We've been home for two weeks and I have decided to post my review of AoA.
Note, we are not "deluxe" people. If you notice my signature you'll see on our previous visit we stayed at Pop, and we loved it there. I knew that staying in the LM section meant we would have a longer walk. I have avidly read reviews and looked at pics of AoA for the past year. I didn't go into this blind, but I also was surprised at how much I and my entire family disliked this resort.
First of all, while beautiful to look at, the walkways and landscaping are not designed with guests in mind. Especially in LM, we had people walking through grass and landscaping because it was so much further to walk on the sidewalks. We were on the fourth floor of Building 8 (Ariel) and we realized very quickly that the stairs on the ends opened up on walkways that went towards the parking lot behind the resort instead of into the interior of the resort.
The food court was an absolute nightmare, even at "off" times. Long lines, crowds of people standing around, no order to anything, and rude guests who could not put their plates and silverware away after eating. We ate lunch once, and while the food was good we never tried it again.
There were pieces of cardboard covering cracked floor tiles all over Animation Hall. The LM section's exterior walkways looked dirty. The LM room had an adorable shower with gorgeous tilework, but the room itself seemed very cheaply done with plain blue paint on the walls and cheap artwork.
My kids liked Big Blue well enough, but the walk was so long that they decided to try Flippin' Fins. And they felt it was a better pool, deeper, less crowded, and still with two lifeguards on duty. The underwater sounds didn't impress them at all.
Busing was actually not too bad. The covered lines were nice, and we never waited long for a bus. The gift shop as also well-staffed and organized. We checked in quickly through the online check-in line when we arrived. Check-out was another issue, as we never received our itemized list of room charges and I had to go and get it myself.
Mousekeeping did an adequate job, although on two occasions they did not clean in the bathroom at all.
Overall, we just didn't like the "feel" of the resort. I read a review online that said what we felt - it was like a cheap motel with really tacky cheap Disney decorations thrown up around it. And it looks a lot older and more rundown than it should - Ariel in front of our building has a crack in the rock she is sitting on, for example.
It truly felt like a cheap, value level resort to us in a way that Pop never did. I regret that we even stayed there, because even my children hated AoA.
