Canadians Go Wild at AKL! An Aug 2011 PTR - **TR Complete - Feb 12th**

[Disney9.9.10]

Just a quick update to say that we are leaving tomorrow!! I hope that everyone is well while I'm gone and those who are at Disney have a wonderful time there

I doubt I will update again before we leave. I was busy all day today and still have a few things to do tomorrow! We got our hair done at the salon this morning - it was very relaxing. Then I took Matt to the arena for hockey practice. While we were at hockey, mom and grandma made some food, and then we had a family dinner. Phew! Busy day!

Tomorrow I still have to finish packing my clothes, but other than that, I am ready to go! We are leaving around 3:30 to go to the airport hotel for the night because our flight leaves super early Monday morning.

So I hope everyone is well, and I will be back soon to start my TR!

 

[Kari-B]

Sorry I missed posting before you left, but I hope you are having a fabulous time. I can't wait to hear about your trip when you return!

 

[Disney9.9.10]

We're home!

We had a great trip, and I really loved AKL!

I am going to start uploading my pictures, and then I will get started with the TR.

I will also get myself caught up on everyone's PTRs and TRs soon! I hope all is well with everyone!

 

[Disney9.9.10]

Alright, it is time to get this TR started! I am going to start in the same way I did my wedding TR, because I like the quick concise summary of reviews. I have written some quick reviews of some of the services that we used on our trip. I enjoy reading them and find them helpful so hopefully you will enjoy mine! If there is anything I forgot to review, just let me know and I will add it in!

AKL – We loved AKL! I think that the only downfall for us was the fact that it is a lot further away from things than the Deluxes that are on the Monorail loop. Magic Kingdom is my favourite park, so I love being able to get there so quickly, but our bus ride from AKL was only 10-15 minutes, so it was bearable. The resort was beautiful, and everything was very clean. The staff were all excellent – front desk was always eager to help, CM’s always said “hello” or “welcome home” or asked us how our day was. There were also CM’s down by the fire pit area that overlooks the Savannah – they were so helpful with information about the animals, they offered to take pictures for people, and they were all very friendly. Our Villa was spacious and clean. We had room for everyone, and housekeeping was great. Matt decided that this is his new favourite resort!

ME – We had a good experience with ME, going in both directions. The drivers were friendly and arrived on time, and got us to the airport on time (and we had a super early flight!) The driver who drove us to the airport on our way home was excellent – he had a great personality, was very friendly (especially for before 5 in the morning lol) and he spoke to us on the way to the airport and gave us a bunch of information. Overall, we had a great experience with ME.

Bus Transportation – We found the buses to be good on this trip. We never had to wait long for a bus – the only time we waited for 15 minutes was when we were silly and left MK right after Wishes. The buses weren’t typically full, so there were usually seats for everyone – even with stops at both Kidani and Jambo. Some bus rides were long from AKL, but most weren’t. We had good drivers, and a couple of exceptional drivers. One even gave us some WDW Bus Trivia information!

Dining – We didn’t do the DDP this trip because we stayed in a villa, and figured we would experiment with making our own meals. This worked well for us, but I definitely wouldn’t try it without being in a villa, or if you don’t like cooking! We typically would have a quick breakfast (fruit and yogurt or something) and then go to a park. We went back to the villa late in the afternoon – which happened to coincide with the rain! – and then cook dinner before going back out. This worked really well for us! We were back at AKL when it decided to rain, and when it was the hottest part of the day. We could eat, have a swim, and regroup before doing more park stuff. We have been to WDW enough times now that we don’t feel that we need to go commando and be at the park from Rope Drop to closing every day – which I also think is part of the reason why it worked for us. I don’t know if this is something we would do every trip – why should I cook and do dishes on vacation? Lol – but it saved us money, and we would probably do it again.

The meals that we did eat in Disney restaurants were great! I am not a “foodie” by any means, and I have a fairly plain palate, so it doesn’t take a whole lot to impress me lol but I always like Disney food. We ate at Liberty Tree Tavern, ‘Ohana, Pizzafari, and T-Rex. We had good service, and good food at every one of these places.

