AKV - where to stay?

[brightspark]

Hi everyone,
We are so excited we are planning to go back to WDW end of Nov / beginning of December . Our plans are to stay at AKV in a 2 bed, and we have a few practical questions.

There will be 4 adults and one 3 year old. Dh and I will have the main bedroom and ds will be in with us. My sister and a friend are also coming and will have the studio part. Some 2beds have 2 beds in the studio part and others have a sofa bed... how do we know which we're getting? Can we request one over the other? Also how comfy are the sofa beds?

Also with a child under 3.5 would we be better at Jambo house or at the village?

Finally - we have to use all of our points up til end of 2013 to be able to have savanna view, but could have a respectable amount left for another trip if we only have standard view. Will we really miss out if we don't have savanna view? Trying to work out how much we'll actually be in the room to appreciate it... are there places other than our room that we can see animals (imagine ds will like it) also thinking that if a couple of us are left in rooms to babysit in the evenings - will the animals be asleep - or will there be anything to see if we are sat on the balcony's...

Hope that makes some sense.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts
Thanks for the help
Brightspark

 

[wbl2745]

There will be 4 adults and one 3 year old. Dh and I will have the main bedroom and ds will be in with us. My sister and a friend are also coming and will have the studio part. Some 2beds have 2 beds in the studio part and others have a sofa bed... how do we know which we're getting? Can we request one over the other? Also how comfy are the sofa beds?

My experience at AKV and VGC is that a two bedroom lock-off, in which the 2nd bedroom is actually an attached studio, has a bed and a sofa bed. The two bedroom dedicated has two beds in the 2nd bedroom. If you've already made the reservation you can check to see what type of two bedroom they have you in. Otherwise, make the request at the time of making the reservation.

I can't speak to AKV sofa beds, but at VGC we had some friends with us at our last trip and they said that the sofa bed in the living room area was quite comfy.

Also with a child under 3.5 would we be better at Jambo house or at the village?

I'd think that a 3-year-old child would like to see the animals and splash in the pool. Both Jambo House and Kidani Village have places to do both of these things. However, Jambo House has a really large area outdoors for viewing animals. Also, the "food court" (a little small to call it that) is at Jambo House. If you plan on using the food court for any quick meals, Jambo would be more convenient. Of course there are kitchens in all of the two bedroom units. There's a small store at Jambo House. Don't know if there's one at Kidani because I didn't go looking for it. You can always have food delivered. We used We-Go-Shop which worked quite well.

Finally - we have to use all of our points up til end of 2013 to be able to have savanna view, but could have a respectable amount left for another trip if we only have standard view. Will we really miss out if we don't have savanna view? Trying to work out how much we'll actually be in the room to appreciate it... are there places other than our room that we can see animals (imagine ds will like it) also thinking that if a couple of us are left in rooms to babysit in the evenings - will the animals be asleep - or will there be anything to see if we are sat on the balcony's...

One of the advantages, in my opinion, to DVC is that I don't feel like I have to spend all of my time running from attraction to attraction. I like vegging out in a very nice unit with a balcony. Only you can saw how you'd like to use your points, but I think there may be some value in having a Savanna view room. I published a trip report on our December trip to WDW in which we stayed at several different rooms at AKV. The whole trip report can be found here, and the entry that deals with enjoying our Savanna view room on the last day is here.

To whet your appetite for a Savanna view room, here are some pictures from our balcony at Jambo House.

Have you thought about doing a split stay to conserve points but still enjoy the Savanna?

Hope you have a great time!

 

[DenLo]

Unless you will be going to Jambo House from Kidani for most meals, I would think that Kidani would be better with a 3.5 year old especially for the pool and water play area.

Also if you really don't want to walk to Jambo House you can take any park bus from Kidani as the first stop is Jambo House. To go back you have to wait for a DTD bus though.

Like wbl2745 posted above, in lock off villas, the studio portion has a queen bed and pull out couch plus a kitchenette and a separate entry door. A dedicated villa is a guaranteed room. It's not a request. So if you have a dedicated it will show on your room reservation confirmation:

Vacation home type: Ded. 2BR Sav View Kidani

 

[wbl2745]

I thought of something else. The time you are planning on going, end of November beginning of December, is a high demand time for DVC. Is AKV your home resort? If so, you should already be making reservations. If not, I'd have a back-up plan on where you wanted to stay. My advice would be to just get a reservation at anywhere you can, then try to wait list for what you want. You can read my trip report which is linked from my first post. Admittedly I was trying to get something in very high demand (value units at AKV), but in the end I wish that I had just gotten something, anything, then had the leisure to make changes.

