rangerxenos
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2008
Have decided to take the plunge and do my first trip report after about a dozen trips to Disney World since the mid 1970s, (which is when I took my first trip) back when there was only the Magic Kingdom. I'm a photographer, so you'll see lots of photos during this trip report!
Our cast for this trip, myself, the Disney obsessed half of this trip, and my DH, the one who tolerates his wife’s Disney obsession. He’s the one who listened to my pleas back in February after we had gotten buried under another snowstorm, to get me the hell out of New England and someplace warm. I offered Disney up as a suggestion, since it’s an easy 3 hour nonstop plane ride for us from Connecticut; as he’s not fond of flying, I think he agreed figuring it was the lesser of the evils he had to choose from.
What we looked like most of the Winter:
Since he loves his wife, he told me I could stay anywhere I wanted for this trip. Since he knows that I’m frugal/cheap/<insert your favorite term here>, I’m thinking he figured that I wouldn’t go insane and book the Grand Floridian or the Polynesian, and he was correct! (We’ve been married over 20 years, he knows me too well, LOL!) I’m a relatively new convert to staying on property; despite taking a lot of trips to the Happiest Place On Earth, for most of them we stayed off property. Disney dragged me over to the Dark Side back in 2012, when I traveled with friends and stayed at Pop Century. I haven’t stayed off property since, it’s just too damned convenient!
But I digress. (You’ll notice that I do that a lot.) I first checked out Coronado Springs Resort, as we loved it when we stayed there for my 50th birthday trip in 2013. Unfortunately they were booked for the dates we wanted, so my search continued. Since I have always wanted to stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge, having visited there a few times over the past couple of years for dinner, I decided to check out the prices with the room discount Disney was offering. After having an internal conversation with myself for a few days, and going back and forth, I talked my frugal self into booking a standard room at AKL for our trip. It being a last minute trip, I had exactly one, count ‘em, one day from booking the trip to having to pay for it in full, a first for me!
Two months and a lot more snow later, we were packed and ready to go. Since DH agreed to go on this trip even though he’s not a huge Disney fan, I tried to make some concessions and not run ourselves ragged. I’m an early riser, rope drop type, he is DEFINITELY not. For all my past trips, we’ve taken the 6 am flight out of Bradley, which means getting up at 3 a.m. so that we can make it to the airport in time. We did the 10 a.m. flight this time, which actually made for a much more relaxed flight out – we could get up at 5:30 instead of 3, and there were no lines at the airport, which was great!
But I digress. It was a balmy 37 degrees when we left the house on Thursday morning. (See why I really needed to get someplace warm?!) When we landed in Orlando, it was hot. When I say hot, I mean REALLY HOT. The ongoing theme for our trip was, ‘But it’s not supposed to be this hot in April down here.’ Everyone down there kept telling us that. It’s probably the hottest it’s been when I’ve been down there, low 90s and very humid for most of our trip.
We arrived in Orlando, picked up our luggage and rental car, and off we went to Animal Kingdom Lodge, arriving about half an hour before official check in time. It poured for most of our trip to the resort, but we lucked out and it stopped by the time we arrived, so we didn’t have to unload our luggage in the rain.
I had done the Online Check-in a few weeks before we left, and one of my choices had been Kudu Trail when I went online. In looking at the map, it looked like that was a Savannah view area, so I checked it, hoping for some Pixie Dust since we had booked a Standard room. I was so delighted when we got to our room to find that we had an absolutely perfect view of the Arusha Savannah! We had a pretty long walk to our room, but I didn’t care, I got to wake up each morning and watch giraffes, zebras, wildebeest, ostriches, and other wonderful creatures right outside my room. It was AMAZING! It seems to me that there are only two entrances and exits to Jambo and Kidani, which makes sense because of the Savannahs on the inside, hence the long walk. It really was only an issue when we got back from the parks really tired of walking.
The view outside our room:
The lobby of AKL
I fell in love with AKL this trip, it has spoiled me for future stays. The whole place is beautiful. The pool and hot tubs were wonderful, we never had to wait more than ten minutes for a bus, and we were only a ten minute drive from lots of restaurants and stores. That was what initially had me worried about staying here, everyone always says how far it is from everything; because we did not have the dining plan, we ate a lot of our meals outside of the resort and parks.
I never tired of going out on the balcony to see what was wandering past the room; at one point there was a small parade walking down the paths, it was like the Lion King in real life!
