Saana

[battymum]

What would be the best time for dinner at this restaurant. Want to make sure there is enough daylight to see some animals on the savannah. It will be September 21st or 22nd, Also how would we get there from Pop Century - we are family of five.

 

[Belle5]

When we dined there in May it was still daylight until quite late-- so lighting was not an issue. Someone PLEASE correct me if I am wrong, but I was under the impression that there were lights of some sort at night to where you could see the animals after dark. I was betting on that when I made my February ADR's...

 

[Belle5]

What would be the best time for dinner at this restaurant. Want to make sure there is enough daylight to see some animals on the savannah. It will be September 21st or 22nd, Also how would we get there from Pop Century - we are family of five.

I hadn't noticed the part of your question about getting there from Pop Century. If you are relying on WDW transportation I would take a bus from POP to DAK theme park and then catch the bus from there to AKL lodge. Make sure you tell the driver you need to get off at Kidani or you will have a longgggg walk from the main building where Boma is located.

Truthfully, you could take the bus from POP to ANY theme park and then transfer to a bus to AKL Kidani. I just think of DAK because it's so close to the resort...

 

[catne]

It's not a matter of how much daylight is still there, it's more a matter of what time it is: if it's animal-dinner-time, the animals will be out there. Though there are animals visible most times of day, there are a lot of times when you see few animals. We ate dinner at Sanaa in late May, when the sun didn't go down until almost 9:00 PM. But we were told the animals are kept on as "natural" a feeding schedule as the keepers can manage, balanced with the idea that some viewing time would be helpful for the hotel guests. So when we ate at Sanaa, the animals were on the savannah right outside the restaurant windows eating at around 5:30-6:00 p.m. They pretty much disappeared between 6 & 6:30 p.m.

We were told that some of their fodder is put outside the restaurant windows area at around 5:30 because that is a normal eating time for the animals--late afternoon/early evening--before getting settled in for the night elsewhere...and people can see them while they're eating. Then the animals go to a more secure area for the night, so the keepers put the main feed for the night in the secure part...which is why they leave the area. The herds know where the next "course" of the meal is..basically they eat what's out for them & then wander off to where the next food is...in this way the keepers get the animals to move to where they should be next. This is what we were told, anyway. I do know that there were a lot of animals out there at 5:30, but by 6:30 they were virtually all gone...maybe one or two lingered a bit but the bigger part of the herd "disappeared."

So, if you really want to see the animals & get the chance at a window seat, I'd book the first seating (was 5:30 PM when we went)

To get there from Pop, you'll have to either take a cab (which would be fastest method), or take a bus to a Park & then switch busses at the park to the Animal Kingdom bus. Your fastest route would probably be to take the first park bus that arrives at Pop instead of waiting for a specific park bus. Don't take the Downtown Disney bus, though...those are very slow routes & can take forever to get anywhere.

 

[Belle5]

Cathy, that is really interesting news! I am actually going to repost this part of the question in a new thread because the title of this thread doesn't really tell what it's about. I am going to see if there have been any recent experiences now that it is getting dark early. I may need to change my plans...