Last week, Chad did a killer job pulling the shift lever on the blog while I escaped to Florida for a family vacation with my wife Kerri and my sons, Tom and Jack. It just so happened that we traveled to Walt Disney World for the week and stayed in what has to be the coolest gearhead/car guy hotel in America, Disney’s Art of Animation CARS Resort. FULL DISCLOSURE: We stayed here like John Q. Public. We were not invited to check the place out, given anything for free, or treated any differently than anyone else. We paid the same rate as the rest of the folks staying there. I wanted to say that before getting on with what will be a pretty glowing review. The whole family, especially the kids, really enjoyed our stay and we’ll be heading back there again.

So Disney’s Art of Animation complex has a few different wings. There’s a soon-to-be-open Little Mermaid wing, a Finding Nemo wing, the CARS wing that we were in and a Lion King wing as well. For obvious reasons, my wife made the reservation in the CARS portion of the place. My kids have memorized virtually every line of both movies and it seemed totally cool from the photos and sneak previews we had seen. The hotel has only been open for a couple of months at this point, so everything is bright, shiny, and new.

Cutting to the chase, the CARS portion of the Art of Animation resort is broken into three buildings which are set up in what can be described as a U shape. Exiting the cool lobby of the hotel, a quick walk places you at the entry of the U, which is where the mythical Radiator Springs town from the CARS movies comes to life. Immediately you are greeted with a pair of massive, multi-story billboards taken right off the move screen. As your walk continues down RT66, you’ll see every one of the major CARS characters in 3D. From Doc Hudson to Flo, Ramon, Tow Mater, Luigi and Guido, Fillmore, Lightning McQueen, and more, they’re all present and accounted for. The cars are about three-quarter scale with respect to the size of an actual car. We found them to be really neat and very detailed.

In the center of the space between the massive buildings is a recreation of the Cozy Cone motel from the movie. This is where you’ll find the pool, complete with actual huge Cozy Cones that you can sit in to escape the sun, read, suck down an adult beverage, or just listen to the bitchin’ sound track of old school car tunes that fills the air. That’s right, the pool area atmosphere is killer. We heard everything from Jackie Benson’s Rocket 88, to the Rip Chords Hey Little Cobra!, to Hot Rod Lincoln, Chevy Van, Little Deuce Coupe, and a bunch more. It ruled pretty hard. Again, the details make the place and the large rotating neon Cozy Cone Motel sign is something to behold at night, as are the other small touches that really make you feel like you’re living the film.

The three hotel buildings are also themed on the movie. One is Luigi’s tire shop, the other is Tow Mater’s Junkyard, and the third is the Wheel Well Motel. The fun certainly does not stop outside. The hotel buildings themselves, have very neat murals depicting scenes from Radiator Springs, the carpets have tire treads on them and the rooms themselves are over the top cool as well. From the Cozy Cone bed spread to the tuck-n’-roll looking bench seat couch, to a fold out Murphy bed in the wall that is all “stickered” up with CARS stuff, to bathrooms themed on car washes, to furniture that looks like roll away tool boxes, nothing was left boring. Hell, even the lamps are bitchin’, they look like orange traffic cones!

Our room was a family suite so the adults had a bedroom and bathroom and the kids had the pull out couch and the Murphy bed, along with their own bathroom. This was a bitchin’ arrangement all around as the kids dug having their own space and the adults certainly did, too!

There are regular rooms available along with the suites, so if you are not traveling with kids, you can reap all the benefits of the place and not have to pay the extra coin for the larger suite style room.

Like all Disney World hotels, there is bus service from the front door of the place to all of the parks and attractions, the food court at this hotel was far to superior to any we have experienced at other Disney hotels with a great selection of freshly made foods that included healthy options for the kids and some different items for those of you with more adventurous palettes (like me). They also sold beer and we took advantage of that as well.

We’ll let the photos do the talking, but we 100% loved staying at this place and would not hesitate to recommend it to anybody heading to Disney World, especially our gearhead friends. Kerri really loved the place as well and she’s not exactly as into turning wrenches as the rest of us are. It is a great place to escape the real world for a while and have some great family fun. What’s better than that?

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