just spent 6 nights at akv savannah view, then 5 nights at blt mk view, the beginning of august. yes the pool was not giant at blt, but that didn't seem to be a big problem. you have to use room key to get access to pool area and then again to get access to pool itself. pool is not for cr guests, only blt guests. i know that you can wait for someone to open and then go in behind them, but this doesn't seem to be a big problem, yet. the pool at samawati springs is larger, and more shaded areas. but it also doesn't seem to be overrun.
as for the two resorts, they are both beautiful for different reasons. and location for both has pros and cons. we liked the fact that we could have two different types of locales in vacation. in the middle of everything at blt and away from it all at akv. transportation from akv isn't that much different than other
dvc non-monorail resorts, say vwl. the parks that are convenient to akv are inconvenient to vwl/blt and vice versa.
with a savannah view, i would try to get a zazu/timon room if possible. balcony faces west and this means that it is shaded in the morning, which brings more animals around, and sun not beating down on us, when we are more likely to sit out there, since we are more likely to be at a park in the afternoon. at blt the best mk views start with rooms that end in numbers below 30, i.e. 7430, which was our room. that is the fourth floor, 14th and 15th floors are the grand villas. so if possible you want something like 7416 or 7814, these have the absolute best views, according to a maintenence eng, i talked to. if you you look at building design you can see why this is so, because of curvature. our room had very nice view, but space mt, part of mk was blocked a little bit.
all in all we were very pleased with both resorts and already planning to work in a couple of days at blt our next wdw trip, no matter what resort we spend most of the time at.
