“I Love You to the Disneymoon & Back!” || A September 2015 TR **Updated 10/17**

[DisneyHoover]

Howdy folks! Are you here to read a rousing tale of romance, adventure & fine dining? Well then you are in luck! The characters in this story are myself, Katie, a 25 year old pre-school director with a serious love of Disney, and my new husband, David, who loves me enough to support my Disney addiction despite not being a huge fan himself.

Although we got married on May 25, 2015, we decided to wait until September for our Honeymoon in Disney so that hopefully we would experience lower prices, crowds, and (wishful thinking ) temperatures. We had an absolutely wonderful stay at the Animal Kingdom Lodge using rented DVC points from 9/12 to 9/19, and we even got to tack on an extra day to the beginning of our trip at Caribbean Beach Resort (more on that later)!

Without further ado, please sit back, enjoy and feel free to chime in!

Table of Contents

Day 0: "Children are like tiny little anchors" (9/11/15)
Day Zero - Part One
Day Zero - Part Two
Day Zero - Part Three
Day Zero -Part Four

Day 1 -- “So this is what deluxe smells like!” (9/12/15)
Day One - Part One
Day One - Part Two
Day One - Part Three

Day 2 -- “When did we become to old for roller coasters?” (9/13/15)
Day Two - Part One
Day Two - Part Two
Day Two - Part Three

Day 3 -- "Go with the flow-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ow!" (9/14/15)
Day Three - Part One
Day Three - Part Two
Day Three - Part Three
​

 

[DisneyHoover]

Day Zero - Part One

I have dubbed today “Day 0” since it ended up being an extra day in Disney for us that wasn’t in any of our original plans. It all started with me joking to David a week before we were due to leave that next Friday at work I’d be pretty much useless. (After all, who can concentrate when they’ll be in Disney in less than 24 hours?) Half jokingly he told me that I should ask for the day off, and then we could go down to Disney a day earlier.

Well, you don’t have to tell me twice! I asked my supervisor on Tuesday (since Monday was a holiday) if I could add Friday onto my scheduled vacation time, not really holding out too much hope since usually a two weeks notice is required for vacation requests. Much to my surprise, and perhaps with the help of some pixie dust, she approved my time off request !

I immediately went online to check resort availability, and with only three days until we wanted to check in I wasn’t expecting there to be much left. Our choices were Port Orleans Riverside, Port Orleans French Quarter, & Caribbean Beach Resort. I called David to tell him that I was approved for vacation and that we had three choices of resorts. I let him choose which resort we’d stay in for our first night since I had planned pretty much everything else (and he was excited about planning for once!). He ended up choosing Carribean Beach Resort.

The only type of room available was one with two beds rather than one King bed, but that wasn’t the end of the world. Once we booked we could immediately do our online check-in requests. I requested Martinique building and first floor to hopefully avoid a whole lot of walking or having to use the internal shuttle due to the bridge refurbishment.

The ensuing two days were basically a frenzy of laundry, packing, and trying to get last minute things finished up at work. Although I had Friday off, I still planed on going in for a few hours in the morning to open the building while David slept a little longer and finished packing up the car/gassing it up.

For the first time... possibly ever, I woke up before my 5:30 alarm for work. I’m pretty sure I was channeling my inner Anna, “The sky is awake, so I’m awake!” (though technically the sky was still quite asleep at 5:00 am). I headed into work decked out in my travel clothes: my bride mickey ears, I Love Mickey shirt, and jean shorts. Now, this isn’t really anything close to being in dress code but I figured, “Hell, I’m technically on vacation so who cares?!”

Since I had extra time before having to leave for work I went ahead and packed the car myself and filled up the gas tank. My plan was to leave the building around 8:30 a.m. so I could head home, grab David and be on the road no later than 9 a.m.! Well, around 8:30 a.m. David called to let me know he had just woken up (rather than the 7 a.m. he was supposed to wake up) and was going to hop in the shower in a minute. I love my husband, but this is why the time I usually give him for our ETD for road trips is 30-60 minutes ahead of time from when I actually want to leave. Fortunately, I had already packed the car so really all my husband had to get ready was himself (should be quick and easy, right? ). Fast-forward to an hour and a half later and we’re finally on the road.

