5-week Split Stay in Florida, Feb/March 2020 - Day 35: Checking into Art of Animation & Resort Day

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Day 35: More Cancelled Plans & Checking into Art of Animation
March 15, 2020
[-- Trip Index --]

We woke up around 7AM on this Sunday morning. This was supposed to be our last park day - I hadn't booked any FPs, but we'd planned to revisit whichever we most felt needed another visit (I think Epcot would have won that for a nice World Showcase afternoon), then hop on over to Art of Animation for checking in, and finally making use of the Skyliner to go see either Fantasmic or Epcot Forever as the perfect end to our holiday.

However, our thoughts from yesterday had not changed - with the parks closing for the near future tonight, it was still slated to be VERY busy with many AP holders driving in from all over the state, and we still felt we didn't want to be in the middle of that. We'd had enough park days, and we didn't want to expose ourselves to potentially picking up the coronavirus any further. So our new plan was to make the most of our 1 night at Art of Animation by checking in early, having swims in at least 2 of their cool pools, and enjoying the food choices in Landscape of Flavors.

Side note: when we originally booked this trip, we'd planned to fly home Sunday. But I got a much better rate for Monday - good enough that we still saved money even though I booked another hotel night. I picked AoA because I knew the theming would very much appeal to Myla, and of course we'd planned to see a night time show on the Skyliner without having to deal with the busses afterwards.

But that said, we were all really happy with an Art of Animation resort day - we'd all enjoyed yesterday's Old Key West resort day very much.

Michael had one last gym visit this morning, and came back just after 7AM with refillable mug coffees, a banana and croissant for Myla, and a blueberry muffin for me (we'd now used up all our breakfast foods). After some relaxing, he took Myla out around 9AM to let me finish getting ready and pack in peace.

The plan had been to take her to the playground, but as that's part of the pool area, it doesn't actually open until 10AM! So instead they played in the little games area near where the Movies Under The Stars are, and after that they headed to the Community Hall where there was lots of coloring and other activities set up - Michael said it was really good. At 10 exactly they went back to the playground, and she had a good play there too.


In the mean time, I got showered and dressed, and organized our luggage. I filled 2 suitcases with stuff we wouldn't need anymore, and kept everything for tonight (toiletries, PJs, Myla's favorite teddies, coloring books, etc) and tomorrow (including our travel clothes, neck pillows, headphones for the plane, etc) in the same case so I'd only have to open 1 at AoA. Lastly I filled a backpack with all our swimming gear, so we could get changed once we were at Art of Animation and go swimming without waiting for our room or luggage.

I took my time at all this as checkout wasn't until 11AM, it was nice to not have to rush! I even sat at the laptop and did a bit of work, always great to get that out of the way early.

I was finished around 10:40 and texted Michael to come back. Bell services arrived a few minutes later, and we all left the room just before 11AM. Bye room, bye lovely Old Key West - I'm 100% sure we'll be back in the future!


We'd decided the easiest way to get to Art of Animation but avoid the parks and crowds as much as we could, was to take a Hollywood Studios bus from Old Key West, and take the Skyliner over. The bus from OKW was empty at this time of the day.


We pulled up at Hollywood Studios not even 10 minutes later - it was weird not going into the park, but I'd seen the wait times on MDE and could tell it was busy. No thanks! Myla was all perfectly fine with this, by the way - she was happy to ride the Skyliner, and very excited about going swimming in the Nemo pool!


We boarded the Skyliner at 11:15, keeping our distance from others in the walk up to the station, and got our own cabin. Myla loved the little ride again, and it was so quick and easy to change at Caribbean Beach for AoA!


We were at Art of Animation exactly 25 minutes from leaving Old Key West, happy days! We walked up to Animation Hall to collect our last set of Magic Bands, and the plan was to go change, swim a bit (it was pretty hot outside already), then have a break with some lunch.


