My family and I recently returned from our first AKL stay (the week prior to Presidents' Weekend), and it has become our favorite Disney hotel (previously, WL was tops!).
We booked a Standard ($139) through Small World Travel, and were upgraded to a Savannah (Uzima), with a free refrigerator. What an amazing hotel and room! The animals were always outside our window (Zebra, Wildebeest, Gemsbok, etc.), and I quickly became one of the apparently many husbands who would stand out on their balconies (shirtless, of course!) making animal sounds and responding to each others' animal sounds! We got this on video, and it's almost suitable for America's Funniest Home Videos. We ate at Boma, which was fantastic, although extremely crowded and about 1/2 hour late with our reservations (which for a 7:50pm reservation was a significant lateness). The hotel itself is beautiful, the transportation was never a problem, my kids loved the night vision animal viewing, and we can't wait to return!!!
If there were any negatives whatsoever, it was that there was some confusion re: our check-in time (our room was initially upgraded to Pool view, and at check-in we were told that a Savannah would be available in 1 hour, which ultimately became 5 hours (i.e., the standard 3pm check-in time), which became somewhat of an inconvenience for us, but was by our own choosing due to wanting the Savannah upgrade. Housekeeping was mildly inconsistent. All else was great!
PS: My opinion may differ slightly if we had the Standard view room, and now that we've had a Savannah view we can't imagine any other view, but the overall rating of the hotel itself remains fantastic!
We booked a Standard ($139) through Small World Travel, and were upgraded to a Savannah (Uzima), with a free refrigerator. What an amazing hotel and room! The animals were always outside our window (Zebra, Wildebeest, Gemsbok, etc.), and I quickly became one of the apparently many husbands who would stand out on their balconies (shirtless, of course!) making animal sounds and responding to each others' animal sounds! We got this on video, and it's almost suitable for America's Funniest Home Videos. We ate at Boma, which was fantastic, although extremely crowded and about 1/2 hour late with our reservations (which for a 7:50pm reservation was a significant lateness). The hotel itself is beautiful, the transportation was never a problem, my kids loved the night vision animal viewing, and we can't wait to return!!!
If there were any negatives whatsoever, it was that there was some confusion re: our check-in time (our room was initially upgraded to Pool view, and at check-in we were told that a Savannah would be available in 1 hour, which ultimately became 5 hours (i.e., the standard 3pm check-in time), which became somewhat of an inconvenience for us, but was by our own choosing due to wanting the Savannah upgrade. Housekeeping was mildly inconsistent. All else was great!
PS: My opinion may differ slightly if we had the Standard view room, and now that we've had a Savannah view we can't imagine any other view, but the overall rating of the hotel itself remains fantastic!
We will be there in Aug. for the first time and are very excited because we are all big animal lovers! We stayed at the WL last time and I've been a little worried because we loved it so much, but after your post and many others I'm sure we will LOVE AKL just as much!
