This will be my trip report for May 9- May 13 2017. Along for the trip was me, (Dad), my beautiful wife, my three year old daughter, and my mother in law. We stayed at art of Animation in a Finding Nemo Suite (Finding Dory, according to my daughter). I planned the whole trip with ALOT of help from these forums, so I wanted to give a recount of our trip.
Tuesday May 9 – Day 1
Our flight out of Columbus was at 7AM. Plane ride was great, and we even got in early to Orlando. Took the Magical Express, and walked right on to the bus, and AoA was the first stop. Got the “room wasn’t ready” text so we donned our swim suits and headed to the big blue pool! The pool was great, zero entry, and my daughter LOVED it! She isn’t the greatest swimmer so I had to be with her the entire time, but she was singing all day long in the pool, and every once in awhile headed over to the splash pad.
After a couple of hours in the pool, we ate lunch at the resort, and I went to reception to check on our room. I requested a high level room, with a view of hour glass lake, they said they could get me in a room, if I forgo my request. My daughter still takes a nap, and I needed to get her to bed, so I ended up with a first floor room in building 4. It looked out onto the playground near the big blue pool. Not too much noise from the outside, but you could hear the doors being shut from the other rooms every once in awhile. The room was great, beds comfy, and the two bathrooms worked out great for getting ready in the morning. My daughter kept on saying “fish are friends, not food” every time she walked in the bathroom. Fish are friends is printed on the mirror in both bathrooms.
After her nap, we all got ready and headed to dinner at Ohana. We took the bus to the Magic Kingdom and then jumped on the monorail to the Polynesian. This place was awesome (the hotel and restaurant). Next trip I take to the world, I am staying at the Poly. We had an ADR at 5:30 PM and arrived a little before, and were seated about 5:40pm. Our view at the table:
Dinner was great, my wife had a Mai Tai or two, while I had two or four glasses of wine. I am not a hug fan of coconut, and was a little iffy of the bread at first, but it was really good, couldn’t taste any coconut what so ever. The salad was great, and the dressing made this salad. Th noodles, wings and pot stickers were awesome. Everything that came out trumped the other. The steak was so tender, I could cut it with a butter knife and the chicken was very juicy. The only negative I have is the shrimp still had the shells on them, and I think they would taste even better if they deshelled them and then cooked them with the marinade. They were still great though. After we had enough meat and sides, they cleared our table and brought some warm towels to wash up. The highlight of the dinner was dessert. They brought two cupcakes with M&Ms for my daughter and also this masterpiece:
This.Was.Awesome! If you go here, make sure you save room for this. Totally worth it, and they could only serve this and I would be fine with the price. We had a great time, and I have vowed to have an OHana dinner at my house sometime in the near future.
After dinner we Ubered back to the hotel, and headed to bed, our first day at the parks was going to be an early one.
Coming up on Day 2: Cinderella’s Royal Table, princesses, Touring Plans, princesses, Cosmic Rays, and more princesses…