Bucketfoot
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2009
Just got back from our second DVC stay and opted to do a split stay at AKV Kidani (2-bedroom savanna view) and VGF (2-bedroom standard view).
AKV (5 nights):
First off for those complaining about AKV being in terrible shape... Can I see a carpet wear, yes. Are some of the hooves on the table legs marked up, yes.
Look I don’t doubt the need for a refurb, but my god don’t let people scare you away from this magical place over completely irrelevant things! The unanimous vote was that this place is gorgeous.
I think the way to sum things up best is that we own two smaller AKV contracts. The first one was mistakenly listed as a Feb UY which came up basically as we were going into ROFR. It was the small size we wanted and at a price we were happy with, so we moved forward. We later added a second contract with the Feb UY we wanted and had planned to eventually sell the first one. It was only a couple of days in before my wife said we are not selling that other contract and that our upcoming Nov stay that was going to be in a standard 2-bedroom is going to get changed to a Savanna view.
A couple of us were mildly under the weather when we first arrived and having that savanna view just made it so much easier to take it easy the first couple of days, rather than rushing in headfirst like we normally would. In the future I think I'd prefer to end a split stay at AKV, so that we can relax some at the end. But in this case it worked out perfectly.
For meals here we ate at all three of the biggies: Sanaa, Boma and Jiko; plus picked up some quick service at the Mara. Everybody had their own favorite, but universally Jiko was at the bottom of our list. It isn’t bad by any means, but the others were both better and less expensive.
VGF (6 nights):
The Grand Floridian 2-bedroom was quite different than the one at AKV. It was more upscale, as you would expect, had a much nicer kitchen layout and better appliances; and of course the murphy bed in the living area which worked great as we had a couple of extra people staying with us on this part of the stay. The closets were also much better here, but we definitely missed the extra bathroom, especially since we were now 7 people for part of the stay here.
One thing we got to see was the completion of the penguin fountain refurb. It was still behind plants when we arrived on 2/1. Within a couple of days the plants were gone, but no water. The water finally showed up a day or two before we left.
The biggest positive and why we bought here first is location, location, location. That said, it is a bit of a pain in the @$$ getting to the Poly right now with the path closed down. Also. I will admit this is a first world problem, but I found it completely unacceptable that the VGF does not have its own dedicated bus service. And to make things worse the buses stop at the Poly first, which meant with two ECVs that we were often split up or had to wait for the next bus as the ECV spot were already filled. In one case there were ECV slots, but the bus was so full from the Poly that they couldn't shift them around to load the ECVs. This is the DVC flagship resort in WDW... why in the hell does it have to share buses!!!
For food here we ate at Citricos, Narcoossee’s (both were really good) and picked up quick service at Gasparilla Grill.
Other meals:
Le Cellier is the one place we have been to on every one of our WDW stays and it did not disappoint. The star for me on this trip though was Steakhouse 71. This was our first time there and the quality of food for the price was very good in my view. We did a lunch at Roundup Rodeo that was neither great nor bad, but the atmosphere was fantastic. ‘Ohana turned out to be quite good. I was a little concerned as people seem to give it hit or miss reviews. But for us the beef was cooked at a nice medium rare and they did a great job (not just here, but everywhere) at handling very non-standard food allergies in our party.
The Parks:
We did back to back private photo sessions at AKV, with part of it being focused on the family and the other on our daughter and her fiancé. I would absolutely look at doing this again. We also did the Up Close with Rhinos tour which everyone loved. The last two times we were there I had a migraine coming on and had to skip Expedition Everest, but managed to ride it this time. I did the obligatory ride of TRON. I did enjoy it, but I am not a fan of indoor rollercoasters, so only rode it once. Others partook multiple times. Basically the same for Guardians where one daughter and I just skipped it completely and the rest rode it multiple times. For us the things we can just ride forever are Pirates (even if it sucks compare to DL), Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder and Seven Dwarves. Rise was really fun as we had two people with us who had never ridden it before.
This trip was a little unique for me as from the beginning I had planned to relax more and ride less. Animal Kingdom was perfect for this and I was happy to just spend a little time exploring things in the parks when there were rides I wanted to skip. Overall it was a great trip and we can’t wait to come back in November when our older daughter will be getting married at the Tree of Life.
