Jambo! The newest AKL Information thread

Just back from a stay at Kidani (our first stay at AKL). For curiosity sake, does anyone know what time in general they let the animals out onto the savannah?
I asked the head animal keeper this question! Yes, the animals are allowed to stay out all night. Then, starting at around 8:00 am, they are called by the sound of a triangle or beating of a drum or a clicker (each type of animal has a separate sound) to return to their "night house", where they are given food/treats (positive reinforcement that they came when called), get their vet checks, looked over for cuts, scratches, etc. However, some of them hang around outside their "night house" since they know they'll get fed. If you get a chance, go out on your balcony around 8:00 am and start listening in the distance. And don't expect the animals to lift their heads and suddenly make a dash. That was my biggest disappointment-I expected something like the beginning scene in the Lion King! While they're inside, the animal care team is around, checking trees and bushes, raking up poop, etc. And a few of the animals aren't in a hurry to go back outside-so it's sometimes noon or so before there's a whole lot of activity again.
Sorry for the long answer. I find the AKL and AK so interesting!
 
I asked the head animal keeper this question! Yes, the animals are allowed to stay out all night. Then, starting at around 8:00 am, they are called by the sound of a triangle or beating of a drum or a clicker (each type of animal has a separate sound) to return to their "night house", where they are given food/treats (positive reinforcement that they came when called), get their vet checks, looked over for cuts, scratches, etc. However, some of them hang around outside their "night house" since they know they'll get fed. If you get a chance, go out on your balcony around 8:00 am and start listening in the distance. And don't expect the animals to lift their heads and suddenly make a dash. That was my biggest disappointment-I expected something like the beginning scene in the Lion King! While they're inside, the animal care team is around, checking trees and bushes, raking up poop, etc. And a few of the animals aren't in a hurry to go back outside-so it's sometimes noon or so before there's a whole lot of activity again.
Sorry for the long answer. I find the AKL and AK so interesting!
Excellent details! Thanks so much for sharing!!
 
Hi!

So we stayed at AKL from 12/3 to 12/12. Quick review.

We loved it. :)

Room - we had a pool view (4020 Jambo House), close to elevator and lobby. Not connecting. View was wonderful, could even watch the flamingos. Heard the Christmas music. Very clean. Housekeeping came everyday, no issues. One of our favorite rooms ever.

Food was great. Burger at Victoria Falls was one of the best burgers I've ever had. Goat cheese dip was also amazing.
The ricotta cheese flatbread at the Mara was surprisingly good! So were the bowls (chicken, shrimp, etc.). Boma was great. Sanaa was great. Didn't eat at Jiko this trip.

Bus service was wonderful, never a long wait the entire trip.

Going at Christmas - the lobby was gorgeous but my only complaint is on some days the smokey smell was a bit thick. Bothered my throat. The Christmas music is very pretty there, but be warned, it's a very short loop! We heard the same songs sooooo many times. 😂

On different days Pluto, Goofy and Donald were walking around hotel and then another day was Daisy Duck and Chip & Dale! I finally got a picture with Daisy after all these years!

Great gift shop, one of the best.

Overall staying there surpassed my expectations!!! We did miss the Epcot area a bit so we are staying at Boardwalk Inn next trip for the first time, but we will definitely be back to AKL at some point (hopefully) and would highly recommend to anyone.

But - we are not Christmas season people. Came home and it felt like Christmas was already over and I lost my spirit a bit. I think we will stick to late October trips.

thanks for all info over the past year!
 
Hi!

So we stayed at AKL from 12/3 to 12/12. Quick review.

We loved it. :)

Room - we had a pool view (4020 Jambo House), close to elevator and lobby. Not connecting. View was wonderful, could even watch the flamingos. Heard the Christmas music. Very clean. Housekeeping came everyday, no issues. One of our favorite rooms ever.

Food was great. Burger at Victoria Falls was one of the best burgers I've ever had. Goat cheese dip was also amazing.
The ricotta cheese flatbread at the Mara was surprisingly good! So were the bowls (chicken, shrimp, etc.). Boma was great. Sanaa was great. Didn't eat at Jiko this trip.

Bus service was wonderful, never a long wait the entire trip.

Going at Christmas - the lobby was gorgeous but my only complaint is on some days the smokey smell was a bit thick. Bothered my throat. The Christmas music is very pretty there, but be warned, it's a very short loop! We heard the same songs sooooo many times. 😂

On different days Pluto, Goofy and Donald were walking around hotel and then another day was Daisy Duck and Chip & Dale! I finally got a picture with Daisy after all these years!

Great gift shop, one of the best.

Overall staying there surpassed my expectations!!! We did miss the Epcot area a bit so we are staying at Boardwalk Inn next trip for the first time, but we will definitely be back to AKL at some point (hopefully) and would highly recommend to anyone.

