LIVE! from Kidani Village, it's an Anniversary Trip Report!!!

[michellem1118]

Well... almost. It'll be live once we get checked in at Kidani Village on Sunday, and have free internet access as DVC members in a DVC resort.

We leave tomorrow morning for our 1st anniversary trip to Walt Disney World! We're staying at AKL in a standard view room, booked on cash with an AP rate, tomorrow night, then check in to a savannah-view studio at Kidani on Sunday, which is our first anniversary.

We have no meal plan, no touring plans, and no ADRs for this week-long trip, except for our anniversary dinner at Victoria and Alberts on Sunday night. We're trying to have a "relaxing" WDW trip this time around...

So, who are we???

Me - Michelle. I'm a 30-year-old high school social studies teacher, and I all things Disney... except for the live action movies with real people, LOL.

DH - John. He's a 27-year-old high school math teacher who also all things Disney.

We met while teaching in the same school in NYC, and beginning in mid-August, will again be teaching in the same school... which happens to be the high school I graduated from!

We took our first trip together in April of 2007, where we promptly bought in to DVC. Since we had points to burn, we then booked a long-weekend trip in October 2007 for F&W Festival. Then we took a "break" from Disney until last July, when we spent 3 days at WDW and took a 4-night Disney cruise for our honeymoon. Our 4th WDW trip was just a few months ago, when we went for Spring Break... and our 6th trip is already booked, the week after Christmas with our whole families!

Here we are on our first Disney trip in April 2007:

and this is us at our wedding last July:

I'm looking forward to sharing our experiences on this trip pretty much as they happen, so feel free to sign on and live vicariously through us!!!

 

[michellem1118]

Well, we're here!

Today is our first anniversary, and we celebrated this evening with dinner at Victoria & Alberts. Delicious, but pricey... but worth it! The best 6 course meal I've ever had!!!

A quick, pictureless update for now...

We arrived yesterday a little ahead of schedule, around 2:20pm. Headed straight to ME... the change in ME check-in... now, if you have your voucher, you can skip the counter check in and go straight to the red carpet!

Now, here's the downside... for us anyway. Our ME bus made 4 stops - Pop, CBR, CSR, and then Animal Kingdom. It took about 2 hours to get from MCO to check-in at AKL.

We ate dinner at Mara (African Stew bowls), then headed to MK. Got there around 6, left right as Wishes was starting. Managed to ride 7 or 8 things in that time frame, plus got a lot of PhotoPass pictures too.

This morning, checked in at Kidani Village around 9:30, and our room was ready... so we dropped off our stuff and headed out to Epcot for the day. Didn't accomplish much due to torrential downpours, plus we needed to get back to get ready for dinner.

Now we're back, and I'm charging electronics for tomorrow... I'll try to get pictures uploaded tomorrow, too, but I'm not sure if I have any photo editing software on my netbook.

More tomorrow...

 

[Goofy'sFriend]

I LOVE reading the live reports.....thanks for taking the time!!!!

Have fun!!

 

[KathyRN137]

Happy Anniversary!!

I'm looking forward to hearing all about Kidani Village!!

Hope your weather improves tomorrow!


Kathy

 

[SunnieRN]

Happy Anniversary!! I can't wait for our first trip home, so I am looking forward to your live trip report!!

Hope you have better weather tomorrow (well today), and I will be looking forward to more!

Your taking it easy, no adr's sounds like it will be a nice, relaxing anniversary trip!!

 

[glennbo123]

I'm in. We stayed at Kidani a month ago and loved it. Looking forward to hearing your perspective.

 

[michellem1118]

I LOVE reading the live reports.....thanks for taking the time!!!!

Have fun!!

You're welcome!

Happy Anniversary!!

I'm looking forward to hearing all about Kidani Village!!

Hope your weather improves tomorrow!


Kathy

Thanks! The weather was much nicer today, just a short sprinkling of rain...

Happy Anniversary!! I can't wait for our first trip home, so I am looking forward to your live trip report!!

Hope you have better weather tomorrow (well today), and I will be looking forward to more!

Your taking it easy, no adr's sounds like it will be a nice, relaxing anniversary trip!!

Thanks! We're definitely enjoying our first trip to Kidani... saw a zebra outside our window this afternoon...

So far, no ADR's hasn't been a problem, but we'll see how the rest of the week progresses... fingers crossed!

I'm in. We stayed at Kidani a month ago and loved it. Looking forward to hearing your perspective.

We're enjoying it so far, although we were a bit disappointed that our studio only has a full-size bed, since it's a lock-off from a one-bedroom... we've thought about asking to move rooms since we're not sleeping well in this tiny bed, but... at least we know what to request in December when we stay here again...

Tonight's Live-ish Update
(still pictureless, sorry)

Today, we headed to Animal Kingdom when we got up and moving around. We rode Kilimanjaro Safari first, with a 20 minute or so wait, and then walked the Pangani Forest Trail. We saw 5 of the meerkats - which is somewhat unusual, apparently there's almost never more than 2 out at a time, and there's only 6 total, so we were pretty lucky.

at this point, it was nearly 11:30, so we decided to see if we could get in to Tusker House w/o a reservation - it was no problem, and we were seated as soon as they opened for lunch. The buffet was tasty.

