We are home and back to "normal" as we can be. DD1 went to school and I am back at work. The trip was great and we're already thinking about our next trip(s). We couldn't take advantage of the bounce back offers because it would run into school time for DD1. They start school in mid August here so we wouldn't be able to use the offer they had. Plus who wants to come in that heat?
We really enjoyed coming at this time of year with the holiday decorations up and the crowds weren't bad, although there was a noticeable increase on Thanksgiving Day. It was a bit too cool to really enjoy the water rides, water parks or the pools at the resorts though, so a summer trip might be in the works as well. I'm thinking the first week of June (when school is out for DD1) which shows lighter crowd levels than this week was.
The Art of Animation resort was awesome. The decor all around was pretty sweet. The Little Mermaid room was a bit small, but with our kids at their current age it was ok. Next time we may have to upgrade to a suite or get 2 rooms. 1 bathroom for 3 girls plus me is a little tight. Plus, as the girls get older I'm sure they'll want more privacy from Dad. The walk from LM to the dining hall was long, (20 minutes round trip) but we negated a lot of that by using our car to get to and from the resorts and having coffee in our room with our own coffee maker. The walk was the only downside though, as the pools were awesome and the landscaping of the property was incredible. You really felt like you were in the movie of the area you were in.
I told my wife we may want to consider a split stay next time as well. Start our trip with 3 days at The Contemporary and make those days our MK days, then switch to a smaller resort elsewhere on property. The reason being is that getting to and from MK was a bit of a bear. If we drove it was 15 minutes to get to the parking lot, then walk to the monorail (or take the tram if we were further out), wait for the monorail, then finally get to MK. The first time we went it took us 50 minutes from AoA to MK and about the same getting back at the end of the day. One day we had a breakfast at Poly and just left our car parked there. That turned out to be a great choice because when we left we were able to take the resort monorail to the Poly instead of the express monorail to the parking lot. One day we tried taking the bus and while that was a faster ride, we had to wait for two buses to pick people up coming and going, which added to the time. Getting to the rest of the parks by car was a piece of cake though.
One other advantage to coming in June versus the Thanksgiving week would be it may be possible to fly instead of drive. The drive wasn't too bad, but I think it contributed to the girls crankiness on our first day. In this case though we couldn't really argue with it, as the cost to fly was around $1300-1500 and driving was only about $350.
Some of the highlights of our trip included being able to see the New Fantasyland area including eating lunch at BOG, Enchanted Tales with Belle right after DD2 had her BBB makeover, walking on to Under the Sea late in the evening and having the pork shank and LeFou's brew at Gaston's Tavern. I also can't say enough about the Cast Members throughout the trip. From the person who checked us in to the girl that helped me sort out my Photopass issue to Guest Services helping reunite me with my car keys and especially all of the characters! OMG the characters at each stop were simply fabulous. We must've seen Pluto at 5 or more different places and each time he connected with DD2 and really made the magic come alive for her. We had slipped little gifts to the girls under their pillows each night and told them that Ariel had given the gifts to the girls. When the girls meet Ariel at CRT they thanked her for the gifts and letting us stay in her house and she didn't miss a beat, saying she was glad they got them and we were welcome to visit her house any time. The two meetings with had with Belle also made the trip even more special. I can't even really say just how much it meant to me for my girls to have those experiences.
We've got over 700 pictures on our Photopass to go through and embellish for our PhotoCD as well as about 2000 pictures taken with our cell phones and DSLR. I think we did our best to capture the experience in pictures!
Looking forward to dinner at BOG the day we arrive!
Sounds like you had a great time and made out real well with the photo pass. That really helps with jogging the memory for the little ones. You cannot put a price on the memories you've made, that's for sure! 
Thanks for checking in.
With that said we are thinking about canceling our Boma dinner reservations to go back to Magic Kingdom on Thursday night to see the lights and all. Are we really missing out if we cancel Boma? It is the only night we can do it. Tomorrow Grandma and grandpa will be with us at Epcot and I want to see the fireworks then Wednesday we are going to see the lights at DHS. 
