ariane37
Dis veteran
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2012
Welcome everyone, as I begin my 2nd TR before my 1st is even 50% complete! My DH Steve and I returned on Jan. 20th from a (too short) 5 night kid-free trip to our favorite home away from home, and we had such a great time I wanted to share it here. Plus, we attended the very first night of Club Villain over at Hollywood Studios and - spoiler alert - it was frightfully fabulous! Since right now it's only scheduled to last a few weekends, I thought some of you villains fans that can't make it down for this event might appreciate a review.
Let me start with some introductions.
I'm Ariane, and as I mentioned above my husband and Disney obsession supporter is Steve. We have 4 boys; 2 are my stepsons whom I failed to mention in my first TR and I feel guilty about that, so while I don't have any pictures let me introduce Jason (27)and Eric (24). Our younger 2 who sat this trip out are Ricky (13) and Chris (10)
Before I go any further I'm going to apologize for the HUGE pictures I'll be posting, I have yet to figure out how to shrink'em. I know it's annoying so if you stick with me, I truly thank you!
So we were just there with the kids over Thanksgiving but even before that we had decided to do one more trip by ourselves before our AP's expire in March. We'd gone alone last March and discovered the joys of kid-free Disney and were anxious to do it again!
We picked MLK weekend mainly because it worked for my mom who would be watching the boys most of the time we were gone. She works for our local Girl Scout council and, believe it or not, works some CRAZY long hours including nights and weekends. I know but seriously, you'd think she had some high-paying corporate job or something the way she works. So that weekend worked and plane fares were good. We're big on renting DVC points and even though we only started looking about 7 months out, we were able to stay at 2 new-to-us resorts I'd been wanting to try, AKV and the Poly!! Steve wasn't quite as thrilled; he's old and stuck in his ways. His Disney way being staying at the BWV, but our Nov. experience wasn't stellar and I really want to try (just about) all the resorts. So here's what we were looking at:
Jan. 15-18th, standard studio AKV Jambo House
Jan. 18-20th, standard studio Poly villas
I was thrilled! I spent 7 months telling Steve he wouldn't be disappointed and promising we'd go back to the BW if these resorts really stunk. Hey, sometimes ya gotta tell them what they want to hear........
Fast forward to Jan. 15th! Our flight was scheduled to leave out of White Plains at 3:15 and my stepson Jason dropped us off. Everything was great until the pilot announced we were TENTH in line for takeoff and we sat there for an hour. So, instead of landing at 6:07 it was 7:00. And then we sat on the ME about 25 minutes which isn't horrendous but could be better. However, all was well when I saw this
Picture is blurry but it's always clear as day in my head! What was really cool was that we were able to see some of the Star Wars fireworks at HS from the ME bus, and they looked super cool.
We really wanted to go to our room (we'd gotten our room ready text before leaving for the airport) and drop our bags before our 8:45 ADR at Sanaa, but Sanaa is in Kidani, we were in Jambo and we pulled up to AKL at 8:50. So we went right to the restaurant and were seated within 5 minutes, which was great because we were starving! We'd been to Sanaa twice for lunch but never dinner. We were craving their bread service and I wanted me some butter chicken!
First things first though: drinks. Steve went for his customary Grey Goose on the rocks with olives and I decided to try the Pina Colava. It was deee-licious, like a Pina Colada with raspberry in it.
The color was actually a lighter, prettier pink than the picture shows.
Next we ordered their Naan bread service for an appetizer. You can either get all the dips (9 or 11, I forgot already!) or pick 3 which is what we did. We got all of them the last time and a few weren't to our taste, so we went with the cucumber raita, coriander chutney, and garlic pickle. You get 5 breads and they are all different also but all I remember is a plain one, a garlicky one and a really freakin' spicy one lol.
Yes, we started eating before I took the picture! I know this isn't technically a dining report but Steve and I love our food and we ate some really good stuff on this trip, so I'm going to share my food pics even though some may be half-eaten stuff.