But - we are not Christmas season people. Came home and it felt like Christmas was already over and I lost my spirit a bit. I think we will stick to late October trips.

thanks for all info over the past year!
If you like Daisy you can almost always find her just inside the international gateway entrance to Epcot … usually very short line
 
Hi!

So we stayed at AKL from 12/3 to 12/12. Quick review.

We loved it. :)

Room - we had a pool view (4020 Jambo House), close to elevator and lobby. Not connecting. View was wonderful, could even watch the flamingos. Heard the Christmas music. Very clean. Housekeeping came everyday, no issues. One of our favorite rooms ever.

Food was great. Burger at Victoria Falls was one of the best burgers I've ever had. Goat cheese dip was also amazing.
The ricotta cheese flatbread at the Mara was surprisingly good! So were the bowls (chicken, shrimp, etc.). Boma was great. Sanaa was great. Didn't eat at Jiko this trip.

Bus service was wonderful, never a long wait the entire trip.

Going at Christmas - the lobby was gorgeous but my only complaint is on some days the smokey smell was a bit thick. Bothered my throat. The Christmas music is very pretty there, but be warned, it's a very short loop! We heard the same songs sooooo many times. 😂

On different days Pluto, Goofy and Donald were walking around hotel and then another day was Daisy Duck and Chip & Dale! I finally got a picture with Daisy after all these years!

Great gift shop, one of the best.

Overall staying there surpassed my expectations!!! We did miss the Epcot area a bit so we are staying at Boardwalk Inn next trip for the first time, but we will definitely be back to AKL at some point (hopefully) and would highly recommend to anyone.

But - we are not Christmas season people. Came home and it felt like Christmas was already over and I lost my spirit a bit. I think we will stick to late October trips.

thanks for all info over the past year!
This is my first day on this page and I appreciate your review. I need to go back and look for some more. My son and his wife told me today that they'd like to stay at that resort "where the kids can watch giraffes at breakfast." I offered all my family a vacation for all of us (would be 18 people!) to a place of their choosing. My son and his wife were the only ones that were interested and WDW was their choice. They know nothing about WDW so it is going to be fun!
 
Have been taking the family to WDW for about 5 years now and, while we usually visit AKL (primarily sanaa) we haven't stayed there. We prefer being on the monorail or Boardwalk..closer to the action as they say.
So in 2025 i have a sabbatical late July to late August...which will be a father son trip..and I asked him (8 year old) if that month included disney where would you want to stay? He said boardwalk of course..but also "the hotel with the animals.:"
So from July 26 to 29 we will be at Kidani savannah view and then onto trusty old boardwalk from the 29th to 2nd.. then off to California..grand canyon...national parks
baseball stadiums etc the following 3 weeks...making our way back to NJ.
I am looking forward to learning from this thread as my only experience has been Sanaa
 
If you have time, look for the wood carvers outside the Jambo store. We've met some amazing people and find the wooden animals to be very reasonably priced ( you can ask to buy the one he's working on and chat while he does.)
Also, if you'd be interested, you can get decent night vision goggles/binoculars before your trip and use them to look for animals during your stay. They do have some for general use but we bring our own.
 
This is my first day on this page and I appreciate your review. I need to go back and look for some more. My son and his wife told me today that they'd like to stay at that resort "where the kids can watch giraffes at breakfast." I offered all my family a vacation for all of us (would be 18 people!) to a place of their choosing. My son and his wife were the only ones that were interested and WDW was their choice. They know nothing about WDW so it is going to be fun!
I'll leave it to others to give you details, but if your family members specifically want to see giraffes at breakfast, you have to be careful because

(a) The resort has different savannas, and I don't think there are giraffes on all savannas. So you might have a room which does not see giraffes. People on here can help you with room requests.

(b) Even if you have a room which does look over a savanna which has giraffes, the animals are called in every morning -- so you could be sitting on your balcony eating breakfast and not see any animals. I used to have a list of the times that the animals on each savanna were called in, but I don't have that list anymore.

(c) If it's cold out (I think below 40 degrees), the giraffes are kept in the barns.
 
I have hesitated to write this review as I just don’t want to admit that the AKL part of our trip is over, sigh.
While we stayed at Kidani, I am adding the report to this thread (rather than DVC thread) because we stayed using cash and I think my review would be most useful to other cash stayers who are not regular visitors.

We stayed at AKL for 3 nights mid-December over the weekend. In short we loved it, I can not put into words how fabulous it is to see giraffes from your balcony!

I booked a 1bdr villa with savanna view at Kidani, I booked it for the two bathrooms which proved very useful. Prior to arriving we kept trying to change it to a booking at Jambo house but nothing was available. We are so glad that we were unable to change it.