Despite the delay, we were still all smiles! I started out driving, and within 15 minutes on the road David was passed out, using my Stitch tsum tsum as a pillow. Although usually we split driving on road trips 50/50, I ended up just letting David sleep and drove the whole way. I was too excited to nap, and I figured that David (who is not a morning person AT ALL as you’ll see later) would probably be less cranky in the afternoon if I let him get some extra rest.

In no time we were passing under the Walt Disney World sign (which sadly I did not get a picture of this trip since David was asleep). We were in Disney!

​

 

[DisneyHoover]

Day Zero - Part Two

We had no problem finding the Carribean Beach Resort thanks to all the wonderful signs around Disney property. Just before we arrived David finally woke up and was pleased to discover he had no driving to do. We pulled into the Custom House parking lot so we could go check-in. I was so excited to be there, I’m pretty sure I was skipping from the car to the lobby. We went to the online check-in desk which had no line and picked up our “Happily Ever After” buttons. Although the process itself was super smooth, we didn’t even get close to our room requests. We ended up on the second floor in Aruba, but it wasn’t a big deal since we would only be here for a night and did have our own car for internal transportation.

We drove to Aruba and found our room pretty quickly. The room itself was quite nice, however, I was kind of sad there were no Finding Nemo touches like there were in the pre-renovated rooms that they show in the photos on the Disney website. Because Im terrible at remembering to take photos of all the details, this is the only photo we got of the room .

We were smart enough to pack an overnight bag just for this one night so we didn’t have to lug our 9 (!) bags from car to the room and then back the next morning when we checked out. (I may have overpacked slightly.) After we did our tiny amount of unpacking and relaxing, David decided it was time to break open the booze we brought with us and made himself a margarita. (Despite what this trip report may cause you to believe, we are really not big alcohol drinkers, but, hey, it’s our honeymoon!)

We changed into our swimsuits and took our car to Old Port Royale so we could grab some food and then head to the pool. By this point it was almost 3 p.m. so after pondering our quick service options at the food court, we decided to just end up splitting a small pizza for late lunch and eating an early dinner at Magic Kingdom. We also went ahead and bought a quick refill mug for David (I’m not a big soda drinker, so I usually just sip whatever David’s drinking, and save the $17 for souveniers).

With this lunch we begin our “How many pizzas will David eat?” count for the trip report. My husband is an extremely limited eater due to texture issues (many foods will cause him to choke/vomit) so he pretty much lives on corndogs, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, cheeseburgers, and pizzas--if your three year old will eat it, David probably will. This was the first of many pizzas that David ate throughout our trip and, according to him, it was the most disappointing in both taste and bang-for-your-buck. I thought it was okay, but I’m not as big of a pizza snob.

We chose a table with a good view of the lake and had fun watching people taking the boat from Aruba/Jamaica to Old Port Royale. We also briefly entertained the thought of renting a surrey but decided to wait for our December trip when the weather was cooler. After we finished eating, we headed to the pool for some swim time! The pool theming was awesome and it has two water slides which helped keep the lines for the slides shorter.

We quickly discovered that the pavement not right near the pool was scalding hot and we practically ran into the pool after taking our flip flops off. We found a nice spot to float and relax where one of the turrets was casting a shadow--the sun was bright and blazing hot at this point in the day. David wussed out on doing the water slide, but I had to try the long slide at least once. I scaled the slightly terrifying metal spiral staircase that boomed every time a kid ran up the steps. At the top there is a cool indicator light that turns green to let you know that you’re good to go down the slide. The slide was pretty fun and made me wish we had planned a day at one of the water parks--maybe next time?

