letterdavidman
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2004
- Messages
- 1,326
Well, without further ado, let me delve right into the report on my (and DW's) recent stay at the AKL!...
First, as you can see in my sig, this was the very first time I'd ever stayed on Disney property. And, wow!, what a first Disney hotel to stay at!!
So, we arrive at a little after 10:00 a.m. on Sunday, August 21, with absolutely no expectations of having our room be available at that early an hour (and, BTW, we had reserved a Deluxe Savannah View, and had requested a view of the Arusha savannah), so we were very pleasantly surprised when the very friendly and helpful front desk CM (and, incidentally, we found all of the AKL staff to be friendly and helpful) told us that our room was ready. So, up we went to the fifth floor (nearly hyperventilating in anticipation of the awesome view of the beasties), inserted our Keys to the World in the lock, briskly walked straight to the window, pulled back the curtains, and feasted our eyes on... an awesomely detailed and expansive view of the Dreaded People Pen. And no animals.
So, okay, it was time to go back down to the front desk (which had a line, at that time of day, of approximately 2-3 people) and ask politely if we might be moved to a room with a better view. When we did ask the CM (a different one from the first CM), she told us that it was no problem, took our first set of KsTTW, gave us a brand new set, and told us to high ourselves toward room number 5371. So, again, we walked excitedly to our new (and, hopefully, permanent) room, let ourselves in, and I walked straight to the window to observe... ZEBRA!!!! I nearly wept. Then, I heard my wife mutter from over my shoulder, "Uh... honey?" I turned around and noticed, for the first time (hey, I was singlemindedly pursuing Awesome Animal Vistas) that, hm, the beds weren't made and that there was an ironing board out in the middle of the floor. I had actually walked right by it, unnoticed. Ah, well. But there were zebra!!
So we went back down to the front desk for the third time in twenty minutes (I'm sure they were glad to see us again
) and, after thanking them profusely for granting me (us, us!) such a bewildering view of the exotic creatures, let them know that the room actually hadn't been, um, cleaned. No problem. They put a rush on it and off we went to DTD for a couple of hours (spending close to $300 in the process 
). When we came back, all was as it should be. We... were content.
And, I'll tell you, things pretty much stayed that way for the eight nights that we stayed there. We had, for five out of the seven full days that we vacationed there, Melanie R., an AWESOME and sweet mousekeeper who left us towel animals/people every day she cleaned our rooms. (If someone can clue me in as to how to post pictures here on the DIS, I'll show you pics of all of them.) We dined at Boma thrice (once for dinner and twice for breakfast), and we had (for the first breakfast) a superfriendly waiter by the name of Chaidan who, when we dined there the second time for breakfast, warmly greeted us like old friends, and even told us that, though it's not publicized, Boma offers an authentic full Japanese breakfast (including pickled fish), and invited us to try some (which my wife said no, thanks to right out, and which I, while surely tempted, was ultimately not adventurous enough to try). I truly can't say enough good things about Melanie R. and Chaidan. They embody all that WDW is supposed to be.
I had only a couple of very minor quibbles. (And, possibly, only one that, to be fair, Disney could do anything about. So, really, just one quibble.) The first annoyance was, on Monday, 8/22, waiting from 1:40 to2:15 p.m. at AK for a bus back to the Lodge. I had read that AKL has its own line of buses servicing the hotel, and we were at the absolute closest park to AKL, so I was a little puzzled as to why the wait was so long. To be fair, though, usually we only had to wait about five to ten minutes for a bus to or from AKL.
The only other quibble (and, it was a bit more than a quibble, actually) was not unique to the AKL... no, this particular annoyance was witnessed almost everywhere on WDW property. And said annoyance was: Out-of-control kids whose parents let remain out-of-control. I mean, not so much as a word was, in most cases, said to these li'l monsters whilst the little darlings ran in and out of bus traffic at the bus stops; ran right up to monorails while the monorails were coming into the stations; and actually ran up and punched people (namely, me) in the rear end as hard as they could. But, really, what can Disney do about that?
All in all, though, this was a magnificently magical vacation, for both myself and DW, and I would resoundingly recommend that anyone even slightly curious about this resort stay there IMMEDIATELY!! We are in love with AKL!!
P.S. Just a tip, if great views of animals are your raison d'etre, and you are a party of only two or three people, don't book a deluxe savannah view--just book a regular savannah view room. See, all the deluxe savannah view rooms are on the fifth floor while the best savannah view rooms are on the third and fourth floors (closer to the animals). And they're cheaper, too!
P.P.S. Yes, though I neglected to say earlier, we DID finally get our hoped-for Arusha Savannah view.
