GillianP1301
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2012
We have just returned from our trip and had a wonderful time (a few very minor negatives) and I thought I would share my observations from our experience for you.
Trip details
Myself and my 6 yo son staying 8 nights (Aug 24 - Sept 1) in an AoA Nemo Suite with Deluxe Dining Plan. 7 day park hopper tickets w/water park & more.
AoA - Nemo Suite
Loved it! We checked in at about 1:30 with no room ready yet, but by the time we had lunch and looked around the shop a bit, the room was ready about an hour later. Worth noting: We did not get the text confirmation that the room was ready. When we checked with the CM in the lobby with the tablet, he said the texts do not go through to non US carriers (we're from Canada), but an email would. Something to remember for next time.
The suite itself was great, very spacious. We were only 2 people, but a group of 4 - 6 could be very comfortable in there. I loved having the two seperate sleeping areas so that I could be up and around after my son went to sleep.
The grounds are gorgeous, very well landscaped and mantained and the pool is really cool! Even though we only ended up using it on the first day, since my son always chose more park time over the pool the rest of the week.
The food court there seemed fine, but we only had 2 meals there... our arrival lunch and one breakfast. The selection seemed really good though, more than I recall seeing at other resorts we've stayed at.
Only negative I encountered was the concierge desk. All I needed was to pick up HDDR tickets and it was one of the longest waits of the week. They are understaffed there and the CMs were not friendly at all, likely because everyone was complaining about how long they were taking. This is one area that definitely needs attention at AoA.
Deluxe Dining Plan
This was our first time using the DxDP and I was super excited for it! I had 23 different ADRs set for the week. I purposely had every meal as sit down as a way to ensure we kept our meal times close to what we're used to (important for my son who gets very grumpy if he misses a meal) and to have built in cool down breaks.
For the most part, I really enjoyed the DxDP. I definitely liked having all my meals pre arranged and had no trouble at all sticking to the scheduled times. I was a little concenred about that going in and it turned out to be a non issue for us.
Of those 23 ADRs, I ended up cancelling two. One was a breakfast that I knew we would have trouble getting up for (late night the night before) and the other was our final day dinner and we were just way too stuffed to even attempt it.
Overall, it was a lot of food for sure, but still such a great way to experience different restaurants and foods. Would I do it again? Undecided for next year. I may go with regular DDP just to be able to enjoy some more snack options. That was the one negative for me to the DxDP. Because we had so many full meals, we really didn't need any snacks and I felt I was missing out on some good/fun options there. Of our 32 snack credits, we used about 1/2 on drinks to stay hydrated and the other half on candy to bring home with us.
I won't go through every restaurant we at ate, but the noteable ones (both positive & negative):
The good first...
Cape May Cafe - Awesome! Great breakfast buffet, our server was outstanding and the character interaction was some of the best we've ever had.
Garden Grill - Never disappoints and once again a great meal with great characters.
Coral Reef - Our first time there and what a great experience! We had a tank side table, which my DS was thrilled about and the food was very good.
Yachtsman - Wow, this place was sensational. Service was top notch and my filet was one of the best I've had.
1900PF - Another first for us and really enjoyable. The Mad Hatter is awesome!
The not so good...
Whispering Canyon Cafe - this one disappointed me a bit. The food was just okay (had the skillet), the service was mediocre at best and the fun & games were not as much as I expected. Although the ketchup thing was fun. It wasn't a bad meal, just not up to what I was expecting.
BOG - Had to try this one, if for no other reason than to just say I did it. I doubt I'll go back. I found the atmosphere to be meh.. the castle is beautiful, but the tables are crowded, it's loud and just not all that special, IMO. The food was average at best, my steak was just not that great (I had the steak and it was grissly/fatty). The cupcakes were very good though!