I ordered my good old butter chicken x2 with basmati rice for an entrée which I do NOT have a picture of. It's like a pick-2 under "Potjie Inspired" entrees on the menu. I probably spelled that wrong but I'm too lazy right now to look it up. I love the butter chicken so much I get that instead of choosing a 2nd option with it. The sauce is hard to describe but it's good! Not overly spicy but it does have a bit of a kick after you've had a few bites. Steve went with the Braaivleis: South African Braai sampler plate with Boerewor, lambchop, and pork tenderloin. Boerewor BTW is an African pork and beef sausage-we asked
I know there was some broccoli rabe on here (blechh! Steve loves it though) and on the one end were big pearl onions in a cream sauce. Then there was a potato of some type but Steve said it wasn't your basic mashed potato. He almost licked his plate clean, that's how much he enjoyed this thing!
The last time we were here I had a banana cheesecake that was HEAVEN. The one on the menu now was different but I knew it would still be good so I made sure to save room for some. One of the best parts was the pistachio brittle part on the bottom of the cheesecake. You can see Steve's chocolate mousse in the background
Can you guess what was even better than my cheesecake? A bite of cheesecake, followed by a bite of Steve's chocolate mousse. Followed by another bite of cheesecake, aaaaand another bite of mousse. And so on, and so on.............
Finally we rolled out of there and decided to walk over to Jambo rather than take the shuttle. It was chilly, I think about 50, but I hate going to sleep feeling disgustingly full and at this point it was 10:40, so we both felt the walking would do us good. It wasn't bad either, less than 10 minutes. We knew from looking at a map that our standard view studio had a pool view and we were cool with that. Since it was dark we couldn't get a feel for the view, but here are some shots of the room:
Let me start with some introductions.
I'm Ariane, and as I mentioned above my husband and Disney obsession supporter is Steve. We have 4 boys; 2 are my stepsons whom I failed to mention in my first TR and I feel guilty about that, so while I don't have any pictures let me introduce Jason (27)and Eric (24). Our younger 2 who sat this trip out are Ricky (13) and Chris (10)
Before I go any further I'm going to apologize for the HUGE pictures I'll be posting, I have yet to figure out how to shrink'em. I know it's annoying so if you stick with me, I truly thank you!
So we were just there with the kids over Thanksgiving but even before that we had decided to do one more trip by ourselves before our AP's expire in March. We'd gone alone last March and discovered the joys of kid-free Disney and were anxious to do it again!
We picked MLK weekend mainly because it worked for my mom who would be watching the boys most of the time we were gone. She works for our local Girl Scout council and, believe it or not, works some CRAZY long hours including nights and weekends. I know but seriously, you'd think she had some high-paying corporate job or something the way she works. So that weekend worked and plane fares were good. We're big on renting DVC points and even though we only started looking about 7 months out, we were able to stay at 2 new-to-us resorts I'd been wanting to try, AKV and the Poly!! Steve wasn't quite as thrilled; he's old and stuck in his ways. His Disney way being staying at the BWV, but our Nov. experience wasn't stellar and I really want to try (just about) all the resorts. So here's what we were looking at:
Jan. 15-18th, standard studio AKV Jambo House
Jan. 18-20th, standard studio Poly villas
I was thrilled! I spent 7 months telling Steve he wouldn't be disappointed and promising we'd go back to the BW if these resorts really stunk. Hey, sometimes ya gotta tell them what they want to hear........
Fast forward to Jan. 15th! Our flight was scheduled to leave out of White Plains at 3:15 and my stepson Jason dropped us off. Everything was great until the pilot announced we were TENTH in line for takeoff and we sat there for an hour. So, instead of landing at 6:07 it was 7:00. And then we sat on the ME about 25 minutes which isn't horrendous but could be better. However, all was well when I saw this
Picture is blurry but it's always clear as day in my head! What was really cool was that we were able to see some of the Star Wars fireworks at HS from the ME bus, and they looked super cool.
We really wanted to go to our room (we'd gotten our room ready text before leaving for the airport) and drop our bags before our 8:45 ADR at Sanaa, but Sanaa is in Kidani, we were in Jambo and we pulled up to AKL at 8:50. So we went right to the restaurant and were seated within 5 minutes, which was great because we were starving! We'd been to Sanaa twice for lunch but never dinner. We were craving their bread service and I wanted me some butter chicken!
First things first though: drinks. Steve went for his customary Grey Goose on the rocks with olives and I decided to try the Pina Colava. It was deee-licious, like a Pina Colada with raspberry in it.
The color was actually a lighter, prettier pink than the picture shows.
