Art of Animation v Polynesian

[nancybotwin]

We are planning a trip for early 2023. Kids will be 13, 9 and 6 when we go. We will probably be there close to a week. Would you stay at the Polynesian or at AoA? My sense is that the Poly might be nicer (?) but that AoA might have more room for the 5 of us to spread out. I would love any insights. I have not been to DW since 1996 and I have never stayed on property. 

[meganew]

I am a Polynesian super fan, so that's obviously my choice- but I've never been to AoA.

I will say the updated rooms at the Poly feel much bigger than the old ones did. We're only a family of 4 but I don't think we would have been cramped with another kid, honestly. The pool is amazing, the food at Kona and the poolside bar is great, the shops are wonderful, and the whole hotel just has a resort feel. Honestly the hotel was our kids favorite part. Lol.

[Wines Not Whines]

The Poly is probably my favorite Disney hotel. It’s much nicer than AOA, and the location can’t be beat. However, I’m not sure if it would feel cramped with 5 people.

[mrsslocombe]

I've never stayed at the Poly, but you can rent DVC points to get a 2 bedroom villa (if your budget allows for that). That would be my dream, if I could afford it.

I've stayed at AOA multiple times. I like the family suites a lot, it's nice to have the two bathrooms, the kitchenette, and all the extra space for your luggage. It also has the Skyliner, which is awesome. The main pool is great.

The food court is atrocious unfortunately. And it's a bit of a hike to get to MK, but the Skyliner is fast to get to Epcot and HS.

Personally, I think AOA is fine, I prefer to save the money on the hotel and spend it elsewhere. But we also do rope drop to close, so we spend very little time in the hotel.

[sent]

Would you consider a split stay? The Skyliner at AOA is super convenient to go to Hollywood Studios and Epcot. The monorail is super convenient to go to Magic Kingdom. I'd do 4 nights at AOA where we have Epcot/Holywood Studios/Animal Kingdom days and then 2 nights at Polynesian where we only have Magic Kingdom days. Disney will move your luggage between the resorts for you.

[nancybotwin]

Apr 20, 2022 8:41:19 GMT -5 sent said:

Would you consider a split stay? The Skyliner at AOA is super convenient to go to Hollywood Studios and Epcot. The monorail is super convenient to go to Magic Kingdom. I'd do 4 nights at AOA where we have Epcot/Holywood Studios/Animal Kingdom days and then 2 nights at Polynesian where we only have Magic Kingdom days. Disney will move your luggage between the resorts for you.

That’s an interesting idea. Though I’m not sure how I feel about packing and unpacking stuff (and we are also doing universal so we have one split stay already…) I think I’m talking myself out of this idea, though I’m intrigued…

[zarapipe]

We stayed at the poly once and it was amazing!!! We now have a family of 5 and worry it would be too small but haven’t ruled it out for our fall trip. I still remember the smell. It smells so good.

[nancybotwin]

Apr 20, 2022 11:41:53 GMT -5 zarapipe said:

We stayed at the poly once and it was amazing!!! We now have a family of 5 and worry it would be too small but haven’t ruled it out for our fall trip. I still remember the smell. It smells so good.

If you stay there with 5 people will you let me know?

[Wines Not Whines]

I’ll add something about transportation from the Poly. It’s on the resort monorail line to MK, but it’s also very close to the Ticket and Transportation Center (the main monorail hub), so you can walk over there to take the monorail directly to Epcot. That’s one of the reasons I prefer the Poly over the other MK hotels.

My last trip to WDW was several years ago, before the Skyliner was built, so I don’t have experience with that.

[EloiseWeenie]

We stayed at the Poly last month, and my kids are obsessed. My kids are 12, 10, and 3. The 12 year old got the pull down and fit fine. The bathroom has 2 sinks, and a separate toilet room. We did club level, so we had all meals in the lounge and never had to eat in our room. It also gave us an extra space to hang out. We used the bus and monorail, and had no major issues with transportation. Our travel times seemed to coincide with monorail safety/maintenance checks, so we had a longer wait. The hotel info part of the app tells you what time the bus will come. We made the 6:44AM bus to Animal Kingdom (those 7AM early hours are early!). The bus was about half full. We left AK around 11, and there were only a few others heading back to the hotel. I thought the Poly buses were great.