After lunch, we FP'ed EE w/ the intention of using the FPs during EMH this evening, and we got FPs for Dinosaur too. Then we went out to Rafiki's Planet Watch where we saw a beautiful red-backed hawk from South America, and also did the Maharajah Jungle Trek. Around this time, we realized the camera battery was dying, and the rain was beginning to fall, so we came back to the resort for a bit.

When the rain stopped, we decided to go to DTD since the camera was charging. We wandered through the stores in the Marketplace for a bit, and then, around 5, decided to come back to the resort for the camera before heading to back to AK... and promptly had the longest wait for a bus so far, at about 30 minutes... and then the bus had to go to the Pleasure Island stop, and then to Typhoon Lagoon, so we weren't back at the resort for over an hour.

We got back to AK for EMH around 7. First we rode Kali River Rapids, 20 minute wait in the standby line, then rode EE with our FPs from earlier, which amounted to a walk-on. We were hungry, so we headed to Yak & Yeti for eggrolls, but ALL of the QS places in AK were closed. This was around 8:00. So we decided to go ride Dinosaur really quick before heading back to the resort to eat.... only they had closed the FP line at Dinosaur and wouldn't let us in, and the stand-by line was 45+ minutes... no thanks!

We were back here around 9, ate dinner @ The Mara in AKL-Jambo, and then went swimming for a bit.

We're hoping to make rope-drop at DHS tomorrow for TSM FPs, so now its off to bed, and hopefully we can get some sleep in the tiny little bed!

More tomorrow!!!

 

[SunnieRN]

Wow, I didn't know they had rooms with double beds?! Do you have two beds? Or one and a couch?

I hate the rides back from DTD on the buses to anywhere!! We have only stayed at SSR so far and once it was storming, the boats were shut down, so we decided to take the bus instead of walking (we walked all the other times as we were in congress park).

That bus ride was horrible!! We drove to the far side of DTD, then to the water park and then the LONG way around to get to SSR (the bus driver said it was to avoid traffic). Took forever!

Too bad about the dinosaur fast pass line being closed. Sounds like you did a great job avoiding the rain!

Have a great day at Hollywood Studios!!

 

[michellem1118]

Wow, I didn't know they had rooms with double beds?! Do you have two beds? Or one and a couch?

I didn't know it either! We have one bed and a pull-out couch... very disappointing.

Sorry for not updating last night, guys... we got in pretty late. We
spent the morning at DHS, and then went to Blizzard Beach in the afternoon evening. After we got back to Kidani, we decided to try to get in to Sanaa, and they had no problem getting us in. I'd recommend to anyone who wants to eat here that they check, even if the online system says there are no ADRs available.

Today we spent the morning at EPCOT, and then the bulk of the afternoon at DTD again (but the bus ride back was much better today). Now we're in the room trying to avoid a torrential downpour, and also trying to decide what to do for dinner - we were going to go back to EPCOT, but not in this rain so now we're thinking about trying to get in to Boma.

We head home tomorrow evening - not sure what we're going to do in the morning... our ME pick-up is at 3:00. We might try going to MK again in the morning if we can get up and get out of here quickly enough.

I'll be starting the "real" TR with pictures and more details as soon as we're home... and I'll try to update again from the airport tomorrow.

 

[michellem1118]

Well, we're home. We ended up at MK on Thursday morning, then back to AKV to wait for our ME pick-up. The weather was bad Thursday morning in Dallas, apparently, so we were delayed nearly 2 hours at MCO. Then yesterday, my mom had surgery, so we were dealing with that, along with laundry and unpacking, for most of the day. I'll be downloading photos to the computer sometime today, and then will begin the more detailed, photo-filled trip report soon after.

(and the countdown is on... less than 5 months til our next Disney trip! )

 

[SLM]

Thanks for posting-we're checking in next Friday and enjoyed your TR. Hope your mother is doing well.

 

[SimmerBaggins]

Thanks for the report, Michelle -- we stayed in Jambo a couple of weeks ago, and enjoyed it. Did you get into Boma's? The steak is AWESOME!!

We went by to look at the Kidani rooms before we left, and really liked them, compared to the Jambo rooms (which are converted hotel rooms, and only have one bathroom for the one bedroom). Thanks for the info on the full size bed for the studio -- are they crazy? Who ever sleeps in a full size bed anymore?

I'm doing our TR on jmskinner's thread "MY DSD..." on our one-day Concierge experience at Jambo -- DEFINITELY worth trying to get into if you can.

 

[MickeyisBeast]

I'm loving your Live TR, they are always so awesome, and yours is going really well!

 

[KathyRN137]

Looking forward to pictures!

I thought it was supposed to be a Queen Bed plus a pull-out in the studios... hmmm.

How was the pool? Did you swim at Jambo or Kidani?
(My kids can't wait for the pool at Kidani!)


Kathy

 

[michellem1118]

Looking forward to pictures!

I thought it was supposed to be a Queen Bed plus a pull-out in the studios... hmmm.

How was the pool? Did you swim at Jambo or Kidani?
(My kids can't wait for the pool at Kidani!)


Kathy

We thought the same thing, which is why we were disappointed. We will ask for a different room in Dec. if we get a full bed again!

We only swam at Kidani, we'll probably try the Jambo pool in Dec.

Pictures coming tomorrow, I hope!

 

[DisneycrazedX6]

We were at Kidani the same time you were. We had a dedicated 2 bedroom standard view and it was beautiful. We also did a live report, that I am finishing up days after we got back. Can't wait to see your photos...maybe we'll be in one...LOL!!!