To escape the noise of the kids pool-side activities for a little bit, we headed to the hot tub area behind the pool. We hung out enjoying the weather and view while doing crosswords together (yes, we’re a big pair of nerds). We headed back to the room around 4:30 p.m. to get ready for dinner. For some reason, my husband decided to let me drive annnnnnd we ended up in a cast member area. Yes, that’s just how good of a driver I am. After navigating our way back out of the area, (which had a sign at the exit instructing us to smile) I did a better job of following the signs and got us back to Aruba.

While I quickly showered and got dressed, David decided to shove one of our puzzle books into my poor, overstuffed Vera Bradley crossbody for some dinner entertainment. Not wanting to drive our car after all the driving from this morning, we headed to the bus stop and had a Magic Kingdom bus come within 10 minutes--woohoo Disney transportation!​

 

[nataliej_vk]

cant wait to read more!!!

 

[accountingbabe08]

Cool reviews.. congrats on your honeymoon

 

[DisneyHoover]

Day Zero - Part 3

Before we could enter the Magic Kingdom, we had to head to guest services so we could activate our seasonal annual passes and buy our Tables in Wonderland membership. On the bus ride over to MK, David and I were arguing over whether or not he’d have to show his driver’s license to prove he was a Florida resident; I was certain that we’d both have to show our licenses, while he thought only the primary purchaser (me) would have to show ID. I bet him a Vinylmation that I was right, and he agreed. Guess who was doing a literal happy dance at the guest services window when the cast member asked for both IDs? Hooray, a new Vinylmation to add to my collection!

After we finished setting everything up, we headed in and straight to Casey’s Corner since the park was scheduled to close at 7 p.m. for Night of Joy (which I had completely forgotten about). Casey’s Corner, as you may have guessed, is David’s favorite Disney restaurant with his favorite food on property: corn dog nuggets. David and I both ordered corn dog nuggets and french fries. It was fairly affordable for park food and was super filling -- I could hardly finish all my corn dog nuggets. I absolutely love the shoestring fries they have here.

With our bellies full, and about 20 minutes to go before the park closed we hopped in line for our first Photopass photo. We pre-ordered the Memory Maker and I was determined that we were going to get our money’s worth. Although David is not a big photo person, I told him he was going to have to suck it up for the week since I wanted lots of photos from our honeymoon; he begrudgingly agreed.

After a few photos we left the park, hoping to beat the park closing crowd, and hopped aboard the monorail to the TTC. We were on our way to the Boardwalk to visit Jellyrolls for the first time; for some reason, I decided to have us take the monorail to Epcot & then walk to Boardwalk rather than just taking a bus from MK to Boardwalk itself {shrug}. I blame this misguided route on the fact that I hadn’t planned out this day in advance, and we were meandering through the day like a “pick your own adventure” story led by my husband. (“David, would you rather go to Downtown Disney to Splitsville, swim some more, or try out Jellyrolls?” “Jellyrolls sounds like fun”)

We got must’ve had some lucky timing since the Epcot monorail was just about to depart when we arrived at the TTC. We hastily jogged towards the Epcot monorail along with several other couples. I felt kind of like we were in an action movie as we leapt on board shortly before the doors closed. As we looked around at our running partners who had also made it to the monorail, my husband uttered the phrase that inspired the title of this chapter, “Notice that all the people who made it don’t have kids with them; children are like tiny little anchors!” I guess he was really enjoying the fun of visiting Disney without kids (we usually go with his nephews/niece).

After our short monorail ride to Epcot, I tried to convince David to hop on some rides while we were in the park, but he wasn’t having it. Bah humbug. I did manage to get him to take some photos in front of Spaceship Earth though.

As we were walking to the International Gateway, I had a Dug “Squirrel!” moment when I saw the Cool Club. I immediately beelined toward the building telling my husband I HAD to go try the Beverly because everyone says it tastes terrible. He gave me a confused look and asked why I wanted to pay for a drink that is awful? I explained that Club Cool drinks were free; according to him that only made it slightly less strange, but he went along for the ride. *drumroll* The Beverly was actually not as bad as I thought it would be, though it did have somewhat of a weird aftertaste that I was not a big fan of.

