With its hardcore Disney theming and relatively low prices, Art of Animation catches a lot of eyes for people planning Walt Disney World Resort vacations. Read on to learn more about this popular value option!
Basics of Disney’s Art of Animation Resort
Art of Animation is the most expensive of the value options at Walt Disney World. Along with Disney’s Pop Century Resort, Art of Animation is priced above the three All-Star Resorts. Non-discounted nightly room rates for Little Mermaid Rooms at Art of Animation in 2024 range from $209 to $413. Non-discounted nightly rates for Family Suites range from $478 to $963 in 2024.
Staying at Art of Animation, you get the perks of any Disney stay. You’ll have access to free transportation (by bus and Skyliner, as discussed below) to and from the parks and Disney Springs. We’ll talk more about transportation below, but the Skyliner does make this hotel a good option if your trip will be heavily focused on Epcot and Hollywood Studios.
You’ll also have access to Early Theme Park Entry and the ability to book your individual Lightning Lanes at 7AM (as opposed to when the parks open).
If you’re considering Art of Animation, you may want to read some of our other posts, including reviews of the other value resorts. We have a ranking of the Disney World value resorts. We also have a guide to all the hotels of Walt Disney World.
Here are our reviews of all the value resorts (links open in new tabs):
Review of Disney’s Art of Animation Resort (you are here)
Review of Disney’s All-Star Movies Resort (refurbished room)
And if you’d like to see where this resort falls overall, check out our Disney World hotel rankings.
Art of Animation Grounds and Room Types
Let’s start with an annotated map of Art of Animation:
Not included on that map is the Skyliner, which sits between Art of Animation and Pop Century, so at the top of the image.
As you can see, there are ten buildings of rooms, one main building (Animation Hall), one feature pool (Big Blue Pool), and two small pools (Cozy Cone Pool and Flippin’ Fins Pool) at either end of the resort.
Importantly, we’ve highlighted where the Little Mermaid rooms (the subject of this review) are. The Little Mermaid rooms are the standard rooms at Art of Animation, and they’re located farthest from Animation Hall. The farthest rooms are about a seven-minute walk from Animation Hall.
That’s not a ton, but when you figure it’ll be another three or four minutes if you’re headed to the Skyliner, you’ll really start to rack up some steps if you’re going to and from your room a lot.
The remaining rooms, which we won’t be discussing in this review, are family suites (themed to Cars, Finding Nemo, and Lion King). These suites are priced starting around $450 per night.
We’ve Reviewed an Art of Animation Lion King Family Suite here and a Finding Nemo Family Suite here. With their theming, more modern rooms, and full bathrooms, the suites are the bigger draw at Art of Animation.
Also worth noting—due to the presence of the suite room type, you need to be extra diligent to make sure the Disney World website shows you the lowest prices here.
Animation Hall and Art of Animation’s Pools
Animation Hall is where you’ll find the bus stops, reception, the concierge, the Pixel Play Arcade, Ink & Paint Shop gift shop, the Landscape of Flavors food court.
We’re fans of the cafeteria-style quick service options at the value resorts, and the Landscape of Flavors food court at Art of Animation is widely recognized as the best dining option at the value resorts. The full menu is available here. Food court meals are quick service meals under the Disney dining plans.
When staying at nearby Pop Century, we’ll usually make the walk over to Art of Animation at least once to visit Landscape of Flavors.
Besides its good menu, the cafeteria space is one of the cooler food court spaces in Walt Disney World. As much as I enjoy my quick, easy meals at all the value resorts, the vibrancy of Landscape of Flavors makes it a fun place to be.
It’s even worth just walking around a bit after a meal to check out some of the beautiful art around the place. Even the light fixtures have animation on them. It’s nice to see some animation that isn’t just pictures of Disney characters.
If you’re looking for convenient table service meals (maybe because you’re on a dining plan with table service credits), your best options are probably going to be meals off the Skyliner if you can visit them when the Skyliner is running. These include the restaurants at Riviera Resort and the hotels around the Boardwalk. Otherwise you might want to aim for restaurants inside the parks.
Just outside Animation Hall is The Drop Off Pool Bar, which is basically a standard value resort pool bar, but a little bigger than the ones at the All-Star resorts. Like most value resort bars, it mostly caters to hotel guests, though you might occasionally see a guest on the Skyliner bar crawl swing by.
The Ink & Paint Shop actually has a great amount of Art of Animation gear. We wish the values did more of this (it’s common at moderate and deluxe resorts). We’re proud frequent guests of the value resorts and would love more gear to show off!
