OneTreeHillAddict's 14 night, free food, AOA Holiday Getaway, finally.

[OneTreeHillAddict]

Hello Disworld! It’s me again - OneTreeHillAddict. Yeah, the show is over and I am forever stuck with the name. I should have chosen something better, something Disney oriented, but who knew I’d be here for so many years. I went away @ 2009, but in the years prior to that I met some great people through the Disboards. Many are like family now. We have vacationed together, shared our darkest secrets with one another, and gotten smash faced together so there…best friends for life, right? Seriously, I love my Disfriends. So for those of you who are new to the Disboards, or new to my silly disname...My real name is Tammy. I’ve been going to WDW since 1982 and we go a lot! I’m a photographer/home school mama to three kiddies. I’m married to Sidney, who didn’t get to WDW until he was 22 years old. Yes, you heard that right - he was 22! (His parents must have hated him, actually they still do.) Anyway, hubby is a photographer too, one that specializes in fisheye/nighttime pictures. (Like you see here...)





He’s pretty good. His real job is his maintenance company though. That pays most of the bills around here. We have three kids: Christian is our oldest, he’s 13. Our middle child is Nikki, age 11, and our youngest is Caison. He’s 7 and is the biggest Disney fan out of the three children.


We’ve had 30-40ish family trips to WDW and have sailed on the Disney Dream and the Disney Wonder. We hope that 2013 brings us Disneyland! Things are looking good. Feel free to leave all the Disneyland tips you can think of. Pictures are welcome! Post some of yourself too, I love to see who all is reading along! Here are some of us.

My favorite picture from this past WDW trip



My teenager



My daughter



My baby



All three of them...



Boy oh boy did it take me a while to get this one started. It has been a busy time since this Disney vacation at the end of November through early December. This may have been our very last 15 day long WDW vacation. My oldest son told me that two weeks was just too long to stay at Disney. (I ordered a DNA kit to make sure he wasn’t switched in the hospital.) Other trips in 2012 included Beach Club/Port Orleans Royal Room in March, in June we went for a week with Christian’s best friend for Star Wars Weekends, in September we stayed a few nights prior to our Dream sailing, and finally this trip…the long one. Uh, I still can’t believe he said that. We had about 6 funfilled weeks with Disney in 2012. (Still not enough if you ask me)

This trip was a free dining adventure at the all new Art of Animation! This resort is fantastic! Absolutely gorgeous I must say. I felt like we were in a cartoon while staying there. We had so many adventures…a flying dragon, the parade taping, and tons of fun at the new Fantasyland opening. We will be touching base on a lot of stuff this time. I kept notes like the old days so yay, this one should be good. Finding the time to update will be my biggest problem. I will try my best to keep things updated regularly and entertaining.

We will start out with our resort...Art of Animation. Mermaid rooms.





We drive to Disney World and it takes us about 8 hours to get there. The iPhone makes it seem a lot less but hey, I don't do the driving, Sidney does. What do I know?

Normally we start driving in the middle of the night so we arrive in time to enjoy a whole day at Disney. Well, this time I refused to leave unless the house was clean. So I was a B word and had to get every little thing done before leaving. After four hours of sleep and about four hours of cleaning the house, we were finally on our way at 10:40 in the morning. We stopped for a fill up (2.98 a gallon on that date) and headed down the dreaded Hwy 378, aka "Roadkill Rd". I think we counted about 12 deer, no longer breathing, and lord knows how many other small creatures as we headed towards I95. Poor things. About 8 hours later we pulled up to the brand new Art of Animation!

We had walked over from Pop in June and a few things were up and running, not much though. Seeing the resort in November was a real wow factor. Disney did a great job on this one. I think my favorite part is the Cars section. I love them all, but that Cars pool is the cutest thing ever. I love the cozy cones.

Here's my Goofy husband taking a photo of himself in front of the pool



Isn't that pool great?

Whoa. It is 2:53 in the morning and I need to get going, but bookmark the page and come back. I have hundreds of pictures to share with you. Tomorrow we will continue with the BIG surprise of our first night. Until next time...

[OneTreeHillAddict]

Just in case I need it for something.

[LisaKeys]

First time I've been 1st. YAY!!! Looking forward to your TR.

[MEK]

I'm in! You know I absolutely love your photography so will definitely be following along!

[Tricia's mom]

I am in too......!!!!

[daisymomof4]

I'm going to jump in and follow along too! Been a member a while, but not much of a poster because we haven't had a WDW trip planned. Only been once, back in 2006. I am a DL veteran though

I just adore the fisheye photos and I'm looking forward to your TR!

[disneymom1980]

I'm here too....can't wait to hear all about the trip!

[Marsheliz]

Oh wow- those pictures are amazing!

Was there free dining in November too?

We have an 8 hour drive too :/

I'm the same way- I can't vacation unless I know my house is clean

[wdwgirl03]

Joining in. I still can't believe you spent 6 weeks in Disney last year. I am in awe.

[jecskc]

I'm in !!! Going back to read !!!

[wiigirl]

I am in.

[OneTreeHillAddict]

After what felt like forever we finally arrived at Art of Animation. We walked into the lobby and only one other person was there. The cast members looked bored out of their minds. The tiniest man came up to the podium to get us checked in. He looked like my friend Tiana's little brother, only her brother Brian is 7 feet tall. This fella had to come around to show us the map and stuff. He was too small to stretch across the check in desk. He was a pleasure to deal with, very nice guy.

