Just back from a wonderful 2 week CL stay at Jambo House! Our dates were 09/24 - 10/08, our only request of a king bed was granted, and we were on the second floor of the Zebra Trail. Initially we weren't thrilled with getting a room on such a low floor when we were paying for CL (we thought those rooms were on the 5th floor?), but we decided that if the view wasn't great we would settle for a room with 2 queen beds on a higher floor, if available. In the past we had stayed on the third and fourth floors and enjoyed the views. Well...we LOVED the view on the second floor, and no longer want anything but!
I hope to put together a trip report one we have a chance to review the 4000+ pics we took, but here are a few notes about our stay at AKL that I hope will be helpful to others (I will save my CL specific thoughts for the CL thread):
Room wasn't ready until after 4PM, kind of a bummer, but it afforded us time to explore the resort and reacquaint ourselves with it.
We had an adjoining door in our room but didn't hear a peep from our neighbors through it. We definitely HAD neighbors (heard them when we were both on the balcony), but never through the wall or adjoining door. Just lucky I guess?
No trouble with the room thermostat. I don't know if ours was already "hacked" or whatever when we checked in, but we set it for 68 and it stayed like that, morning , noon, and night, whether we were there or not, whether we were awake or not. We loved having the ceiling fan too and were always comfortable.
Buses seemed much more crowded than during our previous stay (2008). Of about 20 bus rides (usually late morning & late evening), there was standing room only at least half those times, and the other times the buses seemed 3/4 full or more. Two times we had empty seats on either side of us. We seemed to usually pick up/drop off at Kidani first, although that wasn't always the case. The longest waits were both at AK (about 30 min each), which was surprising considering how close our resort is to the park, DS also had long-ish waits (20-25 min), and all other wait times were fine. We are considering renting a car or using Uber on our next trip rather than exclusively using the buses. RANT 1 OF 2: OK, what is the DEAL with people pretending they don't "see" the elderly people, or women holding infants, when they step onto a standing-room-only bus? Seriously! What is going ON? I believe we witnessed 5 occasions when seats needed to be given to others, and we were the ones to do it 4 of those 5 times. The last time we waited to see how long people were going to look away from an elderly couple before offering our seats, and they ignored them even as the bus started moving! We came up FROM THE VERY BACK OF THE BUS, past about 8 other able-bodied adults, to give them our seats. Never mind the people seated on the sides, that the couple was standing RIGHT IN FRONT OF! I was horrified and disgusted, frankly I still am. Offering your seat feels wonderful, in addition to being the right thing to do, I don't understand this selfishness! END RANT.
Boma breakfast - GREAT, must have again! Boma dinner - MEH, expensive, & the food is not to our tastes. Mara - fine in a pinch, except when a hurricane is looming and every single, solitary resort guest is "home" and also wanting to be fed, yikes! Room service - GREAT, want some right now! Jiko - MEH, also not to our not our tastes. Love the way the smoked meats make the lobby smell though!
I was surprised that the cases of water offered in the gift shop consist of pint-sized bottles and not full-sized. I'm sure no one ever SAID they were full-sized bottles, that was just an assumption I made, but I was still surprised by the tiny bottles. Now it makes sense that the cases are only $8!
Wanyama Safari was wonderful! There were 11 people total on our Safari and we had great, close-up views of the animals on all the savannas, including Kidani. There was a little reception beforehand with some delicious finger foods, and a cultural representative from Nairobi (I think) who talked to us about her homeland and her experiences here. After the Safari we had dinner at Jiko, all at one long table. We enjoyed getting to know the people we sat closest to, and trying foods and wines from the multi-course meal. I wish the Safari was available without dinner though, because I would do it every time. I think the food from Jiko is probably a little too adventurous for us and I assume it's responsible for most of the cost. We each received a pin and some chocolate, presented nicely in AKL gift bags stuffed with giraffe-print tissue. It was a great experience and I'm glad we did it, although it's not one of those things we want to do every time.
Pool was awesome but we could really do without the loud, Carnival Cruise-esque, afternoon kiddie dance parties. Kinda ruins the relaxation vibe that the resort offers everywhere else, and seems a little incongruous to the resort itself. I was really looking forward to relaxing poolside but the music was pretty obnoxious, frankly, and we were always grateful when it ended. The pool and hot tubs also closed at 10PM which felt very early. Has it always been this way? On our 2008 trip I feel like we always hit the hot tub when we came back from the parks, but I could be mistaken. I wish we could swim whenever we wanted...
Mousekeeping was wonderful! Only a couple towel decorations (as a shirt and tie with a soap as the knot, how cool!) but then again there were obviously no kids in our room. Just thought I would mention it for those who love them some towel animals! Every day (except for hurricane days) we had mountains of clean towels, a beautifully made bed, soaps/shampoos/etc were generously replenished a couple times despite the fact that we hadn't used them, and we had even had a few lovely notes from our Mousekeeper. Always a smile and kind greeting from them in passing. Absolutely no items missing from our room.
Animal views were absolutely amazing and hard to tear ourselves away from. Within our first 3 hours in our room one of the giraffes ambled right up in front of us, did that splay stance thing, and lowered her head over the wire spray barrier to munch on a bush. And that's-what?-30 feet away from our second floor balcony? It was AH. MAY. ZING! And we loved watching 6-month old baby GiGi the giraffe working out her monkeyshines on the savanna too. The only animals that never seemed to make their way over to us (while we were "home" anyway) was the Wildebeests. But I may/may not have forgiven them for killing Mufasa anyway, so it's fine. This view is truly what we're paying for here. It's unbelievable, like no other. I kept saying, "Once you stay here, how can you stay anywhere else?" and I still feel that way. The only disappointment is that the animals seem to not come out of the barns until 11AM or even later. It sort of ruined my plans to have room service breakfast on the balcony while watching them. Oh well, I had room service dinner instead!
RANT 2 of 2 : the resort hallways are not Romper Room, people. Hall walls and doors are thin and people are trying to sleep behind them. Please control the volume on you and your children while in halls. I never noticed this before but on this trip everyone was positively shrieking in the halls, no matter the hour, I don't get it. The halls are generally quiet places, they actually make me want to whisper, so I was really shocked by people's behavior in these narrow common areas. One morning I actually opened our door because I wanted to see who was slaughtering dolphins outside it, but it was just a mom, laughing while her son rolled around on the carpet play-shrieking and kicking our door. At 8AM. Not cool. Cork it 'til the lobby, plz. END RANT.
AKL was the highlight of our 10th anniversary trip! We always loved coming "home" and have booked another trip there for next year. This time...we need less park time and MORE Lodge time! Happy to answer any AKL questions if I can, hope this was helpful (or at least entertaining)!
