Jambo or Kidani for this type of trip? I like the coloring and things like that. It’s set for early March so possible to swim.
I want to do resort things with her. I don’t want to go to the park every day. Is one better than the other for resort things to do?
As to activities, I can only speak to the past, when both buildings had many, comparable activities for the kids, with neither being better than the other. What it will be like under the coronavirus rules if some or all are still in effect when you go is an unknown. As to past activities, you can find activity calendars online, e.g., for one from December 2019, go here
http://www.orlandoparksnews.com/2019/11/walt-disney-world-resort-recreation.html.
As to choosing Jambo or Kidani, if you want to try for a standard room that has savanna view, chances are much higher at Jambo. Kidani also has some standard rooms that have savanna view, but only on the Pembe savanna (the one without giraffes or zebras), and the rooms are mostly far from the lobby on the north wing (the front lobby entrance faces west). To possibly get a savanna view with a standard view room at Kidani, the request to make is for a room near the Pumba elevator. Most of the standards face front road, back of the bus station, front entry area, and the pool (although it is in the distance and for lower floor rooms main view is of a hill, grass and trees). Best requests for location of a standard view that does not have savanna view is for a room near the Rafiki elevator (for shortest possible trip to the pool) or near the Timon elevator (for short trip to bus station) and both are within striking distance of the lobby.
A major difference between the two buildings is length of the building. Jambo, end to end is very long, longer than any other single resort building at WDW ...EXCEPT FOR KIDANI. The Kidani building is actually one of the longest single hotel buildings in the world, more than a 2/3 mile walk from one end to the other. If you get rooms near the end of one of the two wings, expect very long walks to lobby, pool, buses, and other amenities. If you have a car, Kidani has the advantage of an under-building, first floor, parking lot that runs almost throughout the entire building, and with three elavators along each of the two wings, you can usually park fairly close to your room no matter where the room is -- in fact, some actually bring cars so they can use them to drive to the lobby when they need something if they get rooms near the end of a wing.. The large Jambo parking lot is located across the roadway that goes by the front of the building and how close you can park to your room, near to very far, simply depends on where your room is and where you can find a space to park.
Jambo's major advantages are that it has the the much larger lobby and store, three restaurants (Jiko,a table-service, Boma, a buffet, and Mara, quick service with lots of seating, including outside, and all three are good), the larger pool with more places to find shade due to more and larger trees. Kidani's major advantages are that the 1BRs and 2BRs are larger than Jambo's (close to 100 sg ft larger), have an additional bathroom that serves those staying in the living room, has a separate shower and bath in the master bathroom (while Jambo has a single bath with shower and the bath has a very. high step-over to get into it), the master bath is accessible only from the bedroom (at Jambo the master bath is across a hallway from the bedroom and those in the living can see you if you make the crossing), and you can get a dedicated 2BR at Kidani with the extra bed in the second bedroom and a long single balcony rather the divided-by-a-wall balcony for the studio and 2BR in a lock-off. Kidani has one table service restaurant, Sanaa, which is very good. The Kidani pool, though smaller than Jambo and with less shade, has the much longer slide, and has an excellent kids water-play area for kids from 2 to young teens. The bar areas are comparable, although Kidani has more tables in the shade under an overhanging roof. The walk from front entrance to front entrance is about 1/2mile, much longer from the end of the north wing of Kidani and much shorter from end of the south wing. Assuming coronavirus rules do not eliminate it, there is a bus that runs continuously throughout the day and evening between the two buildings.
As to which building, we consider the choice to be easy: If getting a 1BR or 2BR, we choose Kidani for the much better rooms. If studio, the room sizes are about the same and we prefer Jambo in a studio for the benefit of the larger lobby and store and three restaurants. Also note that the Jambo studio has the bath with shower in the separate room for the toilet, while Kidani has the shower next to the sink area and others can potentially see those in the shower while they walk by the open area where the sink is.
