Disney's Art of Animation Resort Info Thread! Mouseketeers welcome!

[HappyGal]

Originally Posted by momjeeps

Anyone with AT&T get reception? Just curious.

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I have AT&T and stayed in a Cars Family Suite but never had cell service. Always had to step outside to make a call.

[stephie1012]

I have AT&T and we are in lm, haven't had any issues on the phone always have 2 or 3 bars.

Anyone have tv issues? The tv keeps skipping and pausing, it really annoying. And yes we watch tv on vacation lol having 3 kids who nap daily and are in bed early, it gets boring!

[Funfire240]

Originally Posted by stephie1012

I have AT&T and we are in lm, haven't had any issues on the phone always have 2 or 3 bars.

Anyone have tv issues? The tv keeps skipping and pausing, it really annoying. And yes we watch tv on vacation lol having 3 kids who nap daily and are in bed early, it gets boring!

I noticed ours skipped too last week - we watched a couple of movies during some down time (little ones too) and there were skips.

[CareHeartsDisney]

I'll be staying in a Cars Suite in 3 days. How is the reception there? I have Sprint. Has anyone had any issues with Sprint? TIA.

[PRPrincess1081]

Is there any parking near the LM bldgs - if so what bldg?

[Bryce]

I just got back from AoA with my wife and 4 year old daughter. We stayed in the Little Mermaid area (room 8662) from 9/22-30. Here's my take on the pluses and minuses:

Pluses

1. The exterior design/artwork was fantastic. I thought Cars was the best area of the bunch, but really they're all great.

2. In my mind, this is the best Disney hotel for little kids. Obviously they all have their pluses and things that little kids will love, but AoA blows the rest of them out of the water with its theme and design. Your kids will love everything about this place.

3. It's been repeated over and over, but the food court here is better than the other values. The Surf and Surf burger was the best thing we had. The pasta bar was not worth the wait, though.

4. By and large, the bus service was really good. The only time we waited for any significant period of time was after the Not So Scary Halloween party on 9/25.

5. The pools were great. The pool in the Little Mermaid area was big enough on its own to spend an afternoon in with my 4 year old.

6. This place is much closer to the action than the All Stars. You'll save at least a few minutes going to MK, HS, and Epcot.

Minuses

1. The Little Mermaid area is a looong way from the main building. However, to be fair, it's no different than at any other value, and it's better than most of the moderates.

2. They should put in drink refill stations at the outer pools.

3. As mentioned by others, the satellite TV service was spotty. At times the picture would get pixelated. I don't know if there were atmospheric issues last week that caused it or what, but it was definitely noticeable.

4. The wifi was terrible. I feel bad complaining about it, since it's free, but my opinion is that if you offer a service (even if it's free), it needs to work. If it's not going to work, don't offer it. It wasn't an issue of signal strength in my particular room. I called the help line and they said they needed to release additional space on their modems for me, which helped for a bit, but then it largely went back to working sporadically. You'd have connectivity for a while, then none, then connectivity, then none. It was frustrating, but in the end I didn't worry about it too much because we generally are hardly at the hotel since we're iron manning the parks.

5. The beds are doubles, not queens. If you need more space to sleep, that could be a deal killer.

In the end the pluses far outweigh the minuses. If you're going to stay at a value, you really need to go here. That said, our next trip will almost certainly be a moderate, just so we can have a little more space and have queen beds.

[TJDisneymama]

how far of a walk is it from the back of the nemo buildings to Animation Hall?

[Bryce]

Originally Posted by CareHeartsDisney

I'll be staying in a Cars Suite in 3 days. How is the reception there? I have Sprint. Has anyone had any issues with Sprint? TIA.

I just got back and have Sprint, and the service thoughout WDW was generally horrible. My suggestion is to turn off data for most of your trip to save your battery, as otherwise your phone will be struggling when you go in and out of buildings and it'll really destroy your battery life. This worked wonders for me. I would turn off 4g and 3g, only turning it on a few times a day when I checked the Lines app (which as an aside, you MUST get).

I have a Galaxy SII (Epic Touch), for what it's worth.

[jdcthree]

Originally Posted by disneyholic family

are the beds in the lion king suites comfortable?
both the one in the bedroom and the murphy bed?

i had a little mermaid room reserved, but decided to upgrade us to a lion king suite for the two bathrooms.

i'm hoping both beds are comfortable in the LK room!!

We thought they were comfortable.

[MrSanderz27]

Hello everyone. We'll be at AoA soon... Wondering if anyone can confirm if there are full size Mickey Waffles available in the food court for breakfast?

Thanks!!

[myneverland]

We checked in on 9/30 early and went straight to the park. Came back after 9 pm to our 3 LM rooms to find we did not have 2 that connected - were supposed to because one reservation was for 2 rooms with more kids than adults, so when we made the reserv. they told me we would have a connecting room. Anywho, without the ugly details we were upgraded from 3 LM rooms to 2 CARS suites.

