buzznina
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2007
- Messages
- 5,333
AKL STAY
FYI; I originally booked CSR and then upgraded to AKL/pool view as a surprise to my wife for an early 25th anniversary gift, our actual anniversary is in June but our 2nd DD is due July 3rd.
We planned to start the 7-1/2 hour drive to WDW on Saturday 3/28 between 6-7am but were delayed 5 hours by a bad rain & wind storm. The drive down was no fun; we kept going through rain bands and constantly fighting the gust of winds. At one time during a heavy down pour I could have swore I saw right caps on the road
and by the end of the drive my hands were sore from holding the steering wheel so tight.
When we got into the resort area I had to start an argument because when I passed the turn off for CSR my DW told me that I missed the turn and I kept arguing that the sign said straight
. After a couple of minutes we see another sign that says AKL straight ahead, so I said well maybe I did miss the turn which earned me a sarcastic look. Then I say that I will just stop at the AKL guard booth and get directions, which starts another little spat. She starts telling me that we do not need directions and that we just need to go back to the intersection and turn right to CSR (go figure, one of the few times that I am willing to stop for directions and she argues that I do not need to
). We pull up to the guard booth and I just tell them that we are here to check in and all I here from my DW is What? and I simply reply happy early anniversary
. As soon as we enter the lodge we are greeted by a CM that tells us Welcome home(nice touch), I head to the registration area while my DW & DD go look around the lodge. I am greeted by a very nice woman from Nigeria and she proceeds to check me in. She looks at the computer and tells me happy anniversary, I say thank you and tell her that it was an early surprise for my DW
I am a person who believes that the worst that can happen when asking for something is that you get turned down, so I ask if it was at all possible to be upgraded to a savannah view room and she goes into the back and comes back out and tells me that we are always trying to make our guests happy and make their stay the best possible and that they were going to upgrade us to a savannah room
She gives us room 4451 in the Zebra Trail section. We head back to the van and have a bell hop person load up a luggage cart, we tip him and he tells us our bags will be up shortly. I go park the van while DW & DD enjoys the lobby area. Heres a tip in regards to your bags, the person that helped me unload my car is not the person that delivers the bags to our room, which means another tip. We head to our room and while walking down the Zebra Trail hallway my DW and I both wonder why the carpet looks like giraffe skin when it should be a zebra, just one of those things we do
Our room is the first one as we get off the elevator and the room was fantastic and very clean, there were 3 towels on the bed in the design of a mickeys head. Of course we all head straight to the balcony to see our view, but at 9pm you are not going to see a lot but we did not care, there were a couple of Roan Antelopes laying about 50 yards from our room, it was great. We were all hungry so we decided to see if we could get into Bomas for a late dinner, we were able to get in and had a wonderful dinner to finish off the day.
Sunday I wake up early and see that it is raining, so I go back to bed we all needed more sleep and since this was going to be a relaxing trip the rain did not upset me. We spend the first part of the morning watching the animals and DD had a great time checking them off the list they give you. We learned that the giraffes do not like rain, when it started raining they all headed for cover, standing under trees
. While DW & DD are animal gazing, I go to Maras and bring back breakfast that we eat on the balcony while watching the giraffes eat theirs. We spend the day at MK the park was crowded but not packed, waits for popular rides were about 45-60 minutes. We leave MK at around 11:30pm and head back to AKL.
Monday; again we eat breakfast on the balcony while watching the animals
Since we had a late night, I decide that today we will go to AK because they are not opened real late. We stop at Pizzafari (our favorite place at AK) and were very disappointed that they had cut their menu down,
they no longer offered spaghetti and meatballs(DD) or the chicken parmesan sandwich(DW). Those items were on the menu back in December. Other then that, we had a great time, DD and myself enjoyed the safari ride as always, DW had to pass due to the pregnancy
We got back to AKL around 6PM, and went to the pool for a couple of hours, we really liked the no entry pool for DD. We ate dinner at Maras roamed around the lodge and relaxed by the fireplace before turning in.
