Any Advice?

[ConnecticutNonna]

We honeymooned at POR, and while we had a wonderful trip together, we will never stay there again. So I think you made the right choice!

We are also among the great minority that dislikes POR and POFQ...
We do like CBR better than Poly, but we stayed at Poly so many many years ago, that may have changed.
We're planning a BC stay in a month, so we'll see if that beats out CBR. (I'm thinking the pool alone is worth the switch)

 

[jliucci]

We've stayed at POR twice now..you're not missing out on much lol. Its your honeymoon spend the extra $$ and enjoy Animal Kingdom Resort.

 

[VicarJT]

We are also among the great minority that dislikes POR and POFQ...
We do like CBR better than Poly, but we stayed at Poly so many many years ago, that may have changed.
We're planning a BC stay in a month, so we'll see if that beats out CBR. (I'm thinking the pool alone is worth the switch)

Our distaste for POR does not extend to POFQ - in fact, it's our favorite of all of the resorts. Enjoy AKL!

 

[MermaidMommy]

Thanks for all your help everyone! We've decided to make the stay at Kidani!

We actually emailed a copy/paste of our questions from here directly to the company, and received a response from the wonderful lady who is taking care of our booking. For posterity's sake, I would like to copy/paste her response here for others who may harbor the same concerns as us.

The letter reads as such (sorry for any formatting issues):

First, be assured that there are countless safeguards in place to ensure that doesn't happen. First, the reservation is made in your name and you will link it to your MyDisneyExperience account, so you will always see that it is still there. Second, we verify it in several systems on a regular basis to ensure it is still intact. The Member is contractually obligated to provide the Villa and they want their money. It's a mutually beneficial relationship and we've NEVER had a guest show up to Disney without a room. In the
extraordinary event where something does happen, you would not be out your money. We would work to find an alternative option and your money would be refunded. But as I say, even that happens so rarely, a handful of times in the entire history of the company. The room is NOT in the owner's name - the room is in YOUR name so MyDisneyExperience works the same as usual. You will receive a confirmation # that you can link to MyDisneyExperience and everything will show up there as it would for a regular resort reservations and all the benefits of being a resort guest are included in that, such as making FP+ reservations 60 days in advance. You can purchase your tickets from whomever you choose and you can link them to your MyDisneyExperience account so they will be linked to your MagicBand. I would be happy to help you with those as well. You will set up Magical Express through me. I will send you a link once you have your flights booked. Hope that helps! Please don't hesitate with any additional questions. Your request has gone out to a Member so I will have your confirmation details shortly. Thanks again!

I can confirm the this information is exactly how it works with MDE. It will honestly be just like any other reservation. We’ve rented several times and loved it. AKL is amazing! Besides the animals, it’s a lovely ambience, and it has so many fantastic restaurants! We originally went there because it was the cheapest DVC rental, and now we love it and have been back multiple times. We were concerned about our vulnerability, as well, so we found it reassuring to go through a broker. That extra layer of protection was important to us.

One thing to note, just so you’re not surprised, is that, like any time you go through a travel agent, the rental company “owns” your reservation — meaning, they’re the only one who can talk to Disney regarding your reservation. So, for example, if you wanted to have them put a honeymoon celebration on your reservation (and you should!), that would have to be done through the TA. Same thing if you wanted to put a location request via the phone — they would do that for you as well.

 

[MouseOfCards]

Honeymoon is once in a lifetime go with AK!

Totally agree with this! Of course do not go into deep debt for your honeymoon, but the wonderful memories will last long after the trip.

 

[Tigerlulu]

Our distaste for POR does not extend to POFQ - in fact, it's our favorite of all of the resorts. Enjoy AKL!

Same here!