One more look at Art of Animation for no reason really. But we’re here. Might as well post? No one really cares about the cars at Car Masters Weekend anyway, right? I don’t know. I certainly don’t.
We’ll start at Downtown Disney’s Marketplace stop. It takes about 30 minutes to get to Art of Animation from here, including stops at Pleasure Island and Typhoon Lagoon.
I wasn’t too thrilled with the pictures of the animation walls last time. This one might be better. Bigger: https://www.easywdw.com/reports4/wallofanimation.jpg.
The lobby you’ve seen a million times already.
Over to the Landscape of Flavors back when it was pleasant. These pictures are from June 3rd, so we don’t have the masses here quite yet. And in “reality” the masses won’t arrive until the middle of September. Duck, cover, and roll.
Some interesting choices at the Create Your Own Pasta station. Bow Tie Pasta! Multi Grain Linguine =[ I would guess that they will change the sign to indicate that you can order shrimp or chicken or andoulle sausage along with the other toppings rather than all of the meats.
Fresh and pretty. It’s the best choice over at Port Orleans Riverside and I’m guessing one of the better choices here too.
You tell them what you want and they sizzle it up for you on the spot. No pre-cooked shrimp here!
Still stoked about the beer choices, even if they run like $6 each.
A closer look at the white wine choices.
And.
My original intention was to visit the Tandoori station for the shrimp or sausages, but realized it would be dumb to have a big meal at 2:30pm when I was headed to Tusker House for a 5:45pm reservation. In the full look at Landscape of Flavors, I said, “Check out that Cheesy Pesto Bread as a snack credit. Divine brought out poolside, I bet.”
Oh my science was this delicious. The cheese is melted fresh while you wait and the marinara sauce is excellent. If you’re staying at Art of Animation and have some snack credits, this is the epitome of a snack. Out of pocket it’s a decent value. It isn’t a ton of food for five bucks, but you could do a lot worse. Recommended either way. As I mentioned before, preparation is slow. It took a good five minutes to prepare/bake this and I was the only one in line.
The smoothie station menus have snack credits noted now:
Everything is a snack credit other than the smoothie.
For our purposes today, we’re interested in the gelato. Look at how the designs differ today from day one:
Not that it matters.
Flavors.
Toppings. This is another example of a station that’s going to take some time. I probably spent four minutes ordering as I looked over the flavors, sampled the torrone, and inquired about the toppings. I wasn’t sure what those pink ball things are or what’s going on in the lower left hand corner. Turns out they are strawberry sprinkles of some variety. Then the cast member very delicately spoons whatever you decide onto your concoction. Just a lengthy process.
The gelato in context. It isn’t a particularly large portion. Even at something like Coldstone Creamery you could expect about 5x as much at a similar price point.
Up close and personal. I tried the torrone with the little strawberry pearl things and some run of the mill sprinkles. Bite for bite, very good, though no better than the gelato you’d get from any sort of specialty ice cream shop, mall or otherwise. At $4.49, the price point is a little hard to swallow, but the portion size is certainly “sensible.” At five bucks a cup I’m not in a hurry to order another, but you’re on vacation!
Certainly very tasty as you can’t really go wrong with 100 grams of sugar and 400% of your daily saturated fat.
Looking outside, it’s a little sunnier than last time.
The pool that will only get more crowded. It was so nice when no one was here!
Wish they were mine.
Sooooooooooo jelly.
Nemo facts:
Around the pool:
No rhyme or reason and I’m too lazy to caption anything. But then you’re wondering if I really put any effort whatsoever into it? And if I do, it’s sort of sad?
What you can see of the Little Mermaid section from the Lion King section.
From the bridge that connects Art of Animation with Pop Century.
One last look.
Boring. Sorry.
Ok, I have to know. Do you go to Disney every day or are you just visiting the area now? And…you’re hilarious!
You’re not fooling anyone, I know you are putting (some) effort into it. Plus I’m sadder than you since you’re at AoA scoping things out.
I like the exteriors of AoA quite a bit – they did a great job with the design. Or do we consider AoA to be a moderate? Or maybe it’s some oddball hybrid between the values and the moderates. The thought of giant seagulls perched on giant faux pilings attached to the side of a hotel sounds ridiculous, but it works very well here IMO. Much better than, say the giant hockey sticks or even fantasia brooms over at the values.
@weepstah IMO I think it could be considered a hybrid (though it’s a straight up value) but if they ever build more value resorts I hope they do them like this. Of course it’s been nearly a decade since they slapped the last one up. Technology and Disney have a come a long way since then.
