Disney Park and Resort Photo Updates

Disney’s Art of Animation Resort Turns 1! Looking Back on One Year & Review of New Food Court Items

Hi everyone!

Disney’s Art of Animation Resort turned 1 year old on May 31st – it’s hard to believe a year has gone by already! And we’d noticed some new menu items at Landscape of Flavors a few weeks back, deciding to wait to try them until yesterday. Here is a review of the two entrees we tried, and a look back at Disney’s Art of Animation Resort.

There didn’t seem to be much fanfare for Disney’s Art of Animation Resort when we were there, just a whiteboard with the first birthday mentioned. We arrived for lunch, but soon learned that the new menu items were for dinner only.

When we were visiting a couple of weeks back, I noticed the Open-Faced Steak Sandwich, along with the Butter Chicken on the Landscape of Flavors menu. We are over at Disney’s Art of Animation Resort every so often, and I’d never seen them listed. It turns out, there are actually other dinner items as well that were introduced sometime in the last couple of months. The menu always seemed sort of sparse, so I’m glad to see more options!

I ordered the Butter Chicken ($8.99), and Jeff the Open-Faced Steak Sandwich ($10.69). The cost with Tables in Wonderland ended up being just over $17.00, which wasn’t bad for both entrees. We divided each meal in half. The Butter Chicken comes with basmati rice, two sides, and naan bread. It really is quite a nice meal for the money, and the chicken reminded me of curry dishes I’ve had – and mild, not very spicy. I ordered the spinach as a side, along with the cauliflower. Both of our meals just came with one piece of cauliflower, which was a small portion for a side (in the past, I’ve always had several pieces). The cauliflower also wasn’t swimming in as much sauce as previous visits.

The open steak sandwich was topped with onions and mushrooms. It had very little fat on it, and a nice taste. It’s not a high-end steak, but we weren’t paying high-end Disney prices for it. We both think that the bread is unnecessary. I’d rather have a side of rice, and two sides instead of one. You can see just one piece of cauliflower here, which was really skimpy as a side.


Other newer offerings include the Saffron Seafood Pasta ($11.99), and we don’t remember the Open-Faced Club Sandwich ($9.19).

A Salmon Club Sandwich ($9.99) is on the sandwich menu.

Another new offering is the Pork Banh Mi Sandwich ($9.99).

Brownie Bites were being promoted on the menu.

We decided to split a dessert – this is the Everything Brownie. I’m not sure if it was new with the resort, but it’s our first time trying it. The brownie comes with marshmallows, walnuts, mini MnM’s and chocolate chips. It was a perfect size for us to split and absolutely delicious!

If you haven’t been to Disney’s Art of Animation Resort, it’s worth a visit even if you aren’t staying there. The Landscape of Flavors Food Court is unique, there are some wonderful choices for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I like the custom stations best, since the food is cooked more to order.

I have photo tours and a full photo walk of Disney’s Art of Animation Resort here, along with an an article I wrote last year about why I recommend Disney’s Art of Animation Resort.

Disney’s Art of Animation Resort was meant to be Disney’s Pop Century Legendary Years, but it never materialized after the travel industry faltered following the events of 9/11.  I was working at the Disney Reservation Center at that time. Here is a video from the beginning of construction on Disney’s Art of Animation Resort, you can see the numbers of the Legendary Years still on what is now known as Animation Hall.

We had quite a few photo and video updates during the construction, and Disney’s Art of Animation Resort opened on May 31st, 2012 – at least the Nemo section and Animation Hall did. The Cars section opened next, followed by Lion King and Little Mermaid.
I spent one year working at the Disney Reservation Center, followed by 6 years as an Authorized Disney Vacation Planner (travel agent). The biggest request I had continually was for value priced family suites, and Disney’s Art of Animation Resort finally offers several sections of them – along with the Little Mermaid standard rooms. We talked about the opening of Disney’s Art of Animation Resort in Mousesteps Weekly Episode 6.

The Cars section is our favorite, and the video and photo tour we posted have been the most popular of each area. We stayed at all 4 sections for one night each.
When the Little Mermaid section opened, it was popular immediately. These were the only buildings already standing when Disney’s Art of Animation Resort started construction, and they are the only standard, non-suite rooms.
We have a total of 52 videos in our YouTube playlist of Disney’s Art of Animation Resort!
Happy1st Birthday to Disney’s Art of Animation Resort!