Kidani Village is a mystery to me?

[Darkside]

I don't get it. We have stayed at every DVC at the world and Kidani Village is our favorite place to stay. Their service has been excellent, the resort is a blast to stay at, they have a dedicated bus system, rooms are beautiful, and points are some of the best. YET, they are doing a ton to market this place and Samantha Brown just did a DVC promotion. They resort always seems busy to me? I never see them promote any other DVC, like Wilderness Lodge, Boardwalk, Beach Club or even Saratoga Springs. Am I missing something??

 

[erionm]

They still have unsold points. I'm sure DVD wants to get it 'sold out' so they can focus on something else.

 

[nebdisneyfan]

This is our home resort, but we haven't stayed there before. We will be there in 5 days. Can't wait!
-M

 

[dianeschlicht]

I don't get it. We have stayed at every DVC at the world and Kidani Village is our favorite place to stay. Their service has been excellent, the resort is a blast to stay at, they have a dedicated bus system, rooms are beautiful, and points are some of the best. YET, they are doing a ton to market this place and Samantha Brown just did a DVC promotion. They resort always seems busy to me? I never see them promote any other DVC, like Wilderness Lodge, Boardwalk, Beach Club or even Saratoga Springs. Am I missing something??

Well, I'm missing the same thing. We love Kidani. I must say though, we don't love the darkness of the units. I suspect some have a negative reaction to the distance from the parks too. I, however, have found the bus service to be very good from Kidani.

 

[vicki_c]

I don't get it. We have stayed at every DVC at the world and Kidani Village is our favorite place to stay. Their service has been excellent, the resort is a blast to stay at, they have a dedicated bus system, rooms are beautiful, and points are some of the best. YET, they are doing a ton to market this place and Samantha Brown just did a DVC promotion. They resort always seems busy to me? I never see them promote any other DVC, like Wilderness Lodge, Boardwalk, Beach Club or even Saratoga Springs. Am I missing something??

They only promote where they are still in active sales.

 

[fflmaster]

On our last visit we stayed here and loved it.

However, I can see why the rooms ALWAYS seem available. The village is out of the way and if you don't have a car the dedicated bus take a long time to get from place to place.

Out of the DVC resorts animal kingdom is one that is in less demand and thus needs much more promoting.

BLT, BCV, BWV and others are all also sold out from my understanding.

The only two available are SSR and AKL. I think all have small amount of points they can sell, but in general all the other are sold out.

They don't advertise SSR as much in my opinion since they probably spend much more in expense over at AKL. All those animals and keepers must cost a bit of money. What does SSR have? not much in my opinion.

I said to my wife for our family I would rank the resorts:

1. BLT
big drop

2. BCV
3. AKL
4. BWV
another drop

5. WL

then the no interest in staying
6. SSR
7. OKW

 

[dizfan]

Beautiful resort.

Part of the slower sales and more promotions is caused by the AKV being the 2nd or 3rd largest WDW property as far as points.

 

[disneynutz]

Disney only promotes resorts that they need to fill or in the case of DVD, resorts that they are actively selling. They make most of their profit selling active resorts so that's where they spend their marketing money.

Eventually, you will only see marketing for VGF.

Bill

 

[Kidanifan08]

I don't get it. We have stayed at every DVC at the world and Kidani Village is our favorite place to stay. Their service has been excellent, the resort is a blast to stay at, they have a dedicated bus system, rooms are beautiful, and points are some of the best. YET, they are doing a ton to market this place and Samantha Brown just did a DVC promotion. They resort always seems busy to me? I never see them promote any other DVC, like Wilderness Lodge, Boardwalk, Beach Club or even Saratoga Springs. Am I missing something??

WE own at AKV and we totally love Kidani as well. We look forward to staying at the other resorts, but tend to drift back to Kidani. It is a beautiful and peaceful resort. I really don't notice or mind the distance from the parks. I have recently notice more and more threads commenting on how much people have enjoyed their stay at Kidani and Jambo and look forward to staying there again. It is a great resort!

The main reason that they are promoting AKV so heavily at this point it time, is that it is all they have to sell. AKV went on sale just a little before BLT and the popularity of BLT killed sales at AKV. They basically put promoting AKV on hold until BLT sold out. AKV suffers from the same issues as SSR . . . perceived remote location and large number of rooms. If OKW wasn't the first DVC resort, it may have had similar problems selling alongside other, more desirable locations. Now that there is practically nothing left at BLT, they can push AKV. They need to sell as much as possible before VGF puts another damper on AKV sales. Yes, they could try to sell points at the older resorts, but AKV is the biggest bang for their buck. And by the looks of the monthly sales data posted by WDRL, they seem to be doing pretty well.

 

[Greatfalls]

I think what happened is that they opened too many resorts at once. When I bought, SSR was the only new resort available, so that's what I bought. When they started selling AKV, they still had SRR inventory and then they quickly brought BLT on line, which was very popular and took away a lot of sales from AKV. Aulani came along as well. They're heavily marketing AKV now, so they can sell out their new inventory before they make a heavy push for VGF.

 

[tubtruck]

I would always stay at Jambo, the exterior of the Kidani village looks like it was built on the cheap, one example would be all the "wooden" poles look like a cheap plastic version of the ones at Jambo I could name many, but for me it looks like Disney should have spent more on construction to take it to the same asthetic standard of the big place.