Myla was very excited to be seeing all the larger than life statues, the Squirt playground, and the Nemo pool. As you may recall, she pretty much slept through our entire visit to Art of Animation on our Resort hopping day a few weeks ago so it all seemed new to her lol.

It was absolutely dead quiet inside the lobby - the whole hotel seemed fairly quiet, and we were seen at a desk right away. Love the theming here!


The girl at the desk helping us, had a badge on that said she was a trainee, and there was a more senior CM beside her to walk her through everything - she told us it was her first day! We weren't in a hurry, so I didn't mind that things took a bit longer. I told her we'd done online check-in and just needed our Magic Bands. She checked it on the computer, and was able to tell us that our room was already ready for us - what a nice bonus as it was only 11:40 by now and I'd been expecting it would take until 3 or 4 like it usually does! As I was standing talking to her, I got the text to say our room was ready too.

So, slight change of plans, we decided to go check out our room first, get changed there, and leave the stroller and hand luggage there instead of taking it all with us to the pool. We took the little walk over from the lobby to the Little Mermaid section through the Lion King section - it's maybe a 7-8 minute walk. Not too bad, but I think it would get old fast if you were staying here 14 days.


Again Myla was LOVING all the theming, and we had a good look around at all the big statues. She asked me to lift her up for a photo beside the big Sebastian, but there was a sign right beside it that said "no climbing" so I said I couldn't. She wasn't happy with my answer, see the foot stomping below.


We found our room no problem - it was a ground floor room in the Ursula section, the closest bit to the lobby and main pool and once again pretty much exactly what I'd requested. It really paid off using Touring Plans' room request feature, as I got almost exactly what I requested nearly every time (and the only time I didn't, at Saratoga Springs, they actually gave us a room that was a better choice than the one I'd asked for!).


It had a lovely view over the grounds and Generation Gap Lake, we could see the Skyliner coming and going from the window.

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Inside I was pleasantly surprised to see we had a refurbished room - I hadn't even realized these were being refurbished at all, and had told Michael there'd be carpet and the double beds would feel pretty small after the queen sized beds we'd slept in the past few weeks in the DVC studios. Turns out we had lovely clean laminate flooring, and the beds were queens, exactly the same size as in OKW! The room also featured USB sockets everywhere, and the bathroom and dressing area were all nice, clean, and new too - I was very impressed with this refurbished room.


As a big fan of The Little Mermaid movies, Myla absolutely looooved the room and was over the moon that we'd get to sleep in here. It was a good bit smaller than Old Key West, of course, but we really did like the room and resort and we wouldn't hesitate to come back here for a shorter stay again if it worked out that way in future trips. For me personally, the size of the room and the distance from the bus stop / Skyliner means I'd rather pick somewhere else for a full 10-14 day stay though.

We got changed into our swimming clothes and left the rest of our hand luggage and stroller in the room. We'd just stepped outside and the door had locked behind us, when I realized I'd left my hair brush inside. I tried to open the door but it only flashed red on my band, and then did the same on Michael's and Myla's magic bands. A bit annoying, but we decided we'd get some lunch at Landscape of Flavors first, and then sort it out in the lobby after.

I forgot to take photos of our food, but Myla had fruit (apple slices and grapes), I had the vegan burger (and Myla ate a good portion of my fries too), and Michael had the power salad. He was expecting the same as in OKW, since they're called the same, but this one was totally different and nowhere near as nice and substantial, unfortunately.

A quick stop at the lobby and they sorted out our room access again, and we were finally sitting down at the Big Blue Pool around 13:15.


Michael took some time to chill, and I mostly played and swam with Myla in the pool and on the splash pad for the next 2 hours.


Just after 3, Myla had enough - it was super hot, and she needed a break after running around continuously for 2 hours. We headed back to our room (which opened OK this time!), and I got her dried off and changed. She relaxed in the room with me on the iPad while I finished work on the laptop, and Michael was sunbathing outside at the Little Mermaid pool. When I finished, Myla and I went back out too, to the smaller Little Mermaid pool near our room for another hour of swimming.


