Disney's Art of Animation Resort

We spent one night at the Art of Animation at the end of our Florida trip to experience a stay in a Disney property (on a budget). This hotel delivered on its claims as a value Disney hotel, and we were pleasantly surprised. Rooms were clean and tidy, although I did not expect any less from Disney, and there were numerous fun details to spot in the room. The food offerings in the pool bar and quick service restaurant were more than sufficient for what we needed. Overall, very pleased! Only reason I have not given 5* is for lack of finer touches you'd expect for the money you pay. Read less

This hotel is stunning! As is every Disney resort, very, very clean and great service as always. This resort links up with pop century and you can therefore us the new gondola service to travel to the parks. The hotel in itself has endless photo opportunities with all of the different characters and films depicted throughout the parks. The food here is absolutely lovely and the reception area is beautiful. In my opinion not quite as good as pop century, but the shop here is a good one too and there’s also a little arcade. We stayed in a little mermaid room, that’s one of our favourite Disney films and we absolutely loved the theming. I would definitely recommend staying here if you get the chance! The Little Mermaid rooms are a LONG way from reception and the gondolas though so for some parts of the resort be prepared to walk around 10 minutes to get to transport. Read less

We stayed at Art of Animation for 2 weeks in November 2019, the resort is wonderful!! We arrived and collected our magic bands from reception, the staff were really friendly and gave us all pin badges as we was travelling to celebrate mine and my partners 40th Birthday, plus it was my daughters first ever trip to Walt Disney World and my sons 3rd visit. We was in a little mermaid room on the 2nd floor in block 9, the room was beautiful, so clean and tidy, the bathroom has lots of storage space plus room to store your suitcases, it has a great sized fridge, table and chairs and space for a stroller too we all loved it! The beds were super comfy too, our room overlooked the pool too so we loved that! We ate at landscape of flavours for breakfast a few times which is great and has lots of choice, we also got the refillable mugs for our 2 week stay these were fantastic and so easy to use. Most days we would eat breakfast in our room as our son is a late riser, so at least we could eat breakfast and get ready without having to wake him, the fridge is perfect for storing milk, juices, yogurts etc. The pools at this resort are lovely, we loved the big blue pool as it’s huge and the splash area is so much fun. Just walking around the resort is amazing as the different areas are so lovely to look at and so clean and tidy too. We adored the fact that the skyliner is at art of animation, we used this all the time and it’s soooooo much fun!!! We would definitely pick a hotel on the skyliner route when we visit again, just beware they do close earlier then the parks some nights so one night we had to get the bus back which we are not fans off, we always hire a car as we come for 2 weeks so don’t like to use the bus but never mind. The store is lovely here with lots of exclusive art of animation resort merchandise and it has all essential stuff too, my son loved the arcade area too. They do movies by the pool which was lovely. Whilst here we did have an issue where my son was sick on the floor in our room (due to him having a heavy cold and phlegm on his chest), I called front desk and explained what had happened and requested it was cleaned the next day which they did but it still smelt on return from the parks, this went on for 3 days it just wasn’t wet cleaned so still smelt vile, my daughters Minnie Mouse rolled off her bed when she was asleep and this smelt awful and then we was offered a room change, the resort moved our belongings and it all seemed fine until we was moved to a handicap room within the little mermaid area (but wasn’t asked if this was ok) the room was clean but tiny and we had zero cupboard space I rang to complain late at night and they said they would move us again but then we found they had left all our full fridge of food which we informed them needed to be moved across in our old room! So we lost a whole fridge of food and drinks and had no breakfast for the next day, this was very late at night so they gave us money on our magicbands to get food the next day! I was now very annoyed as this inconvenience had gone on for 4 night’s with me calling front desk after a long day at the parks, to solve the issue, so I emailed a complaint via the qr feedback form in the room, I got a call straightaway from the resort manager Mark who was wonderful!!! He apologised profusely to me about all the inconvenience we had endured, he said we would be moved to a suite to apologise for the inconvenience and that our food would all be replaced, he also got my daughter a new Minnie Mouse as hers smelt awful and he gave us 3 free extra fast passes per day till we left!! So we went to bed happy and excited at the suite we would have the next day!!! So we packed up our stuff again and left it for the resort to move to our new room, we arrived back late at night again and we was text our room number and we go to access our room and can’t get in! We call front desk and then we can!! OMG the lion king suite is AMAZING!!!! HUGE AND SO WOW!!! We loved it so much room for our family of four, two bathrooms, two TVs, kitchenette, full size table which changes into a Murphy bed which was sooooooo comfy!!! We loved it!!!!! Until we found an empty fridge, I spoke to a lady in the morning who asked what food was missing and said it would all be replaced and in our room ready but no sadly, so a further call to front desk and the items explained that was in the fridge and 40 mins later a lovely young man arrives with our food but no cinnamon bagels bless him, this had been missed off, he was wonderful and said he would go back to Walmart I said no it’s fine can they be replaced tomorrow we have plain bagels and bread so please don’t go out again. Next day they was in our room and all was fine!!! So after a few days of trouble, we had hit the jackpot!!! So worth all the aggravation the suite is amazing!!! My kids couldn’t stop thanking me for securing this for us lol!!! I wish we had booked a suite in the first place as it was brilliant but as we come from England and stay for 2 weeks the cost to go from a mermaid room to a suite was nearly £2k more so a huge amount but it was a truly amazing room. The whole resort is wonderful we will stay there again no hesitation, we all loved it sooooooo much and especially being on the skyliner route too. There is loads of parking right by each section and we never had a problem parking, the resort is secure u use your magic band to get onto it. My children were 9 and 3 when we visited and they absolutely loved it here and talk about it all the time!! It never took more then 8/10 mins to get to any of the parks by car and we could easily get to the parks via the skyliner too, we could get to universal easily from here too, plus we would go shopping and all the places from here too. Highly recommend this resort for families of all ages and sizes, so much to do here and so clean and tidy! All the suites were being refurbished or had been refurbished so they are lovely! My only recommendation would be if the little mermaid rooms could be updated with a Murphy bed like at pop century resort as a bigger table would be really helpful for families, as we like to eat in our room for breakfast so hoping they may do this in time plus my kids LOVED the Murphy bed in the lion king room. Don’t be fooled as it’s a value resort it’s really lovely here and well worth booking!! We will definitely stay here again!! Thank you art of animation for a great stay! Read less

