gumdrop
<font color=FF66FF>Believes in Magic!<br><font col
- Joined
- Jun 14, 2001
Hi Everyone!
Well, the honeymoon really is over and back to reality. The wedding was wonderful and honeymoon at AKL was even better. The resort really exceeded my expectations and it is definetly my new favorite!
We had originally booked a standard view room with the Fairytale Package and that was the best we could afford, so we were fine with that and not anticipating an upgrade of any kind. We arrived around 1:00 pm and saw that there was no line to check-in and walked right up to the desk. A very friendly CM told us congratulations on our new marriage and that we should start it off right with a king bed room on the savanna! WOW! I was totally surprised and shrieked a lot--I really embarrassed Michael! And another plus, our room was ready and waiting.
We were in a second floor room (2235) on the Kudu trail, which is on the left side of the resort if you are walking towards the back of the lobby by the window. The animals were there constantly from the moment we walked into the room until the day we left. This was the first time that we spent most of our vacation at the resort rather than at the parks. We were both enthralled by the animals, details, and culture of the resort. We did a lot of exploring. From our room we could see Ankole cattle, giraffes, zebras, wildebeasts, kudus, pelicans, etc. Arusha rock was just to the right of our balcony view and so was the pelican pond. There was always a little bit of everything and they came so close to the border of the savanna. We also explored the other savanna lookouts. We saw a lot from the sunset lookout off the lobby and the one by the pool with the flamingos.
The room itself was in wonderful condtion. No housekeeping problems nor were there any bugs. The room was always cleaned promptly and we got complimentary turn down service each night without requesting it. Maybe that was a honeymoon perk too, I'm not sure.
We ate at all of the resort restaurants. We ate most of our meals at the Mara and got a mug--that was the most convient place for a quick bite. Food was good for a quickservice restaurant and they had a lot to choose from. We did the breakfast buffet at Boma. While it was good, it wasn't worth it for us since we're not big breakfast eaters (now that I think back on it, I'm not sure why we went for breakfast!) We basically got eggs and bacon and forced ourselves to go up twice to try to get our money's worth. We could have gotten the Mara's breakfast platter with the same things that we chose for 5.99. We did not eat there for the dinner buffet because it was always insanely crowded. We did try Jiko for dinner and that was wonderful. Food and service were excellent. We had a BBQ flatbread for appetizer, Michael had filet mignon and I had salmon.
Other things...The pool was a lot of fun and HUGE! Always plenty of chairs to go around, so no problem there. We liked that there were 2 hot tubs and tried both! The resort never really seemed busy or noisy. It was so quiet on the savanna, the pool was relaxing, even the Mara was not chaotic. Bus service was ok--not the greatest. But please note that we did not go to the parks in the morning when more busses are needed. We mainly went out after dinner when there was a bus every 15 minutes or so. Coming back home from the parks was just ok too--it always seemed like everyone else was getting picked up but us. Coming back from Pleasure Island we waited around for 1/2 hour and we were just about to take a cab back when the bus finally showed. At the Studios when we were ready to go back, an AKL bus came by twice to drop off, but for some reason, changed the destination sign to "special" and drove off. It was a long ride to MK and DTD--about 20 minutes each way. This was no problem for us, but just want to let you know if you need to plan for PS or anything in those areas.
Definetly plan to do a lot of resort exploring when you stay here. It truly is an amazing place to stay. We really didn't miss the parks at all and didn't go to AK because we had the animals right outside our window. I'd be happy to answer any questions!
Well, the honeymoon really is over and back to reality. The wedding was wonderful and honeymoon at AKL was even better. The resort really exceeded my expectations and it is definetly my new favorite!
We had originally booked a standard view room with the Fairytale Package and that was the best we could afford, so we were fine with that and not anticipating an upgrade of any kind. We arrived around 1:00 pm and saw that there was no line to check-in and walked right up to the desk. A very friendly CM told us congratulations on our new marriage and that we should start it off right with a king bed room on the savanna! WOW! I was totally surprised and shrieked a lot--I really embarrassed Michael! And another plus, our room was ready and waiting.
We were in a second floor room (2235) on the Kudu trail, which is on the left side of the resort if you are walking towards the back of the lobby by the window. The animals were there constantly from the moment we walked into the room until the day we left. This was the first time that we spent most of our vacation at the resort rather than at the parks. We were both enthralled by the animals, details, and culture of the resort. We did a lot of exploring. From our room we could see Ankole cattle, giraffes, zebras, wildebeasts, kudus, pelicans, etc. Arusha rock was just to the right of our balcony view and so was the pelican pond. There was always a little bit of everything and they came so close to the border of the savanna. We also explored the other savanna lookouts. We saw a lot from the sunset lookout off the lobby and the one by the pool with the flamingos.
The room itself was in wonderful condtion. No housekeeping problems nor were there any bugs. The room was always cleaned promptly and we got complimentary turn down service each night without requesting it. Maybe that was a honeymoon perk too, I'm not sure.
We ate at all of the resort restaurants. We ate most of our meals at the Mara and got a mug--that was the most convient place for a quick bite. Food was good for a quickservice restaurant and they had a lot to choose from. We did the breakfast buffet at Boma. While it was good, it wasn't worth it for us since we're not big breakfast eaters (now that I think back on it, I'm not sure why we went for breakfast!) We basically got eggs and bacon and forced ourselves to go up twice to try to get our money's worth. We could have gotten the Mara's breakfast platter with the same things that we chose for 5.99. We did not eat there for the dinner buffet because it was always insanely crowded. We did try Jiko for dinner and that was wonderful. Food and service were excellent. We had a BBQ flatbread for appetizer, Michael had filet mignon and I had salmon.
Other things...The pool was a lot of fun and HUGE! Always plenty of chairs to go around, so no problem there. We liked that there were 2 hot tubs and tried both! The resort never really seemed busy or noisy. It was so quiet on the savanna, the pool was relaxing, even the Mara was not chaotic. Bus service was ok--not the greatest. But please note that we did not go to the parks in the morning when more busses are needed. We mainly went out after dinner when there was a bus every 15 minutes or so. Coming back home from the parks was just ok too--it always seemed like everyone else was getting picked up but us. Coming back from Pleasure Island we waited around for 1/2 hour and we were just about to take a cab back when the bus finally showed. At the Studios when we were ready to go back, an AKL bus came by twice to drop off, but for some reason, changed the destination sign to "special" and drove off. It was a long ride to MK and DTD--about 20 minutes each way. This was no problem for us, but just want to let you know if you need to plan for PS or anything in those areas.
Definetly plan to do a lot of resort exploring when you stay here. It truly is an amazing place to stay. We really didn't miss the parks at all and didn't go to AK because we had the animals right outside our window. I'd be happy to answer any questions!
)
Glad you enjoyed the place!
