Animal Acclimation Affects Sunset Savanna View

[huey578]

Just read this on the DVC member site, is this old news?

Animal Acclimation Affects Sunset Savanna View

As the development of Kidani Village continues at Disney's Animal Kingdom Villas, crews are preparing to complete the new savanna and acclimate the animals to their new habitat. To accommodate this important process, animals are not scheduled to be on Sunset Savanna from January 15, 2009 through April 15, 2009. Members and Guests who reserve a savanna-view room during this time will be advised of this process, and confirmations for those bookings will include a notation to that affect. Approximately 30 days prior to arrival, the resort will determine, based on occupancy and booking date order, which Members will be assigned to a Sunset Savanna view room. Affected Members will be notified, and after their stay, will receive a Vacation Point credit reflecting the difference between a savanna view and standard view. As a reminder, animals on the other savannas can be viewed from multiple public locations at the resort.

 

[drusba]

Some speculation. This indicates to me Kidani building will be all or mostly done by Jan 15, 2009. Whatever they may call it, "Animal Acclimation" sounds to me that they intend to remove the animals and put down any new grass, trees, etc. in the sunset savanna area and want about 2 to 3 months for all the new vegetation to take before allowing the animals back in

 

[pilferk]

Just read this on the DVC member site, is this old news?

Animal Acclimation Affects Sunset Savanna View

As the development of Kidani Village continues at Disney's Animal Kingdom Villas, crews are preparing to complete the new savanna and acclimate the animals to their new habitat. To accommodate this important process, animals are not scheduled to be on Sunset Savanna from January 15, 2009 through April 15, 2009. Members and Guests who reserve a savanna-view room during this time will be advised of this process, and confirmations for those bookings will include a notation to that affect. Approximately 30 days prior to arrival, the resort will determine, based on occupancy and booking date order, which Members will be assigned to a Sunset Savanna view room. Affected Members will be notified, and after their stay, will receive a Vacation Point credit reflecting the difference between a savanna view and standard view. As a reminder, animals on the other savannas can be viewed from multiple public locations at the resort.

Yup, old news.

There was a FIRESTORM about it last week, because they initially left off the start date...leaving us all to assume that it was starting immediately.

 

[kittylady1972]

If this question was answered in that thread, I apologize and feel free to direct me to it to review.

We are considering booking a reservation for January of 2009 and had decided LAST NIGHT that we'd like to do a Savannah View at AKL. We've stayed at AKL before in a "regular" room 2 years ago and after one night of looking at the parking lot we knew we'd have to switch to Savannah View.

So, if they are removing the animals from the Sunset Savannah, I'm assuming there will still be SOME animals that can be viewed there during that time, just not if you have the Sunset Savannah view, correct? There are other Savannah views available from DVC rooms I hope.

It would just suck to find out 30-days out that we'd have one of those rooms without a view of animals at all, since that is the whole reason for booking there. I'm not sure I would even want to chance the Savannah View room if that was the case. By 30 days out it would be awful hard to switch to a different resort.

Anyway, I just wondered if anyone had any facts on how many "other" savannah view rooms are out there for DVC? I'm looking to book a 2BR unit and am wondering what are the odds that I'd get one of those "other" views or if I'd be highly likely to get the Sunset Savannah view.

Thanks in advance!

 

[pilferk]

If this question was answered in that thread, I apologize and feel free to direct me to it to review.

We are considering booking a reservation for January of 2009 and had decided LAST NIGHT that we'd like to do a Savannah View at AKL. We've stayed at AKL before in a "regular" room 2 years ago and after one night of looking at the parking lot we knew we'd have to switch to Savannah View.

So, if they are removing the animals from the Sunset Savannah, I'm assuming there will still be SOME animals that can be viewed there during that time, just not if you have the Sunset Savannah view, correct? There are other Savannah views available from DVC rooms I hope.

It would just suck to find out 30-days out that we'd have one of those rooms without a view of animals at all, since that is the whole reason for booking there. I'm not sure I would even want to chance the Savannah View room if that was the case. By 30 days out it would be awful hard to switch to a different resort.

Anyway, I just wondered if anyone had any facts on how many "other" savannah view rooms are out there for DVC? I'm looking to book a 2BR unit and am wondering what are the odds that I'd get one of those "other" views or if I'd be highly likely to get the Sunset Savannah view.

Thanks in advance!

Taking the Sunset Savannah out of comission removes just about 40% of all the savanna view rooms from "circulation".

The Arusha Savanna and the Uzima savanna will still be open so, yes, there will be DVC SV rooms open from Jan 15th - April 15th.

The issue is this: HOW early you book is going to have an effect on WHERE you get assigned. The earlier you book that SV view room, the more likely you'll actually GET one. And you WON'T know until 30 days prior to your trip whether you "won" the lottery or not.

Right now, you're past the 11 month window for Jan, and somewhere between 9 and 10 months out. So you're going to be gambling that it's not SOOO busy that they've taken "enough" ressies for SV view for January that you'll "win the lottery". Personally, I think you'd be OK....January seems to be a slower time as long as you're not looking at Marathon times or Martin Luther King weekend/following week. IF you are looking at those times...I'd say it's probably not a good risk to take, if you're going to be disappointed with a "grass view" room.

 

[jenkh]

I think only a certain percentage wil be in the "lottery" I booked a 2 bedroom savannah room for jan 24-31 09 and asked the cm about it and she said not to worry my view was guranteed.

I still don't understand there organization of how there booking these rooms (30 day rule etc) But I hope the CM i talked to was right about me lol

 

[pilferk]

I think only a certain percentage wil be in the "lottery" I booked a 2 bedroom savannah room for jan 24-31 09 and asked the cm about it and she said not to worry my view was guranteed.

I still don't understand there organization of how there booking these rooms (30 day rule etc) But I hope the CM i talked to was right about me lol

It's been as clear as mud.

There are 2 schools of thought and I haven't seen clarification on which is actually true.

1) EVERYONE who booked SV is going to get dumped into the lottery, 30 days-ish prior to arrival, and "view" will be assigned based on when you booked.

2) ONLY those people that booked for January BEFORE the reduction in inventory was decided on/announced will have to undergo the "lottery"...since they should know what their SV "inventory" should be now that the announcement/determination has been made.

We'll have to see, or maybe there will be some clarification, as we move forward.

I'd figure on #1, until we hear otherwise. That way if it's #2, you're pleasantly surprised.

 

[kittylady1972]

Yes, it's a tough call. Unfortunately my home resort is SSR, so I am not planning on calling for AKV until June. I'm going to call exactly 7 months out from the first weekend I want to go and it will be the weekend AFTER MLK weekend through the last weekend in January.

After doing some searches, I realized there are different Savannahs and at least there is still a chance to see animals even if our room view doesn't allow it. We really don't spend that much time in the room now that the kids are older so I think I'll be okay if we end up in a room without an animal view. I'm not sure the husband feels the same way, but I think I've convinced him that we'll just take our chances. My in-laws are going with us as they always do on these trips, and I think FIL is really looking forward to staying at AK.

Then again, it may not even be an issue if I call at the 7-month window and it's not even available. I may just take whatever they have at that point.

 

[Spokavegas]

YIKES.....I just called DVC to put a request on our Feb 09 GV for the Uzima Savannah since Sunset will be closed, and she said 'oh no, that is happening now in 08, not 09.' I referred to the DVC site and everything, and also that I was just there last month and there was animals out there.....but she dropped the subject and went back to my request. I wonder how many other people she's giving that misinformation to- that's sad!