A Trip to Disney World, part 1

This past week, my family took a trip to Florida to visit Mickey Mouse and all his pals. Being able to go in the middle of October, when crowds are light and temperatures are…well, not insane (though honestly, it’s been lovely and in the low 70s at home and we hit 90 two days we were down there. But still, it wasn’t summer in Florida hot at least) is just one of the things I love about homeschooling.

Anyway, I’ve had a few people as about various aspects of our trip and I can’t honestly recall who wanted to know what (this may be because I’m tired from driving back home in one shot), so I thought I’d just document it here and maybe there’ll be something interesting for other people as well.

We stayed at the Art of Animation hotel on the Disney property. I have to say that I’m a big fan of staying on property. Yes, it’s more expensive (though there’s some wiggle in there, so you can make it more affordable) but you can take the busses to the parks and not have to deal with driving, parking, and taking a tram to the park from the parking lot. Plus, Disney knows how to do hotels. The Art of Animation is a new-ish hotel at WDW and we were majorly impressed (as opposed to the Coronado Springs which left us less than thrilled on our last trip). Since we have boys, we stayed in a Cars themed family suite and it was just like you’d expect a room in the Cozy Cone to look. Bonus was having the Cozy Cone pool right outside as well as full size statues of all the Radiator Springs residents. The boys were in heaven. The suite itself was wonderful – two bathrooms, one bedroom and then two pull-out beds in the main area mean that mom and dad don’t have to go to bed right at eight p.m. when the little ones do. And the Disney housekeeping staff is awesome. Every day when we got back to the room, the boys’ stuffed animals were sitting on the couch with their legs crossed watching Disney Junior on the TV. Sometimes they were tucked in a blanket. Sometimes just hanging out. But honestly, it’s cute little things like that that make me actually inclined to tip housekeeping staff.

The Art of Animation has Cars, Nemo, Little Mermaid, and Lion King themes to choose from. I’m guessing all the rooms are just as wonderful as our Cars suite was. Each area has its own pool as well, though the Nemo pool is, hands down, the “main” pool (and super cool). Of course you can visit whichever pool you want when you’re staying on property. We just hung out at the Cozy Cone, away from the crowds. The suites do have a mini fridge, so if you’re a “bring food and save a buck” family, that’s an option if you’re staying here.

I can definitely see us staying there again when we go back.