness, service, and magical details that make Disney Disney. It’s no wonder that the opening of a new Hotel or Resort is big news!

Now Disney’s Art of Animation Resort, slated to open in phases beginning in May 2012, will take the concept of extending the magic further than ever before. As Frank Paris, Senior Project Manager – Walt Disney Imagineering and project lead for the new Resort, explains, “There are certain animated films that resound with our Guests. Everybody loves the immersive Disney experience they get in the Parks, but how do you do it in the Resort? Our idea was to immerse Guests in their favorite movies while staying at the Resort, so that they really feel like one of the Characters.” The Resort has 10 buildings clustered around four large courtyards, and each courtyard (with its surrounding buildings) has been themed to a different movie: “Cars,” “The Lion King,” “Finding Nemo,” and “The Little Mermaid.”

The legendary Imagineering attention to detail is evident in every aspect of the Resort. Arriving Guests will check in at a reception building celebrating the “art of animation” that brought each of these beloved films to life. Frank walks us through: “Imagineer Eric Jacobson came up with the idea ‘what goes through the mind of an animator at work?’ So the first thing you see are black-and-white hand-sketched images from all four movies on a long wall. As you enter, the tile starts to turn colors and at the check-in desk there’s a wave of color. As you move further down, the sketches become more like images from the movies. You are essentially walking through the creative process. Moving on, there’s a script wall with colored scenes from each of the movies that make a great mural. The retail area is the Ink and Paint Shop, and the dining area, called Landscapes, is decorated with the landscapes from the movies. It is an enormous artistic undertaking and display of great artwork. I think our Guests will be taken aback by the artwork and the amount of intense color, and brought right into the scene where they’re the star in any of these movies!”

Now that Guests have been through the mind of an animator, they’re ready to move into the world of the particular film their section of the Resort celebrates. Those who’ve chosen to stay in the world of “Cars” will find themselves on the road to Radiator Springs, encountering 11 of the Characters from the film along the way. When Guests enter the “Finding Nemo” courtyard, they become the size of Nemo and dive into the big blue with all their favorite Characters from the film. In “The Little Mermaid” courtyard, Guests venture under the sea and become part of Ariel’s world, while “The Lion King” courtyard puts you in the shoes – make that paws – of a teen-aged Simba for a trip from Pride Rock to the Elephant Graveyard. Each courtyard is full of details and surprises, from the Squirt’s Righteous Reef water play area celebrating “Finding Nemo” to the neon signs sprinkled through Radiator Springs. Even the landscaping fits the theme, with kelp-like fronds swaying around “The Little Mermaid” pool and jungle greenery in “The Lion King” area.

Inside the buildings, the themes are just as detailed – not always an easy challenge for the Imagineers to meet! Frank explains, “In the suites [available in the Lion King, Cars, and Nemo areas, while Little Mermaid offers individual rooms], you’ve got a pull-down bed that doubles as a table, a sleeper sofa, and a bed in the master bedroom, and you realize that for some of these films, there’s no reference for furniture! So how do you make the furniture make sense? We thought instead of re-creating locations from the films, why don’t we take fabric, colors, and textures and use them in a creative way to put people in the environment? So the sofa in ‘Nemo’ is a great red-orange wavy fabric that you could really imagine seeing underwater. The carpet is colors you’d expect to see in the ocean. The bathrooms are little pieces taken from the submarine, so there’s a round mirror that looks like a portal and the tile looks like metal flake with rust pattern that you could imagine came off the submarine. On the other hand, the film ‘Cars’ contained many of the details we needed, right down to the curtains in the Cozy Cone Motel.”

Fortunately, no one was better equipped to meet the challenges than Walt Disney Imagineering. As Frank observes, ” Imagineering is all about creating detailed immersive environments! We spent about two years on the design process, and I have books of the art from all the various movies we tried to put in here. We worked hand in hand with our partners at Pixar through the whole process, and worked with Feature Animation. The animator who animated Ursula even came out recently to look at the Ursula sculpture in the ‘Little Mermaid’ courtyard to give his approval!”

Whether they’re venturing under the sea, hitting the open road, or roaming the Pride Lands, Guests will get to experience a Disney vacation in a way they never have before – immersed in magic from the moment they first step into the Resort lobby until their heads hit the pillow in time for sweet Disney dreams.

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla., Oct. 10, 2011 – 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.