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walt disney world to add new resort

pitchnoir

Mega Poster
I will start this thread like i have done with some of my previous ones, why hasnt this been posted yet :wink:

anyways enough of the little digs and banter.

Big news…we’ve just announced plans for a new resort at Walt Disney World Resort that’ll bring to life some of our most beloved characters and stories. Disney’s Art of Animation Resort will be one-of-a-kind, featuring family suites designed around four themes: The Lion King, Cars, Finding Nemo and The Little Mermaid.

It’s a resort designed with families in mind. There will be amazing sights at the different themed wings of the resort, including a model of King Triton that’ll eventually be 35 feet tall and tower over guests. And Disney’s Art of Animation Resort will also have themed room interiors in its nearly 2,000 new units — 1,120 family suites in The Lion King, Cars and Finding Nemo wings and 864 themed rooms in The Little Mermaid wings. Suites will have both a living room and a bedroom, offering added space.

All of the themed suites and rooms at Disney’s Art of Animation Resort (to be located adjacent to Disney’s Pop Century Resort) are expected to open by the end of 2012. We’ll have more updates in the future but wanted to share this with you first. Please let us know what you think in the comments.
http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2010/05/disneys-art-of-animation-resort-unveiled/

Walt Disney World is about to begin building its first new hotel in seven years, a 2,000-room resort that will open in 2012. Disney’s Art of Animation Resort will feature 1,120 suites with room for as many as six people each and another 864 traditional hotel rooms, with a design theme based on four of the company’s most popular animated movies.

Disney Imagineer Joni Van Buren sculpts a model of King Triton from the 1989 animated film The Little Mermaid. In its final form, the sculpture will be 35 feet tall and tower over guests at Disney’s Art of Animation Resort, a new Disney World hotel that will open in 2012. (WALT DISNEY WORLD)
The complex will be priced as a “value” hotel, at the low end of Disney World’s scale, similar to Disney’s Pop Century and All-Star resorts, where standard rates begin at $82 a night.

The announcement is one of the strongest signals yet from Disney that it thinks a sustained recovery is under way from the long travel slump brought on by the global recession. Disney executives, who have been weighing construction of a family-suites hotel for several years, finally approved the project in January.

But in deciding to add another lower-priced hotel, Disney also appears to be betting that travelers will continue the frugal spending habits many adopted during the downturn. Disney has been relying on discounts to sustain attendance during the past year, and executives acknowledged Tuesday that consumers are still searching for deals even as Disney attempts to return to pre-recession prices. “Quite honestly, we’re in a bit of waiting for each other to blink,” Walt Disney Co. Chief Financial Officer Jay Rasulo told analysts during a conference call to discuss the company’s second-quarter earnings.

The Art of Animation Resort will be built on a 65-acre plot across a lake from Disney’s Pop Century Resort. The location will allow Disney to use a pair of long-neglected, unfinished buildings that Disney originally constructed as a second phase of Pop Century but which it abandoned amid the 2001 recession. Pop Century’s first phase was completed in 2003.

Plans for the new resort show 10 wings of rooms and a separate building housing the check-in lobby and restaurants. The hotel wings will be separated into four distinct groups, each with a theme from a different animated movie: The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Finding Nemo and Cars.

Each section will have separate courtyards anchored by icons from the movies — such as a 35-foot-tall King Triton presiding over the Mermaid section — and the entire resort will use bright-color palettes evocative of the lush scenery of animated movies. Hotel designers say they have been soliciting input from artists at Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios on everything from building elevations to which scenes to depict at the swimming pools. “The hope is you walk into this courtyard and you’re kind of like seeing it as a character in the movie,” said Frank Paris, a senior project manager with Walt Disney Imagineering, the company’s in-house attraction-design unit.

Because the majority of its rooms will be six-person suites, the Art of Animation Resort will have roughly the same capacity as Pop Century, which has 2,800 conventional rooms.

With the project, Disney is placing an aggressive bet on what it says is a growing market for affordable suites aimed at families traveling with several children or extended families. Disney World has been testing the concept with about 215 suites at its All-Star Music hotel that were converted out of about 430 ordinary rooms about three years ago. Jim Durham, vice president for resort projects at Disney Imagineering, said demand for such accommodations has risen in recent years as families have taken to traveling in larger groups. The trend became particularly pronounced following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he said. “Ever since 9-11, we just see a lot more family unity,” Durham said.