 

[DenLo]

BTW, if you do want to save points and go with a standard view you can. There are viewing areas in the hallways at Kidani and even up near the lobby. Same for Jambo House. If you are going Standard view I would consider Jambo House but since there are less standard views there than at Kidani, you might have problems switching to a standard view there at this late date. There are more standard views at Kidani but most have a parking lot views versus the pool view you can get at Jambo House.

 

[drusba]

Time going: if you are an AKV owner, you should make reservation for end of Nov early December now. If not, try to make immediately when 7 month window opens. That time of year is a high DVC demand time and though AKV is usually not that difficult to get, that will be one time period with more risk of not getting something

Rooms: Dedicated 2BRs have two queens in second bedroom, lock-offs (combined studio and 1BR) do not and instead have a full pull out couch in second bedroom besides one queen. All 2BRs at Jambo are lock-offs. Kidani has many of both. "Dedicated" 2BR is a guaranteed booklng category at Kidani. Kidani 2BRs are about 100 sq ft larger than Jambo's and have an extra bathroom. The pull-out beds both in the living room and bedrooms are OK, not as good as a regular bed but much better than what you often see as pull-outs in hotels. The rooms also have a sleeper chair in the living room which is actually quite wide and long and not bad to sleep on. Jambo master bath has a combined tub and shower and the step over into the tub is quite high. Kidani has seaprate shower and tub.

View: would not personally stay at AKV without savanna view; however many are fine with standard and there are good viewing areas at both buildings, but really nothing beats sitting on your porch and watching animals and that is what AKV is for.

Other options: with only 5 you may want to consider just a 1BR, particularly at Kidani where they are large, and thus save points and still get savanna view. With the two bathrooms in the 1BRs at Kidani, they are easier to deal with when you have five.

Which Building: If room space is important, Kidani is it. It also offers under building parking so if you have a car you can park near your room -- each wing has two sets of elevators along the wing so you are never far from room to car. Jambo parking is in large lot away from the building. Kidani pool has the longer slide and it has the elaborate kids water play area but Jambo pool is larger and has lots more shaded areas. Jambo has the advantage of three restaurants -- very good table service, buffet, and a counter service. Kidani has only table service, Sanaa, although I consider it one of the best restaurants at WDW, but it has no morning breakfast service. Jambo has the more impressive lobby and larger store. Walk from one building to the other is about 1/2 mile door to door, and you can take bus and they sometimes have a shuttle run. I personally like both places but have lately been doing Kidani because I really like the larger 1 and 2BRs.

If you choose Jambo standard you will get a pool view. Kidani standard can be front road or pool. The standard rooms are not large distances from the lobby at either place. If you choose Jambo savanna, recommend you request Zebra Trail which provides some of the best views and faces west so morning sun does not blind you (it is one side of the building overlooking Arusha savnna which is in the middle of the u-shaped building). If you choose Kidani savanna view, recommend you request close to lobby. It is not guaranteed but would put you close to pool, restaurant, community hall, bus station, and store and also puts you near an animal feeding area for view. If you don't request close to lobby at Kidani, you can end up far from lobby and far from the lobby at Kidani is something that every AKV guest should experience only once so that they know what the distance truly is when someone says it was like walking to another county. You will never experience at any other hotel in the nation, no in the world, a walk down a hallway from lobby to room that is longer than the one at Kidani to the end rooms in its north wing.

 

[Kidanifan08]

If I was going to have to use all of my points through 2013, I would probably opt for the standard view. Of course, we tend to spend most of the day in the park. We stayed in a 2-BR standard at Kidani 12/4 - 12/11/10. We were a little hesitant to do a standard view initially. We had a view of the parking lot right next to the bus stop. We were on the 5th level and never had a problem with noise from the busses. We have stayed in a Savannah view 2-BR in the summer and loved it. It is great to sit out on the balcony with a beverage and just look out over the savannah.

One thing to keep in mind about the time of year that you are travelling is that it gets dark early. If you will be in the parks past 5PM most day, the savannah will be dimly lit when you get back. It may not be worth the extra points for the savannah view if you really can't take advantage of it.

