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We are a family of 4, travelling with my sister's family of 4, staying at the AoA. It will be my sister's family's first trip to WDW, our second (stayed a POR our first time and absolutely LOVED it!). The youngest is my 15 y/o DD, so no little ones in either family.
My family will be in the Lion King suite, while my sister's family will be in the Finding Nemo suite. Any tips or suggestions for the "best" rooms (location, view of lake, upper floors or no?, etc.)? How good is Disney at fulfilling room requests?
If you've stayed at the AoA, please tell me your experiences! So excited about going to WDW again, and staying at AoA! TIA!
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We are a family of 4, travelling with my sister's family of 4, staying at the AoA. It will be my sister's family's first trip to WDW, our second (stayed a POR our first time and absolutely LOVED it!). The youngest is my 15 y/o DD, so no little ones in either family.
My family will be in the Lion King suite, while my sister's family will be in the Finding Nemo suite. Any tips or suggestions for the "best" rooms (location, view of lake, upper floors or no?, etc.)? How good is Disney at fulfilling room requests?
If you've stayed at the AoA, please tell me your experiences! So excited about going to WDW again, and staying at AoA! TIA!
We've stayed at AoA twice so far (both times in a LK suite) and personally, I think most of the suite locations are great. The only building I wouldn't want to be in is Building 2 in the Cars section. But it wouldn't be the end of the world if we ever ended up there. The "best" location is the one that works best for your family. For us, we want to be close to the food court and transportation as we use those things multiple times every day. We don't care if we're close to a pool because we usually only swim 3 or 4 times over our week-long stay. We don't mind having to walk to the pool -- it doesn't need to be right outside of our door. We also don't really care about the view as we don't spend much time just staring out the window. Plus, the windows are about waist high so unless you're standing up, you can't really "enjoy" the view anyway. We have always requested top floor so we don't have noise above us (though we might try a lower -- but not 1st -- floor on our upcoming trip). During our first stay, our view was the parking lot. And that was fine with us as we drive to Disney so it was nice to be able to look out of our window and see our car. If we were sitting down in the room, our view was the tops of the trees across the parking lot. The nice thing about being on the top floor with a parking lot view was that I never had to worry about someone looking in our windows. On our second stay, our view was of the LK courtyard. Again, we couldn't really see anything unless we were standing at the window and when we were sitting in the room, our view was of the top of the other LK building.
On both of those trips I requested 4th floor and close to transportation. We got our requests both times. We even got our requests when I indicated that we would prefer the room be ready when we arrive (11:00 a.m.) even if it meant not getting our requests. Both of our rooms were just 2 or 3 doors away from the staircase closest to Animation Hall. It's the perfect location for us. I think the LK suites aren't usually filled to capacity because that section doesn't have it's own pool. I know that the 2 times we've stayed there (in late June), there were only a few suites on our wing being used. We decided to try a Nemo suite for our upcoming trip. I'm sure every room will be filled on our wing this trip. Still trying to decide what room requests to make for this room....
Overall we really like the resort. We find the bus service to and from the parks to be very good. On our trip last June, we never waited more than 10 minutes for a bus at the resort and most waits were under 5. We never waited more than 20 minutes for a bus coming back from a park though I'll mention that a few times the line for AoA looked much longer than the line for Pop Century, so we just took the bus to Pop and walked back from there. We actually intentionally take the bus back to Pop at least 1 night during our stay because it's a beautiful walk from Pop to AoA when everything is all lit up. And if you time it right, you can catch the fireworks from Epcot or DHS as you're crossing the bridge. If you're thirsty, you can stop at Petals pool bar at Pop Century to grab a beverage to make your walk even more enjoyable. Be sure to take a walk over to the Cars section on night. It's simply gorgeous when it lit up. We find the food at AoA to be good and the food court is manageable as long as you avoid the "prime" times for meals (7:30-8:00 a.m.; noon; 5-6:00 p.m.). Even if the food court is super busy, we've never had problems finding a table, it's just that the service is slow since many items are custom made (create your own pasta, create your own salad, create your own burger, etc.). I love the create your own pasta station, but I know that's going to take a few minutes longer than walking up and getting something that's pre-made. You can also walk over to Pop Century for meals if you want a change of pace. The kids always like to swim in the Nemo pool once or twice while we're there but we also walk over to the Little Mermaid pool a few times as that one is much less crowded. There have been times in the afternoon when the Nemo pool is packed yet we walk to the LM pool and find 15-20 people in it...and plenty of chairs available.