Along the way we also hit up a shop so we could buy David a fancy-schmancy magic band. I was already wearing my Stitch band that I had purchased during a side trip to Downtown Disney earlier in the year, and he was jealous. He had been browsing the available magic bands leading up to the trip and nothing had really tickled his fancy, so I wasn’t too hopeful that he’d find a design that he liked. As luck would have it, Disney had just started selling a Pirates of the Carribean magic band that day and David loved it! With our shopping complete, we headed out the Gateway and walked to Boardwalk. We underestimated slightly how far the trek was and vowed to take the boat when returning to Epcot later. Finally, we arrived at Boardwalk!

 

[DisneyHoover]

@nataliej_vk & @accountingbabe08 -- Thanks for joining in!

 

[disvisitorkim]

Following along! love it!

 

[DisneyHoover]

Day Zero - Part Four

The Boardwalk area was very cute and quaint, with a cute little arcade and several street performers set up along the street. We arrived at Jellyrolls around 8 p.m., paid the $12 cover charge per person, got a cow stamp on our arms to certify we were 21, and headed in to wait for the pianists who were supposed to start playing any moment. We sat down at a front row table, and were plied with free popcorn that was surprisingly delicious. I’m pretty sure we ended up eating 3 or 4 baskets of the stuff. David ordered a margarita while I opted for water instead since I hadn’t drank hardly anything all day and didn’t want to start the trip dehydrated.

When the pianists arrived, they ended up asking who had been there before; apparently being a Friday it was a popular night for locals and there were quite a few who had come before. After that the pianist closest to us spotted our “Happily Ever After” buttons and asked us when we were married. He also asked us to choose the first song of the night, and I apologetically requested “Piano Man” with the caveat that I’m sure they get that song request a ton. One of the local regulars chimed in that he had heard them play it three times in one night, which the pianists denied (they try not to repeat songs). When he insisted, they took it as a challenge and told us that now all they would play tonight was piano man and we’d see how many times we could play it in one night. True to their word, after they were finished with the song the first time, they started right into the second round and played it fully through another time. Near the end of the second rendition, people started putting a bunch of song requests on the piano (on bar napkins with dollar bribes attached) including one that apparently said “Anything but this.”

Fortunately, they stopped at two and moved on to other songs. David and I had so much fun singing along to all of the songs (most of which we knew). We requested several songs and ended up getting all of our requests played. My husband said it was because we were the newlywed couple; I thought it was because I had chosen awesome songs and tipped well. Our favorite song they played was “The Wild Rover,” which we already knew since we love listening to Irish music (again, we’re a pair of dorks). If you don’t know the song (go check it out!), there are places in it that you’re supposed to clap, and we surprised the hell out of the pianists by singing along and automatically clapping at the appropriate time. He taught the rest of the crowd how to clap along with the song to get everyone to participate, and it was super fun; I felt like we were in a pub in Ireland rather than in Disney (especially since it was a 21 and older venue so there were no kids).

Remember how I didn’t plan our transportation to Boardwalk very well? Well, my planning for how to get back to CBR was equally as poor. We left Jellyrolls at 10:50 with much regret; I wish we could’ve stayed longer since they were open until 2 a.m. but I’d been awake for almost 18 hours and was fading fast. I figured we could take the boat back to Epcot and then take a bus to CBR from there since the park didn’t close until 11 p.m. and buses usually run for an hour after closing. No problem, right? Wrong. As soon as we got on the friendship boat, the captain informed us that by the time we arrived at Epcot the park would be closed and they MAY let us through the park to get to our cars. WHAT? How were we going to get back to our resort?! (In hindsight, we could’ve taken a bus from Boardwalk to Downtown Disney and connected to CBR from there, but in the moment I had no clue how we were getting home if they wouldn’t let us through).

Sure enough when we walked up to the Gateway at 11:02 there was a security officer standing in front of the entrance. I put on my most distressed face (not too much of a stretch) and asked if there was any way we could walk through Epcot to get to the buses at the front. He asked us what resort we were staying at and poor nervous me got tongue tied and couldn’t get “Carribean Beach Resort” out to save my life. Luckily my husband stepped in and let him know where we were staying. Thankfully, he let us pass through! Once we were out of earshot, my husband let me know that we were lucky we had been let in since it sounded like I was trying to pull a resort name out of my butt.