Garden Grocer – This was our first experience with Garden Grocer, and everything went very smoothly! We waited a little bit too late to order, so we ended up booking a later delivery time than we would have liked, but they ended up delivering it early for us. I got a text message saying that everything was at the bell desk at AKL, the number of bags, and that we could pick it up whenever we wanted. When we got to bell services, I gave them the name it was under, and they promptly brought everything out for us. We didn’t have that many bags, and our room was close, so we took them up ourselves. When we got to the room, we noticed that we had something that we didn’t order, and a couple of things that we did order weren’t there. We went over the invoice, and it had everything down properly, so we went back down to bell services. There must have been some small mix-up with a bag, but they got us the right bag, and everything worked out well. I would order from Garden Grocer again in the future.

Merchandise - I know that people have said that it has gone downhill lately, but I still managed to spend money! Their selection of Dooney & Bourke purses was awful - they had hardly anything in stock - so that was disappointing. There was a fair bit of 40th Anniversary merchandise. I bought some of that - note pads, mug, t-shirt, puzzle of the park map. I really thought that there would have been more, and some things I really didn't care for (a couple of the bags, shirts). But overall, I thought they did a pretty good job. There were some things that I've seen on my last few trips, but there were also new things. I am really not that hard to please and I just love WDW and Disney in general, so I was happy!

And those are my reviews!

I tend to wear rose coloured glasses when it comes to Disney lol But isn't the point of vacationing to enjoy yourself?


Up Next… getting to the airport for our ridiculously early flight!

 

[beebeeryan]

YAY glad you had an awesome trip, can't wait to hear more about it! My kids were so taken with Animal Kingdom this year and animals that I really think we need to consider Animal Kingdom Lodge next trip.

 

[Disney9.9.10]

YAY glad you had an awesome trip, can't wait to hear more about it! My kids were so taken with Animal Kingdom this year and animals that I really think we need to consider Animal Kingdom Lodge next trip.

Thanks! I would definitely recommend staying there, your kids will love it! My little brother told me that it is his new favourite resort - but didn't want to break the news to mom because her favourite is Polynesian lol I will keep my eyes open for an AKL PTR/TR from you in the future

 

[disneydreamingdebby]

I am so glad you enjoyed AKV. It is wonderful, and although not as close to MK as the monorail, I am glad that the buses were fast for you too!

(We always hear people complain about the distance, but we think the bus service is much better than the monorail resorts bus service is much worse to AK and HS.)

 

[Disney9.9.10]

I am so glad you enjoyed AKV. It is wonderful, and although not as close to MK as the monorail, I am glad that the buses were fast for you too!

(We always hear people complain about the distance, but we think the bus service is much better than the monorail resorts bus service is much worse to AK and HS.)

I take it you also had good bus service! Good to hear. I really didn't think that the distance was as bad as I have heard from others. And I have been lucky in the past with Monorail resorts, but I agree that there can be times when bus service to certain parks is slower.

 

[Disney9.9.10]

I got picked up from my house at about 3:30 in the afternoon. We drove straight from my house to the border. We were quite lined up, but it didn't end up taking too long to get through customs. There was a Cracker Barrel near by where we ate for dinner. We don't have these where we live, so we always make a point to eat there when we travel to the states. After dinner, we went to the motel where we would be spending the night. It was directly across from the airport, and had shuttle service to the airport. We planned it this way so that we wouldn't have to leave a car at the airport (someone drove us across the border). It was pretty rainy out, and we saw a rainbow from our room! I thought that this was a good sign for the start of our trip.

This is when I gave everyone their gifts that I made. They went over really well! They were all really surprised and really liked the gifts. I was so glad that my efforts paid off!

The night was spent around the hotel. We played cards

They had a little fitness area in the hotel, so I went on the treadmill for a bit, and then we went into the hot tub. When we came back to the room, Pirates of the Caribbean was on TV! Another good sign for our vacation. We watched some of that as we "tried" to get some sleep. We tried to go to bed early because we would be leaving so early in the morning, but it didn't work out so well. My grandma and I don't sleep well at night, and we shared a bed in the room, so we ended up doing a lot of late night giggling! Jim, having never traveled with us before, felt the need to get a wake-up call (for 3:30 in the morning ) but we told him that we would be awake and didn't need a wake-up call…


Up Next…who was right? Did we need the wake-up call?