Via Napoli - By far the biggest disappointment of the trip. I had such high expectations for this place (maybe too high) and it was by far our worst meal. The service was horrendously bad, almost to the point of me complaining until I sat and observed the floor manager and realized that most of the issue was her and not the servers. Half the servers looked terrified of her and she was all over their case about everything. I took my son to the washroom and came back and they had cleared our table (as though we had left) and we had put in a dessert order that we hadn't even gotten yet. The pizza itself was good, not the best I've ever had, but quite good. Not good enough to make up for the poor service though. This place needs to focus on quality of service and not quantity of people they can push through there before I'll consider going back.
Tours, Shows & Other Special Stuff
Hoop Dee Doo Review
Our first time doing this dinner show and it was a good time! I don't think it's something I would need to do every trip, but definitely worth seeing once. The food was pretty good (standard BBQ fare) and the entertainment, although campy, was better than I was expecting it to be. This was an enjoyable evening for us.
Wishes Dessert Party
This was our 2nd time at this event. For me, the big draw is having a comfortable place to sit away from the crowds to watch Wishes. The desserts are secondary to me and I honestly find that they are just average anyway, nothing blows my mind on that buffet. This will likely remain on our plans for each trip, because the setting is definitely worth it for me.
Jedi Training
Awesome!! Despite the stress of getting to the sign up, it was totally worth it for my DS, he loved it. We did an 8am ADR at H&V specifially to get ahead of the crowd at the rope. That strategy worked and we were in the first line of people at the 2nd rope by the stage. We ended up about 25 or more people back by the time we got to the line because I had a stroller and people were constantly walking right in front of it and because I'm nice and didn't want to run into them, we kept getting shuffled back. In hindsight, I should've hit one or two of them because what they were doing was rude, but anyway. If I were doing it over again, I would've left the stroller at H&V and walked it, we would've stayed in our spot that way. Turned out not to matter much, we still ended up with the 2nd show at 10:10.
Family Magic Tour - Magic Kingdom
Highlight of the trip! Easily the best money spent on our trip. We lucked out completely because there was only 1 other family in our group and they were a no show, so we ended up with a private tour! Our tour guide was amazing and my son and I both had a blast following the scavenger hunt through MK. I can't say enough about how amazing this experience was. I highly recommend it.
Magic Bands, FP+ and MDE
This was our 2nd trip with this stuff in place, but the first was still early test and when you could still get legacy FP at the same time, so really this was the first time experiencing it as it's supposed to be.
We had no issues. Everything worked as it should, I was able to easily move around FP on my phone, which I did quite regularly. I was able to secure FP past my first 3 at kiosks. On a day that we hopped to Epcot at around 5:00, I was even able to get a Soarin' one and Test Track was also still available. That was not the case the 2nd day we were in Epcot, which was a much busier day. We also could not get the obvious TSMM & SDMT day of. Kiosk lines took about 5 - 10 minutes. They weren't that long, just not enough people familiar enough with how it all works so it takes a long time to get through a few people. If you know what you're doing, you can get your selection made and be out of there in less than a minute. I really hope they move to allowing this additional FP to be done via their app. To me that is the only thing missing to make the whole system really worthwhile. Overall though, I like the bands & FP+, it worked great for us the whole trip.
Hopping & Water Park and More
This was my first time adding either of those features to our tickets. LOVED! I will likely never not hop again. We had 7 park days and we hopped on 4 of them. I really loved changing it up later in the day. I had built in swim breaks, but my son usually just wanted more park time, so we would hop at around 4:00ish and it just made the day so much more enjoyable. It's like getting a fresh start after you take the break to get between parks.
The water park & more feature was nice. We did 3 rounds of mini golf, which was a lot of fun and we did BB one day. I didn't love BB, but I think next time I need to give it more time (we only had a morning) and I would research it a bit better. I found it confusing trying to figure out which slides were best for us once we were there, it would've been very helpful to know that beforehand. Loved the wave pool and the lazy river.
General Observations
Crowd level - as expected, the crowd levels were pretty low during the week and picked up and got quite busy on the labour day weekend. It seemed more crowded on the weekend then I remember in the past. The week leading up to was great though, very few lines over 15 minutes and very easy and enjoyable navigating around the parks.