We always stay at the villas because we’re a large family, but this could be a good alternative for our short trips.
Don’t make it the last! Thanks for more great photos. Can’t wait to check the place out in person.
I love your web site. How do you get paid? Do you work for Disney directly?
I always follow the Treat Yo Self mentality at Disney. Which is probably why i usually gain weight while I’m there…
@weepstah Disney organizes AoA as a value resort. They aren’t marketing it any other way, at least right now.
“I love your web site. How do you get paid? Do you work for Disney directly?”
haha! I love it!! wait….
It’s technically a “Value Plus” which sounds like an excuse to charge more than the regular value resorts… although it seems to be much nicer than the other ones. Maybe the moniker is suitable.
I believe Josh works directly for Duffy the Disney bear, if memory serves. Kind of a dotted line thingy: Josh———-Duffy+++++Disney. Say, does Duffy pay well?
I hope this isn’t the last AoA update! If you get back at breakfast time can you photograph the menus and food stations? Thanks!!! 🙂
Tiki Tiki Tom Tom!
Wow the gelato looks tiny! they even seem to give you a tiny spoon otherwise you might stick the whole thing in your mouth in one go. I’m curious though are the cups on display so you know what your $4.49 is getting you? Or do you get the surprise thimble right at the cash register?
I’ll never get tired of AoA pictures! And that bread looks delicious. The CM in the food court let us try a sample of the gelato because I stared at it so long…I didn’t care for it, even though I LOVE ice cream. Then I found out later that gelato has a lower fat content than ice cream. Well that explains it!
Another Tusker House report, yay! We’re hitting AK on Monday to check out the Sundown(er) Celebration and all your TH posts swayed me to book dinner there that night. If I don’t enjoy it, I’ll expect a full refund check. You should have no problem paying it, since you work for the Evil Emperor Duffy and all!
Treat Yo Self! I LOVE “Parks & Recreation” – I have three seasons of it on dvd.
I said it before on an older thread but I don’t know if you saw it….the pool there at AoA (I assume there’s just the one so far, with the Nemo buildings?) has audio piped in underwater. Here, this time I found the link (YouTube) from my friend Jill’s FB page (hi Jill, if you’re reading): https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ffbAEtgjNxI
It’s mostly Ray the teacher, some Dory and Marlon quotes, etc. But you can only hear it underwater in the pool.
I would also love to know about the breakfast menus! 🙂
WOAH. The Little Mermaid section has exterior walkways?!
We may need to revive our “value” “motel” discussion from the POFQ walkabouts. 😉
But TBH that’s the only thing that really differentiates it from the Nemo buildings for me at this point, because the colors are so similar. I wonder – are the Little Mermaid buildings using the shells that were around 10 years ago when they had started doing the second half of POP, or did they not get that far, or was it completely raised before they started AoA?
Keri–yes, the Mermaid rooms are in structures that were fully built–?poured?–during the olden days when that area was meant to Pop’s version of the first half of the century. Animation hall was also completed then.
I believe that the other seven buildings had their foundations done then too, and so they follow the footprint planned for the second Pop. Using just one interior corridor instead of two exterior ones let the suites be a lil bigger (that is, longer) than would otherwise be the case…
Heather Sievers is not zzgator.
Who is zzgator?
Thanks, Dave! I’d remembered seeing photos from 5-10 years ago when people would sneak over the bridge to check things out, but when I started seeing pics of the new AoA, I couldn’t quite figure out if they’d just razed the whole thing to start over or not – the LM buildings reminded me of that.
I am going to watch Little Mermaid, Lion King, Cars and Nemo before I go in September. The last time I went to WDW it was twenty five and thirty degrees for the whole week YES IT WAS. It was like we never left NY. Thank you so much for all your information and funny reviews
I love these pictures!
I don’t understand the sign about Pixar building a tube 5 miles long.
Hey, your blog makes me happy, and wishing I could go tour the parks with you and all your glorious snarkiness. I’ll be there the end of September, wanna run the ToT 10 Miler with me? Lol
It’s beautiful, but very very blue. I think I’d get bored looking at that much blue for that long …
Ummm, the P&R reference has pushed my love for this website to an all time high.
hey Josh, those beers…my hubby is drooling…please tell me that we’ll be able to get them at POP too in November… LOVE your website!
Seriously, Parks and Rec “treat yo self” clip? Josh, you’ve really outdone yourself!!!!!!