Animal Kingdom Concierge?

[OrlandoHelp]

Can someone tell me what is included in the lounge for concierge? I was wondering if it is worth adding the dining plan or forgoing. I imagine breakfast can be eaten in the lounge. Maybe Lunch too?

 

[csharpwv]

Our Concierge experience was at Wilderness Lodge - however since no one else had commented about AKL- I can tell you what WL does.

Morning: Breakfast, something hot, something cold, plenty to drink, opportunity to sneak a few things back to your room for later


Lunch: While there isn't 'lunch' there are afternoon snacks, goodies and drinks.

Afternoon: Snacks: Trail mix, assorted candy (there were gummy worms one day), cookies, and I think I remember there being Uncrustables (PB&J)

Dinner: YUMMY there is always some type of hot food. We had the most amazing roasted pork in the lounge on our honeymoon! It was made with roasted sweet red peppers - very good! They always have alcoholic beverages, and regular soft drinks, AND my favorite Panna Acqua water - it's mineral water from Italy - I have a bottle in the fridge that I am waiting to open on a special occasion!

After Dinner: Desserts, Cookies, Baked Goods (Apple Crisp), wine, cordials, etc etc.

We think that staying concierge is well worth it in the off season times because it really isn't all that much more expensive - and you definitely get your $$$ worth out of it, since there is a fridge in your room to keep drinks, and you can take a plate back to your room with cookies etc to keep in your room or take into the park with you (in a plastic bag of course!) During peak season it is really expensive to stay concierge and really the level of service is lower due to the larger number of guests for the same amount of concierge folk to handle.

The nightly turn-down service with chocolate is a nice touch
Plus the friendly folks that greet you as you step off the elevator (at least at Wilderness Lodge) is a great 'welcome home' at the end of a long day! Plus their ability to handle dining reservations and such is really a great add on so you don't have to go wait in line in the lobby for the overwhelmed concierge there.

If you have any questions just let me know!

Once again - our experience was at Wilderness Lodge!

You can read concierge reviews online for all the resorts!

 

[zalansky]

We've stayed at AKL concierge twice now with another booked for January. We don't book the dining plan but we're light eaters and we enjoy taking advantage of the appetizer offerings in late afternoon, which doesn't leave us hungry enough to eat a sit down meal. You can definitely plan on breakfast there! What I can recall, its a pretty nice spread...bagels, fruits, cereals, oatmeal, they also serve some sort of african oatmeal that i didn't care for but friends of ours really liked. My fave was chocolate croissants, I think I ate my body weight in those on our last stay. There was also a cappucino machine that became my friend as well. But I can also recall juices and yogurt, things like that.

In the afternoon there isn't much but some light snack items, if anything. I think they wait until 5pm to put out the appetizers and thats cheese and crackers, flatbreads with some spreads that are fantastic and 2 or 3 hot items. This is also when they serve beer & wine. Not positive when that goes until - either 7 or 8pm...then the desserts and cordials are put out. Once we requested zebra domes and they were kind enough to have someone bring them up from Boma for us.

We loved it! It all depends on your eating needs/wants. I hate to think of paying for the dining plan and then now wanting to use it because of the yummy offerings in the lounge. After all, thats what you pay extra for in concierge so we don't want to miss those things!

Sorry my recollections are not 100%, my memory isn't the greatest. Have a great time - we love it there!

 

[LisaS]

We stayed there in the early days of AKV concierge. I have read here that they have scaled back the food offerings so I don't know how much of my experience is still relevant. We enjoyed the breakfast: hot and cold cereals, fruit, bagels, pastries, juice and coffee. The only things I remember being served in the middle of the day were some delicious white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, lemonade, potato chips and gummy bears. At dinner time they had cheese, a few cold veggies and two or three hot hors d'oeuvres, with soda, beer and wine available. Later in the evening they had some small (two-bite size) desserts like those you get at Boma.

What worked well for us was to have breakfast in the lounge, eat lunch in the parks as our main meal of the day and then have a few hors d'oeuvres and dessert in the lounge in the evening.

 

[Joe_B]

you can get beer in concierge level all day, all you have to do is ask for it.

 

[dianeschlicht]

Breakfast and desserts and snacks were our favorite lounge offerings. We no longer do the DDP because it definitely costs us more than paying OOP and using the TIW discount card. When we've stayed at AKV-CL, we have found that we really only use the breakfast offerings as a real meal. It mostly means we don't buy groceries for a concierge stay like we do when we go to a regular villa.