Just outside Animation Hall is the feature pool—The Big Blue Pool. The Big Blue Pool is most known for playing Disney music through underwater speakers, a feature that may or may not be going when you visit. Otherwise, it is an average to above average value resort pool.
As with all Disney pools, there are pool games scheduled throughout the day. Families wishing to hang out at their resort for an afternoon will find a few things to do, though with the Skyliner nearby (discussed below) we might also suggest taking a trip to visit the Boardwalk (via the Epcot Skyliner station) for more recreation options.
There is a kiddie splash area nearby (the picture below was taken before it was turned on for the day).
Little Mermaid guests will be closer to the Flippin’ Fins pool, though all Art of Animation guests are permitted to use either pool.
The resort is filled with Disney animation theming, as well as play areas that mostly serve to distract kids while parents are trying to corral them over to the bus stops.
This is one of the reasons why kids will typically prefer Art of Animation to Pop Century. While Pop has some cool larger-than-life figures, most of their design isn’t focused on Disney characters.
Art of Animation, on the other hand, lives and breathes Disney characters. You really can’t turn a corner in the resort without seeing a characters display.
Booking Disney’s Art of Animation Resort
The first thing I want to note about booking Art of Animation is that it’s common for Disney to “hide” the lowest prices from you. If you search during a deal period, Disney usually shows the lowest deal price in its results.
If the deal is only applicable to the family suites, Disney will show that price first even though a lower priced (non-discounted) Little Mermaid room is available. Here’s a search result where Disney was showing me a summer discount:
It looks like rooms will start at $420 pre-tax because only the suites are subject to this offer on these dates. But if I click through and get rid of the discount, I see that there are Little Mermaid rooms available for $236 pre-tax:
Of course, we like to have our go-to travel agent, Lauren Quirk of Travel With Character LLC, handle all this for us.
You might beat Disney’s prices on third-party sites like Expedia or Booking. As always, if you book through a non-Disney site you should be sure to link your reservation to your My Disney Experience account both as a means of confirming it and to be sure you get all the perks associated with your stay.
Our Little Mermaid Room at Art of Animation
Since Disney has ended their Magical Express shuttle service from Orlando International Airport you’ll have to find your own way from the airport if you’re flying in. We recommend using Disney’s online check-in via the app, but if your room isn’t ready when you arrive you can stop by the front desk, too.
Check in lines at Disney hotels can move slowly because guests have lots of random questions relating to things like tickets and Genie+ and so on.
If you arrive and your room isn’t ready, you can drop off your bags at the bell desk and then go to a park. We recommend just taking the Skyliner to Epcot or Hollywood Studios if you don’t have other plans, as it’s a nice way to start your trip.
All the rooms at Walt Disney World are somewhat themed, but the rooms at Art of Animation, along with the Royal Rooms at Port Orleans Riverside, are the most pointedly themed.
The Little Mermaid rooms are possibly the most polarizing rooms at Walt Disney World. Basically, people either think they look “really fun” or “really tacky.” It’s not really important what side we’re on—the images speak for themselves on this point (use the arrows to click through the galleries below the video).
The Art of Animation rooms were lightly refurbished in early 2020. The major changes to the room are the replacement of carpet with a nicely done blue hard surface, bigger TVs, new dressers and nightstands, and the placement of the beds on frames that leave storage space underneath.
These are all welcome changes. I complained recently about the more complete upgrades at Wilderness Lodge impacting the rooms’ spirit—that’s at least not a problem here.
Relatedly, lots of guests (not us) have felt the upgraded value resort rooms lack heart. This leaves the Art of Animation Little Mermaid rooms as a fine option for these guests. These rooms have a ton of Disney zip to them, they’re just not quite the same quality as the other value rooms.
The bathrooms didn’t receive any noticeable work as part of the upgrades, which is a shame. The vanity is pretty small and separated from the rest of the room by only a curtain. The shower is pretty old, though the theming really shines.
It’s a silly thing to note, but something about the brightness of the shower curtain and the vanity curtain really strikes me. The newer Disney rooms aren’t exactly bland, but they definitely don’t have the bright range of color that this room has.
Transportation at Art of Animation
Traveling to and from the Art of Animation, you’ll be relying on buses, the Skyliner, and rideshare (Uber, Lyft, Minnie Vans). It’s uncommon for Art of Animation to share buses, which is an advantage over the All-Star resorts. We’ll briefly cover each of these transit options.
To Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, and the two water parks (Typhoon Lagoon, Blizzard Beach), you’ll be relying strictly on buses. You can check approximate bus wait times for your hotel in the My Disney Experience app (“Resort Hotel” menu item) and they are posted at the stop.
