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Hi Everyone,
Looking for some reviews on The AOA Resort. Will be traveling with a family of 6. 3 adults 3 kids aged 3-17. Can we comfortably stay here? What are the buses like? and how far of a walk is it to the bus stops/foodcourt from the rooms?
Thanks :)
The distance to the bus stop/food court depends on what section you are in. Nemo is closest, then Cars, then the Lion King. Either Nemo or Cars are quite close, some sections of the Lion King seem further away (at least to me). It is a wonderfully themed resort, and I love walking around and looking at everything.
In terms of "will you be comfortable", I'm not sure. It is great to have two bathrooms, but you have only 1 real sleeping surface (the bed in the bedroom), the rest are pull-outs and the convertible table. My family would be cramped, but it is do-able.
Your comfort level will most likely depend on the dynamics of your group. We've stayed at AoA 4 times now and it works great for us. We have always been a party of 5 or 6 depending on how many of our "kids" (all teens/adults) are traveling with us. The space works for us because we're all one family. If we were traveling with another family, it might not be the right space for us. There is a master bedroom with a queen size bed and a full bathroom with walk-in shower. The main area of the suite has a table that converts to a bed along with a pull-out couch. Both of those are approximately the size of a full/double size bed. Our kids don't like to share a bed so we have used an air mattress and the seat cushions from the couch to provide more sleeping surfaces. The second bathroom is a split bathroom with the toilet and tub/shower combo being separate from the sink area. There is a pocket door that can close off the sink area from the living space as well. The kitchenette is handy for us as we eat breakfast in the room most days.Quote:
Originally Posted by tink7474
We have always found the bus service to be very good at AoA. There's also the option to take a bus from a park back to Pop Century and then walk back to AoA. Our most recent stay at AoA was a few weeks ago. We ride the buses several times a day and during a 7-day stay we had two 20-minute waits and those were both at the end of the night after a park closing so we totally expected a long wait. The vast majority of our waits were less than 5 minutes and there were numerous times that we got to a bus stop and there was a bus waiting for us.
We've stayed in a Lion King suites 3 times and a Nemo suite once. We loved the location of our Nemo suite (building 5, first floor) but we've found our locations in the LK suites to be nearly as good. We consider the LK suites to be "hidden gems". A lot of people don't want to stay in those 2 buildings because there isn't a pool in that section. But the Nemo pool is a very quick walk from the LK section and the Little Mermaid pool isn't very far either (and is much quieter and less crowded than the Nemo pool). Our family doesn't spend a lot of time swimming so our preference is to be close to the food court and bus stops as we use those things several times a day but only use the pool a few times during the week. The LK section is very close to the food court and bus stops as both of those are at the end of Animation Hall closest to the LK section. We've been in both of the LK buildings and always had about a 2 minute walk to the food court and a 3 minute walk to the bus stops. That being said, we think the Cars section is the best themed area of the resort and is absolutely stunning at night. We always walk over there at least one night during our stay. We probably won't ever stay in a Cars suite because we find them to be a longer walk to the food court and bus stops than LK and Nemo.
I used to be a strong advocate for AoA ever since our party grew from 4 to 6 ... BUT .... the last two trips were less than wonderful or magical. Our last trip, this past June/July was bad. The resort was actually dirty, overly busy, with the food court simply turning out poor quality food. I am very serious when I say a walk over to POP saved our trip when we needed a burger or fries. The busses were slow to non-existent over the past three trips, necessitating we use POP's busses and just walk over. The pools were insanely busy the last two times we visited..... To more answer your question, the 6 of you should be very comfortable in a suite. The use of two bathrooms and the added luxury of having a separate bedroom was and is wonderful. ....sorry I'm not painting a very nice picture of ART..... they are truly slipping .... I've decided to go back to my beloved Riverside .... just need to save a bit more for the trip !!
I guess we stayed at a different AoA in June. We had the best bus service we've ever had at any of our 4 stays at AoA (and we've always felt the bus service was great -- very few waits over 15 minutes in our 4 stays there). Our longest wait this trip was 20 minutes (twice -- both at the end of the night when we expected at least a 20-30 minute wait) and the rest of our waits were under 10 minutes with the vast majority of them being under 5 minutes with numerous walk-ons/no waits. We found the buildings to be much cleaner than they were when we were there 2 years ago. The hallways of each of the buildings seemed to have a relatively new coat of paint on them -- very few scuff marks compared to last time when there were gouges, scuffs, scrapes, etc. in every hallway. Carpeting in the hallways still could stand to be replaced in some buildings (I'm looking at you Nemo) but had obviously been given a deep cleaning since our last trip. Some stains were still noticeable, but not nearly to the extent they were 2 years ago when I complained to Guest Services about them. Our suite was spotless and my only "complaint" about it was that 1 drawer in the dresser in the living room wouldn't stay closed all the way and one in the dresser in the bedroom would stick a bit. Can't comment on the burgers and fries as we didn't have any at AoA -- we tend to go for the pasta and other unique offerings at Landscape of Flavors which we found to be delicious (we only at at AoA 4 times throughout the week, though). We also didn't use the pools much but the Big Blue Pool was not overly crowded when we were there one afternoon when I would expect it to be insanely packed. The LM pool was very quiet the afternoon we walked over there -- I think there were about 20-25 people in it. And the night we walked past the Cars pool it was equally quiet.Quote:
Originally Posted by #1donaldfan
I'm sorry you had a vastly different experience than we had the week before. I would have been disappointed, too, if I had the experiences your family had.
You got lucky for sure and each trip is relative to many factors, of which our previous trip was the precursor to the recent one, so I may have been just a smidge negatively biased ..... I certainly do miss the quiet, relaxed feel of Riverside, so I can say I will save more and finally "go back home" on our next trip !!Quote:
Originally Posted by allgiggles