Tuesday; breakfast on the balcony and then we head off to Epcot for the first half of the day. We enjoyed seeing the flower displays and DD liked the kids activities that they had in the different areas. We also did the Disney Visa character greeting which had Mickey & Pluto together, the free 5x7 photo came out great and you can even have them add one of the Disney borders to the photo for free. We only had time to roam around future world before heading over to MK. We take the train to toontown so that DD can get photos and autographs from the princesses(again) and then the fairies. Our DD was very excited to hear that Silvermist (her fav) was there, she talked about Silvermist for the next hour
While waiting to meet the fairies, we were talking to the CM and he tells us that MK has added a second parade for the night
. This helps because now we can do some more rides and skip the 8:15 parade. We hit most of our DD favorite rides and we ride Goofys Barnstormer 4 times in a row before its time to head towards the castle and watch the 10pm parade. Is it me or does Disney have the best smelling popcorn around
, needless to say I could not resist and you need something to munch on while waiting for the parade. After the parade we take our time going down main street and we decide to stop into The Chapeau store and buy our DD her first pair of mickey ears. She enjoyed being able to build her own ears, unfortunately they only had one patch with a princess on it and it was Cinderella with Prince charming and it said Just Married and we could not talk her out off getting it, so on the hat it goes.
Wednesday; we pack up and sadly say good bye to all the animals that we saw each morning and to a great stay at AKL. We drive over to DTD to do some shopping at the Disney store since we get a 10% discount for being AP holder and grab an early lunch at Earl of sandwich before driving home.
AKL likes and dislikes: We have to give AKL a rating of a 9; there were really no dislikes just a few things that did not meet our expectations. The lodge itself is amazing and wonderful. The staff was very friendly, helpful and knowledgeable they made you feel important. The pool area is nice but we expected a bit more from it, the design is a bit plain. We did expect the rooms to be bigger then they were, but the balcony is very nice, especially with a savannah view. Having to go outside to get to Maras was a pain one day when it was windy and raining, everyone was trying to walk under the cover walk
. All in all we really had a great time and enjoyed our stay at AKL and were glad that we upgraded.
FYI; I originally booked CSR and then upgraded to AKL/pool view as a surprise to my wife for an early 25th anniversary gift, our actual anniversary is in June but our 2nd DD is due July 3rd.
We planned to start the 7-1/2 hour drive to WDW on Saturday 3/28 between 6-7am but were delayed 5 hours by a bad rain & wind storm. The drive down was no fun; we kept going through rain bands and constantly fighting the gust of winds. At one time during a heavy down pour I could have swore I saw right caps on the road
and by the end of the drive my hands were sore from holding the steering wheel so tight. When we got into the resort area I had to start an argument because when I passed the turn off for CSR my DW told me that I missed the turn and I kept arguing that the sign said straight
. After a couple of minutes we see another sign that says AKL straight ahead, so I said well maybe I did miss the turn which earned me a sarcastic look. Then I say that I will just stop at the AKL guard booth and get directions, which starts another little spat. She starts telling me that we do not need directions and that we just need to go back to the intersection and turn right to CSR (go figure, one of the few times that I am willing to stop for directions and she argues that I do not need to). We pull up to the guard booth and I just tell them that we are here to check in and all I here from my DW is What? and I simply reply happy early anniversary. As soon as we enter the lodge we are greeted by a CM that tells us Welcome home(nice touch), I head to the registration area while my DW & DD go look around the lodge. I am greeted by a very nice woman from Nigeria and she proceeds to check me in. She looks at the computer and tells me happy anniversary, I say thank you and tell her that it was an early surprise for my DW
