Hi Andy. I have been enjoying this thread so much. I am a first timer and have gotten so much valuable information from all of you. I will be going with 4 adults and 2 kids. We all want to stay in the same room since our littles (ages 3&5) will likely go to sleep earlier than the rest of us and we don't want to have to leave someone sitting with them in the dark. We were all set on staying in a FW Cabin, but with the rumored dining plan changes an ASMu Suite or AoA Suite are other possibilities. Recommendations? What order would you put the suites in? Thanks for all your help! Glad to see I'm not alone in all my crazy planning.
There are so many different ways to rank these three options!
Size of room alone- 1) AoA-565, 2) ASMu- 520, 3) Cabin- 504
Bed options- 1) cabin- queen, bunk beds, full pull out, 2) AoA- queen, full pull out, full pull down Murphy, 3) ASMu- queen, full pull out, sleeper chair, sleeper ottoman (seems like the best room set up with little ones going to bed early would be cabins in the bunk bed because you can close the door and still have the living room to hang out in as well as the private deck. With ASMu and AoA, the kids will most likely be sleeping in the living room.)
Theming- 1) AoA by a long shot, 2) cabins, 3) ASMu (2 & 3 are preference, but figure kids might find idea of sleeping in a cabin/ camping cooler than a music theme)
Resort Activities- 1) cabins (carriage rides, wagon rides, pony rides, chip n Dale Campfire), other two resorts are probably about equal
Price- 1) ASMu, other two are similar depending on dates
Several other factors to consider such as transportation and food options which I can't really offer opinions on, as well as pools- only the cabins have pools slides and hot tub but the other two have better theming, especially AoA. Cabins offer boat transportation to MK but have an internal bus that you have to transfer off of to transfer to another bus to the theme parks. Cabins have 1 bath and a stove and full size fridge, AoA and ASMu have 2 baths, no stove, and a mini fridge. With AoA and ASMu you have neighbors on the other side of the wall, whereas the cabins are separate structures so less worry of neighbors disturbing you/ you disturbing them and you have your own deck outside to hang out on when kids are in bed.
My personal order of preference would be 1) cabins, 2) AoA, 3) ASMu. I just don't really see much benefit to ASMu over the other two except a slightly lower price, and for me, I think the privacy of the cabin, plus the water slides, hot tub, boat to MK, and resort amenities outweigh the theming and 2 baths at AoA, but obviously others may feel differently on that one.
if the rumors are true and the free dining offer goes as speculated we will not be going this year. We will do our backup plan.