AKV (5 nights):
First off for those complaining about AKV being in terrible shape... Can I see a carpet wear, yes. Are some of the hooves on the table legs marked up, yes.
Look I don’t doubt the need for a refurb, but my god don’t let people scare you away from this magical place over completely irrelevant things! The unanimous vote was that this place is gorgeous.
I think the way to sum things up best is that we own two smaller AKV contracts. The first one was mistakenly listed as a Feb UY which came up basically as we were going into ROFR. It was the small size we wanted and at a price we were happy with, so we moved forward. We later added a second contract with the Feb UY we wanted and had planned to eventually sell the first one. It was only a couple of days in before my wife said we are not selling that other contract and that our upcoming Nov stay that was going to be in a standard 2-bedroom is going to get changed to a Savanna view.
A couple of us were mildly under the weather when we first arrived and having that savanna view just made it so much easier to take it easy the first couple of days, rather than rushing in headfirst like we normally would. In the future I think I'd prefer to end a split stay at AKV, so that we can relax some at the end. But in this case it worked out perfectly.
For meals here we ate at all three of the biggies: Sanaa, Boma and Jiko; plus picked up some quick service at the Mara. Everybody had their own favorite, but universally Jiko was at the bottom of our list. It isn’t bad by any means, but the others were both better and less expensive.
VGF (6 nights):
The Grand Floridian 2-bedroom was quite different than the one at AKV. It was more upscale, as you would expect, had a much nicer kitchen layout and better appliances; and of course the murphy bed in the living area which worked great as we had a couple of extra people staying with us on this part of the stay. The closets were also much better here, but we definitely missed the extra bathroom, especially since we were now 7 people for part of the stay here.
One thing we got to see was the completion of the penguin fountain refurb. It was still behind plants when we arrived on 2/1. Within a couple of days the plants were gone, but no water. The water finally showed up a day or two before we left.
The biggest positive and why we bought here first is location, location, location. That said, it is a bit of a pain in the @$$ getting to the Poly right now with the path closed down. Also. I will admit this is a first world problem, but I found it completely unacceptable that the VGF does not have its own dedicated bus service. And to make things worse the buses stop at the Poly first, which meant with two ECVs that we were often split up or had to wait for the next bus as the ECV spot were already filled. In one case there were ECV slots, but the bus was so full from the Poly that they couldn't shift them around to load the ECVs. This is the DVC flagship resort in WDW... why in the hell does it have to share buses!!!
For food here we ate at Citricos, Narcoossee’s (both were really good) and picked up quick service at Gasparilla Grill.
Other meals:
Le Cellier is the one place we have been to on every one of our WDW stays and it did not disappoint. The star for me on this trip though was Steakhouse 71. This was our first time there and the quality of food for the price was very good in my view. We did a lunch at Roundup Rodeo that was neither great nor bad, but the atmosphere was fantastic. ‘Ohana turned out to be quite good. I was a little concerned as people seem to give it hit or miss reviews. But for us the beef was cooked at a nice medium rare and they did a great job (not just here, but everywhere) at handling very non-standard food allergies in our party.
The Parks:
We did back to back private photo sessions at AKV, with part of it being focused on the family and the other on our daughter and her fiancé. I would absolutely look at doing this again. We also did the Up Close with Rhinos tour which everyone loved. The last two times we were there I had a migraine coming on and had to skip Expedition Everest, but managed to ride it this time. I did the obligatory ride of TRON. I did enjoy it, but I am not a fan of indoor rollercoasters, so only rode it once. Others partook multiple times. Basically the same for Guardians where one daughter and I just skipped it completely and the rest rode it multiple times. For us the things we can just ride forever are Pirates (even if it sucks compare to DL), Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder and Seven Dwarves. Rise was really fun as we had two people with us who had never ridden it before.
This trip was a little unique for me as from the beginning I had planned to relax more and ride less. Animal Kingdom was perfect for this and I was happy to just spend a little time exploring things in the parks when there were rides I wanted to skip. Overall it was a great trip and we can’t wait to come back in November when our older daughter will be getting married at the Tree of Life.