Stroller - for those who debate whether to use a stroller or not, I will say that I am glad I chose to rent one for my 6 year old. I thought long and hard about it, but finally decided to and it made our trip so much easier and enjoyable. I never had to worry about him keeping up or me having to slow down (I'm a go go go type person). I never had to worry about losing him in a large crowd (i.e. after Fantasmic or Wishes) and I never had to worry about him getting overtired. It just worked really well for us. I get annoyed with people who stop in in front of you when you are trying to work your way through a big crowd, but I don't let it get to me too much, ignorant people are going to be around no matter what you do. This will likely be our last year for a stroller though, because even with getting the one for larger/older kids, my son is definitely outgrowing it.
CMs - Generally we had great CMs, very helpful and friendly. I only came across a couple who seemed like they'd rather be somehwere else.
Other guests - Lots of very friendly people we came across and chatted with randomly. A fair share of ignorant people as well, but I usually let that roll off my back. I only got snippy with one woman and for me (who normally has no tolerance for rude people) that's pretty good.
Pixie Dust Moments - Just a few little things, like we always seemed to luck out with good parking spots and just being at the right place at the right time for lines. A CM in POTC shop did a sword fight with my DS that he loved. We got anywhere/time FP at the end of our Family Magic Tour (not sure if that's normal or not, but was as surprise to me). When I want to Brown Derby to say I was much too full to eat there, but would like for them to go ahead and charge me my dining credits so I could get the Fantasmic tickets (it was the Fantasmic dining packge), she gave me the tickets without charging me the meal plan or the $10 no show fee. Totally wasn't expecting that and didn't even ask if that was possible.
In closing...
This was probably, overall, my very best/favourite trip to WDW. I planned the crap out of it (which is fun for me) and that paid off in spades. Almost all the new things we tried we loved and all the old favourites didn't disappoint. The few disappointments we did have, were largely over shadowed by the positive and did not negatively affect our trip in the least.
Trip details
Myself and my 6 yo son staying 8 nights (Aug 24 - Sept 1) in an AoA Nemo Suite with Deluxe Dining Plan. 7 day park hopper tickets w/water park & more.
AoA - Nemo Suite
Loved it! We checked in at about 1:30 with no room ready yet, but by the time we had lunch and looked around the shop a bit, the room was ready about an hour later. Worth noting: We did not get the text confirmation that the room was ready. When we checked with the CM in the lobby with the tablet, he said the texts do not go through to non US carriers (we're from Canada), but an email would. Something to remember for next time.
The suite itself was great, very spacious. We were only 2 people, but a group of 4 - 6 could be very comfortable in there. I loved having the two seperate sleeping areas so that I could be up and around after my son went to sleep.
The grounds are gorgeous, very well landscaped and mantained and the pool is really cool! Even though we only ended up using it on the first day, since my son always chose more park time over the pool the rest of the week.
The food court there seemed fine, but we only had 2 meals there... our arrival lunch and one breakfast. The selection seemed really good though, more than I recall seeing at other resorts we've stayed at.
Only negative I encountered was the concierge desk. All I needed was to pick up HDDR tickets and it was one of the longest waits of the week. They are understaffed there and the CMs were not friendly at all, likely because everyone was complaining about how long they were taking. This is one area that definitely needs attention at AoA.
Deluxe Dining Plan
This was our first time using the DxDP and I was super excited for it! I had 23 different ADRs set for the week. I purposely had every meal as sit down as a way to ensure we kept our meal times close to what we're used to (important for my son who gets very grumpy if he misses a meal) and to have built in cool down breaks.
For the most part, I really enjoyed the DxDP. I definitely liked having all my meals pre arranged and had no trouble at all sticking to the scheduled times. I was a little concenred about that going in and it turned out to be a non issue for us.