Trip report continues here:
Day 2 Disney Hollywood Studios The 'I Can Stay ANYWHERE I want?' AKL, Here We Come! Trip Report April 23 – 30, 2015
Our cast for this trip, myself, the Disney obsessed half of this trip, and my DH, the one who tolerates his wife’s Disney obsession. He’s the one who listened to my pleas back in February after we had gotten buried under another snowstorm, to get me the hell out of New England and someplace warm. I offered Disney up as a suggestion, since it’s an easy 3 hour nonstop plane ride for us from Connecticut; as he’s not fond of flying, I think he agreed figuring it was the lesser of the evils he had to choose from.
What we looked like most of the Winter:
Since he loves his wife, he told me I could stay anywhere I wanted for this trip. Since he knows that I’m frugal/cheap/<insert your favorite term here>, I’m thinking he figured that I wouldn’t go insane and book the Grand Floridian or the Polynesian, and he was correct! (We’ve been married over 20 years, he knows me too well, LOL!) I’m a relatively new convert to staying on property; despite taking a lot of trips to the Happiest Place On Earth, for most of them we stayed off property. Disney dragged me over to the Dark Side back in 2012, when I traveled with friends and stayed at Pop Century. I haven’t stayed off property since, it’s just too damned convenient!
But I digress. (You’ll notice that I do that a lot.) I first checked out Coronado Springs Resort, as we loved it when we stayed there for my 50th birthday trip in 2013. Unfortunately they were booked for the dates we wanted, so my search continued. Since I have always wanted to stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge, having visited there a few times over the past couple of years for dinner, I decided to check out the prices with the room discount Disney was offering. After having an internal conversation with myself for a few days, and going back and forth, I talked my frugal self into booking a standard room at AKL for our trip. It being a last minute trip, I had exactly one, count ‘em, one day from booking the trip to having to pay for it in full, a first for me!
Two months and a lot more snow later, we were packed and ready to go. Since DH agreed to go on this trip even though he’s not a huge Disney fan, I tried to make some concessions and not run ourselves ragged. I’m an early riser, rope drop type, he is DEFINITELY not. For all my past trips, we’ve taken the 6 am flight out of Bradley, which means getting up at 3 a.m. so that we can make it to the airport in time. We did the 10 a.m. flight this time, which actually made for a much more relaxed flight out – we could get up at 5:30 instead of 3, and there were no lines at the airport, which was great!
But I digress. It was a balmy 37 degrees when we left the house on Thursday morning. (See why I really needed to get someplace warm?!) When we landed in Orlando, it was hot. When I say hot, I mean REALLY HOT. The ongoing theme for our trip was, ‘But it’s not supposed to be this hot in April down here.’ Everyone down there kept telling us that. It’s probably the hottest it’s been when I’ve been down there, low 90s and very humid for most of our trip.
We arrived in Orlando, picked up our luggage and rental car, and off we went to Animal Kingdom Lodge, arriving about half an hour before official check in time. It poured for most of our trip to the resort, but we lucked out and it stopped by the time we arrived, so we didn’t have to unload our luggage in the rain.
I had done the Online Check-in a few weeks before we left, and one of my choices had been Kudu Trail when I went online. In looking at the map, it looked like that was a Savannah view area, so I checked it, hoping for some Pixie Dust since we had booked a Standard room. I was so delighted when we got to our room to find that we had an absolutely perfect view of the Arusha Savannah! We had a pretty long walk to our room, but I didn’t care, I got to wake up each morning and watch giraffes, zebras, wildebeest, ostriches, and other wonderful creatures right outside my room. It was AMAZING! It seems to me that there are only two entrances and exits to Jambo and Kidani, which makes sense because of the Savannahs on the inside, hence the long walk. It really was only an issue when we got back from the parks really tired of walking.
The view outside our room:
The lobby of AKL
I fell in love with AKL this trip, it has spoiled me for future stays. The whole place is beautiful. The pool and hot tubs were wonderful, we never had to wait more than ten minutes for a bus, and we were only a ten minute drive from lots of restaurants and stores. That was what initially had me worried about staying here, everyone always says how far it is from everything; because we did not have the dining plan, we ate a lot of our meals outside of the resort and parks.
I never tired of going out on the balcony to see what was wandering past the room; at one point there was a small parade walking down the paths, it was like the Lion King in real life!
Trip report continues here:
Day 2 Disney Hollywood Studios The 'I Can Stay ANYWHERE I want?' AKL, Here We Come! Trip Report April 23 – 30, 2015
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We went around the same time. We'd planned the trip long before the winter got bad but we were really looking forward to the warm weather by the time April rolled around. It looks like you had a great room despite the long walks. I'm looking forward to hearing more about the trip and seeing your photos. 