We started our journey through Epcot power walking, feeling very self conscious about the fact that we weren’t supposed to be in the park, but change to a leisurely stroll once we caught up with everyone else leaving the park. We even stopped to take a few pictures of Spaceship Earth at night which looks so pretty lit up. We got lucky again with the buses and only had to wait a few minutes before a bus pulled up for CBR.


By the time we got back to the room, we were both pretty pooped and our feet were sore. David vowed that tomorrow he was wearing tennis shoes, not flip flops, but I figured I’d stick with my trusty Teva’s since they’re what I usually wear to Disney. I stayed awake just long enough to brush my teeth and put on my pajamas; pretty much as soon as I’d set our alarm for 9:30 tomorrow and laid my head on the pillow I was asleep. (According to my Polar M400 we walked 8.1 miles this day)​

 

[DisneyHoover]

@disvisitorkim -- Thanks for joining in! Glad you're liking it so far!

 

[MyGoofy26]

Jumped over here looking for a honeymoon trip report expecting to have to dig and what do I find on the first page?

What a fun first day and I can't wait to read more. We just booked our honeymoon trip for end of February at AKL. We were supposed to head down next weekend but after paying for the wedding ourselves and then downgrading after three mechanic visits across two cars we opted to postpone for a bit. Who wants to honeymoon on a budget? He's never been to Disney so of course I have a thousand things I want to show him.

 

[DisneyHoover]

Day One - Part One

For the second day in a row, I woke up before my alarm; this seemed like it was becoming a trend. I promptly woke David up as well by bouncing around on the bed in excitement. He let me know grumpily that he now regretted not using the second bed we had in the room. (Like I said, he’s really not a morning person) After a few minutes, though he was up and had a more positive outlook on life.

I took a shower and packed up what little we had brought to the room for our single night stay at CBR. The only thing I couldn’t carry was David’s bottle of tequila (I didn’t want to accidentally drop and shatter it), so he walked down to the car just carrying it, looking perhaps like an alcoholic or just someone having a really good day. We waved goodbye to CBR, and headed to Animal Kingdom Lodge: Jambo House!

Again, thanks to Disney’s many signs we arrived at the Animal Kingdom Lodge with no problem. We found a moderately close parking spot, grabbed my backpack that had some entertainment, our rapid refill mug, and snack items and headed to check in; not realizing how bell services worked (we don’t usually stay in fancy hotels/resorts), we didn’t want to lug all of our luggage up from the car until our room was ready. As we walked up to the front doors we had several cast members welcome us home and congratulate us on our nuptials; it gave me a nice warm fuzzy feeling. Then we entered the building and WOW!

The lobby itself was an impressive sight, with a giant window overlooking the savannah at the far end and beautifully detailed decorations throughout the lobby. Then the smell hit us--the delicious Animal Kingdom Lodge smell. My husband and I have had a debate going since we first arrived where the smell comes from, he is convinced that it’s from the meats smoking down at Boma, but I think it smells more like a bonfire than barbecue and wouldn’t be surprised if they pump it into the resort like they used to do with the baking cookie smell at Magic Kingdom. My husband, ever the witty one, glibly commented “So this is what deluxe smells like! I wonder what the Polynesian smells like--probably coconuts and pineapples!”

After just stopping for a minute just to look around and take it all in, we headed over to the online check-in desk. When I had done our online check in for AKL I had put down our arrival time as 1 p.m. since I hadn’t realized we’d be tacking an extra day onto our trip last minute. As such, when we went to check in at 11 a.m. we were in no way expecting our room to be available. The CM checking us in though was still apologetic that our room was not ready yet and let us know that we would get a text as soon as our room was ready. That was no problem for us since we needed to grab lunch anyway and had plenty to explore around the resort.