 

[Disney9.9.10]

Day 2 - Monday, August 22nd, 2011

Today was the day we were flying to WDW!! Like we predicted, we did not need an alarm or wake-up call! Grandma and I were up first, before 3:30 Everyone got dressed/ready, got our luggage, and headed downstairs. The hotel had a continental breakfast for us before the shuttle picked us up to go to the airport. It was a really short ride to the airport, and we spoke to some really nice people.

Us at the airport in our matching shirts

Our flight was on time, and we boarded the plane before we knew it. Matt didn't want his picture taken this morning.

We arrived in Orlando at about 8:30am, earlier than we thought! We got on the "practice monorail" to head towards ME.

I was super excited to see this sign

We boarded our bus and were on our way

Not quite sure what is going on with our faces in this picture lol

Our ME bus stopped first at CBR and then Pop Century before going to AKL. We pulled up and this was our first glimpse of AKL

The ME dropped us off at Jambo house, where we checked in and got our KTTW cards. I had done the online check-in, around 10 days before our trip, so our room was ready for us when we got there - even though it was really early in the morning!

It is such a lovely resort! Some pictures of Jambo House.

We decided to walk over to Kidani Village. The weather was beautiful, and it gave us a chance to see some of the resort grounds. I had heard some bad things about the walking distances at AKL, but we found this walk to be quite enjoyable. It takes maybe 5 minutes to walk from Jambo to Kidani. They did run a shuttle between the two, which we also took on occasion (for the experience) but we liked the walk.

Up Next… more of day 2

 

[beebeeryan]

YAY, pics of AKL coming up. Can't wait to hear more. I'm glad to hear it's not a far walk, it's one of the things that worry's me about staying there. But I'm more and more getting sold...

 

[Disney9.9.10]

YAY, pics of AKL coming up. Can't wait to hear more. I'm glad to hear it's not a far walk, it's one of the things that worry's me about staying there. But I'm more and more getting sold...

The walking really wasn't bad for us. It was only about 5 mins from Jambo to Kidani, and our room was really close to the elevators and lobby so we were lucky there. I would definitely recommend staying there, we loved it!

 

[Disney9.9.10]

Day 2 - Part 2

Because we had never stayed at AKL before, we spent a little time walking around and taking pictures. We also went into the shop and bought our refillable mugs.

At around 11:30 we got on the bus for DTD. We had a lunch reservation at T-Rex for 2pm, so this gave us time to walk around DTD. Since we were up so early, we were hungry a little early. We went into T-Rex to see if there was any way we could get in early. Sometimes they will register you early, and you might be able to get in 10 minutes early or something. Well, we got in right away, almost an hour before our reservation! It really wasn't busy at all. We all really enjoyed our meals - but the portions were HUGE so nobody finished.

Here are some pictures from inside - it is really cool theming.

On the bus back to AKL, is when I experienced my only real problem with the buses on this trip. It wasn't that big of a deal, so I consider myself really lucky, but some people just make me wonder. There was a little boy who kept walking around while the bus was moving. There were only a few people on the bus, so he had the room, but the mom let him keep walking around, he sat down almost right on top of me (despite there being many available seats) and squished my left-over lunch that was on my lap. Like I said, it wasn't a big deal, but I cannot believe that she let him walk all around the bus while it was moving.

When we got back to AKL, we went down to the pool, but didn't stay for long because a storm came. Shortly after, I got a text that our garden grocer order was at bell services. This was a surprise because it wasn't supposed to arrive until later that evening. We went right down and picked it up - we weren't doing much else at the time because of the storm. There was a small mix-up with one of our bags of frozen stuff, but bell services fixed it right away. We spent the rest of the night at AKL. We hadn't planned on going to a park that day anyway, so we spent the time looking at the Savannah, and exploring both Kidani and Jambo.

 

[Disney9.9.10]

Day 2 - Part 3

This update is just going to be some more pictures from Day 2.