Of course I started taking pictures right away.





Before I go on I have to say - I HATE THE NEW PHOTOBUCKET!!! Have they seriously lost their minds? Why do these companies insist on changing things that are perfect. They have made things so much harder to use with this new layout than I could have ever imagined. If anyone knows of a better place to upload pictures for trip reports please share.

Pictures of AOA will be out of order, not that it matters but still. This one of the check in area was taken on another night. One, PB decided to mix everything up so this was found towards the bottom of of album #1. Secondly the picture from check in night PB decided to eat, send to Africa, something. It's gone.

So here is the check in desk. It looks pretty cool. Reminds me of the 80's era.



Love this wall!



Oh wait. I may have found the picture from check in night...



Decorations...







We head back out to the truck, go find our room, and unload the luggage. The mermaid rooms looked to be empty. There were very cars in the parking lot and there didn't seem to be anyone around. It wasn't all that late and it was a weekend. Where was everyone?



The rooms are designed well. We loved them. After staying in the Port Orleans Royal rooms these were a little bit of a let down, but we still enjoyed them. The bathroom was gorgeous. Tile work with hidden Mickey's done in a gorgeous color scheme.

The curtain between the bathroom/bedroom was really cute. It kept falling off of its clips though. Watch out for that. We must have put that thing back together a dozen times.

I took a bunch of pictures before the surprise went down. I have a few to post.




























Continued in next post....

[OneTreeHillAddict]

After looking around the room for a bit, it was time to put our surprise plan in motion. We are never able to keep anything a secret. If something fun is coming up I just can't stand to hold it in, I have to tell my family. Well this time we kept the secret and we kept it for a while! Caison's birthday was a couple of days before we came to WDW. Nikki's birthday was the month before. I gave both the option of a big birthday party or something special at Disney. Some of their choices were water parks, Teppan Edo, tours etc. Both chose to do something special at WDW instead of the party. (We still had a small celebration at home, just not a big fancy party with invites and all that jazz.) So...we had a huge black trunk packed with gifts, decorations, you name it! They had no idea. They just assumed it was extra luggage and bedding (yes, we bring our own sheets, blankets, and pillows) so they didn't question anything.

We all left out of the room and headed towards the food court. "Oops, daddy forgot something." So he went back to the room and started to decorate. We had the gifts and all of that ready to go, but Sidney still had to blow up balloons, set everything in place, hang streamers, etc. This was a big event so it took him a while. Meanwhile the kids and I toured the resort, took some pictures, got our refillable mugs, and waited for Sidney in the food court. Felt like days!















Still waiting...















While walking around the resort we came across this fella...he was drawings characters with water!



He did a pretty good job too.









Someone else approves too.



Finally Sidney returns! We were all starving. The plan was to take the bus to DTD and grab dinner at Wolfgang Puck's Express. The hours were listed as closing at 1:00. WGPE actually closed at 11:00, not 1:00. We thought we had plenty of time so went to get our water parks and Disney Quest annual passes at guest services...okay my apologies but it is actually snowing here and I have to cut this short. Mama is not happy because the palm trees are gonna brown. I have to go make the best of it.

[cheekypoppins]

Hi i just found your tr YAY!!! I love it when I find them not too far in.lol @ the dna kit ,that was cute.I'm going to AOA very soon and can't wait to stay in my Ariel room

[Jfstorm]

Ack! you got snow too?!?
My son had to cancel a trip to Greenville due to the snow they had this afternoon. Nothing here in augusta but rain. Just hopped over from your cruise review as I'm looking forward to pics of the new fantasyland!!!!!! We were last there in August; so only got to see Storybook Circus. My little baby boy loved his first ride on Dumbo though!!! so I think I saw you guys in June, I especially seemed to remember Christian's hair! My oldest is Christian as well; but unfortunately i could never get his mom to let him grow his hair out after about 5 years old One more reason shes an -ex!! lol!
We were down in June for 2 weeks (one at Champions gate in a condo and one at POP); then I took just my boys back down for another 2 in August. We spent a good amount of time exploring AOA and loved it. I was never a big Cars fan (yup, a SC boy who doesn't like NASCAR) but after AOA and hearing about CARSland I re-watched it and have changed my mind. Now we have added DL to the before 18 bucket list for Christian. LM wing was still mostly fenced off in Aug, so nice to see what the finished product looks like. I think they did a great job decorating the room; it still seems to have a bit more "POP" than the other Value resorts. Hoping to see enough to conving my GF to let us spent the dough on AOA for this June's all family week! ( I get my son for 2 weeks in June and Aug. for vacation but her 2 boys can only spend half of it with us; we share an adorable little Mickey fanatic of 15 months between us. Yes, that means she has to tolerate 5 boys (including my overgrown kid self). Heart of gold even though shes a Georgia alum
well, looking forward to your posts, and I hope to FINALLY put together a TR that I will stick with for this Cruise as well as Spring Break, June WDW weeks, and (hope/maybee) a DL pilgramage in Aug. to the West coast. hoping to do a Fantasy cruise but will likely have to wait for the 2 oldest turning 18 for that special celebration. with 6 of us that will be major bucks!