Just back from AKL, few comments..

[JonS99]

First off, awesome trip, stayed 12 nights in 5124, Sunset Savanah

1. Thought the service was awesome, from the time we checked in..

2. Though the noise was a bit annoying, the new exterior colors are awesome and will look great when they are finished..

3. One thing I did not like about the resort was the location of Mara, something about going outside to grab a pop, made the walk seem even further..

4. Great resort to do with kids, so many extra things for them to do. Our DD did the ceramic craft and made a beach hat, she loved them both.

5. Pool is GREAT for little ones with the zero entry, that alone made it the right place for us to stay.

 

[mickaholic4077]

Did you put a life vest on your DD in the pool?

 

[mmmears]

Thanks for the review. We're planning on staying there on our next trip to WDW and hope that it is as great as I have heard it is!

 

[chocovrdmicears]

Quick questions..how was the transportation there? Did you use the buses or rent a car? DS5 is sooooo into animals...we really want to stay there...but he has autism so getting in and out of the parks is VERY important. We think we are destined to pay the price of a monorail resort...just wondering what your thoughts are?...

 

[JonS99]

I made this post over at the transportation board... Basically, the service was either very good or very bad, not much in the middle..


"We just got back from 12 nights at AKL, for the fun of it I kept track of our bus trips and during our stay we got on the bus 42 times...

27 times the wait was less than 5 minutes
6 times, the wait was 6-10 minutes
2 times the wait was 11-30 minutes

But we had 7 times were the wait was over 31 minutes, 5 of those being over 45 minutes, the longest being 57.. And most of these were at times we wouldn't expect.. One time we arrived at the bus stop at AKL at 6:55A for the bus to MK for our 8:15 BBB, bus arrived at 7:46 and was PACKED with people heading over for early dining and BBB...

Also waited 46 minutes at EPCOT, got in line at 8:16, Illuminations was starting as we boarded the bus, added to the 46 minutes we waited that morning to get to EPCOT, was quite frustrating..."
__________________

 

[disneynewbeemom]

We just got back from a 10 day stay at AKL (6/6-6/15). We loved the buses and thought they were very prompt. We couldn't have been happier! We thought we would have to take a taxi for two occasions (8:00 ADR to Tusker House on a day when the park opened at 9:00) and (7:30 ADR to Ohanas breakfast on a day when MK opened at 9:00), but we had no problems at all. Usually we had to wait about 5-10 minutes for a bus, however, there were times when the bus was right there. We purposely did not go to the parks that had EMH and we were still happy with the buses. The longest line we had was after Illuminations at Epcot. We had a very crowded bus, but at least we didn't have to drive. All in all, the buses worked out perfect!

 

[Mike©]

Did you put a life vest on your DD in the pool?

???

 

[mickaholic4077]

???

Closed thread on the theme parks board where OP posted and apparently didn't like the replys because she never came back after the OP.

 

[JonS99]

First off, Jon is a he's name...

Secondly, OMG, can't believe that thread went off like it did, I read the first few replies and forgot about it... BTW- My daughter DID have a life jacket on, though nobody on that thread seemed to want to ask that question before commenting..

Lastly. she did use the jackets at AKL a few times, but preferred to play without in shallow water with mom or dad...

 

[tiger4me2]

First off, Jon is a he's name...

Secondly, OMG, can't believe that thread went off like it did, I read the first few replies and forgot about it... BTW- My daughter DID have a life jacket on, though nobody on that thread seemed to want to ask that question before commenting..

Lastly. she did use the jackets at AKL a few times, but preferred to play without in shallow water with mom or dad...

My best friend is name Jon & she is a female. Guess her father wanted a boy

 

[Mike©]

Closed thread on the theme parks board where OP posted and apparently didn't like the replys because she never came back after the OP.

 

[rmoore7]

First off, awesome trip, stayed 12 nights in 5124, Sunset Savanah

2. Though the noise was a bit annoying, the new exterior colors are awesome and will look great when they are finished..

Specifically, what noise? Resort noise in general, construction noise (how bad was it?), or something else? We'll be there the first week of August
Thanks...

 

[soccerEAGLE09]

Ohhh! I second that, how was the construction noise? We go to AKL in 4 days!

 

[JonS99]

The construction noise wasn't bad and we were on the Sunset were the noise is probably the loudest, but they are also painting the exterior, and that was actually louder than the construction, but just depends were they are at for your stay..

BTW, have some pics of the new color scheme and if I get time I will post them.. Basically going with lighter color wood and painting the balcony rails a light green instead of the current multi colors..

 

[madalex]

I made this post over at the transportation board... Basically, the service was either very good or very bad, not much in the middle..


"We just got back from 12 nights at AKL, for the fun of it I kept track of our bus trips and during our stay we got on the bus 42 times...

27 times the wait was less than 5 minutes
6 times, the wait was 6-10 minutes
2 times the wait was 11-30 minutes

But we had 7 times were the wait was over 31 minutes, 5 of those being over 45 minutes, the longest being 57.. And most of these were at times we wouldn't expect.. One time we arrived at the bus stop at AKL at 6:55A for the bus to MK for our 8:15 BBB, bus arrived at 7:46 and was PACKED with people heading over for early dining and BBB...

Also waited 46 minutes at EPCOT, got in line at 8:16, Illuminations was starting as we boarded the bus, added to the 46 minutes we waited that morning to get to EPCOT, was quite frustrating..."

How unfortunate to have these long waits. We stayed at AKL back in March and the longest wait we ever had for a bus from there to a park was 15 minutes. (In fact, I have been to WDW over a dozen times since 1997 and have never had a bus wait from any resort to any park (or vice versa) of more than 30 minutes.)

 

[thomas998]

We used the buses 1 day to MK from AKL... after that we used our rental car... The bus was quick getting us there.. I think we waited 5 minutes... Going back was not quite so happy... the line of people waiting for a bus back was very long.... from the time we got in line, 4 buses came and went before we were able to get on one... that was bad enough...worse was the total time it took for use to finally get on the fifth bus... over 1 hour 20 minutes.... we saw buses waiting behind the bus filling up to drop in place at other bus stops.. but the AKL never had a bus waiting behind the one filling up... at one point it was 25 minutes from the time one bus left with people before another bus arrived to pick more people up... If you have small kids that are tired after a day at the park, that isn't the type of transportation you want.

 

[itchin2go]

How did you like the Sunset Savanna? I know there is construction going on, but were there still lots of animals? Is it worth it to pay for a Savanna view if you're on Sunset side?

So, is the new DVC building completely built and they're now painting it? Or is there more actual construction yet to be done?