Help me decide: Fly or Concierge????

[sardan]

Drive and upgrade your room. Concierge level is what you want - you'll use it much more than a few hours on a plane.

 

[deb305]

We had the same budget choice as you, and we chose driving to do concierge at GF in Jan. We actually enjoyed the 16 hour drive (over 2 days) and the 4 year old was great going down. Everything is so new, she loved the mountains, palm trees etc. DS 1 slept a lot. The only down side was husband insisting on staying at hotel. He slept (drivers privledge) while I tried to wear out the kids.
Concierge with a child was worth it. It was great to be able to bring them breakfast in the room while getting ready w/out walking forever. Also we tend to make the kids eat hearty breakfasts, we used about $25 food every morning for that alon>Kids love fruit, and that was always plentiful in concierge. They enjoyed trying new dishes, and the constant milk juice came in handy.Also they helped with PS, including ones we made ourselves. With concierge doing PS we got in Cinderella Breakfast, and were able to make quick changes on the spot. At the restaraunts we noticed "VIP" by our names a few times, which translated into very quick seating when we got there.From reading the boards that is common with PS's by concierge. With the one year old one of us always spent a lot of time at the hotel in the evenings so the snacks were welcomed. More than one night we hit the concierge spread, and then only had to do a light dinner somewhere since the kids were nearly full.
Do you get the $ out in terms of quantity of food. Probably not, but an overall most restful experience at the hotel makes it worth it. We are hoping to do Poly concierge Oct '04. From reading the boards they may have a more kid friendly offering and attitude.

 

[N.Bailey]

Another perk to staying concierge at the AKL is the sunrise safari, which is only available to guests of the AKL staying concierge. I'm not sure if you're interested in this extra benefit, but it might give you something else to consider.