First, as you can see in my sig, this was the very first time I'd ever stayed on Disney property. And, wow!, what a first Disney hotel to stay at!!
So, we arrive at a little after 10:00 a.m. on Sunday, August 21, with absolutely no expectations of having our room be available at that early an hour (and, BTW, we had reserved a Deluxe Savannah View, and had requested a view of the Arusha savannah), so we were very pleasantly surprised when the very friendly and helpful front desk CM (and, incidentally, we found all of the AKL staff to be friendly and helpful) told us that our room was ready. So, up we went to the fifth floor (nearly hyperventilating in anticipation of the awesome view of the beasties), inserted our Keys to the World in the lock, briskly walked straight to the window, pulled back the curtains, and feasted our eyes on... an awesomely detailed and expansive view of the Dreaded People Pen. And no animals.
So, okay, it was time to go back down to the front desk (which had a line, at that time of day, of approximately 2-3 people) and ask politely if we might be moved to a room with a better view. When we did ask the CM (a different one from the first CM), she told us that it was no problem, took our first set of KsTTW, gave us a brand new set, and told us to high ourselves toward room number 5371. So, again, we walked excitedly to our new (and, hopefully, permanent) room, let ourselves in, and I walked straight to the window to observe... ZEBRA!!!! I nearly wept. Then, I heard my wife mutter from over my shoulder, "Uh... honey?" I turned around and noticed, for the first time (hey, I was singlemindedly pursuing Awesome Animal Vistas) that, hm, the beds weren't made and that there was an ironing board out in the middle of the floor. I had actually walked right by it, unnoticed. Ah, well. But there were zebra!!
So we went back down to the front desk for the third time in twenty minutes (I'm sure they were glad to see us again
) and, after thanking them profusely for granting me (us, us!) such a bewildering view of the exotic creatures, let them know that the room actually hadn't been, um, cleaned. No problem. They put a rush on it and off we went to DTD for a couple of hours (spending close to $300 in the process ). When we came back, all was as it should be. We... were content.And, I'll tell you, things pretty much stayed that way for the eight nights that we stayed there. We had, for five out of the seven full days that we vacationed there, Melanie R., an AWESOME and sweet mousekeeper who left us towel animals/people every day she cleaned our rooms. (If someone can clue me in as to how to post pictures here on the DIS, I'll show you pics of all of them.) We dined at Boma thrice (once for dinner and twice for breakfast), and we had (for the first breakfast) a superfriendly waiter by the name of Chaidan who, when we dined there the second time for breakfast, warmly greeted us like old friends, and even told us that, though it's not publicized, Boma offers an authentic full Japanese breakfast (including pickled fish), and invited us to try some (which my wife said no, thanks to right out, and which I, while surely tempted, was ultimately not adventurous enough to try). I truly can't say enough good things about Melanie R. and Chaidan. They embody all that WDW is supposed to be.
I had only a couple of very minor quibbles. (And, possibly, only one that, to be fair, Disney could do anything about. So, really, just one quibble.) The first annoyance was, on Monday, 8/22, waiting from 1:40 to2:15 p.m. at AK for a bus back to the Lodge. I had read that AKL has its own line of buses servicing the hotel, and we were at the absolute closest park to AKL, so I was a little puzzled as to why the wait was so long. To be fair, though, usually we only had to wait about five to ten minutes for a bus to or from AKL.
The only other quibble (and, it was a bit more than a quibble, actually) was not unique to the AKL... no, this particular annoyance was witnessed almost everywhere on WDW property. And said annoyance was: Out-of-control kids whose parents let remain out-of-control. I mean, not so much as a word was, in most cases, said to these li'l monsters whilst the little darlings ran in and out of bus traffic at the bus stops; ran right up to monorails while the monorails were coming into the stations; and actually ran up and punched people (namely, me) in the rear end as hard as they could. But, really, what can Disney do about that?
All in all, though, this was a magnificently magical vacation, for both myself and DW, and I would resoundingly recommend that anyone even slightly curious about this resort stay there IMMEDIATELY!! We are in love with AKL!!
P.S. Just a tip, if great views of animals are your raison d'etre, and you are a party of only two or three people, don't book a deluxe savannah view--just book a regular savannah view room. See, all the deluxe savannah view rooms are on the fifth floor while the best savannah view rooms are on the third and fourth floors (closer to the animals). And they're cheaper, too!
P.P.S. Yes, though I neglected to say earlier, we DID finally get our hoped-for Arusha Savannah view.
Boma is awesome...did you get to try Jiko or The Mara? They are both wonderful, too.
I tried to figure it out once but even with the step by step instructions, it was not to be. 