Here are some pictures of the rain from our balcony.

At 7 (or 7:30) every night, there was a bonfire out by the Savannah. It went until midnight, so we spent time there almost every night! I have pictures of this in daylight, at night, in the rain, etc. etc. lol It always looked so pretty, and I tried so hard to capture it, but I never really did. My camera is officially on the fritz and I always have a hard time capturing how great the resorts really look. Anyway, here are some pictures from Day 2, when it was still kind of rainy and grey out.

This wonderful CM who was down supervising the bonfire area offered to take a picture of Matt and I.

Up Next… Day 3 - MK!

 

[disneydreamingdebby]

I love your matching T-shirts!

Our bad bus experiences always involve dtd! Usually it is the amount of time spent on the bus though. I am surprised that the bus driver didn't tell the boy to stop. Long story short, our girls were yelled at by a bus driver on an empty bus for moving from one seat to another (not hopping all around, but moving). Dh and I weren't doing our job well enough - or maybe we both were too worn out from reminding them how to behave on a bus...probably not my best parenting moment.

I love that AKV has so much to offer even on rainy days! Your pictures turned out nice. The colors look good. I couldn't get over the lady in red. She was quite dressed up, but maybe they ate at Jiko or Sanaa.

 

[Disney9.9.10]

I love your matching T-shirts!

Our bad bus experiences always involve dtd! Usually it is the amount of time spent on the bus though. I am surprised that the bus driver didn't tell the boy to stop. Long story short, our girls were yelled at by a bus driver on an empty bus for moving from one seat to another (not hopping all around, but moving). Dh and I weren't doing our job well enough - or maybe we both were too worn out from reminding them how to behave on a bus...probably not my best parenting moment.

I love that AKV has so much to offer even on rainy days! Your pictures turned out nice. The colors look good. I couldn't get over the lady in red. She was quite dressed up, but maybe they ate at Jiko or Sanaa.

Thanks for your nice comments! I thought that the driver would have told him to stop too - sometimes when those buses stop you can get thrown pretty good, and he was pretty small. But I know what you are saying from the parents point of view too - it is a long day for everyone!

AKL really does have so much to offer! Whenever we were down by the fire, I noticed that a lot of people had restaurant pagers, and it is right by Sanaa, so a lot of people went out to look at the Savannah while they waited for their table.

 

[Disney9.9.10]

Day 3 - Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011

Today was a day that I always look forward to - our first MK day of the trip! I was up super early this morning. I was the first to have a shower (like usual lol) and then we all got ready to go. We were at the bus stop by 7:00am and caught the first bus to MK!

Matt and Grandma on the bus

Mom and I on the bus

This morning was am EMH, and we arrived in great time! We were in the second row of people behind the rope! We couldn't see the rope drop show too well from where we were (the sun, being so close to the rope, etc) but the music does it for me anyway lol After waiting for a time that felt longer than it really was, I saw some of my favourite sites in the world (the real world, not just WDW )

We didn't really come in with a plan. This is one of the things that I enjoy about the fact that I have been lucky enough to visit the world so many times - we just do whatever we feel like doing on that day, no real rushing around or anything. We had a few issues with rides stopping this morning, but it wasn't anything major. We got to ride quite a bit in a short period of time - IASW, Pooh, Stitch, HM, Splash Mountain, Pirates - all of our favourites.

Me and grandma on IASW - we had the whole boat for just the 4 of us! This is her favourite ride, and her and I share a real bond with this ride, it is very special to us both. We didn't get to ride it last year because of the refurb, and every year she says it is going to be her last year going to WDW lol so we make sure we ride it!

I really wanted to ride Winnie the Pooh because of the refurb, and I was really impressed with the new queue! It was so cute, and there is lots for the little ones to do while they are waiting in line.

We didn't get the dining plan on this trip, but there are always a couple of Disney snacks that you just can't pass up! We decided to split a funnel cake from Sleepy Hollow - and it was delicious! I took a couple of castle pictures from where we sat - didn't turn out nearly as beautiful as the sight really is, but they will do lol

We then spent some time walking around the shops (mainly on Main Street). This is something that I really enjoy doing. I love Disney, and I love to shop, so even if I don't actually buy anything, I like walking around all of the different shops. By this point it was the afternoon and starting to get quite hot, so we decided to go back to AKL for a swim break.

