Walt Disney World to build 2,000-room Hotel: Disney’s Art of Animation Resort

WDWFigment

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
http://thedailydisney.com/blog/2010...hotel-dubbed-disneys-art-of-animation-resort/

Orlando Sentinel said:
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.

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.

One its face, it seems a little surprising given the economy; however, now would be the time to build with the labor market depressed, costs will be lower. Plus, 2012 is reasonably far away, Disney may fully expect the market to recover by then. Moreover, the company probably knows what the demand is for Value Resorts (although one can't help but wonder if fewer Values would 'push' people into Moderates...or would they push too many people off site?).
 

Victoria

Not old, just vintage.
Very interesting article. I'm glad to see something going on over at Pop Century Phase 2 finally. I want a room in The Little Mermaid wing. :)
 

niteobsrvr

Well-Known Member
http://thedailydisney.com/blog/2010...hotel-dubbed-disneys-art-of-animation-resort/



One its face, it seems a little surprising given the economy; however, now would be the time to build with the labor market depressed, costs will be lower. Plus, 2012 is reasonably far away, Disney may fully expect the market to recover by then. Moreover, the company probably knows what the demand is for Value Resorts (although one can't help but wonder if fewer Values would 'push' people into Moderates...or would they push too many people off site?).

The key to this project is the Family Suites aspect. There really is a huge untapped market for this type of environment at a cost substantially less than the nightly rental of a vacation club villa. Some friends of mine just traveled here with 18 people in their extended family group including a disable child and several elderly members and stayed off property because Disney had no offerings available in the price range they were targeting.

Disney will only win with this development.

I am also glad to see thet they are not pursuing the ledendary years at POP. We ahve moved too many generations past that time period for that half the century to have the same impact as the classic years.
 

Avenger117

Well-Known Member
This is awesome. The Little Mermaid and Cars wings are the most appealing to me. This might just become my favorite value resort.
 

sunshine

Member
Wow!! Those unfinished buildings across Hourglass Lake from Pop always look so very creepy when viewed across the Generation Gap Bridge, especially at night ... so this is welcome news to me!

Very interesting! :)
 

NiarrNDisney

Well-Known Member
Glad to hear they finally will be using the forgotten buildings from the Traditional Years of the Pop Century. Can't wait to see what it will turn out to look like! Any pictures of concept art?
 

jeffk410

Well-Known Member
wow this is shocking caught me by surprised. its real late here so I didnt read fully through it, but does it give a location?
Ill prob re read it in the morning.
But very cool if it goes through!

Nevermind I re read it. Across from Pop. Nice nice
This is a good sign!
 

the-reason14

Well-Known Member
Cool! So will they finally change the name of pop century now lol? Will the bridge still be there from the classic years to this new place?

Either way, good news imo. Id love to stay at the Lion King section. This is gonna be all star movies part 2.
 

Mikester71

Well-Known Member
Very welcome news to this Pop Century fan! :sohappy: It is always SO depressing to look across Hourglass Lake and see what could have/ should have been.
 

Omnimover

Member
I know nothing of the hospitality industry, nor what kind of demand exists for family suites, but something tells me this will be a win. Especially at the Value price point.
 

MarkTwain

Well-Known Member
TERRIFIC news! :sohappy: I'm glad to see Disney is finally addressing those "other" buildings on Hourglass Lake, even if they are doing so in a way different from how they were originally constructed.

I'm also glad to see Disney is accommodating larger families in a budget-conscious manner. My one criticism... restricting the scope of the resort to Little Mermaid, TLK, Nemo and Cars is a little restraining, no?
 

Pioneer Hall

Well-Known Member
TERRIFIC news! :sohappy: I'm glad to see Disney is finally addressing those "other" buildings on Hourglass Lake, even if they are doing so in a way different from how they were originally constructed.

I'm also glad to see Disney is accommodating larger families in a budget-conscious manner. My one criticism... restricting the scope of the resort to Little Mermaid, TLK, Nemo and Cars is a little restraining, no?


I am pretty sure your concern will be addressed. I would be very surprised if the current pop century isn't closed in 2012 to be converted to this theme. Since the lady and the tramp and jungle book buildings are already part done, it seems like a no-brainer to me. The resort will undoubtedly share services, so they are going to have to unify them somehow.
 

NewfieFan

Well-Known Member
I'm a huge fan of the suites, so this is exciting news! I've stayed in the ASMusic suite twice now and I really like them for the price I pay.

The suites at ASMu are located in the first 4 buildings (which kind of gives them preferred room location), I wonder will they do the same thing at the new resort!?!
 

DisneyMusician2

Well-Known Member
I am pretty sure your concern will be addressed. I would be very surprised if the current pop century isn't closed in 2012 to be converted to this theme. Since the lady and the tramp and jungle book buildings are already part done, it seems like a no-brainer to me. The resort will undoubtedly share services, so they are going to have to unify them somehow.

Wow, I really hope you're wrong! I love the theme of Pop, and am really disappointed they didn't finish the Legendary years. I would hate to see Pop's theme changed to a much more generic Disney theme.

To be honest, another movies resort just doesn't show that much invention and ingenuity. Would much rather have seen a completion to the resort with the idea of family suites in mind.

I know I'm probably in the minority, but there it is.
 

david10225

Active Member
I think the most interesting part of the annoucement is that there has been relatively light rumors surrounding those buildings in the recent past, then all of a sudden there is an official annoucement. Seems to me like Disney is doing a good job clamping down on things getting out before they are ready...
 

cblodg

Member
I think the most interesting part of the annoucement is that there has been relatively light rumors surrounding those buildings in the recent past, then all of a sudden there is an official annoucement. Seems to me like Disney is doing a good job clamping down on things getting out before they are ready...

I would say yes and no...

Right now there is so much attention being given to the FL expansion that this easily could have gone under the radar.

I personally like the idea of adding another Value Resort and having suites available at a reasonable price. This will keep more guests on property and thus keep more money in the WDW coffers :)
 

muteki

Well-Known Member
This is awesome! The other values never really appealed to me so this is a great addition. I hope we get a giant Ariel or Flounder to go with giant Triton :p
 

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