AoA advice, throw it at me!!!!!!

[Shellylynn6974]

We decided to go to AoA next February in a Little Mermaid room!! So excited!!! I need tips, advice, anything. Which floor is,the quietest? Which building is the best?

I figure I'll just book directly with Disney, not expecting any discounts. But I will deal.

 

[Smiley/OCD]

We've stayed at AOA twice, Finding Nemo suite and Lion King suite...going again in November, staying in a Cars suite...I think AOA has the best theming of any WDW resort. They did an EXCELLENT job. You will enjoy your stay there. Pool is outstanding, food is good, bus service is very good...Take an hour or so and walk around the resort...the ONLY negative we have found is the cell phone reception in the buildings is horrible, regardless of the carrier. If you need to use your phone, you'll have to go outside. Other than that, ENJOY YOUR STAY!!!

 

[PREMiERdrum]

We've stayed at AOA twice, Finding Nemo suite and Lion King suite...going again in November, staying in a Cars suite...I think AOA has the best theming of any WDW resort. They did an EXCELLENT job. You will enjoy your stay there. Pool is outstanding, food is good, bus service is very good...Take an hour or so and walk around the resort...the ONLY negative we have found is the cell phone reception in the buildings is horrible, regardless of the carrier. If you need to use your phone, you'll have to go outside. Other than that, ENJOY YOUR STAY!!!

I'll second everything said here. We've stayed in a Lion King suite and in the Little Mermaid rooms, both stays were excellent.

No kidding on the phone reception.. We actually noticed that the problems weren't as bad in the Mermaid rooms, perhaps something to do with the interior vs. exterior hallways, but our phones were completely useless in the Lion King suite. We slept with them sitting against the window so they had enough service to potentially receive a call if there were some sort of emergency back home. The WiFi service inside the suite buildings was a little iffy when we were there, but I think that may have improved since.

Landscape of Flavors is great, though they do seem to have a difficult time keeping up with messes during peak breakfast hours. If the Crabcake Burger is still on the menu, do yourself a favor and try it. So good!

 

[Smiley/OCD]

Yeah, we have AT&T, and the service was so bad on our last trip, that I asked the front desk...the bogus answer I got was that the buildings have to be built to Florida's hurricane codes, the signal can't penetrate the buildings. It's bogus because it only seems to be at AOA...the units were built at the same time as POP, and were supposed to be part of POP, and their service was good. I guess AOA has the safest resort on property? LOL

 

[SyracuseDisneyFan]

I stayed at AoA in October of 2012. I stayed in the Lion King section. Unfortunately, the cell phone service in the room was awful. I use Verizon. Other than that, I liked AoA and would stay there again. Landscape of Flavors was good.

 

[Shellylynn6974]

Very interesting about the cell phone service. As you can see in my signature, I have stayed at numerous Disney resorts and never had that issue. Very strange.

 

[Tom P.]

Regarding the phone service, my strategy was to use a Bluetooth earpiece and leave the phone sitting in the window. That seemed to work, although that really shouldn't be necessary.

 

[Shellylynn6974]

Awe, I'm not really concerned at all about it. I just wonder what is the real reason for it is though. We will be in a Little Mermaid room, so it might not be as bad, but I am more curious as to the technical aspect of it.

 

[Andrew C]

lol....cell phone issue...I had that same problem as well, like everyone else.

I thought the resort was great though. The whole family enjoyed Landscape of Flavors as well. And the main pool.

I like the highest floor so no one is stomping around above me.

 

[mguimond1990]

Overall we enjoyed AOA last november, the themeing is great, the food court is excellent, and we thought the staff was the friendliest we encountered all trip. However, be prepared to walk when staying in the little mermaid section. The first couple days we didnt think the walk to the room was too bad, but towards the end of our trip we were hoping for a peoplemover to take us there haha. Have a great time, im sure youll love it!

 

[MomofPrincessGrace]

We stayed in AoA on our last trip. We were on the highest floor, but be warned that sometimes the elevators can be a little slow, we found it much quicker to go the stairs than the elevator (after a long day at the parks it wasnt so fund though). We had a standard view room, which ended up having a partial pool view. I loved the theming of the resort, and on our last day we did a walk over to the cars section to get pictures with all the cars that they have over there. We decided to go with a moderate this time, but i definitely would stay in the Mermaid rooms again in the future. Some might complain about the size of the rooms, but we didnt spend much time in the room other than at the end of the night, so it didnt effect us much. Have fun!

 

[disneyfirstLJ]

The only resort we have stayed in is AoA and in a Little Mermaid room (3 visits to date). I recommend building 9 as in my opinion it is the closest to transportation and the food court. You can walk the back way around the Lion King section and that takes you right to the buses. The last two visits we have had first floor rooms in building 9 and we are requesting that again for our April trip. We also request a corner room as we find that reduces noise. However, that request is not guaranteed but we lucked out our last two trips.

Building 7 is another good choice as it would be pretty quiet if you are on the hourglass lake side. However, it will be a bit further to walk to the buses and food court. Building 8 is the furthest away and I would not recommend that.

 

[MightyMouse]

My little tidbit of advice: Take a walk around the resort during both day and night. (and bring a camera) Especially with the Cars section, this part of the resort seems to pop with the lights at night.

 

[SyracuseDisneyFan]

I agree about taking pictures. That's what I did.

 

[PHS79]

We have stayed at AoA twice, Feb 2013 in a Lion King room (building 10) and Feb 2015 in a Cars room (building 1). AoA is a very nice resort!! The food court has a lot of options and is easy to navigate. The main pool area is great! Cell reception wasn't a problem in either building for us, we have US Cellular. The only down fall that I see of the Little Mermaid rooms is that is a bit of a hike to Animation Hall and also the buses.

We were going to stay at AoA for our next trip but decided to stay at Pop and go on the Disney Cruise. If our trip was going to be only to WDW I am 99% sure we would have stayed at AoA again.

 

[Matt_Black]

Not sure if this is something they still do, but at one point the staff in the lobby organizes a "flash mob", and they sometimes invite younger guests to join in.

Take a walk over to the bridge for a nice view of the lake and Pop Century.

The other thing I'll note is that when you enter the food court from the gift shop, you'll see a dry erase board that is updated daily with Disney trivia.

 

[nelsonj3]

We went to Art of Animation last year and stayed in one of the Cars Family Suites. We loved every little detail. We also enjoyed the movies that they play by the pool on select nights. I filmed a complete tour of the resort while we were there that might be helpful to you.

 

[kelliechris]

We stayed in Cars in '15, and Nemo in '16. We love AoA! It was spacious and very adorably themed. The Nemo pool was awesome and we loved the underwater music. The busses were great, and you're close to POP so you could take that bus if you needed. Mermaid is a healthy jaunt to civilization, but the grounds are colorful and fun, so that helps!

 

[SyracuseDisneyFan]

I'd definitely want to stay at Art of Animation again.