Disney's ART OF ANIMATION RESORT Thread

[Itinkso]

I'm going to say, 6 or 7 minutes at a brisk walk.

I would agree; at least a quarter of a mile and we had only toured as far as King Triton and then headed back.

 

[Disneylover99]

I would agree; at least a quarter of a mile and we had only toured as far as King Triton and then headed back.

We were in the Ursula building. I'm glad I wasn't in the Ariel building.

 

[Carolejm]

We were in the Ursula building. I'm glad I wasn't in the Ariel building.

We were in the Ariel building and while we were happy with the resort, frankly it sucked. Give yourself at least 10 minutes, especially with kids (lots to get distracted by). If we were to go back I would not stay in a LM room, plain and simple. Especially when it is 11PM and everyone is exhausted, that walk is sucky.

Food back to the room - as someone else said they just put it in Styrofoam containers and will give you bags to hold it, cutlery etc... If you want ketchup to go you need to ask any CM at the condiments station.

 

[Carolejm]

We just are back from our week long stay at the AoA. We were in a LM room and while the walk was, yes, long, we were happy with everything else.

But here is something we figured out, sadly closer to the end of our trip, and honestly, it was a CM at the front desk who pointed it out to us.

When you have kids on your meal plan it is expected you will take a kids meal for them - so breakfast might be one waffle, one piece of bacon, 2 sides and a drink. Which is actually still more than enough food. Actually we didn't even use all our meals before we left!

However, as you use your MagicBand (love the MB) or KTTW card when you are getting your food the CM cashier has no way of knowing if the food you are getting should be for an adult or child. So if you kids, like mine, would actually eat more waffles, or would like 2 pieces of breakfast meat (and this goes for any meal) they don't know you shouldn't be taking say 4 adult meals instead of 2 adult 2 kids meals (as long as your kids aren't standing there with you).

All it tracks is how many meals you have left.

Now, 99% of the time we did the kids meals because it was more than enough, but just a tip.

Maybe someone else has already posted this. If yes, sorry

If you lose your refillable mug they will give you a new one. My son lost his the 1st day.

 

[Newbie123]

We just got home from our stay in the LM section; first of all, thanks to everyone on this board, it was great to read reviews and find out info ahead of time! To answer a few questions that seem to always come up:

-it took us about 10 minutes to walk from our room (building 7) to the bus stop/food court. That was with 6 adults & 2 kids. You could definitely do it in probably 5 minutes if walking fast and/or without kids.

-we are a family of 4 (5 year old & 2 year old) and thought the room size was adequate, we were really only there to get ready in the morning and sleep at night. We found the storage space to be fine, there is a decent amount of room next to the sink in the bathroom, with a large storage rack going across the room, so we made use of that space and put a lot up there.

-Food court had a decent selection of foods, though my picky 5 year old wasn't happy with the choices. The build your own pasta station was delicious! I found that if you were there before 7am, it was empty, but turned chaotic shortly after that. Same thing with lunch....very crowded the day we went around 1:30. Had dinner there one night at 7 and it wasn't too bad. No issues with the rapid refill mugs.

-I had read some complaints about temps in the room and thermostat shutting off, but that didn't seem to be the case in our room. We set it to 69 and it remained that temp the whole time, even if we weren't in the room.

-Pools were warm, and the kids loved them. Never made it to the cozy cone pool, but we used the nemo & little mermaid ones.

-I had requested building 7, close to LK section, facing lake. We had 3 rooms in our party, and I had requested king beds for 2 of the rooms. We got building 7, but that was it. We ended up being at the far end of the building away from the LK section, and facing the pool. If possible, I would suggest facing away from the pool....it wasn't terrible, but definitely noisier than the back side of the building would have been, I'm sure.

-we used FP+ and magic bands the whole trip with no issue. In fact, we loved the FP+ options and it was nice to just tap the band to open the room, rather than fumbling for the key card. We only had one issue, my father in laws band wasn't reading trying to get into DHS, but within a minute someone was there to fix it, and we were on our way.

-we had rented a double stroller from Apple; stroller was waiting at bell services when we arrived, it was clean & in good shape.

-favorite meals were Be our Guest for dinner, T-Rex for dinner, Tusker House for lunch, and Chef Mickey's for breakfast. We didn't really care for Crystal Palace lunch,. and Mama Melrose for lunch was decent.

That's all I can think of for now, but I'm happy to answer questions!

 

[CaughtUpinTangled]

Thanks for the report!! Sounds like you had a good trip!

 

[MistyLRobertson]

Sorry this may have already been asked but Ive been looking around and haven't seen it yet, but does anyone know how fast the mermaid rooms usually book up at the end of april and beginng of may? Im planning my families first trip to disney, ver excited, but wont have the money to book our rooms and tickets until next month but I've got my heart set on the mermaid rooms because we have two daughters that would be thrilled when they see this room. Thank you

 

[Itinkso]

Sorry this may have already been asked but Ive been looking around and haven't seen it yet, but does anyone know how fast the mermaid rooms usually book up at the end of april and beginng of may? Im planning my families first trip to disney, ver excited, but wont have the money to book our rooms and tickets until next month but I've got my heart set on the mermaid rooms because we have two daughters that would be thrilled when they see this room. Thank you

You should be okay. I just booked a LM room last week for February during the Princess 1/2 Marathon and Presidents' Day weekend.

