Art of Animation Building Distance

[footballmouse]

Heading down next month with additional family members so we have 2 rooms at AofA. They are just the normal rooms, no suite, and they don't necessarily need to be adjoining rooms but they do need to be close. From the look of the resort map, it looks like the building with regular rooms is the farthest. Never stayed at this resort before, how far of a walk are these rooms? Trying to get an idea of time when planning our days. Thanks.

 

[Kooks and Bay Bay]

FAR.
And the reason that they are so far is because there aren't direct paths.
Instead they are winding.
I've never clocked it to know how long it took to walk but after 10+ miles at the parks per day I dreaded the walk back to the room.

 

[Mle8308]

Change to Pop if you can! It's reported to be about a 10-15 minute walk at AoA. 5 to 10 minutes (at most) for Pop.

 

[ktink]

I loved the theming for the Little Mermaid rooms. BUT it is such a FAR walk! We were checking out into the Polynesian and the walk from our room to Bell Services was beyond far! I didn't ever think we were going to get there.

 

[footballmouse]

Ugh!!!! That's what I thought .

 

[reddog21]

 

[DizneyFamof4]

It's just a bit over a half mile from the farthest room, our family did not have much issues with it and I am far from being in great shape. LOL I find it funny because if you listen to the Epcot resort fans they think the almost 1 mile walk to HS is not bad. LOL

 

[Dug720]

if you listen to the Epcot resort fans they think the almost 1 mile walk to HS is not bad. LOL

Yep. They act like it's so close when in reality it's as big if not bigger than most of the resorts they complain about.

 

[reddog21]

It's just a bit over a half mile from the farthest room, our family did not have much issues with it and I am far from being in great shape. LOL I find it funny because if you listen to the Epcot resort fans they think the almost 1 mile walk to HS is not bad. LOL

Theres a much differnt mind set walking to another park vs walking around your hotel. If I'm in my hotel room I don't want to walk a mile round trip just to refill my mug or grab a bite to eat. The expectation when staying in a hotel is that your amenities are within a short walking distance. If I'm walking from one park to another my expection is that there not within walking distance but when they are it's a nice surprise.

 

[Lewisc]

Google maps shows the walk as .3 miles. Many resorts have similar distances.

The difference the closest LMR isn't that much closer then the farthest.

Other resorts give the ability to request, or pay for, a preferred location. Other resorts have internal transportation, if you're willing to wait for a bus.

I'd go with POP, unless your a huge LM fan or you get a better rate at AoA

 

[Lewisc]

[QUOTE

 

[Kooks and Bay Bay]

Theres a much differnt mind set walking to another park vs walking around your hotel. If I'm in my hotel room I don't want to walk a mile round trip just to refill my mug or grab a bite to eat. The expectation when staying in a hotel is that your amenities are within a short walking distance. If I'm walking from one park to another my expection is that there not within walking distance but when they are it's a nice surprise.

Couldn't have said that better myself.
Prior to the Skyliner I walked from HS to EPCOT several times.
But to me it was like this built in walking time to my park day not a hike I had to do in the morning and evening just to get to and from my room. It feels like torture especially at night haha.

 

[DizneyFamof4]

Theres a much differnt mind set walking to another park vs walking around your hotel. If I'm in my hotel room I don't want to walk a mile round trip just to refill my mug or grab a bite to eat. The expectation when staying in a hotel is that your amenities are within a short walking distance. If I'm walking from one park to another my expection is that there not within walking distance but when they are it's a nice surprise.

I guess we look at it differently. We rarely do round trips from room to lobby and back, if we are leaving our room than we are usually leaving for more than a few minutes, we also have not used the mugs in many years, just not worth it for us. We also actually like walking through the resorts we stay at to enjoy their specific theme and AOA is no different. We just got back from POR and even though we were in the mansions we would still get off at the front so we could walk through the lobby/store area and then take a leisurely stroll through the resort to get back to our room and enjoy the theme. Just saying that not everyone thinks .3 or .5 miles is "FAR".

 

[Genie+]

It’s about 10 minutes to the lobby, main pool and skyliner.

 

[reddog21]

Google maps shows the walk as .3 miles. Many resorts have similar distances.

We happen to get the back building and it's a half mile walk according to my apple watch actually slightly over and from the front building was just slightly under. Google maps isn't all that accurate at least in this case.
I have stayed in pretty much every Disneyworld resort as this point probably multiple times and this was the longest walk we had to the food court/buses. I'm sure there are longer walks out there at different resorts but for us this had been the longest.

Just giving perspective since we did stay for a few days. Glad we stayed there, the walk in no way ruined my stay but its just something to be aware of. Would we stay in that building again probably not, but it wouldn't be the walk that would sway my decision.

 

[DizneyFamof4]

It’s about 10 minutes to the lobby, main pool and skyliner.

View attachment 928027

I always like looking at the Aerial maps of WDW resorts, the geek in me. LOL Not sure why they are having you go out the front and walk around the building, I would come out the back by the pool.

 

[bluezy]

Google maps shows the walk as .3 miles. Many resorts have similar distances.

The difference the closest LMR isn't that much closer then the farthest.