Plus, the week we were there was very cold! Generally it is nice in the early part of December, but we would not have sat out in the kind of cold to watch the animals, and we even had our winter wear!

Our son is 4, and I don't think it really would have mattered to him whether we were at Kidani or Jambo. When we are back at the room, he would rather play with cars than look at animals!!

I agree with a PP about considering a 1-BR -- the two full bathrooms and two pull out beds in the living room may work for your party. Then you would have quite a few points left over for your next trip

Have fun planning!

 

[brightspark]

Hey - thanks for the swift replies - you've given us loads to think about... Can always be sure the Dis-ers will come up with what we need!

I feel so silly for not realising that low season, is low to normal crowds - but top time for DVC members... why, oh why didn't I realise that? We own at SSR, but like to try and stay at different places (we love SSR though so would be happy there) and the points for AKV standard is less than 2bed at SSR. I will get onto dh to book a reservation at SSR for the time we want - will be the weekend now though.. can we be put on a waiting list or anything for AKV, for when the 7 month window opens?

I don't think we'll worry too much about the quick service - we'll do a shop when we get there (or used green something website last time) and do some cooking and some eating out.

We won't have a car, so don't need to worry about parking - but thanks for the info anyway... always useful to know for the future

Swimming pools - hmmm it's so difficult to know what to do. We hope to visit TL and on our last trip we found we only made it to the pool about 3x... ds is going to be older and having less daytime sleeps this time so it's difficult to know how much time we'll have. The splash pool and stuff sounds fun though - and might be better than attempting TL more frequently...

I really don't like split location vacations - packing once is bad enough.. we've done it a couple of times, and I never like the second location as much!

One beds.. we had one last time... but my sister suffers with depression and needs space away from everyone else so it's important to have a second bedroom area... but it would be so much easier points wise if we could go one bed.

Savannah view.. undecided. I think Ds would LOVE to see animals outside, and I'm kind of inclined to the view that if we're going to stay there, we ought to do it in proper style...

The rooms look a bit dark on the photos I've seen... are they like this in reality?

wbl2745 thanks for the links to your report - I'll definitely have a look!

drusba thanks for all the info esp where to stay in which building - that's really helpful

Denlo thanks for the comment about buses from Jambo to the village

Thanks to everyone else too...

 

[Kidanifan08]

The rooms look a bit dark on the photos I've seen... are they like this in reality?

The rooms are dark, but that is part of the charm of AKV. The entire resort is dimly lit. It has a calming effect!

 

[drusba]

Darkness: the rooms are dimly lighted, as is the whole resort. You can look at it as atmosphere or just look at it as all the bulbs are your more recent energy efficient type bulbs which environmentalists have dictated we must use even if you cannot see with them.

 

[brightspark]

Kidanifan - thanks so much for your really helpful thoughts! Our posts crossed earlier.

LOL I can imagine your little boy prefering to play cars than look at the animals... on reflection I suspect that ds could well be the same - a quick look out of the window and then back to the important task of playing.

It's a very good point about sitting on the balcony in the dark and not being able to see anything. I think we'll save our points and go for a standard view if we can get one. Last trip we spent most of our days in the parks LOL we just kept riding ds's favourite rides and he was so jet lagged he slept in the stroller really well... so we weren't really in the room much other than after dark

We've been when it's been really cold - but Jan rather than December. We went in December a couple of years ago (bit of a disastor as Dh and my sister both got awful stomach upsets, and I had morning sickness), and the weather was hot, but MVMCP got rained off Have to say we are hoping it will be nice weather this time.. but I'd rather be cold in WDW than hot elsewhere!

 

[bobbiwoz]

Our DGC loved looking at the animals right from the room. If/when we bring children, we get them the savannah view.

Bobbi

 

[majortom1981]

kidani is my home resort. I stayed at a savanah view last may.

My honest opinion is that its not worth it. If you get the end farther from jambo house the onl;y animals you will see is the emu. Most of the animals stay by the jambo house part and by the lobby.

I think a standard view is fine. Every so many rooms there is glass showing the savanah and the lobby is a much better animal viewing spot. They have a fire pit which is awesome spot to see the animals at night.

I do not think its worth the points for it since there are soo many viewing spots .