Disney�s Art of Animation Resort Releases Earlier Opening Dates
(March 22, 2012) The wings dedicated to the popular films featured at Disney’s Art of Animation Resort will now be opening than sooner than expected after the resort hotel’s grand opening May 31.
“We are excited that the Cars, The Lion King, and The Little Mermaid wings at Disney’s Art of Animation Resort will all open earlier than we originally planned, bringing more permanent resort jobs to Central Florida sooner,” said Kevin Myers, vice president of resort operations for Walt Disney World Resort. “Demand for family suites exists in the marketplace today and the new opening dates reflect how optimistic we are about tourism in Central Florida.”
The Finding Nemo wings of the resort will open May 31; Cars will now open June 18 instead of July 31; The Lion King will open August 10 instead of September 30. The value rooms at The Little Mermaid wings on September 15 instead of at the end of this year.
In size and scope the construction of Disney’s Art of Animation Resort is a major project at Walt Disney World Resort. The project has created 800 construction jobs and once open later this year, Disney’s Art of Animation Resort will create 750 permanent resort hotel jobs.
The Lion King, Cars and Finding Nemo buildings will be entirely family suites, with 1,120 suites between them. The Little Mermaid buildings will feature 864 rooms in the “value” room category.
The construction of family suites at Disney’s Art of Animation Resort is an innovative approach to a changing marketplace. Today more and more multi-generational families are traveling together for various celebrations, including family reunions. These families not only want to play together, they want to stay together, which has created tremendous demand for family suites.
- Disney also unveiled the look of new Cast Member costumes at Disney’s Art of Animation Resort.
- Each front desk Cast Member will wear a unique splattered-ink vest representing an animator’s unique creative process as part of their costume.
Also, as Guests move from the check-in area to Merchandise and Food & Beverage locations, Cast Members in those locations will be wearing colorful costumes that represent the color being added to animation.
Fun Facts
- More than 800 construction jobs were created, and at full operation it will create 750 resort hotel jobs
- The Nemo pool has 310,000 gallons and is the largest pool on Disney property, not counting water parks
- If you combined all the swimming pools, you could park 125 cars inside the pools
- Its 27 acres of landscaping and irrigation is the equivalent of twenty football fields.
- With 227,000 lineal feet of carpet could stretch from downtown Orlando to Kennedy Space Center.
- There are over 529,000 square feet of ceramic tiles on the project, enough to cover a standard two-lane road four miles long
- If you stacked up all the doors at the resort, they would be as tall as the Empire State Building
- There’s enough metal railing to wrap around the new Amway Center eight times
- The project used 23,000 gallons of paint, which is enough to fill a typical backyard swimming pool
- There are over 2,300 parking spaces within the project, which is approximately the number of players in the NFL
-- Posted March 27, 2012