Best time to see animals from Savannah View room at AKL?

[kcbutterfly]

We will be staying at AKL in a Savannah View room. In your experience, is there a time of time that is best for seeing animals from your balcony? Thanks!

 

[Simba's Mom]

From my experience, the best is after 4:30-6:30. Around 4:30 is when the animals get fed, and the food is put in areas that encourage the animals to be in view. After 6:30, you've got full bellies and not as much food left, so they're often just resting.

 

[fab1976]

We were there in April for one night and were so lucky to catch amazing animal viewing! I woke up before my family, we didn’t check in until midnight the night before but I was awake around 8:30 maybe? Went outside and had warthogs right there! It was so exciting lol. Then the giraffes came wandering in, then zebras, some gazelle type animals and some cattle with gigantic horns. We were in the room until 10:30 or so, the animals all rotated through at that time. Such an amazing experience.

 

[akfan513]

We’ve stayed multiple times and each room is different depending on locations, feeding schedule, etc. For example, we had one room where a couple giraffes came to sleep right outside our room at night and a different room where we saw giraffes more during the day because there was a feeding location that was filled at a particular time during the day outside our room. The animals definitely follow some patterns and you will get to be able to predict many of their routines after you are there a couple days. We’ve found that there are almost always animals to look at though! I’ve never been disappointed with a Savannah View Room at AKL! It’s magical!

 

[mmmears]

We saw lots of animals in the morning, but my favorite time to watch is late afternoon/early evening. One trip we watched the red river hogs tear up a line along the barrier - they were not following Disney protocol that night, but it was so funny to watch them hunting around in the upturned soil. They left a long “path of destruction” in their wake. Other nights we saw giraffe, a bongo who knew how to jump the barrier, and other assorted animals. AKL is amazing.

 

[MissionMouse]

Best time, as mentioned earlier, is the time of day when their fed. you will observe feeding stations out in the savannah. The later you will find trucks pulling up to them...with animals following them. After feeding times it is hit and miss. When temperatures rise, they seek comfort, which in all of our days resulted in them leaving line of sight. At night/early morning you might find some out...in our case it was giraffes who were trying to get a snack off some of the trees close to our room.

 

[joko513]

We were at AKL about 2 weeks ago for dinner at Boma, and we arrived early (around 6pm) to have drinks and walk around a bit. The animals were very active at that time - we sat in one of the elevated areas with the rocking chairs with our drinks and saw all of the animals multiple times!

 

[ears2BWV]

If you were to ask anyone in our family, the best time for viewing is whenever our family wasn't there. We were there for nearly a week with a savanna view and never once saw the giraffes outside our room. About the fourth night we had dining reservations at Sanaa, looked out the window and the observation area and you guessed it, all the giraffe were down by where our room was. We absolutely could not stop laughing.

 

[clayfolks]

We have had really good luck seeing giraffes at 2 am. If you happen to wake up in the middle of the night, take a look out your balcony.

 

[Anthony1971]

When you have your room look to see which Savannah you are on go to the main animal viewing area speak with one of the guides and they will let you know in general what time they feed the Animals... with that it is not uncommon to see them other times besides that. The morning around 7-9 seems to be the least active time for all as they do have checkups for the animals. In the end all of the Savannah's are connected and the animals are free roaming. The one place you will always see a lot is at the main viewing area around 5 and later as they want people coming for a visit to see all the animals.

 

[addiln]

When we were last there in July we had a great view of the animals in the morning with our coffee between 7-8:30. Also early evening as well. During the middle of the day not much was going on from our view.

 

[sndral]

...In the end all of the Savannah's are connected and the animals are free roaming. The one place you will always see a lot is at the main viewing area around 5 and later as they want people coming for a visit to see all the animals.

FYI, although there is access between the savannas it is fenced & gated so the animals do not roam from one savanna to another at will. When you drive from savanna to savanna the CM has to jump out of the truck and unlock the gates before the truck can drive through.
From a husbandry perspective there are animals who do not get along & they need to keep them separated from each other. Plus there are animals they do want to breed that need to be together and animals they don’t want to breed that need to be kept apart. Animals do get moved by husbandry from one savanna to another and to/from AK park to AKL depending on current needs/concerns, IMO it is nice that WDW has so many options for housing their animals to better accommodate the animal's needs.
My avatar, Gordon, is a case where he started at AK park, but became too friendly w/ the Kilimanjaro safari trucks, so they moved him to AKL Uzima savanna where he developed the habit of hanging too close to the gate which exits the savanna area waiting for the trucks to show up, so they moved him to Arusha savanna, the middle savanna, so at least if he made it through the gate he'd end up in another savanna rather than a parking lot
In terms of viewing be aware the animals are called into their barns each morning so there will be an hour to hour and a half when there will be no animals on a particular savanna.
Arusha and Uzima share a barn so they do one savanna’s animals then empty the barn and call in the other savanna’s animals. Sunset has it’s own barn - as does Pembe, but my impression was (from 3 Wanyamas and 1 lunch w/ animal specialist) that they empty the savannas one after the other whether they share a barn or not, so if one savanna is empty then the others should all have animals on them.

 

[Best Aunt]

In terms of viewing be aware the animals are called into their barns each morning so there will be an hour to hour and a half when there will be no animals on a particular savanna.
Arusha and Uzima share a barn so they do one savanna’s animals then empty the barn and call in the other savanna’s animals. Sunset has it’s own barn - as does Pembe, but my impression was (from 3 Wanyamas and 1 lunch w/ animal specialist) that they empty the savannas one after the other whether they share a barn or not, so if one savanna is empty then the others should all have animals on them.

I'm quoting this because that's what I was going to say. If your room faces a certain savanna, and the animals on that savanna are always called into the barn at a certain time each morning - if that's when you are having coffee on your balcony every morning, you might see no animals at that time of day.

 

[ConnecticutNonna]

FYI, although there is access between the savannas it is fenced & gated so the animals do not roam from one savanna to another at will. When you drive from savanna to savanna the CM has to jump out of the truck and unlock the gates before the truck can drive through.
From a husbandry perspective there are animals who do not get along & they need to keep them separated from each other. Plus there are animals they do want to breed that need to be together and animals they don’t want to breed that need to be kept apart. Animals do get moved by husbandry from one savanna to another and to/from AK park to AKL depending on current needs/concerns, IMO it is nice that WDW has so many options for housing their animals to better accommodate the animal's needs.
My avatar, Gordon, is a case where he started at AK park, but became too friendly w/ the Kilimanjaro safari trucks, so they moved him to AKL Uzima savanna where he developed the habit of hanging too close to the gate which exits the savanna area waiting for the trucks to show up, so they moved him to Arusha savanna, the middle savanna, so at least if he made it through the gate he'd end up in another savanna rather than a parking lot
In terms of viewing be aware the animals are called into their barns each morning so there will be an hour to hour and a half when there will be no animals on a particular savanna.
Arusha and Uzima share a barn so they do one savanna’s animals then empty the barn and call in the other savanna’s animals. Sunset has it’s own barn - as does Pembe, but my impression was (from 3 Wanyamas and 1 lunch w/ animal specialist) that they empty the savannas one after the other whether they share a barn or not, so if one savanna is empty then the others should all have animals on them.

GREAT INFO, THANK YOU!!!