We wanted to change it because of the reported distance to jambo house that seemed to have everything we might need. But once we were there we discovered we didn’t need any of that stuff. We did walk over one time for breakfast at Boma, and the place was a madhouse, it was so crowded and noisy, we could hardly move around the reception area or get to any of the facilities. In contrast Kidani, was so restful. Yes there were people there but you never felt like you were in a crowded park. The walk distance was nothing, a pleasant 5-7 minute walk.

I did pay extra for the savanna view, so worth it. I requested south trail, as I thought that would give best chance of seeing giraffes. We got our request, level 4, and we lucked out with a room not too far from elevators but far enough to be quiet. The animals were brilliant, not just giraffes, we saw so many different animals all day.

Walking into the room, we were impressed. Some reports say it is dark, we thought homely and African. The balcony was huge, and the giraffes all 4 of them visited regularly as there are three feeding spots in the south trail. My favorite thing was getting up at 5am, sitting on balcony (with blanket) and watching sunrise and waiting for the animals to come down. Though I didn’t just sit there in the morning, late afternoon and evening were great as well.

You will read lots of complaints about the sofa bed and chair bed, my DS had sofa bed and loved it, it was fine. My DH took the chair bed, he was unwell, and still says it was the best sleep he has had all trip (noting we are travelling with a mattress topper and he used it). But the chair enabled him to sleep a bit raised up allowing him to breathe. Obviously the big bed was fantastic, and having the room to myself meant I didn’t wake the others at 5am moving to balcony with my morning coffee.

The kitchen was great. Real oven allowed us to cook meals - mainly pasta with butter for DS who will probably list that as his favorite meal forever 😀 the full size fridge was great, the kitchen was fully stocked with every tool we needed, especially appreciated toaster.

The two bathrooms were great, one was huge. The non-bath shower was lovely, but the spa bath, omg fantastic. The laundry was very useful as well.

We ate at Sanaa one night, that was nice. There is a small shop at Kidani, that has everything we needed - jambo has a much bigger shop with all the souvenirs, we visited after the Boma breakfast.

The Kidani pool was my favorite pool, warm, has two hot tubs.

We also did the sunset savanna tour, highly recommend - I wrote a review of that elsewhere.

There are many reports saying AKL is too far away, we didn’t notice any difference to time spent on buses, seriously the time was negligible. We did notice that we never waited for an AKL bus anywhere, they were very frequent. We never stood on buses. In fact so many times, we had a bus to ourselves. The buses did do both Kidani and jambo for drop off (not pick up), but Kidani was first 😀

In summary, if you want a relaxing stay, choose Kidani. Paying for a savanna view is worth it. Ignore reports that say too dark, corridors too long, distance too far, sofa bed uncomfortable - none of these things matter or impact on the great time you will have 😀
 
I have hesitated to write this review as I just don’t want to admit that the AKL part of our trip is over, sigh.
While we stayed at Kidani, I am adding the report to this thread (rather than DVC thread) because we stayed using cash and I think my review would be most useful to other cash stayers who are not regular visitors.

We stayed at AKL for 3 nights mid-December over the weekend. In short we loved it, I can not put into words how fabulous it is to see giraffes from your balcony!

I booked a 1bdr villa with savanna view at Kidani, I booked it for the two bathrooms which proved very useful. Prior to arriving we kept trying to change it to a booking at Jambo house but nothing was available. We are so glad that we were unable to change it.

We wanted to change it because of the reported distance to jambo house that seemed to have everything we might need. But once we were there we discovered we didn’t need any of that stuff. We did walk over one time for breakfast at Boma, and the place was a madhouse, it was so crowded and noisy, we could hardly move around the reception area or get to any of the facilities. In contrast Kidani, was so restful. Yes there were people there but you never felt like you were in a crowded park. The walk distance was nothing, a pleasant 5-7 minute walk.

I did pay extra for the savanna view, so worth it. I requested south trail, as I thought that would give best chance of seeing giraffes. We got our request, level 4, and we lucked out with a room not too far from elevators but far enough to be quiet. The animals were brilliant, not just giraffes, we saw so many different animals all day.

Walking into the room, we were impressed. Some reports say it is dark, we thought homely and African. The balcony was huge, and the giraffes all 4 of them visited regularly as there are three feeding spots in the south trail. My favorite thing was getting up at 5am, sitting on balcony (with blanket) and watching sunrise and waiting for the animals to come down. Though I didn’t just sit there in the morning, late afternoon and evening were great as well.

You will read lots of complaints about the sofa bed and chair bed, my DS had sofa bed and loved it, it was fine. My DH took the chair bed, he was unwell, and still says it was the best sleep he has had all trip (noting we are travelling with a mattress topper and he used it). But the chair enabled him to sleep a bit raised up allowing him to breathe. Obviously the big bed was fantastic, and having the room to myself meant I didn’t wake the others at 5am moving to balcony with my morning coffee.