Other resorts give the ability to request, or pay for, a preferred location. Other resorts have internal transportation, if you're willing to wait for a bus.

I'd go with POP, unless your a huge LM fan or you get a better rate at AoA

This! The furthest LM room is .3 miles from the main building and the closest is about .16 miles. It's really not that far of a walk. And it's an enjoyable walk as there are fun things to look at along the way. It's a quick and simple walk -- no weaving around buildings. I won't argue that after walking 6-8 miles in a park during the day, that last tiny fraction of a mile seems long. However, I'm guessing most of the people who think it's a long walk to the LM rooms have never stayed at BWI or AKL DVC rooms. Trust me, if you get the furthest room from the lobby in either of those resorts, you will be walking *way* further than to get to the LM rooms. And our one son felt his walk at All Star Sports was longer than the location of his LM rooms (we mapped it out and it was).

However, as the poster I quoted said, unless you have someone in your party who is going to feel like their vacation is ruined if they don't have a LM room, I'd switch to Pop because it's cheaper and most of the rooms at Pop will be a closer walk to the main building/Skyliner than most of the LM rooms are at AoA. You can still walk over to AoA and see all the themed areas. Just be aware, that our room at Pop last year was .23 miles from the main building because unlike AoA, Pop doesn't have direct paths throughout the resort -- they all wind between the buildings and cause you to walk further than you really need to. At AoA, you can see the entire resort is kind of one long "village" and you can walk right through the center -- much more direct paths.

I'm actually surprised the majority of people on this thread seem to feel it's a long walk to the LM buildings. If you go to the FB groups, there will be far more people saying it's not a bad walk and they've had longer walks at other resorts.

 

[Kooks and Bay Bay]

I guess we look at it differently. We rarely do round trips from room to lobby and back, if we are leaving our room than we are usually leaving for more than a few minutes, we also have not used the mugs in many years, just not worth it for us. We also actually like walking through the resorts we stay at to enjoy their specific theme and AOA is no different. We just got back from POR and even though we were in the mansions we would still get off at the front so we could walk through the lobby/store area and then take a leisurely stroll through the resort to get back to our room and enjoy the theme. Just saying that not everyone thinks .3 or .5 miles is "FAR".

I walk 3 miles per day at home for exercise.
And I walk about 10-12 miles per day at the parks.
Sounds like that's not your style of vacationing hence that's likely why you leisurely wander the resorts to enjoy the theme.
I probably would too if that were my style of vacation.
Many people just want to be able to get to and from the lobby quickly since they are at the parks most of the day.

 

[DizneyFamof4]

Sorry, but you assumed wrong about our style. We get there around 9 or 10 and always close the parks, but instead of rushing back to the room after, like we see many do, we use the leisure walk to unwind a bit from the busy park day. We started this when our DDs were young and it helped them chillout a bit before getting into our room and we have been doing it ever since. We also take our time exiting the park, why rush to stand in line for transportation.

 

[bluezy]

We happen to get the back building and it's a half mile walk according to my apple watch actually slightly over and from the front building was just slightly under. Google maps isn't all that accurate at least in this case.
I have stayed in pretty much every Disneyworld resort as this point probably multiple times and this was the longest walk we had to the food court/buses. I'm sure there are longer walks out there at different resorts but for us this had been the longest.

Just giving perspective since we did stay for a few days. Glad we stayed there, the walk in no way ruined my stay but its just something to be aware of. Would we stay in that building again probably not, but it wouldn't be the walk that would sway my decision.

Google maps actually measures the physical distance. The accuracy is dependent on how well the person clicks on points along the path they're trying to calculate the distance for (according to a family member who works for Google). If the person does multiple set points along the path, they're going to get a more accurate distance than if someone cuts corners and just does quick, long points. Most fitness apps calculate the distance on how many steps a person is taking and the app only knows your "measured" stride. It has no idea if you're taking 15 giant strides, 15 average strides, or 15 small strides. It only knows you took 15 strides and calculates the distance using the qty of steps and the pre-measured stride.

Getting a little off topic but several years ago 3 members of our family tracked their steps/distance at Disney with 3 different fitness apps (they were all curious how close their tracking results would be). All 3 people were together and doing the same rides, restaurants, etc. on the days they were tracking. I don't remember specifically what apps they were using, but I know that 2 of them were based on steps/strides (1 was definitely an Apple watch), and 1 actually used GPS data to calculate the distance. I can tell you that every day, they had 3 very different totals and the apps that counted steps/strides always had far longer distances than the GPS one. I remember which person had the GPS app and prior to the trip, they had gone on walks with absolute known distances (the track at the local high school, a clearly marked walking/fitness trail, etc.) and the GPS app was extremely close to the verified distances. It's very easy to manipulate (whether intentional or not) step counts. My daughter used to just sit and swing her fit bit to get her required steps for gym class during the pandemic. Step counting apps have a larger margin of error and often count more steps than are actually taken and again, they only know how many steps are being taken, not the distance of each individual step. There's a big difference in the stride length of a person when they're in a gift shop compared to when they're running to a bus stop to catch a bus that's just about to pull out of the loading zone. But the fitness app doesn't see the difference.

Not trying to start an argument, just explaining how Google Maps can have a different distance than a fitness app.