Day 1
Checking In
Some of you already know that were early risers (or at least I am). I wanted to make sure we were on the road by 7am, but we didnt leave until 7:30ish
already behind schedule! Dads making the picture
do you notice who is missing??? Poor Bill
he couldnt get off work, bless his heart. Of course hes probably thinking
3 days without screaming kids!!
We stopped for breakfast
and made it quick!
Hit the road once again
.headed to the World! Ignore the speed on the GPS
.Im quite sure its inaccurate.
Finally
Disney World is in our sights! The weather isnt looking good, but any rainy day at the World is better than a sunny day at home.
And what true Disney Fan doesnt get the obligatory shot of the infamous marker?? Theres just something about driving under Walt Disney World that makes the trip come alive! To this day, I still get excited when I see it!
Now were really close because we all spot
.(
can you hear the loud screams of excited children....and perhaps an adult or two?!)
When we drove into the Animal Kingdom Lodge area, we immediately felt like we were in another country
.it soooooo did not look like Florida! The architecture and foliage were perfectly laid out to resemble Africa.
We pulled up to the guard shack and were instantly greeted with Welcome Home! When we gave the security guard our names, he immediately called the lodge and stated that he had 2 parties of Club Level guest that would be arriving within minutes. He kindly told us to drive up to the Lodge and a Concierge Cast Member would be greeting us and taking us directly to the lounge for check-in.
He was correct! Before I could even open the door of the van, there was someone there waiting. They loaded our luggage onto a cart and swept it away. The very friendly cast member then told us a little about the Lodge, and we followed her into the resort.
Beautiful fresh flowers welcomed us in
the arrangements throughout the resort were just stunning.
Our Concierge hostess spoke a bit more about the lodge while we stood inside, then she took us to the elevator to go check-in on the 6th floor.
Sorry this isnt a better picture
we were in a hurry
. But, you can see our hostess over to the side kindly escorting us the entire way. Im sure Ill say this time and time again, but every cast member we met at AKL were extremely friendly!! We are still talking about the hospitality shown throughout our stay
probably some of the
best weve encountered at WDW
.seriously.
Would you believe that I didnt get any pictures while checking in
.or should I say,
MOM didnt get any pictures while dad and I were checking in. Of course she was running after 3 very excited children...so Ill let her off the hook. I believe she was prying their little hands off the chocolate chip cookies while we chatted with concierge staff.
Dad did manage to get this shot from the 6th floor
basically this is the view from the lounge. The lobby area is quite impressive.
They told us that we would be staying on the 4th floor on the
.
This is an old aerial view
(notice that the Villas arent over to the left of the picture)
but will give you a visual of where our room was located. We had a great view of the Savannah (more on that later...with lots of pictures
)
Our rooms were not ready, but no big deal. We kinda expected that since it was noon when we checked in. We had lunch ressies at TRex so it worked out perfectly. The concierge staff said they would text me with the room number when the room was ready.
We looked around briefly, but then decided to go ahead and drive over to DTD and eat lunch.