A "room only" reservation only requires a one night's deposit for now.

 

[MistyLRobertson]

Thats good news. I was worried they might book up quick. My dd 4 and dd 8 would love the mermaid themed room

 

[lesa1969]

Sorry this may have already been asked but Ive been looking around and haven't seen it yet, but does anyone know how fast the mermaid rooms usually book up at the end of april and beginng of may? Im planning my families first trip to disney, ver excited, but wont have the money to book our rooms and tickets until next month but I've got my heart set on the mermaid rooms because we have two daughters that would be thrilled when they see this room. Thank you

I hope it works out for you but maybe you should call them & see if you can leave a small deposit. I made our reservation back on 4th June for room only reservation & our dates were 3rd April-25th April. I could only get LM room till 21st April. Had to book Pop for last days. I checked again a few times & those last days did become free so I changed over to LM so I didn't have split stay so I was very happy. When I asked how it had booked out so early she said there was a very large group for a convention booked in at the end of April/ early May, but maybe a lot were just tentative bookings & have since cancelled? Good luck!

 

[MistyLRobertson]

I called disney to check on the room as of right now its still open but since im doing the package the tickets, room and park hopper pass all together its the 200 dollar deposite which i was planning on having next month for it so Ill keep my fingers crossed and hopefully itll be opened still. We plan on going April 27th thru May 2nd.

 

[no1steelerfn]

I called disney to check on the room as of right now its still open but since im doing the package the tickets, room and park hopper pass all together its the 200 dollar deposite which i was planning on having next month for it so Ill keep my fingers crossed and hopefully itll be opened still. We plan on going April 27th thru May 2nd.

Go through a Disney rep they save rooms for them. That's how I got mine.

 

[MistyLRobertson]

Thank you very much for your advice. What disney rep did you go through?

 

[no1steelerfn]

Thank you very much for your advice. What disney rep did you go through?

I went through Rock Bondi Travel I live in Pittsburgh but there are a ton of them out there. We tried AAA first and those rooms were all booked !

 

[lordofanime]

Ok, so I leave in January and guess what I got in the mail today... I got the booklet from Disney! and it was personalized too!!!

I'm so excited XD

Has anyone here even booked their airplane tickets through Disney?
I booked mine and I have no idea what to do next. I thought that this booklet would contain information about that..

 

[snowace77]

Normally we stay at Pop Century and thought while staying there this time we would walk over and see Disney's Art of Animation Resort. I was excited to see the new resort. I must say the outside was nice and beautiful, definitely liked the theming. When we walked inside the lobby, store, and the eatery, I was very disappointed. The floors look absolutely terrible. It looks like the original floor from years ago. Cracks all throughout the floor, chunks missing, and so many stains on the floor in the eatery. I just did not expect a new resort to look this bad. I could not believe what I saw, it was just terrible. Like I said before, the outside is beautiful, but the inside is really bad. After seeing the maintenance issues, I would not pay the extra to stay at this resort. Pop Century's floor looks so much better.

 

[nardoneje]

Has anyone here even booked their airplane tickets through Disney?
I booked mine and I have no idea what to do next. I thought that this booklet would contain information about that..

I did. I am not sure we get anything until we get our packet at 30 days(?). I went into my confirmation email and got my airline confirmation number and went in and changed our seats around, but I'm not sure there is much else to do until we get our packets

 

[mum2four]

Normally we stay at Pop Century and thought while staying there this time we would walk over and see Disney's Art of Animation Resort. I was excited to see the new resort. I must say the outside was nice and beautiful, definitely liked the theming. When we walked inside the lobby, store, and the eatery, I was very disappointed. The floors look absolutely terrible. It looks like the original floor from years ago. Cracks all throughout the floor, chunks missing, and so many stains on the floor in the eatery. I just did not expect a new resort to look this bad. I could not believe what I saw, it was just terrible. Like I said before, the outside is beautiful, but the inside is really bad. After seeing the maintenance issues, I would not pay the extra to stay at this resort. Pop Century's floor looks so much better.

Yes! I thought the same thing about the AOA lobby/food court floors when we stayed there this past May. It looked very shabby. I'm surprised there aren't more comments about that here on this board. I found the poor condition of the floors very surprising given that it is such a new resort.

 

[GleepGlorp]

I did. I am not sure we get anything until we get our packet at 30 days(?). I went into my confirmation email and got my airline confirmation number and went in and changed our seats around, but I'm not sure there is much else to do until we get our packets

We got our Magical Express book in the mail with all of our vouchers and luggage tags but still nothing about our flights. Do we just print our own boarding passes? We already received our magic bands too so I was a little confused on what to do for our flights as well.

 

[Disneylover99]

Yes! I thought the same thing about the AOA lobby/food court floors when we stayed there this past May. It looked very shabby. I'm surprised there aren't more comments about that here on this board. I found the poor condition of the floors very surprising given that it is such a new resort.

I did notice the same thing as well.

What bothered me (and I should have reported it to the front desk, but I didn't) was the condition of the women's washroom by the lobby. Let's just say it was not well maintained and I used it on several occasions.