Of those 23 ADRs, I ended up cancelling two. One was a breakfast that I knew we would have trouble getting up for (late night the night before) and the other was our final day dinner and we were just way too stuffed to even attempt it.
Overall, it was a lot of food for sure, but still such a great way to experience different restaurants and foods. Would I do it again? Undecided for next year. I may go with regular DDP just to be able to enjoy some more snack options. That was the one negative for me to the DxDP. Because we had so many full meals, we really didn't need any snacks and I felt I was missing out on some good/fun options there. Of our 32 snack credits, we used about 1/2 on drinks to stay hydrated and the other half on candy to bring home with us.
I won't go through every restaurant we at ate, but the noteable ones (both positive & negative):
The good first...
Cape May Cafe - Awesome! Great breakfast buffet, our server was outstanding and the character interaction was some of the best we've ever had.
Garden Grill - Never disappoints and once again a great meal with great characters.
Coral Reef - Our first time there and what a great experience! We had a tank side table, which my DS was thrilled about and the food was very good.
Yachtsman - Wow, this place was sensational. Service was top notch and my filet was one of the best I've had.
1900PF - Another first for us and really enjoyable. The Mad Hatter is awesome!
The not so good...
Whispering Canyon Cafe - this one disappointed me a bit. The food was just okay (had the skillet), the service was mediocre at best and the fun & games were not as much as I expected. Although the ketchup thing was fun. It wasn't a bad meal, just not up to what I was expecting.
BOG - Had to try this one, if for no other reason than to just say I did it. I doubt I'll go back. I found the atmosphere to be meh.. the castle is beautiful, but the tables are crowded, it's loud and just not all that special, IMO. The food was average at best, my steak was just not that great (I had the steak and it was grissly/fatty). The cupcakes were very good though!
Via Napoli - By far the biggest disappointment of the trip. I had such high expectations for this place (maybe too high) and it was by far our worst meal. The service was horrendously bad, almost to the point of me complaining until I sat and observed the floor manager and realized that most of the issue was her and not the servers. Half the servers looked terrified of her and she was all over their case about everything. I took my son to the washroom and came back and they had cleared our table (as though we had left) and we had put in a dessert order that we hadn't even gotten yet. The pizza itself was good, not the best I've ever had, but quite good. Not good enough to make up for the poor service though. This place needs to focus on quality of service and not quantity of people they can push through there before I'll consider going back.
Tours, Shows & Other Special Stuff
Hoop Dee Doo Review
Our first time doing this dinner show and it was a good time! I don't think it's something I would need to do every trip, but definitely worth seeing once. The food was pretty good (standard BBQ fare) and the entertainment, although campy, was better than I was expecting it to be. This was an enjoyable evening for us.
Wishes Dessert Party
This was our 2nd time at this event. For me, the big draw is having a comfortable place to sit away from the crowds to watch Wishes. The desserts are secondary to me and I honestly find that they are just average anyway, nothing blows my mind on that buffet. This will likely remain on our plans for each trip, because the setting is definitely worth it for me.
Jedi Training
Awesome!! Despite the stress of getting to the sign up, it was totally worth it for my DS, he loved it. We did an 8am ADR at H&V specifially to get ahead of the crowd at the rope. That strategy worked and we were in the first line of people at the 2nd rope by the stage. We ended up about 25 or more people back by the time we got to the line because I had a stroller and people were constantly walking right in front of it and because I'm nice and didn't want to run into them, we kept getting shuffled back. In hindsight, I should've hit one or two of them because what they were doing was rude, but anyway. If I were doing it over again, I would've left the stroller at H&V and walked it, we would've stayed in our spot that way. Turned out not to matter much, we still ended up with the 2nd show at 10:10.
Family Magic Tour - Magic Kingdom
Highlight of the trip! Easily the best money spent on our trip. We lucked out completely because there was only 1 other family in our group and they were a no show, so we ended up with a private tour! Our tour guide was amazing and my son and I both had a blast following the scavenger hunt through MK. I can't say enough about how amazing this experience was. I highly recommend it.