Travel times to the theme parks are, approximately:
Art of Animation to/from Magic Kingdom — 15-20 minutes
Art of Animation to/from Animal Kingdom — 10 minutes
Epcot (10-15 minutes) and Hollywood Studios (under 10 minutes) aren’t too far either, but between bus load times and wait times it’s usually going to make sense to take the Skyliner to those parks (read on for more about that).
When it comes to getting to meal reservations or getting to the parks (other than Magic Kingdom) in a tight timeframe, we still favor using Uber or Minnie Vans. Rideshare isn’t perfect, but it generally will beat using Disney’s bus services in a pinch.
If you’re going to Magic Kingdom, you’ll need to take a Minnie Van to get to the park gate, as Uber/Lyft will drop you off at Ticket and Transportation Center.
If you have a car at Walt Disney World, your travel times will usually be similar to the bus times, plus a few minutes from the parking spot to the front gate. Going to Magic Kingdom you’ll almost always prefer bus to driving, as you need to account for 20 minutes from parking space to the Magic Kingdom gate if you drive.
During Skyliner hours, bus frequency to Epcot and Hollywood Studios is reduced to once per hour. Buses are still expected to run more frequently before and after the Skyliner opens/closes for the day.
Skyliner
The Disney World Skyliner gondola system connects Hollywood Studios, Epcot, Pop Century Resort, Art of Animation Resort, Caribbean Beach Resort, and Riviera Resort. The Skyliner station for Pop / Art of Animation sits between the two resorts on Hourglass Lake.
Approximate travel time to Epcot is 20 minutes, and to Hollywood Studios is 12 minutes (I’ve made these trips in 17 and 9 minutes, respectively). Both require transfers at Caribbean Beach.
We’re fans of the Skyliner generally, but we do want to note there are two circumstances where you definitely should take the bus instead of the Skyliner.
First, if you’re heading to rope drop at Hollywood Studios, the Skyliner usually won’t be operating early enough to get you there at a good time.
If you’re heading to Test Track for rope drop at Epcot, you’re going to want to take the bus to the main entrance. If you’re heading to Frozen Ever After, you’ll probably prefer to take the Skyliner.
The Skyliner can see pretty long waits (15 minutes or so) when the parks open and close, but most of the time midday you can walk right on.
Having Skyliner access theoretically means you have easy access to restaurants at Riviera Resort, Caribbean Beach, and the Boardwalk area, but that comes with the huge caveat that the Skyliner is only helpful for getting to/from the places during the hours its running, which often won’t be early/late enough for your breakfast/dinner reservation.
As we mentioned earlier, the Skyliner is good if you wanted to spend your midday somewhere other than a theme park. You could visit the Boardwalk or walk from Boardwalk about 15 minutes to Fantasia Gardens Mini Golf.
Conclusion - Disney’s Art of Animation Resort
Putting aside the question of Pop Century vs. Art of Animation for a second, there’s no questioning that Art of Animation is a fine value option if the rooms appeal to you. If the themed room for Little Mermaid hooks you, that’s probably going to seal the deal. If it’s the family suite you’re after, Art of Animation is a better option than All-Star Music.
Art of Animation has a great pool and one of the best food courts on property. Those two checkboxes alone make it worthy of consideration for a value traveler. The Skyliner cuts down on your need to rely on buses in many circumstances.
But if you’re not completely sold on the room options at Art of Animation, the highest prices in the value category might put you off a bit. Add in that there’s a fine option right across the lake, and it’s tough to sell Art of Animation to anyone not already sold on the rooms.
Pop Century’s superior rooms and practically identical location make us wonder why Disney is charging more for the Little Mermaid Rooms at Art of Animation. The Little Mermaid Rooms are bigger than the Pop Century Rooms, but I’m not sure that extra size makes up for the functional shortcomings of the room.
Some of it comes down to your party makeup. Families with more kids may prefer the bigger, more “fun” Little Mermaid rooms. Kids love the design and cartoon decor of the resort, no doubt.
If you’ve got more adults doing Disney, the Pop Century rooms are more slick and offer more appealing functionality for adults, which is why they’re our recommended value rooms for adults at Disney World. And adults might get more of a kick out of the nostalgic decor at Pop.
And then there’s price. Art of Animation’s relatively high price is going to make it worth thinking outside the box. If it’s space you’re after, you’ll get better bang for your buck with an Airbnb near Disney World. This is going to be especially true if you find yourself looking at those suite prices.
Overall, we’re unlikely to return to Art of Animation unless it’s to visit a family suite. We’re not Little Mermaid zealots, and we feel strongly that Pop Century offers much better value. We’re hopeful that Disney will update the Little Mermaid rooms in the next few years, as that could really change how we compare these value options.
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