Photo Tour of Animation Hall at the Art of Animation Resort

[denlo]

Disney's Art of Animation Resort is the newest member of the Disney hotels at Walt Disney World. In addition to having 1,120 family suites that can sleep up to six guests available for booking right now, the Art of Animation Resort has 864 standard hotel rooms that are scheduled to open on September 15, 2012.

The Art of Animation Resort, a Value resort, is definitely a Disney resort, taking its theme from four of Disney and Pixar's popular animated films. It has four sections: A Finding Nemo section; a Cars section; a Lion King section, and a Little Mermaid section. The first three sections have the family suites, while the Little Mermaid section will have the standard hotel rooms.

The Disney Imagineers have gone to great lengths to incorporate the animation theme in the Art of Animation Resort's lobby, which is called Animation Hall. Some of the design features are readily apparent. But like so many Disney things, there are subtle touches that can easily be missed during a quick walk through Animation Hall.

As you approach Animation Hall, you will see large sketch pads of the featured animation characters.






When you step into Animation Hall, you'll notice its very colorful, well lit, and spacious. The check-in counters are along the left side of the lobby, and animation sketches are on the wall on the right side of the lobby.



One of the subtle Disney touches involves the animation sketches in the lobby. The sketches aren't just randomly placed in the lobby. As you walk through the lobby, the sketches evolve from early concept work to final colorized animations. When you enter the lobby, the sketches are just that: rough, black and white drawings of characters as they were first conceived. Some characters look different than how they finally appear in the films. The first sketch closest to the entrance shows Ursula, the villain from The Little Mermaid, as she was initially drawn by Disney animators. Ursula's sketch is just above the Ariel and Lightning McQueen drawings in this photo.



As you walk through the lobby, the sketches become more detailed and elaborate, and colored pencil drawings begin to replace the black and white drawings.



Then, when you reach the end of the animation wall, the animators have added color to the final versions of their characters. See how Ursula now looks like as she appears in The Little Mermaid.



The animators have added colors to the final drawing of Nemo:



In a movie's normal creative process, once the animators have created their characters, the next step is to create a story board to lay out the movie's story. At the end of the wall of animation sketches is the Story Board Chandelier. There are dozens of sketches from actual story boards for the four films featured at the Art of Animation. One Cars story board sketch is signed by John Lasseter, head of Pixar and the director of Cars.





As you walk under the Storyboard Chandelier, you come to the Ink & Paint Shop, the gift store for the Art of Animation Resort. The name of the store reflects that in the next step in the animation process, ink and paint is added to the animators' drawings. Brightly lit panels of animation cover the walls leading into the store. Inside, the Ink & Paint Shop has lots of vibrant colors as befitting its name. Even the Cast Members' shirts are bright and colorful.








After inking and painting animated drawings, a movie's next step is creating the landscape, or background, for the movie. Its fitting, therefore, that the Art of Animation Resort's quick service food court is called Landscapes of Flavors. You have to pass through the Ink & Paint Shop to get to Landscapes of Flavors. The menu has something for everyone, from pizza, chicken nuggets, and mac & cheese, to create your own burgers and tandoori dishes.







The eating areas for Landscapes of Flavors are themed to match Cars, Nemo, the Lion King, and The Little Mermaid. Even the background music matches songs from these film classics.









Animation Hall has all the features normally seen in the lobby of a Disney resort, such as a TV viewing area and concierge desk. There is also a business center with computers, printers, and fax machines for guests to use. The Art of Animation Resort lobby also has an LCD screen showing the operating hours for the Disney Parks.




If you are in to all-things-Disney, a visit to the Art of Animation Resort is well worth the time.

[WDWRR_Engineer]

Thanks great visual tour.

[simbasmom]

Thanks Denise! I think I read elsewhere that they offer daily tours of the resort. Do you know anything about that? I definitely plan on heading over there, and was thinking a resort tour might be worthwhile.
I just noticed that that almost looks like a tour in the picture outside the Ink and Paint shop. Maybe when I check in to AKV, they can give me the phone # of the front desk at AoA.

[wdrl]

Thanks Denise! I think I read elsewhere that they offer daily tours of the resort. Do you know anything about that? I definitely plan on heading over there, and was thinking a resort tour might be worthwhile.
I just noticed that that almost looks like a tour in the picture outside the Ink and Paint shop. Maybe when I check in to AKV, they can give me the phone # of the front desk at AoA.

A Cast Member at the Art of Animation told us that tours of Animation Hall are held at 2:00 PM and 4:00 PM each day. However, I don't know how long they will continue to offer the tours.

On the two days we visited the Art of Animation resort, we saw several groups going through the resort on tours. Some of these groups were obviously CMs, as evidenced by their CM name tags, and some were probably travel agents, as evidenced by some women wearing 3" & 4" heels (do normal Park visitors wear 4" heels??).

We got an informal tour of Animation Hall, courtesy of a CM in the Ink & Paint Shop. Her photo is in our Post. She spent a lot of time with us pointing out the highlights of Animation Hall and you could tell she was very proud of "her" resort. Its always great interacting with the CMs.

[333disneymom]

Great pics. Looks likes fun resort.

[Minne's Friend]

This is great thank you for my Disney fix

[goofyjames]

It doesn't seem like the folks at that table in "Landscapes" realize how much art is all around them.. It amazes me how people can just walk by these things their entire vacations, and never really appreciate, or even notice it.

James

[wdrl]

It doesn't seem like the folks at that table in "Landscapes" realize how much art is all around them.. It amazes me how people can just walk by these things their entire vacations, and never really appreciate, or even notice it.

James

Sometimes you have to slow down and look for the hidden Mickeys.

[sharonuk]

Lovely photos Denise. I definitely will go to "visit" on our next trip

[denlo]

Thanks for the nice comments everyone. I think one of the many reasons I enjoy being a DVC member is that now I have time to go other Disney Resorts just to look around. When I stayed at the moderates and deluxe resorts, in the past I really didn't take the time to really see all the work the imagineers do. And I sure didn't appreciate the artistry that is right there in front of me.