Magic Bands, FP+ and MDE
This was our 2nd trip with this stuff in place, but the first was still early test and when you could still get legacy FP at the same time, so really this was the first time experiencing it as it's supposed to be.
We had no issues. Everything worked as it should, I was able to easily move around FP on my phone, which I did quite regularly. I was able to secure FP past my first 3 at kiosks. On a day that we hopped to Epcot at around 5:00, I was even able to get a Soarin' one and Test Track was also still available. That was not the case the 2nd day we were in Epcot, which was a much busier day. We also could not get the obvious TSMM & SDMT day of. Kiosk lines took about 5 - 10 minutes. They weren't that long, just not enough people familiar enough with how it all works so it takes a long time to get through a few people. If you know what you're doing, you can get your selection made and be out of there in less than a minute. I really hope they move to allowing this additional FP to be done via their app. To me that is the only thing missing to make the whole system really worthwhile. Overall though, I like the bands & FP+, it worked great for us the whole trip.
Hopping & Water Park and More
This was my first time adding either of those features to our tickets. LOVED! I will likely never not hop again. We had 7 park days and we hopped on 4 of them. I really loved changing it up later in the day. I had built in swim breaks, but my son usually just wanted more park time, so we would hop at around 4:00ish and it just made the day so much more enjoyable. It's like getting a fresh start after you take the break to get between parks.
The water park & more feature was nice. We did 3 rounds of mini golf, which was a lot of fun and we did BB one day. I didn't love BB, but I think next time I need to give it more time (we only had a morning) and I would research it a bit better. I found it confusing trying to figure out which slides were best for us once we were there, it would've been very helpful to know that beforehand. Loved the wave pool and the lazy river.
General Observations
Crowd level - as expected, the crowd levels were pretty low during the week and picked up and got quite busy on the labour day weekend. It seemed more crowded on the weekend then I remember in the past. The week leading up to was great though, very few lines over 15 minutes and very easy and enjoyable navigating around the parks.
Stroller - for those who debate whether to use a stroller or not, I will say that I am glad I chose to rent one for my 6 year old. I thought long and hard about it, but finally decided to and it made our trip so much easier and enjoyable. I never had to worry about him keeping up or me having to slow down (I'm a go go go type person). I never had to worry about losing him in a large crowd (i.e. after Fantasmic or Wishes) and I never had to worry about him getting overtired. It just worked really well for us. I get annoyed with people who stop in in front of you when you are trying to work your way through a big crowd, but I don't let it get to me too much, ignorant people are going to be around no matter what you do. This will likely be our last year for a stroller though, because even with getting the one for larger/older kids, my son is definitely outgrowing it.
CMs - Generally we had great CMs, very helpful and friendly. I only came across a couple who seemed like they'd rather be somehwere else.
Other guests - Lots of very friendly people we came across and chatted with randomly. A fair share of ignorant people as well, but I usually let that roll off my back. I only got snippy with one woman and for me (who normally has no tolerance for rude people) that's pretty good.
Pixie Dust Moments - Just a few little things, like we always seemed to luck out with good parking spots and just being at the right place at the right time for lines. A CM in POTC shop did a sword fight with my DS that he loved. We got anywhere/time FP at the end of our Family Magic Tour (not sure if that's normal or not, but was as surprise to me). When I want to Brown Derby to say I was much too full to eat there, but would like for them to go ahead and charge me my dining credits so I could get the Fantasmic tickets (it was the Fantasmic dining packge), she gave me the tickets without charging me the meal plan or the $10 no show fee. Totally wasn't expecting that and didn't even ask if that was possible.
In closing...
This was probably, overall, my very best/favourite trip to WDW. I planned the crap out of it (which is fun for me) and that paid off in spades. Almost all the new things we tried we loved and all the old favourites didn't disappoint. The few disappointments we did have, were largely over shadowed by the positive and did not negatively affect our trip in the least.