Before we attempted to go scavenge for food, we took time to read about the African mask that was in the lobby and the legend in front of the fireplace. Both of these were very cool and informative! After we finished with our browsing, I glanced briefly at my map and decided to try to find The Mara. First we started walking down a hallway which seemed to be just rooms (and sure enough it was just a hallway with rooms) so we doubled back to the lobby. Next we headed out the glass doors at the bottom of the huge picture window and tried walking around that area -- again, I had somehow managed to lead us very astray. Finally we tried the steps leading down to the Victoria Falls lounge and to Boma; we found the loung, Boma, and Jiko but still didn’t see the Mara. Finally, I caved and asked for directions from a cast member working at Boma and they pointed the way: out the double doors to the right of Boma, towards the pool, and then hang a left.

At last! We found the Mara after skirting around some construction walls. After browsing the menu for a few minutes I decided to be adventurous and try the chicken pita with couscous as my side. David wasn’t going to order anything at first, but then saw someone walk by with a pepperoni flatbread and decided he had to try it (Pizza Count: #2). We were given a pager which would buzz when our food was ready so we went to pay and fill up our drink mug while we waited. In about 5 minutes our pager went off and we went to pick up our food.

The chicken pita was pretty good; although the chicken was a little bit dry, the sauces and veggies in the pita made up for it. The absolute star of the plate though was the couscous -- I immediately fell and love and had a new favorite food at Disney. The portion size of the couscous they gave you was quite generous as well, making the meal quite filling. David also enjoyed his lunch; he gave the flat bread a 3.5 out of 5 stars on the pizza rating scale (which is a good rating considering how many pizzas David has tried in his day). He enjoyed it much more than the pizza we had at CBR the day before.

While we were midway through eating our meal we got the text we were waiting for--our room was ready! Man, someone must’ve sprinkled us with some pixie dust because that was super fast and it wasn’t even noon yet!​

 

[DisneyHoover]

@MyGoofy26 -- Glad you've joined in! Congrats on your honeymoon -- the weather should be nicer in February than in September so perhaps that'll work in your favor. You are going to absolutely love AKL! My husband and I wished we could just live there forever and didn't want to leave.

 

[DisneyHoover]

Day One - Part Two

The text message was a little cryptic since it told us to see the front desk regarding our room assignment rather than just texting us the room number. As eager as I was to get to the room and check out our amenities (especially our balcony!), I stuck to David’s slow and relaxed pace for the trip instead. We finished eating our lunch and I refilled our rapid refill mug with root beer (my drink of choice since I can’t tolerate much caffeine)-- I was determined that we were going to be getting our $17 worth from that cup! After lunch we headed up to the Victoria Falls lounge to relax and finish up the crossword puzzle that we had started while we were eating. The lounge didn’t open until 4 p.m. so we really had the place (including their comfy couches) all to ourselves.

Between the drumming from the cast members in the lobby and the smells drifting up from Boma, it was a nice place to relax and soak in the atmosphere. The suspense of not knowing which room we had been assigned slowly built and eventually we packed up our crossword book and headed to the front desk. We found out that we had been assigned room 5385, 5th floor, Kudu trail. I was excited to finally know our room, but NOT excited to see on the map that it was at the verrrrrrrry end of the lefthand hallway.

Refusing to let the long trek dampen our spirits, we headed to the room. Along each hallway, every so often there were windows on both sides of the hall which looked out over the Arusha and Sunset savannahs. We took a nice leisurely stroll down the hall, stopping to check out any animals we saw -- and we sure did see quite a few before we even reached our room. We saw giraffes, ostriches and roan antelopes! (Ironically the one animal that we never saw during our trip was a Kudu, despite our room being on Kudu trail).

We found our room no problem and, sure enough, it was literally on the very end of the Kudu trail. I held my Stitch magic band to the door, so excited to look inside annnnnnd--red light. What? We had literally just gotten our room assignment, why wouldn’t our magic bands work? David tried his Pirates of the Carribean magic band, and again we got a sad red light. We exchanged a look of slight dismay and then headed back to the lobby. Fortunately, David had wisely suggested we wait to bring our luggage until after we had found our room.

