Jambo! The newest AKL Information thread

[TheNJMermaid]

I finally have a countdown! 59 days until I stay at AKL with my mom & 2 younger sisters- and my first time staying CL (and with those prices maybe my only time for a long time lol) This will only be my second stay at AKL and the first time for my family, so I have been having a blast reading everyone's posts on here!

 

[sara_s]

Will be there in 61 days!

 

[prettyprincess624]

10 more days until our first Kidani stay!

 

[shanew21]

10 more days until our first Kidani stay!

Same here but Jambo House!

 

[Rach73]

Same here too at Jambo house!

 

[gillep]

My husband and I recently did the Sense of Africa tour and I wanted to post a review with pictures but I keep getting an error that the file size of the pictures are too large to upload, if anyone has any ideas on how I can get around this I would appreciate it as it was a great tour and I would love to share a few if them with you all!!!!

OK, I think I figured out a very long way to get this to work, let's give this a try.



OK, on with the show in the next post.

 

[gillep]

Hello friends! My husband and I were recently at The Yacht Club celebrating our 10 year wedding anniversary. As a surprise, he booked us the Sense of Africa tour at AKL. I wanted to share my thoughts with you, along with a few of my favorite pictures.


This tour is $249.99 per person, with a 15% discount for AP holders and DVC members, and is held on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Guests must be at least 10 years of age and the tour lasts ~3.5 hours. I do not know what the max number is for this tour, but we had a very small group of four, we were accompanied by another couple that was on their honeymoon.




You check in at The Sunset Lounge at AKL-Jambo House at 6:45am (for this reason alone I do not suggest doing this tour on your check out day like we did, it made for a very early morning, although ultimately worth it).


Our tour leader was Mel from Williamsville, Ny and she was fantastic. You must wear closed toed shoes with a back strap on this tour, and although you can bring cameras you cannot take any pictures of the animal barns as they are considered 'backstage' areas, that's not an issue though because Mel was busy taking pictures the whole time.


After checking in, Mel described some of the items in The Sunset Lounge and the lobby and then led us to Boma where we met one of the cultural representatives and she talked about the unique features of the restaurant, as well as her home country with us.




Next we were led to our table. It was specifically set up just for us and had pressed pot coffee, and a couple dishes made specifically for us which included savory biscuits, sweet donuts, butternut squash pap and Boerewors Sausage, which were presented to us by one of the chefs, who also told us a little about his life back home in Africa. We were also given pog/jungle juice, but could have any other soft drink or juice that we wanted as well.


We also had full use of the rest of the buffet at Boma, which was practically empty at this early hour, and Mel sat with us and we all chatted with her.

Next we were led to our safari vehicle to go to the barns and see the animals.

Will continue in next post.

 

[famsen]

How do you think the pool construction will affect things? Other than possible noise in that area during day hours, do you think there will be construction fencing to block views of the construction?
What is the scheduled start date of construction and end date? Are they even booking pool view rooms during this time?

 

[gillep]

When we boarded the vehicle we met our second animal guide who rode in the back with us and answered our questions while Mel drove. Our first stop was the Okapi barn where we met two female Okapi. Olivia who was very outgoing and personable and Zelda who was not. We were able to feed Olivia lettuce, and pet her, and she performed a behavior where she stuck out her tongue to touch your hand when you asked. We were able to stand next to Zelda while she ate some oats but that's about all of our presence she was willing to tolerate. We learned a lot about Okapi, and it was incredible to be so close to such reclusive animals.



Next, we got back into the safari vehicle to go visit the giraffes! I love giraffes, they are the whole reason my husband booked this tour for me, so this whole part was basically a blur. There were two female giraffes that we were able to feed, and a third female giraffe in a holding area in the back of the barn who was watching us and looking forward to when it would be her turn to be featured on the tour. Mary Ann, the handler that we met at the barn, explained to us that the animals looked forward to Sense of Africa morning, and would probably not eat the lettuce that we had to offer, and would instead hold out for a higher value treat. This is exactly what happened, and the giraffes would not eat from us unless their food was dipped in a lovely sweet potato puree that we also got all over our hands. We fed them sweet potato rounds and lettuce dipped in the puree and then were able to hold out branches for them to eat the leaves and then bark off of. It is pretty incredible how strong their tongues are!

 

[gillep]

Then we walked over to the Ostriches where we were able to feed them out of these metal holders on long poles. There were two female ostrich and one was obviously the alpha and determined to run the show and ration the other ostrich's access to the food.



From here we got back in the vehicle and went to the red river hog barn. Now, the minute we had arrived at the giraffe barn we could hear the very exasperated red river hog handler, Kim, trying to get her hogs back into the barn, there were also numerous families on their balconies watching her and these hogs, so the hogs were already infamous to us! They did not disappoint, first we watched the older male hog perform some learned behaviors, then we got to stuff their enrichment toys with food and scatter them about the yard and watch the hogs play.

You can see one of the toys in this picture that we stuffed with food.


I had put a frozen ring of watermelon in the water trough and well you can see what happened when one of the little hogs decided that he wanted it out.


Finally, we drove back to Jambo House in our truck, which was cool because we got to see the giraffes that we had fed out on the savanna. Mel pointed out another feature in the lobby and gave us instructions on how to retrieve our pictures and gave us pins and recipe cards for the pap and sausage dishes that were specially made for us.



Previously we have done the now discontinued Sunrise Safari and the Wanyama Safari and this one was by far my favorite. It was so cool getting so close to the animals, and learning about them and feeding them. I also will commend each and every one of the Cast Members that we met, they were all so nice and knowledgeable, it was really one of those experiences that speaks to 'the Disney difference'.