In Orlando, the family-suites market is led by the 777-room Nickelodeon Suites Resort, which has proven immensely popular since it opened in 2005 just to the east of Disney World. The resort pairs family suites with Nickelodeon cartoon characters such as SpongeBob SquarePants. By adding more than 1,000 new suites to its lineup, Disney hopes to pull more of those travelers onto its property. The conventional hotel rooms to be built as part of the Art of Animation Resort will also allow Disney to restore the room capacity it lost as part of the suites conversion at All-Star Music. Disney executives said the popularity of those All-Star Music suites convinced them that there is a substantial market for family suites. “We’re feeling very positive about the demand that is interested in both the value product and the family-suite product,” said Mark Rucker, vice president for lodging for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. “The research for us is showing that the Central Florida marketplace is going to more than capably handle some inventory in this category.”

Disney declined to say how much it will spend to build the hotel. It expects to break ground this summer and open it in phases throughout 2012. Disney said the project will generate approximately 800 construction jobs.
http://thedailydisney.com/blog/2010...hotel-dubbed-disneys-art-of-animation-resort/

mermaid9830182_large.jpg

Disney Imagineer Joni Van Buren sculpts a model of King Triton, who, in his final form will be 35 feet tall and tower over guests at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts newest Resort. Disney’s Art of Animation Resort will be one-of-a-kind, with themed building exteriors and room interiors that bring to life The Lion King, Cars, Finding Nemo and The Little Mermaid. Disney’s Art of Animation Resort is expected to open by the end of 2012.

all found at: http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=893059#p893059
 
I had only just read that somewhere else as well, probably the same place as you :)

It was on Screamscape this morning. I was going to post it then thought it was no big deal really as Disney are always adding parts to their hotels out there.

But its a good read as they are finally making use of the un finished buildings.
 
It's nice that it's finally getting finished, but I loved the initial idea of having the other five decades across the lake.

Weren't they originally going to be villas? Is that still going to happen with these or are they going to be normal hotel rooms?
 
The thing that bugs me with Pop Century, and this, is that they spent all this money on over sized fiberglass theming attached to the buildings, yet the swimming pool at the resort doesn't have a damn waterslide.
 
ehh, i doubt the waterslide is the least of their worries lol. i think their pools arent that deep to begin with anyway
 
, i doubt the waterslide is the least of their worries lol.
And thats the problem.

For the cost of this junk:
PopCentury4.jpg

p165150-Lake_Buena_Vista-Disneys_Pop_Century_Resort.jpg


They could have made the swimming pool less ****:
disney-pop-century-pin-pool.jpg

At any resort in a warm sunny place, I think the quality of the pool is very important.

i think their pools arent that deep to begin with anyway
Waterslides don't need necessarily need a swimming pool:
http://www.parkz.com.au/photo/AU/Gold_C ... lunge.html

Also:
ll pools at Pop Century range in depth from 3ft to 4 ft 9in.
(From http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/resorts/popcentury.htm )
Which is deep enough for a water slide.
 
We stayed at one of these value family parks when we last went, and thats what they are value. There are no water slides and tbh I do not think they are needed there, if you have slides you need life gards and not all the pools had them when we went.

Blizzard Beach is only down the road anyway.

I have to admit I was not impressed with the large theming, but then again it is not aimed at me its aimed at kids.
 
^Exactly mate, it's all cheap and cheerful. The first time we went we stayed at the Quality Inn down International Drive and that's pretty much all this is just Disney-fied. With Florida getting dearer to get to and stay at I think it's a pretty good idea to introduce another value resort, but I bet it'll be dearer then the Movies/ Sports/ Music and be priced at Pop Century prices.

Shame they didn't finish off the Pop Century, but this is definately more marketable. It looks just like another Movies to be honest, but geared towards animation more.
 
Well I think it's cute. Honestly, they're not meant to be crazy, luxury resorts.. Like someone said, they're value resorts, and decent ones at that. If you're going to Florida, which is expensive as it is, these are perfect if you need a cheap, but fun place to stay. I agree that the pools are kind of lacklustre, but for kids, give 'em water and they're happy either way.
 
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