Up Next…Day 3 part 2 - Did we get our swim?

 

[Disney9.9.10]

It has been forever since I last updated! So I need to hurry up and finish this TR!

Day 3 Continued

We had some quick lunch in our room and then headed to the pool. It was very very hot, but thankfully there were lots of available chairs and space at the pool. We relaxed by the pool, swam, watched some of the poolside games, and I did a little reading. When it got close to dinner time, the clouds started rolling in once again, so we went back up to our room.

Mom and Matt playing ping pong.

The weather went from this:

to this:

It was a LOT of rain! And it just kept coming down! We waited for a bit after dinner, but when the rain still wasn't stopped, we decided to put on our ponchos and head to Epcot. It wasn't very crowded, which was nice, so we rode quite a few things, and spent some time in mouse gears. We went on Living with the Land after it was dark, and I tried to get a picture of it, but my camera really wasn't cooperating lol The rain did finally let up while we were at Epcot.

When we got back to the room, everyone went to bed except my grandma and I. We went down to the pool to sit in the hot tub for a while, and it was lovely - this became one of my favourite things to do on the trip!

 

[Disney9.9.10]

Day 4 - Wednesday, August 24th, 2011 - Part 1

We decided to sleep in this morning! We had a 9:30 reservation for breakfast at 'Ohana, which gave us plenty of time to get there, and we had some time to browse around the Polynesian resort before our reservation. I love this resort, and haven't stayed there in many years - I think it is time I stay there again! We sat down with our pager at about 9:15.

I don't have many pictures from this breakfast - they were all taken with my moms camera, and therefore don't get online lol Here is one of my grandma, brother and I.

I loved this breakfast! The food was delicious. We always make a point to have breakfast there - Matt's favourite character is Stitch, I love the juice, and we love the Polynesian.

After breakfast, we took a little walk around the resort, and then walked to the TTC to catch a monorail to Epcot.

It was a little bit busier at Epcot today than we had experienced so far in our trip, but nothing that was going to stop us from having a great time! Matt's and my mom's favourite Epcot ride is Test Track, so we went there first to grab some fast passes. As you can probably tell, we really took our time and enjoyed ourselves on this trip, with no set plan. We also rode figment this morning - I have heard some bad things about this ride, but Figment himself brings back some great childhood memories for me, so I love riding it!

Here is a picture of Matt cooling off - it was super hot out!!

We also went into Mouse Gears and took some silly pictures

We then spent some time walking around the World Showcase. This is something that my mom hasn't done in a while and really wanted to spend some time there. I really enjoy seeing all of the different countries, and find it really relaxing. Here are a couple of pictures.

After spending some time in the World Showcase, we went back to use our FP's for Test Track, and then took the bus back to AKL!

 

[Disney9.9.10]

Day 4 - Part 2

For our regularly scheduled afternoon rain, we played Tower of Terror Clue! Matt is a big fan of board games, so this was one of his souvenirs! We had some fun and lots of laughs! Of course, I had to take a couple of pictures of the board…

Matt had heard about filling the jacuzzi tub with shower gel to make it a "bubble tub". This was something that he HAD to try out. So he put on his bathing suit and filled the tub. He had a blast! Here is a picture of the bubbles part way through - yes, the bubbles did grow higher! And he didn't even use half of one of those mini shower gel bottles.

After dinner, Grandma, Matt and I went to Downtown Disney. I had really wanted to see the new Lego sculptures!

We walked around for a while, and picked up a few of the things on our shopping lists! It was still really warm out, and it was super busy! (at least for DTD at this time of the year). We didn't stay there for too long.

When we got back to the resort, we went down to the pool/hot tub.

The blow-up movie screen was set up, and Alice in Wonderland was the movie of the night! I love that Disney has so many great poolside activities for everyone to enjoy! And I also love the warm Florida nights that are perfect for swimming

After our evening swim, it was time to head back to the room. We had an early morning planned for DHS rope drop!