We trekked back to the front desk and let them know that we were unable to get into our room. The cast member helping us looked on the system and discovered that apparently however they had checked us in, it was done incorrectly. She tried to fix the problem herself but was unable to figure out how to fix it in the system. After two more cast members and about 15 minutes later, the manager was finally able to get our magic bands fixed so that they were magic again. We even got a little bit of pixie dust -- the cast member offered us a $25 bill credit for the inconvenience (which wasn’t even all that inconvenient). Such good customer service!

We headed back to the room to try our magic bands again; this time we had success! The theming of the room was perfect and matched the rest of the resort perfectly. On the table near the balcony there was a guide with information about all of the resort activities going on -- there were quite a few that I wanted to try that we ran out of time to do (just one more reason to book another trip to come back ). They also had an animal spotting guide that had a list of all the animals that could be found on the savannas around Jambo and Kidani. After settling into our room, we decided it was safe to finally go get our luggage from the car.

David went and pulled the car around from the parking lot to the unloading area right in front of the lobby doors. We began to start unloading our car and were shortly swarmed by valet/bell boys who loaded our bags onto a cart. They gave us a ticket and told us to go to the bell services desk just inside the lobby to the left once we got our room assignment. Apparently we could’ve just unloaded our bags when we first got there and had the desk hold them until we got our room. We went inside right to the desk so we could tell them our room number, and they let us know that they would bring our bags up within the next 5 to 10 minutes. We carried the liquor up to the room ourselves since it was a bunch of glass bottles somewhat precariously packed, and we settled in to await our luggage.

We waited out on our balcony, and checked off a couple of animals on our animal spotting guide. We saw a giraffe, a wildebeest, and a roan antelope before hearing a knock in our door. The bell services man brought in all of our bags quickly and left with a tip and a thanks. We unpacked our main bags and shoved everything else out of the way.

David popped open a bottle of champagne and poured each of us a glass. We sat down in the zebra chairs on balcony (which ended up leaving an imprint briefly on David’s back because he had taken his shirt off to get comfy), pulled out our crossword book and sipped on some bubbly. It was so surreal watching the giraffes walk around below us while we relaxed! We also got to see a Thompson’s gazelle wandering around.

After hanging out on the balcony for an hour or so, I hopped into the shower to get ready for dinner and straightened my hair for the first and only time this trip. I should’ve known better because I’m a native Floridian, but alas, I ended up with the inevitable frizziness and poofiness that Florida humidity causes. David absolutely loves dressing up, so he was excited that we were having dinner tonight at Jiko since it gave him an excuse to wear his suit. After we were all spiffied up, we headed downstairs to dinner!

 

[TeamSy]

Congrats! We stayed at AKL for part of our stay this trip too!!

 

[DisneyHoover]

@TeamSy -- Thanks! And welcome! How did you like AKL?

 

[TeamSy]

@TeamSy -- Thanks! And welcome! How did you like AKL?

We really liked it! Thought it was great to sit on our balcony and watch the animals - so unique. Hated the buses. We still prefer the MK/Epcot resorts because of the transportation, but would definitely stay at AKL again in the future!

 

[Tatania]

Signing on to get TR updates

 

[DisneyHoover]

Day One - Part Three

When David and I arrived at Jiko at around 5:20 we had the restaurant pretty much to ourselves. Just as with the rest of AKL, the details & decor within Jiko were beautiful. My favorite part were the birds flying overhead; on the way to our table, our waiter let us know that the birds flying over us were a sign of good luck. We got a table next to the window, overlooking the water feature outside of Jiko.

Our waiter brought us warm hand towels and let us know that the smell of them was supposed to open our palettes. My husband and I are not big fine dining people so we were somewhat lost on what to do with the napkins (Do we use them on our hands or on our faces?). We went with the safe bet and wiped our hands with them; for the rest of dinner we watched other diners to see what they did with them and the results were mixed (I guess everyone else is just as lost or you can use the towels for either your hands or face).

