Originally Posted by Orlando Sentinel
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. 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.
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.
Yahoo! A new Disney resort! You can bet I will be trying this one out in 2012!! Plus, the addition of more family suites will help a lot of larger families be able to do a "value" Disney vacation! Way to go Disney World!!!
This is the bow in its unfinished state at the ship yards. But you can tell it is going to have a very similar feel to the MAGIC and the WONDER. Construction started over a year ago and it is fun to see the pieces starting to come together. The maiden voyage is scheduled for January 26, 2011. Tell me again why I am not booked on that???? I am currently scheduled for 3 and 4 night cruises (back to back) in October of 2011. But I am starting to think that won't be soon enough. Come on....who wants to join me in early 2011 to check out this amazing ship!?!?