We were originally in LM 8710, 8711, 8712. Those are all 2 double bed rooms, 3rd floor, no connector door in any of them and in the farthest building out, plus about the farthest from the parking lot in that building... On the corner where you can see the lake when you step outside your room and walk by the pool in that section as you get there. Even saying all that, they were not all that quiet, thin walls for sure.

The CARS suites we have are totally fab. We are in 1811 and 1812. They are right across the hall from each other, on the end closest to the food ct/lobby, 4th floor, and close to parking too. From the bedroom, with the door mostly closed, we still heard kids going down the hall, so still thin walls here too.

Agree with several others that the CARS theming is the best. The main pool, Big Blue Pool, and splash pad are so fun!

Prob would not book a LM room again, but would definitely consider the family suite, depending on the price/discount we could get.

[myneverland]

No problems with phone or Internet in LM building 8. Small break ups in cell service in CARS building 1, no prob with Internet.

We have AT&T.

[TSM]

Originally Posted by PRPrincess1081

Is there any parking near the LM bldgs - if so what bldg?

Building 9(king Triton) is right beside parking lot.I think the beet area to be.it seemed closest to the bus stops and that is where we stayed.

[momjeeps]

Originally Posted by myneverland

No problems with phone or Internet in LM building 8. Small break ups in cell service in CARS building 1, no prob with Internet.

We have AT&T.

Thanks a bunch for all that input! We are in a Cars Suite after thanksgiving and I was wondering about room location. I'm going to note the room info for requests. Is that Building 1? You may have said. I'll look again at your post.

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[Neesy228]

We just got back from our stay in Nemo and for the most part we had a great time. I didn't request any specifc room and we ended up with a view of the playground and lake toward the back of building 5 (Crush), second floor. It was really an ideal location and we didn't hear any outside noise at all.

I'll summarize the highs and lows like other posters, but feel free to ask me something if you don't see your answer here!

Pros:
Fantastic themes. I agree with the other who said the exterior of Cars is AWESOME! IMHO, LK was a little blah, but I can see how it would appeal to some people. LM was a hike!

The Big Blue Pool was so much fun! Between the underwater sound, sprayground area, ping pong tables (my youngest DS was in heaven) and jellyfish sprinklers the kids and I were busy for hours. The mug refill station by The Drop Off bar was wonderful!

Easy rides to most of the parks. Decent bus service (although we did have to wait for a while on two occassions, we also had a few experiences where they were loading two buses at the same time, so it all evened out.

Good food/selection at the food court for adults. It was nice to try some new things. We had the veggie burger on a few occasions, the caprese sandwich (it came with yummy potato chips), pasta and pizza. We also tried several desserts. For the most part it was all great!

We had no problems with the a/c turning off when we were there.

Mousekeeping was exceptional. Our room was clean and well stocked every day. My only complaint was that on some days they would close the couch and murphy beds...it was just an extra step that I didn't want to deal with at the end of a long park day.

Loved that the bridge was open to Pop! The benches are a great place to sit and take it all in. I walked across the bridge a few times during our stay. It's really wonderful to see it all finished.

Along those lines, on my evening strolls with my kids we stumbled across all sorts of interesting animals on the walkways near the lake - including baby turtles. Someone told me they were snapping turtles?!

I have AT&T and had no problem with cell reception unless I was in the interior walkways of the building.


Cons:
We had problems with our RFID lock not working properly and that took about 2 hours out our first day. A manager finally managed to code our keys correctly and all was well, but that was after 4 attempts by other CM's and an engineer they called to the room.

The bed was creaky and stiff! Anytime anyone sat on the bed or laid on the bed it sounded like the the box spring was rubbing against the frame. It was annoying, but not the end of the world. And the blankets were so stiff and uncomfortable that it was tough to sleep. My kids had no complaints about the other beds!

The Food Court. Limited selection for kids for the most part...and it's so chaotic and time-consuming. By the time we got what we ordered (the burger and pasta stations were very slow), picked a drink and a dessert and paid we had easily wasted a half hour. I think the layout and speed need improved.

The "playgrounds" are horrible. Not much to play on and there are signs all over the place that say "no climbing" on anything. The elephant bone graveyard has ONE tunnel and you can't actually climb on any of the bones. They missed the boat on this one.

The wifi was spotty and difficult at best.

Not that this is a direct reflection on the resort itself, but we noticed a lot of wear and tear already! It kinda made me sad that people are so rough on things...Our coffee tables were cracked and broken, the paint in the hallway near our room was scraped off, there was a chip taken out of the storage area in the living room etc. Just a bummer after only a couple of months...

Overall, we really enjoyed our stay. They have some kinks to work out, but otherwise, it was fun and relaxing (or as relaxing as it can be with three kids!)

Ask away if you have any questions!