After our waiter took our drink order, he brought us a tray of delicious multi-grain bread and salted butter. My husband was not a big fan of the bread (picky picky) but I thought it was delicious--I ate all three of the rolls! For my appetizer I ordered the Inguday Tibs in Brik which is somewhat similar to a spanakopita, but even more delicious! The curry vinaigrette sauce they serve with the dish is fantastic. There is one nice thing about David being so picky -- I don’t have to share my appetizers with anyone .

When the waiter came back to take our orders for our entree, I explained to him that David was a picky eater and asked if we could order him a cheese pizza off the kids menu. We let him know we were okay with paying an upcharge if necessary, but that he really wouldn’t eat anything off of the main menu. The waiter was very curious about why David was so picky, and offered to change one of the entrees on the adult menu as needed; we explained that really, it was easier/safer to just order the kids pizza. I ordered the filet minion which I had heard great things about.

After our waiter took our order, he came back with tasting spoons of duck pate, one for me and one for David. I guess the chef was so amused by David’s picky eating that he offered to pay for our dessert if David would eat the entire spoonful of the duck pate. David tried a smidgen of the pate, but could not eat the whole thing. I was a mixture of proud of him for at least trying it and happy that he didn’t barf all over the table because of trying it. I ate my spoonful and thought it tasted okay but didn’t like it well enough to eat the rest of David’s portion.

Our main course came fairly quickly, and boy was it yummy! The filet minion was served over asparagus and spoon bread with African red wine sauce. There was an option to substitute the macaroni & cheese for the spoon bread but it costed extra, and I actually thought the spoon bread was delicious. The steak itself was a little overdone on one of the edges (I had ordered it medium) but the rest of it was cooked perfectly. Although I usually tear through my food, this whole meal I ate slowly, savoring each bite.

David ate about half his cheese pizza before he said that he was done; he said that he preferred the pizza at the Mara since the pizza at Jiko was a little too cheesy for his liking (Pizza Count: #3). Once we were finished with our main course, I pondered over which dessert to order. I ended up ordering the Valrhona Chocolate Mousse and Hazelnut Dacquoise Cake since I love chocolate mousse and hazelnut so any dessert that combined the two must be delicious!

Sure enough, the cake itself and the strawberries served with it were both delicious and moist. I had thoroughly enjoyed every single course of the entire meal and (in retrospect) it was my favorite meal of the entire trip. We used our Tables in Wonderland card and got 20% off of our meal which was good since it certainly wasn’t cheap (though definitely worth the money). After dinner we had planned to sit around the nightly campfire or head to Downtown Disney, but the skies were getting dark and it looked like the thunderstorms were about to break loose.

We decided to sit in the rocking chairs that are located on the two view platforms on either side of the lobby, watching the rain roll in and the animals run around. It was a nice relaxing moment just holding hands and rocking next to each other. After a little bit of animal watching we noticed that there were a pair of giraffes that looked like they were eating the bushes right below our balcony. We wanted to skype David’s mom to show her the room & view (she’s a big Disney lover like me) so we walked back to the room.

Sure enough the giraffes were super close to the balcony, and David’s mom loved watching them and the other animals on the savannah. Apparently the animals were enjoying the rain because the giraffes, gazelles, and wild asses were all frolicking around in the grass; it was the most active we’d seen them so far. After we finished skyping, we poured ourselves some more champagne and hung out on the balcony, watching the savannah and doing crosswords.


We headed to bed around 10:30 a.m., excited for our first park day the next morning; sadly, we’ll be headed to Universal first and not Disney (*sigh* I know, I know) but don’t worry, Disney park time is coming soon! (According to my fitness watch, we walked 4.8 miles this day).​

 

[DisneyHoover]

@TeamSy -- For the most part we were pretty lucky with busses though those 20-30 minute bus rides sure did feel long at the end of the day. You can't beat the convenience of the Epcot/MK resorts, but I also love the charm of AKL.

@Tatania -- Welcome! Thanks for joining in!