The kitchen was great. Real oven allowed us to cook meals - mainly pasta with butter for DS who will probably list that as his favorite meal forever 😀 the full size fridge was great, the kitchen was fully stocked with every tool we needed, especially appreciated toaster.

The two bathrooms were great, one was huge. The non-bath shower was lovely, but the spa bath, omg fantastic. The laundry was very useful as well.

We ate at Sanaa one night, that was nice. There is a small shop at Kidani, that has everything we needed - jambo has a much bigger shop with all the souvenirs, we visited after the Boma breakfast.

The Kidani pool was my favorite pool, warm, has two hot tubs.

We also did the sunset savanna tour, highly recommend - I wrote a review of that elsewhere.

There are many reports saying AKL is too far away, we didn’t notice any difference to time spent on buses, seriously the time was negligible. We did notice that we never waited for an AKL bus anywhere, they were very frequent. We never stood on buses. In fact so many times, we had a bus to ourselves. The buses did do both Kidani and jambo for drop off (not pick up), but Kidani was first 😀

In summary, if you want a relaxing stay, choose Kidani. Paying for a savanna view is worth it. Ignore reports that say too dark, corridors too long, distance too far, sofa bed uncomfortable - none of these things matter or impact on the great time you will have 😀

I had only ever stayed at Kidani, but I added a night to my trip last year, so I stayed one night at Jambo. It was nice, but I really prefer Kidani. It's so much smaller and quieter, plus the parking is much better.
 
I had only ever stayed at Kidani, but I added a night to my trip last year, so I stayed one night at Jambo. It was nice, but I really prefer Kidani. It's so much smaller and quieter, plus the parking is much better.
Oh no! :) Our first Jambo stay is coming up. Really looking forward to it.

Our last stay at Kidani was almost the farthest that you could possibly be from parking, so I don't think we'll notice it much.
 
We did walk over one time for breakfast at Boma, and the place was a madhouse

Ok Jambo people, is there a time or a secret alternative to Boma breakfast to avoid the crazyness?

I did pay extra for the savanna view, so worth it. I requested south trail,

Good to hear! I told my birthday-girl DW that I did not book a savanna room. She at first said "that's fine" but then asked for the savanna view. Glad we did.

How does one make a room request nowadays? Perhaps it's too late (14 days).

We also did the sunset savanna tour, highly recommend -

Is that the one at the lodge or in the park? I'm a little off my game year. We got a late start on this trip, and there aren't any ressies available. Might they open up for 2 people?
 
Our last stay at Kidani was almost the farthest that you could possibly be from parking, so I don't think we'll notice it much.
We love Kidani because we can park under the building, close to the elevator for our room. It’s almost like parking right in front of the room. Were you not able to park there?
 
Ok Jambo people, is there a time or a secret alternative to Boma breakfast to avoid the crazyness?



Good to hear! I told my birthday-girl DW that I did not book a savanna room. She at first said "that's fine" but then asked for the savanna view. Glad we did.

How does one make a room request nowadays? Perhaps it's too late (14 days).



Is that the one at the lodge or in the park? I'm a little off my game year. We got a late start on this trip, and there aren't any ressies available. Might they open up for 2 people?
Walk over to Kidani and have breakfast at Saana …. Order at the bar and grab a window table they bring you the food Great views
 
Ok Jambo people, is there a time or a secret alternative to Boma breakfast to avoid the crazyness?
We had a very late breakfast, but it was the weekend. Boma is always heavily booked, but once you are seated it is ok.

Good to hear! I told my birthday-girl DW that I did not book a savanna room. She at first said "that's fine" but then asked for the savanna view. Glad we did.

How does one make a room request nowadays? Perhaps it's too late (14 days).

I did it using the chat feature online, very easy. Just pretend you are making a booking - eg search for something, the chat pops up asking do you need help, then make your request.
Is that the one at the lodge or in the park? I'm a little off my game year. We got a late start on this trip, and there aren't any ressies available. Might they open up for 2 people?
The sunset savanna tour is at the lodge, starts at Kidani, but it’s an easy walk from jambo house.
 
For Boma breakfast, either eat there first sitting in the morning, or toward the end of breakfast, it's usually a lot quieter.
 
For Boma breakfast, either eat there first sitting in the morning, or toward the end of breakfast, it's usually a lot quieter.
Yes, I was the very last person seated one day, almost the last to leave the restaurant. Peaceful and all the offerings were still out and fresh.
 
Yes, I was the very last person seated one day, almost the last to leave the restaurant. Peaceful and all the offerings were still out and fresh.

I'm meeting up with a couple of friends for a late breakfast next week, that's good to hear!

I am an early riser, so I will usually do the first breakfast of the day; I was wondering how a late breakfast would compare.
 



















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