We have stays coming up at Yacht Club and Port Orleans Riverside in the next month. I wish Animal Kingdom Lodge and Wilderness Lodge were more families of 5 friendly.

[zarapipe]

Apr 20, 2022 15:55:23 GMT -5 nancybotwin said:

Apr 20, 2022 11:41:53 GMT -5 zarapipe said:

We stayed at the poly once and it was amazing!!! We now have a family of 5 and worry it would be too small but haven’t ruled it out for our fall trip. I still remember the smell. It smells so good.

If you stay there with 5 people will you let me know?

Sure will! Right now I’m leaning towards staying in a two bedroom suite at the home2suites at flamingo crossings. It’s less than half the price!

[nancybotwin]

Apr 20, 2022 16:19:21 GMT -5 EloiseWeenie said:

We stayed at the Poly last month, and my kids are obsessed. My kids are 12, 10, and 3. The 12 year old got the pull down and fit fine. The bathroom has 2 sinks, and a separate toilet room. We did club level, so we had all meals in the lounge and never had to eat in our room. It also gave us an extra space to hang out. We used the bus and monorail, and had no major issues with transportation. Our travel times seemed to coincide with monorail safety/maintenance checks, so we had a longer wait. The hotel info part of the app tells you what time the bus will come. We made the 6:44AM bus to Animal Kingdom (those 7AM early hours are early!). The bus was about half full. We left AK around 11, and there were only a few others heading back to the hotel. I thought the Poly buses were great.

We have stays coming up at Yacht Club and Port Orleans Riverside in the next month. I wish Animal Kingdom Lodge and Wilderness Lodge were more families of 5 friendly.

This is super helpful. Did the room feel squashed with 5 of you or would you do it again?

[EloiseWeenie]

Apr 20, 2022 19:24:22 GMT -5 nancybotwin said:

Apr 20, 2022 16:19:21 GMT -5 EloiseWeenie said:

We stayed at the Poly last month, and my kids are obsessed. My kids are 12, 10, and 3. The 12 year old got the pull down and fit fine. The bathroom has 2 sinks, and a separate toilet room. We did club level, so we had all meals in the lounge and never had to eat in our room. It also gave us an extra space to hang out. We used the bus and monorail, and had no major issues with transportation. Our travel times seemed to coincide with monorail safety/maintenance checks, so we had a longer wait. The hotel info part of the app tells you what time the bus will come. We made the 6:44AM bus to Animal Kingdom (those 7AM early hours are early!). The bus was about half full. We left AK around 11, and there were only a few others heading back to the hotel. I thought the Poly buses were great.

We have stays coming up at Yacht Club and Port Orleans Riverside in the next month. I wish Animal Kingdom Lodge and Wilderness Lodge were more families of 5 friendly.

This is super helpful. Did the room feel squashed with 5 of you or would you do it again?

I would totally do again, and sad they won't be offering discounts there anytime soon. There was so much storage, so we didn't have to have anything out which left the room feeling open. We even had our stroller in the room (we were 2nd floor, so no balcony/patio). While we were only at Poly for 3 days, we had been at the Fairfield for 5 days prior. We had a ton of luggage, and stuff, and there were places to put everything. Even the bathroom had lots of cubbies so we each had a spot for our toiletries. 

There are these benches at the end of the beds, and both my husband and son continued to whack their legs. That's their only complaint.

[midwestmama]

Poly is my and my family's favorite resort, hands down. (We haven't stayed at AoA, but have also stayed at Old Key West, Caribbean Beach, and Contemporary). Very convenient location (monorail stop at the resort and a short walk to the TTC, the buses to HS and AK were fine), not a huge resort (so getting to the main building and pool didn't take too long), the main pool is great, the on-site Dole Whip place is great, we liked the food at Captain Cook's (QS), and went to Kona Cafe and Ohana once each.

We rented DVC points for a DVC studio room. The best part was two bathrooms, which made getting ready in the morning so much faster. (That was in 2018, so not sure what renovated rooms are like.)