Are you allowed to do "take out" from the food court? I'm an early riser, and it would be much easier for me to make a run to the food court to pick up breakfast for the others and let them sleep in a little longer. We may even prefer to take our food to our room for dinner the first day we arrive too.
You can do take-out. Just ask for a box. One thing to note is that all of the buildings have just one elevator, located right in the center. So if you plan on using the elevator a lot (like if you have a big stroller), you don't want to be at the far end of any hallway. Not that its THAT far, but it will cause you to walk farther each day.
You can do take-out. Just ask for a box. One thing to note is that all of the buildings have just one elevator, located right in the center. So if you plan on using the elevator a lot (like if you have a big stroller), you don't want to be at the far end of any hallway. Not that its THAT far, but it will cause you to walk farther each day.
That's great, regarding take out! It would be convenient and more relaxing for us to eat in our room.
No little ones for us, so no strollers, but good to know about the location of the elevators!
As for the Teach to Draw classes (not sure if that's what they are called), I believe they are still offered. Are they only for children? Do you need to sign up?
We've stayed in both Cars and Finding Nemo. For Finding Nemo, I'd suggest requesting an upper floor. We were on the ground floor just a few doors down from the main entrance and it seemed like we could hear EVERYONE that came in and out of those doors through the walls. At least on an upper floor you'd have less traffic! I actually preferred the Cars location, we were driving and our room was near the end of the hall so it was a quick walk to the parking lot. I also thought the Cozy Cone pool was adorable!
We've stayed in both Cars and Finding Nemo. For Finding Nemo, I'd suggest requesting an upper floor. We were on the ground floor just a few doors down from the main entrance and it seemed like we could hear EVERYONE that came in and out of those doors through the walls. At least on an upper floor you'd have less traffic! I actually preferred the Cars location, we were driving and our room was near the end of the hall so it was a quick walk to the parking lot. I also thought the Cozy Cone pool was adorable!
I placed a room request for both my sister's family and my family for upper floors, so hopefully, they are able to get that for us. Thanks!
We've stayed in both Cars and Finding Nemo. For Finding Nemo, I'd suggest requesting an upper floor. We were on the ground floor just a few doors down from the main entrance and it seemed like we could hear EVERYONE that came in and out of those doors through the walls. At least on an upper floor you'd have less traffic! I actually preferred the Cars location, we were driving and our room was near the end of the hall so it was a quick walk to the parking lot. I also thought the Cozy Cone pool was adorable!
We're staying in a Nemo suite this time (stayed 4th floor LK the last 2 times) and my husband asked me to try and get a ground floor room. I told him that there is a lot of foot traffic on the ground floors and we'd probably hear a lot of noise. I think I'm just going to request "upper floor" or "2nd Floor" and "close to transportation". I just won't mention that I didn't specifically request ground floor. I know he'd be unhappy if we have a lot of hall noise. I'll admit we're guilty of walking through the Nemo building rather than outside when walking to or from Pop Century but we always make sure not to make any noise -- don't let the door slam, no loud talking, no running, etc. I know not every family has those "rules".
We stayed in a Cars Suite (building 2) last July and LOVED this resort. We requested an upper floor and were pleasantly surprised on our first night when the boys' discovered we had a great view of fireworks! One night we even floated in the Cars' pool
The food court is amazing and very able to accommodate my boys' food allergies. We sometimes ate there, sometimes took food back to our room. Just ask for a "to go" container. The rooms come stocked with paper plates, bowls, plastic silverware, etc and if you need more, just request from Mousekeeping.
Be warned - there aren't towels out by the pool. To get pool towels, you need to go to the front desk and request them from a CM there. It's a bit of a pain, but not a terrible inconvenience - we'd simply stop on our way back from the parks.
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The Fun, Old-Fashioned Family Vacation, 3.0 http://www.passporterboards.com/foru...ml#post4472933
Ch-Ch-Changes July 2015
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We stayed in a Cars Suite (building 2) last July and LOVED this resort. We requested an upper floor and were pleasantly surprised on our first night when the boys' discovered we had a great view of fireworks! One night we even floated in the Cars' pool
The food court is amazing and very able to accommodate my boys' food allergies. We sometimes ate there, sometimes took food back to our room. Just ask for a "to go" container. The rooms come stocked with paper plates, bowls, plastic silverware, etc and if you need more, just request from Mousekeeping.
Be warned - there aren't towels out by the pool. To get pool towels, you need to go to the front desk and request them from a CM there. It's a bit of a pain, but not a terrible inconvenience - we'd simply stop on our way back from the parks.
