AKV - Jambo House Ownership

[SpaceMountain77]

Does anyone know what percent of the total rooms available at Jambo House were converted to DVC villas?

 

[erionm]

Probably around 25% or just under. There are some rooms on the 1st floor, but not a lot. Most of the rooms are on the 2nd through 5th floors. DVC took over most of the 5th floor and all of the 6th floor. The 6th floor is Concierge Level and had (I believe) only 15 rooms before conversion to DVC units.

 

[RobDoc]

Owning part of a Jambo unit does not offer any reservation advantage over any other AKV owner. All AKV owners have the 11 month Reservation Priority for all villas at Jambo and Kidani - all based on availability.

 

[SpaceMountain77]

Owning part of a Jambo unit does not offer any reservation advantage over any other AKV owner. All AKV owners have the 11 month Reservation Priority for all villas at Jambo and Kidani - all based on availability.

Yes, I am aware of this, thank you. I was just curious as to how much share DVC has in AKL. Kidani Village generally has greater availability than Jambo House. I know Jambo House has fewer rooms and have wondered about the actual percentage.

 

[erionm]

Yes, I am aware of this, thank you. I was just curious as to how much share DVC has in AKL. Kidani Village generally has greater availability than Jambo House. I know Jambo House has fewer rooms and have wondered about the actual percentage.

As for distribution of DVC Villas between the two buildings, Jambo House is about 25% of the villas and Kidani Village the remaining 75%.

 

[drusba]

On any DVC main thread page on this site go to the sticky at the top called DVC Resource Center and there you can find total number of rooms in Jambo and Kidani and other resorts

 

[LisaS]

The 6th floor is Concierge Level and had (I believe) only 15 rooms before conversion to DVC units.

That is correct. Each 2BR lockoff was created from three hotel rooms. There were 6 hotel rooms on the pool side and 9 hotel rooms on the Sunset Savanna side, making two 2BR lockoffs with a pool view and three 2BR lockoffs with a Savanna View on the 6th floor.

OP, this map will show you how much of the 5th floor was converted to AKV. The areas in white on the map remain part of the hotel. There are some Standard View hotel rooms that face the parking lot and two suites that are not part of AKV.

 

[TSMIII]

Does anyone know what percent of the total rooms available at Jambo House were converted to DVC villas?

Probably around 25% or just under. There are some rooms on the 1st floor, but not a lot. Most of the rooms are on the 2nd through 5th floors. DVC took over most of the 5th floor and all of the 6th floor. The 6th floor is Concierge Level and had (I believe) only 15 rooms before conversion to DVC units.

I think the OP was asking how many rooms of the original Animal Kingdom Lodge were lost to the Jambo House villas.

erionm is correct - at least according to the numbers I've seen, that show AKL pre-DVC had 1293 rooms, and after the conversion was left with 972 rooms, a loss of 24.8%.

As a side note, from time to time you may see on some threads discussion of how AKL was not hitting a high enough occupancy rate and this resulted in the decision to convert rooms to DVC.

While I'm sure that was the case, or is as good of an explanation as any, it is worth noting that AKL was far and away the largest deluxe resort, as far as number of rooms is concerned, of any built at WDW.

The next largest was the Contemporary, prior to the destruction of the North Garden Wing for the building of Bay Lake Tower, with roughly 1,041 rooms.

The pre-DVC Animal Kingdom Lodge was 24.2% larger than the pre-BLT Contemporary, so I think it was fighting an uphill battle from the start with regard to occupancy rates.

 

[SpaceMountain77]

Thanks, TSMIII, I did want to know how many rooms were lost to the villas.

Also, I do appreciate the added detail on the resort's overall size and history. I suspected that the conversion was due, in part, to its large capacity.

Again, thank you for answering my post.