Resorts with good food courts/QS

[Twilight Sparkle]

The only problem I found with the Mara and eating outside is that so many guests are just plain pigs and don't clean up after themselves.

That doesn't sound pleasant. Thankfully we have yet to encounter that situation.

 

[Katedisneylover]

As said previously POR and POFQ are great but I think I preferred Everything Pop when ai stayed there. Am staying at POR this year but as it gets nearer I kinda wish I'd booked Pop.

 

[mcurran]

Hmmm, well, we just switched to POR, which we LOVE, so now probably WON'T be visiting a lot of other resorts, as we can eat at Riverside Mill now. But I still want to visit AKL - I'm wondering if we should scrap the plan to eat there and just do an early dinner at our resort, then just visit AKL and walk around before returning to AK for evening hours. DH and DS won't like it if it is cramped feeling!

I don't want to leave you with any false impression. AKL is great. I encourage visiting it. There are great spots to view animals including a great flamingo pen right by the Mara. The lobby really is stunning. Also one of the coolest hotel shopping places.

I think AKL is not alone in that the deluxe resorts don't really cater to the qs crowd. It's probably smart on their part to drive customers paying for premium rooms who can afford to splash some cash to push them to dine at higher costing locations in their building. I guess I hadn't come to that reasoning before our trip there and hadn't considered that Mara would be lesser of a qs than moderate qs we are accustomed to. I would say AKL is a great place to visit but don't go for the qs food. Go for a ton of other reasons. The food is quite good too! The atmosphere is a little closed off and dark so if it's nice outside take your food out to a table or poolside. Pool bar has great tropical drinks but that's not on the dining plan. Lol

Also no one posted but warrants mentioning that in AKL you get paper straws like AK park. Animals + plastic straws = choking animals. So while I understand the reasoning for it, I didn't enjoy that particular uniqueness. Nothing like chewing on your drink 10 minutes after filling your cup.

 

[halssister]

I don't want to leave you with any false impression. AKL is great. I encourage visiting it. There are great spots to view animals including a great flamingo pen right by the Mara. The lobby really is stunning. Also one of the coolest hotel shopping places.

I think AKL is not alone in that the deluxe resorts don't really cater to the qs crowd. It's probably smart on their part to drive customers paying for premium rooms who can afford to splash some cash to push them to dine at higher costing locations in their building. I guess I hadn't come to that reasoning before our trip there and hadn't considered that Mara would be lesser of a qs than moderate qs we are accustomed to. I would say AKL is a great place to visit but don't go for the qs food. Go for a ton of other reasons. The food is quite good too! The atmosphere is a little closed off and dark so if it's nice outside take your food out to a table or poolside. Pool bar has great tropical drinks but that's not on the dining plan. Lol.

Oh, I definitely still plan to visit AKL! I feel like it would be my favorite place to stay if we ever have the budget, but I've never set foot in it. AK is probably our favorite park as a family (love animals, not huge on thrill rides), and the resort looks fabulous from the photos, so I'm hoping to convince DH that it may make a great 25th anniversary trip for he and I to do alone in a few years