Disney's 'Art of Animation' - Walt Disney World Tonight - 'Lion King' we found it to be a quiet location and central to the main pool and lobby. We have stayed at ... 1x Nemo Suite - Sleeps 6 2x Cars Suite - Sleep 6 1x Lion King Suite - Sleep 6 Suites include 1x Queen 1x Double Sofa Bed 1x Double pull down Murphy bed (above the dining table) Baby Cots, Pack n Play (travel cot) and bed rail available on request (Baby Cots first come first served). Category - Value Without a doubt the best Disney themed character resort! We have stayed here twice in 'Cars, once in Nemo and Lion King. The resort is classified as 'Value' and we are not sure why? It is far superior to some of the Disney 'Moderate' resorts. The suites (Cars, Nemo and Lion King) sleep up to 6 with 2 bathrooms. It has a small kitchenette, bar fridge, microwave, sink, paper cups and plates. The Little Mermaid section sleep 4 with 1 bathroom. There are 3 pools with the main Nemo pool playing underwater music. The food court has everything you need with very friendly staff to help international travellers understand the menu options...SO MUCH FOOD!! This Food Court has been ranked number 1 on many tourist sites. You can easily spend half a day walking around Art of Animation taking endless photos. The photos with the themed areas are different day to night, so do a walk early in the day and at night. Anyone can catch a Disney bus here and have a walk around (you cannot use the pool). Disney complimentary direct transportation to the parks (buses or as they call them Motorcoaches ;) ) Art of Animation does not share buses. Skyliner - is extremely fast to Hollywood Studios and EPCOT (under 10 minutes). * AoA to Magic Kingdom 18 minutes * AoA to Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, Epcot and Disney Springs 8-9 minutes Read less