[ksun]

You can't even compare a deluxe and a value, but AoA is definitely convenient to Epcot and HS with the skyliner. But, the Poly is gorgeous and a monorail resort and has great food and drink options.

We've started doing split stays between either a moderate or value and a deluxe. Last trip it was between Caribbean Beach and Wilderness Lodge, this year it will be Pop and WL. I like the convenience of the skyliner for those park days.

[kitty]

We stayed 4 nights last week at the Poly as a family of 5. We were in a standard room on the 1st floor. We had DD (10) on the pull down, DS (8) and DS (5) sharing one queen bed and DH and I in the other queen bed. We emptied all of our stuff into the drawers and closets and stores the empty suitcases under the bed. We had plenty of physical space but it was a little challenging to get the kids to fall asleep. They noticed the sound of the monorail which you could see from our patio (but a strategic room request could possibly avoid that - we were 1st timers) and the sounds from the bathroom carried into the room. If I showered after the kids and wanted to blow dry my hair, DD complained that the blow dryer noise kept her up.

We aren’t usually big on staying in the same room but the convenience outweighed the cons. We loved being able to hop right on the monorail. One night we took the boat back from MK which the kids thought was exciting. I also liked that we could watch the fireworks right from the beach at the Poly (and they pipe the sound in). My kids also liked the water slide at the lava pool.

[nancybotwin]

Apr 26, 2022 13:36:41 GMT -5 kitty said:

We stayed 4 nights last week at the Poly as a family of 5. We were in a standard room on the 1st floor. We had DD (10) on the pull down, DS (8) and DS (5) sharing one queen bed and DH and I in the other queen bed. We emptied all of our stuff into the drawers and closets and stores the empty suitcases under the bed. We had plenty of physical space but it was a little challenging to get the kids to fall asleep. They noticed the sound of the monorail which you could see from our patio (but a strategic room request could possibly avoid that - we were 1st timers) and the sounds from the bathroom carried into the room. If I showered after the kids and wanted to blow dry my hair, DD complained that the blow dryer noise kept her up.

We aren’t usually big on staying in the same room but the convenience outweighed the cons. We loved being able to hop right on the monorail. One night we took the boat back from MK which the kids thought was exciting. I also liked that we could watch the fireworks right from the beach at the Poly (and they pipe the sound in). My kids also liked the water slide at the lava pool.

Thank you!! This is so helpful!!

[genet313]

We just stayed 8 nights at Poly in a balcony room with kids 7, 5 and 3. It was honestly fine. Ditto PPs about the storage there was plenty of that even with a stroller in room sometimes. The toilet closet helped with bathroom access a lot.

They are still young enough where my oldest was excited to be on the lull out and the younger 2 in the bed. Sleeping was ok because it was just “time to sleep everyone” at once and they were all exhausted so they fell asleep pretty quickly. We even had a nice family nap one afternoon . But it was not remotely conducive to any sort of intimacy with my husband which was annoying given the length of our trip!

We did have grandparents traveling in their own room but we rarely used that space. Kids slept with us every night.

We could not get club level this trip but I would not travel without it next trip as the kids will be older and the extra space will be invaluable. We never ate in the room more than a kid snack. But Given that housekeeping is every other day now, even having a snack in the room feels gross because of kid crumbs.

[genet313]

Also should add my kids LOVED the pool and the monorail was awesome. So easy. The resort itself is just so pretty and outside of the Moana stuff in the room the theming doesn’t scream “Disney” so you really feel “away”.

[nancybotwin]

Thank you genet313! I’m getting so excited for our trip ☺️

[TamiTaylor]

Apr 20, 2022 15:55:23 GMT -5 nancybotwin said:

Apr 20, 2022 11:41:53 GMT -5 zarapipe said:

We stayed at the poly once and it was amazing!!! We now have a family of 5 and worry it would be too small but haven’t ruled it out for our fall trip. I still remember the smell. It smells so good.

If you stay there with 5 people will you let me know?

I have personally stayed with 5 people. 4 adults and 1 child in a studio at the Poly. It’s doable for us. I even think we had a stroller at the time but maybe not.