Obviously I did not plan these posts out well because I forgot to add two things. While at Boma the GM of AKL, Ken, came to greet us and we were given cold water bottles that were ours to take home.



I am positive that I have not done this tour justice so let me know if you have any questions. I cannot wait to see these animals on the savannas when I go back to AKL in January!

 

[anneboleyn]

Then we walked over to the Ostriches where we were able to feed them out of these metal holders on long poles. There were two female ostrich and one was obviously the alpha and determined to run the show and ration the other ostrich's access to the food.

View attachment 338888

From here we got back in the vehicle and went to the red river hog barn. Now, the minute we had arrived at the giraffe barn we could hear the very exasperated red river hog handler, Kim trying to get her hogs back into the barn, there were also numerous families on their balconies watching her and these hogs, so the hogs were already infamous to us! They did not disappoint, first we watched the older male hog perform some learned behaviors, then we got to stuff their enrichment toys with food and scatter them about the yard and watch the hogs play.

You can see one of the toys in this picture that we stuffed with food.
View attachment 338889

I had put a frozen ring of watermelon in the water trough and well you can see what happened when one of the little hogs decided that he wanted it out.
View attachment 338890 View attachment 338891

Finally, we drove back to Jambo House in our truck, which was cool because we got to see the giraffes that we had fed out on the savanna. Mel pointed out another feature in the lobby and gave us instructions on how to retrieve our pictures and gave us pins and recipe cards for the pap and sausage dishes that were specially made for us.

View attachment 338908

Previously we have done the now discontinued Sunrise Safari and the Wanyama Safari and this one was by far my favorite. It was so cool getting so close to the animals, and learning about them and feeding them. I also will commend each and every one of the Cast Members that we met, they were all so nice and knowledgeable, it was really one of those experiences that speaks to 'the Disney difference'.

Obviously I did not plan these posts out well because I forgot to add two things. While at Boma the GM of AKL, Ken, came to greet us and we were given cold water bottles that were ours to take home.

View attachment 338894

I am positive that I have not done this tour justice so let me know if you have any questions. I cannot wait to see these animals on the savannas when I go back to AKL in January!

Thank you so much for this review! My daughter and I have this booked for our first day, and we are so excited! I can’t wait to see the Red River Hogs!

 

[gillep]

Thank you so much for this review! My daughter and I have this booked for our first day, and we are so excited! I can’t wait to see the Red River Hogs!

You are really going to love it, not sure if you saw before my last couple edits but I added pictures of the water bottles and pins we received. I hope that you are there when Kim is working with the hogs, she was awesome!

 

[anneboleyn]

You are really going to love it, not sure if you saw before my last couple edits but I added pictures of the water bottles and pins we received. I hope that you are there when Kim is working with the hogs, she was awesome!

Yes, and I can’t believe how cute the water bottles are! And my daughter is really excited about the pin lol

Do they still take your pictures feeding the animals?

 

[gillep]

Yes, and I can’t believe how cute the water bottles are! And my daughter is really excited about the pin lol

Do they still take your pictures feeding the animals?

Oh my goodness yes they take pictures of EVERYTHING. I have over 200 pictures on my photo pass of just this tour, it does include all the pictures though, so I have pictures of my husband and I feeding the animals as well as pictures of the other couple.

 

[anneboleyn]

Oh my goodness yes they take pictures of EVERYTHING. I have over 200 pictures on my photo pass of just this tour, it does include all the pictures though, so I have pictures of my husband and I feeding the animals as well as pictures of the other couple.

Oh awesome...thank you for verifying You have me even more excited about this!

 

[sjs314]

I am positive that I have not done this tour justice so let me know if you have any questions. I cannot wait to see these animals on the savannas when I go back to AKL in January!

Thanks for sharing this review I think you did a wonderful job of detailing the Sense of Africa Expierence!

 

[aalvis]

How do you think the pool construction will affect things? Other than possible noise in that area during day hours, do you think there will be construction fencing to block views of the construction?
What is the scheduled start date of construction and end date? Are they even booking pool view rooms during this time?

I am curious about the impacts too... I know they are booking pool view rooms during the construction, because I have a reservation for one!

 

[KenHutch]

Can anyone please share the time it takes to get from AKL to each park? We will have a car, so driving time would be a big help. Thanks!

It took us about 5 to 7 minutes to get to AK, around 10 to 12 on average for Epcot and Hollywood. MK took about 20+. The only bus we could not count on was the MK bus. It as late as much as 30 minutes in just showing up. As much as we loved the place the girls want to stay on the Monorail from now on.

 

[shanew21]

It took us about 5 to 7 minutes to get to AK, around 10 to 12 on average for Epcot and Hollywood. MK took about 20+. The only bus we could not count on was the MK bus. It as late as much as 30 minutes in just showing up. As much as we loved the place the girls want to stay on the Monorail from now on.

Thankfully we're planning an AK-heavy trip this time (we just went to Disneyland in April), so AKL fits perfectly with our plans.

I would never stay there if the goal was an MK majority though. Wilderness Lodge is the best option for that IMO, because you get boat transportation but don't have to pay the monorail premium.

 

[KenHutch]

Thankfully we're planning an AK-heavy trip this time (we just went to Disneyland in April), so AKL fits perfectly with our plans.

I would never stay there if the goal was an MK majority though. Wilderness Lodge is the best option for that IMO, because you get boat transportation but don't have to pay the monorail premium.

I like what your suggesting. I have been wanting to stay at WL but their favorite restaurant in Ohana so you can guess where they want to stay.