Some of the other ground floor rooms were still in the middle of refurbishment, which makes me think ours was probably only very recently refurbished.




Yay we found daddy!


After another hour of swimming and playing, we walked the 1 minute back to our room and all took turns with showers and baths. Just before 6PM, we walked back to Landscape of Flavors for some dinner and to let Myla have a promised play in the Squirt playground (located between Big Blue Pool and the Skyliner station). The view from our room was really lovely - I've certainly had worse views in Deluxes!


At the food court, Myla wanted a banana and some rice - there's no plain rice on the menu as a side dish, but when I asked, the CM said it was no problem and made a little tub of plain rice up for Myla. Michael had a Protein Buster smoothie and a fruit bowl, and I had a Yogurt Parfait as I was still pretty full from lunch. It all tasted really nice, but we had to bribe Myla to actually eat some of the rice - the promise of an icecream did the trick though.


Once she'd finished the rice, I took her back to the gelato counter, and she picked a strawberry gelato. We got it to go in a tub, and she ate it while heading over to the playground, where she pretty much abandoned the other half of her icecream as of course playing was much more appealing! She had an absolute blast here, running around all the little tunnels and going down the various slides with some of the other kids running around.

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We sat on one of the many benches surrounding the playground, relaxing and chatting. I'd seen on the Dutch news back home that the prime minister had held a press conference, and we were now officially under lockdown back home. We'd be coming home from Florida to a country where all schools were closed, all restaurants and coffee shops were closed, gyms etc were all closed, only essential shops were allowed to be open, supermarket shelves were empty from people panic buying, public transport was shut down, and there were serious concerns about the amount of people being admitted to ICU. The situation in the UK wasn't far off - there was talk of travel bans coming all over Europe, and we agreed it was a weird situation: we were sad to be leaving Florida (as you always are!), but extra sad to be leaving a 'normal' environment and going into a 'pandemic' environment...in a way it felt like that flight home would symbolize the end of this life as we knew it, and the start of a scary new world at home. At the same time, we were also happy to be going home. Seeing with our own eyes how no one here was taking the pandemic seriously, we felt it was only a matter of time until the USA would be badly hit too, and we'd rather be safe at home with an excellent health care system and great health insurance than in the USA!

Anyway - for now, we were enjoying the sunshine, the heat, and Myla freely running around a playground (playgrounds were also part of the lockdown measures announced earlier), and I took lots of photos.


In retrospect, my thoughts at the time had turned out to be correct: this was the last proper playground fun Myla had for more than 6 weeks, until playgrounds back home opened up again in early May 2020.

Once the sun started to set around 19:30, we walked back to our room via the 'outside' paths beside the lake.


We got ourselves all ready for bed, and tucked Myla in around 8PM, she was asleep in no time. We lay talking for another little while in the dark, just reflecting on the amazing time we'd had, everything we'd been lucky enough to see and do, and we agreed didn't regret not going into the parks for these last 2 days at all - this relaxing resort day at Art of Animation had been lovely too.

[Inky]

Brilliant trip report, looks like you had a fabulous time. Thanks for writing it, loved your outfits!

[DisneyArab]

I’ve loved reading your full trip report. An epic report that must have taken so much time, thank you for sticking with it! I love your disney themed wardrobe too. X

[mick]

A good day at AoA it all looks lovely
Bet you are pleased to be going home I hope your journey went smoothly


Joan

[mrsdjh]

I’m not surprised Myla loved AOA - it looks well themed. Another relaxing resort day.

[flo-tinka]

Making use of those facilities 😀 It’s a brilliantly themed resort isn’t it?
Home time to a world that drastically changed while you were there...

[JackyH]

What a wonderful trip you’ve all had. It must have been so strange to return to a life in lockdown. I hope you all stayed safe and well.