I am a person who believes that the worst that can happen when asking for something is that you get turned down, so I ask if it was at all possible to be upgraded to a savannah view room and she goes into the back and comes back out and tells me that we are always trying to make our guests happy and make their stay the best possible and that they were going to upgrade us to a savannah room She gives us room 4451 in the Zebra Trail section. We head back to the van and have a bell hop person load up a luggage cart, we tip him and he tells us our bags will be up shortly. I go park the van while DW & DD enjoys the lobby area. Heres a tip in regards to your bags, the person that helped me unload my car is not the person that delivers the bags to our room, which means another tip. We head to our room and while walking down the Zebra Trail hallway my DW and I both wonder why the carpet looks like giraffe skin when it should be a zebra, just one of those things we do Our room is the first one as we get off the elevator and the room was fantastic and very clean, there were 3 towels on the bed in the design of a mickeys head. Of course we all head straight to the balcony to see our view, but at 9pm you are not going to see a lot but we did not care, there were a couple of Roan Antelopes laying about 50 yards from our room, it was great. We were all hungry so we decided to see if we could get into Bomas for a late dinner, we were able to get in and had a wonderful dinner to finish off the day. Sunday I wake up early and see that it is raining, so I go back to bed we all needed more sleep and since this was going to be a relaxing trip the rain did not upset me. We spend the first part of the morning watching the animals and DD had a great time checking them off the list they give you. We learned that the giraffes do not like rain, when it started raining they all headed for cover, standing under trees
. While DW & DD are animal gazing, I go to Maras and bring back breakfast that we eat on the balcony while watching the giraffes eat theirs. We spend the day at MK the park was crowded but not packed, waits for popular rides were about 45-60 minutes. We leave MK at around 11:30pm and head back to AKL. Monday; again we eat breakfast on the balcony while watching the animals
Since we had a late night, I decide that today we will go to AK because they are not opened real late. We stop at Pizzafari (our favorite place at AK) and were very disappointed that they had cut their menu down, they no longer offered spaghetti and meatballs(DD) or the chicken parmesan sandwich(DW). Those items were on the menu back in December. Other then that, we had a great time, DD and myself enjoyed the safari ride as always, DW had to pass due to the pregnancy We got back to AKL around 6PM, and went to the pool for a couple of hours, we really liked the no entry pool for DD. We ate dinner at Maras roamed around the lodge and relaxed by the fireplace before turning in.Tuesday; breakfast on the balcony and then we head off to Epcot for the first half of the day. We enjoyed seeing the flower displays and DD liked the kids activities that they had in the different areas. We also did the Disney Visa character greeting which had Mickey & Pluto together, the free 5x7 photo came out great and you can even have them add one of the Disney borders to the photo for free. We only had time to roam around future world before heading over to MK. We take the train to toontown so that DD can get photos and autographs from the princesses(again) and then the fairies. Our DD was very excited to hear that Silvermist (her fav) was there, she talked about Silvermist for the next hour
While waiting to meet the fairies, we were talking to the CM and he tells us that MK has added a second parade for the night. This helps because now we can do some more rides and skip the 8:15 parade. We hit most of our DD favorite rides and we ride Goofys Barnstormer 4 times in a row before its time to head towards the castle and watch the 10pm parade. Is it me or does Disney have the best smelling popcorn around, needless to say I could not resist and you need something to munch on while waiting for the parade. After the parade we take our time going down main street and we decide to stop into The Chapeau store and buy our DD her first pair of mickey ears. She enjoyed being able to build her own ears, unfortunately they only had one patch with a princess on it and it was Cinderella with Prince charming and it said Just Married and we could not talk her out off getting it, so on the hat it goes.Wednesday; we pack up and sadly say good bye to all the animals that we saw each morning and to a great stay at AKL. We drive over to DTD to do some shopping at the Disney store since we get a 10% discount for being AP holder and grab an early lunch at Earl of sandwich before driving home.
AKL likes and dislikes: We have to give AKL a rating of a 9; there were really no dislikes just a few things that did not meet our expectations. The lodge itself is amazing and wonderful. The staff was very friendly, helpful and knowledgeable they made you feel important. The pool area is nice but we expected a bit more from it, the design is a bit plain. We did expect the rooms to be bigger then they were, but the balcony is very nice, especially with a savannah view. Having to go outside to get to Maras was a pain one day when it was windy and raining, everyone was trying to walk under the cover walk
. All in all we really had a great time and enjoyed our stay at AKL and were glad that we upgraded.