 

[eporter66]

We own at SSR, but have stayed at Kidani 3x. We love the resort, and the points are cheaper than a stay at SSR. We rent a car, so transportation is not an issue.

The only problem is I am not big on the decor, but that does little to detract me from staying there.

 

[twinklebug]

I would always stay at Jambo, the exterior of the Kidani village looks like it was built on the cheap, one example would be all the "wooden" poles look like a cheap plastic version of the ones at Jambo I could name many, but for me it looks like Disney should have spent more on construction to take it to the same asthetic standard of the big place.

I adore Kidani, but I will agree with you - the exterior of the building as you approach is awful. The greenery has filled in over the years and it's starting to look a bit better, but I still focus on other things when out on that side.

The time it's taking to sell out on AKV is attributed to the size of the resort adn who it's up against in sales. BLT was a hot ticket item with it's location and sheer association with the Contemporary. It kicked AKV off to the side. AKV will sell out, but I think it'll take folk who are waiting for the Grand Floridian Villas built to see the starting price of those to see what a comparative AKV really is.

I do wonder... if they ever build the Fort Wilderness Villas how they'll make people see the value in buying points there at the rate they'll be inflating them to for the VGF. Perhaps they'll just be lower by nature of the resort.

 

[Robundrh2o]

We just got back from Kidani and overall LOVED it. I did notice the cheap looking poles and was kinda surprised given the usual Disney attention to detail. The resort itself was great, the kids loved being to see the animals. I didn't mind the bus rides so much. The biggest drawback we found was that there is no quick service available at the resort, we had to go to Jambo for that (don't get me started on Mara, not happy with that choice). However the concierge did provide us with Pizza deliery options from outside the park that worked great. Overall I still like OKW slightly more, but Kidani is a close second.

 

[BrerNashville]

Kidani can also be a bit annoying if your room is at the far end of the resort -- makes for some looong walks to the bus depot.

 

[k3chantal]

I don't get it. We have stayed at every DVC at the world and Kidani Village is our favorite place to stay. Their service has been excellent, the resort is a blast to stay at, they have a dedicated bus system, rooms are beautiful, and points are some of the best. YET, they are doing a ton to market this place and Samantha Brown just did a DVC promotion. They resort always seems busy to me? I never see them promote any other DVC, like Wilderness Lodge, Boardwalk, Beach Club or even Saratoga Springs. Am I missing something??

We own at AKL and we enjoy it. But I have to admit I LOVE Wilderness Lodge. Perhaps because this was our first DVC resort we stayed at using our point or because we are from California and it reminds us of the Grand California. Had I known about resale when we purchased AKL, I probably would have wanted the VWL. We are very happy with our purchase anyway. But will consider purchasing points at VWL, when money is available.

 

[wildernessDad]

Just wanted to pop on here to say that we love Kidani as well. It's a large resort and isn't sold out yet, thus the promotions.

 

[twinklebug]

We own at AKL and we enjoy it. But I have to admit I LOVE Wilderness Lodge. Perhaps because this was our first DVC resort we stayed at using our point or because we are from California and it reminds us of the Grand California. Had I known about resale when we purchased AKL, I probably would have wanted the VWL. We are very happy with our purchase anyway. But will consider purchasing points at VWL, when money is available.

It's no coincidence that you love AKL,VWL and VGF - they're all designed by the same architect. Sadly there will be no more with his magical touch as he passed away.

This is one of his original sketches for Kidani's lobby which was built after he passed. Note the balconies overlooking the lobby

 

[SpaceMountain77]

I think I can also shed light on the mystery for you. From a travel and leisure perspective, Kidani Village is the only DVC resort to be awarded a AAA four diamonds rating. Moreover, it has received top accolades from Conde Nast Traveler. Its travel and leisure awards have set it apart from its fellow properties.

Here is the link to access the ratings:

http://newsroom.aaa.com/diamond-ratings/

 

[KandiB47]

On our last visit we stayed here and loved it.

However, I can see why the rooms ALWAYS seem available. The village is out of the way and if you don't have a car the dedicated bus take a long time to get from place to place.

Out of the DVC resorts animal kingdom is one that is in less demand and thus needs much more promoting.

BLT, BCV, BWV and others are all also sold out from my understanding.

The only two available are SSR and AKL. I think all have small amount of points they can sell, but in general all the other are sold out.

They don't advertise SSR as much in my opinion since they probably spend much more in expense over at AKL. All those animals and keepers must cost a bit of money. What does SSR have? not much in my opinion.

I said to my wife for our family I would rank the resorts:

1. BLT
big drop

2. BCV
3. AKL
4. BWV
another drop

5. WL

then the no interest in staying
6. SSR
7. OKW

Wow, this comparison is very different from what I would say. To each their own. I used to follow all the hype but now that I have stayed in almost all of the resorts, I can say my list is very different than yours. I hated BWV and loved OKW. I waited five years to stay at OKW because it was the "boring resort" i.e. not hyped on DIS boards.

My top three picks are AKL, OKW, and BCV. Each resort has some cool things and is well worth a stay to decide if it's for you or not.