We stayed at the GF, BWI and AKL CL last month. The AKL pre-planning staff was by far superior to the other two. I only stayed 2 nights of our 11 at the AKL, but they handled plans for our entire trip. Very responsive to all my questions and quick to make changes. They helped book our sunrise safari, made all our ADR's, made numerous changes to those ADR's, booked our Candle Light Processional package and answered a 101 little questions that I had
. They were great.
The overall service of the hotel is just great. Very interesting CMs all over the place to chat with, housekeeping was wonderful, the bell services and everyone else was wonderful. Oddly enough it was just the CL CM's that seemed a little off. If we had not stayed at the BWI or GF, we would have found it adequate, as it was we were rather disappointed with the service. The CM's just didn't seem as organized or friendly as the other resorts.
The AKL lounge is on the 6th floor, our room was on the 4th. It was a pretty long walk from our room to the lounge. It was a lot smaller and seemed busier than the GF or BWI so we never really hung out there. The food offerings were just ok, nothing too special. The one night we made the evening appetizers they were serving food from Boma; the crackers and hummus was good, the ribs were yucky. Cold and tough.
I still would stay CL at the AKL again just to do the Sunrise Safari. That was an amazing experience. We were told to meet in the lobby the morning of our safari at 6:30 for coffee, then to move to the lobby to meet our guide at 7:00. The coffee didn't appear until close to 7:00, the two CM's there were very upset about this and said someone didn't show up for work
.
The guides were great, you can tell they really love their job and they were full of knowledge about the AK and animals. We were out on the safari for about an hour, then we had a wonderful breakfast at Pizzafari.
The AKL is an amazing hotel. I am so glad we stayed there, and the Sunrise Safari made our experience truly special. You're going to love it!
There was always a bottle of Evian water, juice and tea out. In addition this was the schedule:
Macheo (Sunrise Offerings) 6:30 - 7:00am (coffee and juice)
Miamko (Adventurous Awakenings) 7:00am - 10:30am (light breakfast: bagels and toast, fruit, coffee and juice)
Vitafunio (Safari Snacks) 11:30am - 3:00pm (trail mix, cookies, spiced nuts, juice, coffee and tea)
Chai (Afternoon Tea) 3:00pm - 4:30pm (scones and jam, cookies, coffee and tea)
Kisikusiku( Twilight Offerings) 5:00pm - 7:00pm (appetizers from Boma, while we were there it was olives, hummus, ribs, morrocco beer)
Rehema (Evening Indulgences) 8:00 - 10:00 (desserts, tea and juice)