Next we ordered their Naan bread service for an appetizer. You can either get all the dips (9 or 11, I forgot already!) or pick 3 which is what we did. We got all of them the last time and a few weren't to our taste, so we went with the cucumber raita, coriander chutney, and garlic pickle. You get 5 breads and they are all different also but all I remember is a plain one, a garlicky one and a really freakin' spicy one lol.
Yes, we started eating before I took the picture! I know this isn't technically a dining report but Steve and I love our food and we ate some really good stuff on this trip, so I'm going to share my food pics even though some may be half-eaten stuff.
I ordered my good old butter chicken x2 with basmati rice for an entrée which I do NOT have a picture of. It's like a pick-2 under "Potjie Inspired" entrees on the menu. I probably spelled that wrong but I'm too lazy right now to look it up. I love the butter chicken so much I get that instead of choosing a 2nd option with it. The sauce is hard to describe but it's good! Not overly spicy but it does have a bit of a kick after you've had a few bites. Steve went with the Braaivleis: South African Braai sampler plate with Boerewor, lambchop, and pork tenderloin. Boerewor BTW is an African pork and beef sausage-we asked
I know there was some broccoli rabe on here (blechh! Steve loves it though) and on the one end were big pearl onions in a cream sauce. Then there was a potato of some type but Steve said it wasn't your basic mashed potato. He almost licked his plate clean, that's how much he enjoyed this thing!
The last time we were here I had a banana cheesecake that was HEAVEN. The one on the menu now was different but I knew it would still be good so I made sure to save room for some. One of the best parts was the pistachio brittle part on the bottom of the cheesecake. You can see Steve's chocolate mousse in the background
Can you guess what was even better than my cheesecake? A bite of cheesecake, followed by a bite of Steve's chocolate mousse. Followed by another bite of cheesecake, aaaaand another bite of mousse. And so on, and so on.............
Finally we rolled out of there and decided to walk over to Jambo rather than take the shuttle. It was chilly, I think about 50, but I hate going to sleep feeling disgustingly full and at this point it was 10:40, so we both felt the walking would do us good. It wasn't bad either, less than 10 minutes. We knew from looking at a map that our standard view studio had a pool view and we were cool with that. Since it was dark we couldn't get a feel for the view, but here are some shots of the room:
Maybe on your first trip back after your honeymoon 
Are you by chance in Mahopac? I believe I read that somewhere here 
We loved having the screens at BW in Nov. but hey, not a big deal. Steve was very concerned about the distance of AKL from the 3 parks but we were pleasantly surprised at how quick the ride to Epcot was - about 11 minutes! Got there just shy of 8:30. TT already had a 45 minute wait so we hopped over and did a ride we enjoy but skipped back in Nov., Living with the Land. At this point I realized I'd left my phone in the room so no pics, sorry! After that I wanted to go to the former Capt. EO building and see the Pixar shorts they were showing. There were 3: "La Luna" "For the Birds" and "Get a Horse". They give you 3D glasses when you enter. The first one, "Get a Horse" also has some 4D effects which I won't go into detail here for those of you who may experience it for yourselves. What I will tell you, not that any of you will care, is that at one point in "Get a Horse" Minnie says, "Where are we? Poughkeepsie?" Why is this interesting you ask? Because that's the town right next to mine! As in like 3 minutes from my house, as in the town my mall is in, my kids' school, etc. So I turned to Steve and said out loud "POUGHKEEPSIE!" like a dork. I also do this when they say Poughkeepsie on TV which they do a lot, mostly on shows that take place in NYC. Friends, Law and Order, and in one of the Sex and the City movies Charlotte "Poughkeepsie'd in her pants" after swallowing water wherever they were. Not the best advertisement for the town but I still said "POUGHKEEPSIE!" out loud in the theater, along with everyone else!
I decided to go with Tacos de Pollo, (chicken tacos) and we grabbed a seat INSIDE La Cantina. Yup, I said INSIDE! Just as Vernie822 recently found out, I had no idea there was indoor seating until this trip. Which was nice to find out, because even though it was almost 80 degrees and gorgeous and sitting outside would have been nice, this particular QS was crowded. Steve loved the bratwurst and he generously let me sample a chip that comes with it. Delicious, they had paprika on them
although I feel like Josh from easyWDW said they're pre-mixed now, so I don't feel like I'm missing out. (that's what I tell myself anyway...truth be told, I DO feel like I'm missing out, because I love avocado and jalapeno margaritas!)