You can also call Mousekeeping and they will bring towels right to your room. And they usually bring them within 10-15 minutes. I always requested extra towels as soon as we checked in and then every day I leave a note asking mousekeeping to leave extra towels for swimming. We've found it easier to work with mousekeeping for extra towels than to stop by the front desk to get them (though I did do that once when we actually forgot to grab our towels before leaving the room.) We've stayed in the LK suites twice and during the day, there was almost always a cart of towels by the elevators on the first floor.
We stayed in a Cars Suite (building 2) last July and LOVED this resort. We requested an upper floor and were pleasantly surprised on our first night when the boys' discovered we had a great view of fireworks! One night we even floated in the Cars' pool
The food court is amazing and very able to accommodate my boys' food allergies. We sometimes ate there, sometimes took food back to our room. Just ask for a "to go" container. The rooms come stocked with paper plates, bowls, plastic silverware, etc and if you need more, just request from Mousekeeping.
Be warned - there aren't towels out by the pool. To get pool towels, you need to go to the front desk and request them from a CM there. It's a bit of a pain, but not a terrible inconvenience - we'd simply stop on our way back from the parks.
The rooms are stocked with supplies for eating? I didn't know that! We were planning to bring those items from home. I think we still will bring some, but now I don't think we need to bring as much.
I did include the pool as an option on our non park "leisure" day, but no one in my sister's family seems interested. They will be staying in the Nemo suites, and that's the wonderful pool I keep hearing about. I don't think they'll change their mind. We're in the LK suites. Are we able to use the Nemo pool too? My girls may still want to go to the pool, even though their cousins don't.
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The rooms are stocked with supplies for eating? I didn't know that! We were planning to bring those items from home. I think we still will bring some, but now I don't think we need to bring as much.
I did include the pool as an option on our non park "leisure" day, but no one in my sister's family seems interested. They will be staying in the Nemo suites, and that's the wonderful pool I keep hearing about. I don't think they'll change their mind. We're in the LK suites. Are we able to use the Nemo pool too? My girls may still want to go to the pool, even though their cousins don't.
Yes, all guests staying at AoA are free to use any of the pools at the resort. The Lion King section doesn't have a pool so you have to go to one of the other areas to swim. While the Nemo pool is fun (be sure to listen for the underwater voices) and quite large, we also enjoyed the quietness and much less populated pool in the Little Mermaid section. It just depends on what mood we're in at the time. We've never tried the Cars pool because our 2 stays at AoA were both in a LK suite so we were closer to the Nemo and LM pools.
Also, I usually bring some additional paper products as well. They only leave about 6 plates, bowls, etc. but with 5 or 6 people in the room, we go through those quickly. Plus, we prefer larger, sturdier bowls for cereal so I always bring a small stack of the plastic disposable bowls to use for that. We drive to Disney, so I have a little more room to pack extra things like that. We also like to have the paper products for the hotels we stay at during our drive to Disney since we usually get pizza delivered to the room for dinner.
Thank you, allgiggles (and everyone else!), for all the info on AoA! I'm sure getting more and more excited, as we count down the days! I can't believe we'll be there in a little over a month. Unfortunately, there is so much going on with us just prior to our trip (the entire month of May will be extremely hectic!), that it will be hard to keep on top of the planning, but I'm going to try as best as I can!
Just be warned about the pool towels - you can call mousekeeping BUT if the resort is full (and it was on our stay) they can't bring extra towels.
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The Fun, Old-Fashioned Family Vacation, 3.0 http://www.passporterboards.com/foru...ml#post4472933
Ch-Ch-Changes July 2015
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On our second stay, our view was of the LK courtyard. Again, we couldn't really see anything unless we were standing at the window and when we were sitting in the room, our view was of the top of the other LK building. 
Be sure to take a walk over to the Cars section on night. It's simply gorgeous when it lit up. We find the food at AoA to be good and the food court is manageable as long as you avoid the "prime" times for meals (7:30-8:00 a.m.; noon; 5-6:00 p.m.). Even if the food court is super busy, we've never had problems finding a table, it's just that the service is slow since many items are custom made (create your own pasta, create your own salad, create your own burger, etc.). I love the create your own pasta station, but I know that's going to take a few minutes longer than walking up and getting something that's pre-made. You can also walk over to Pop Century for meals if you want a change of pace. The kids always like to swim in the Nemo pool once or twice while we're there but we also walk over to the Little Mermaid pool a few times as that one is much less crowded. There have been times in the afternoon when the Nemo pool is packed yet we walk to the LM pool and find 15-20 people in it...and plenty of chairs available.
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