mikamomof3
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2006
- Messages
- 54
Hi all! Just thought I would share our high points and low points during our 7 night stay at AKL Jambo House during Thanksgiving! Hubby and I booked 2 deluxe studios for us and our four kids ages 13, 10, 9 and 6 eleven months out. I also called about 5 or 6 days before checking in to make sure our rooms were adjoining or at least very near each other. We checked in Saturday 11/22 around 2pm and both rooms were ready....however, one room was the first room on 5th floor Kudu trail and the other was the LAST room on Kudu trail....no kidding. It was literally a 5 minute walk down the hall!!! Good news, the room next to the first in the hall was checking out the next day so only had to spend one night so far away. Hubby and 6 year old stayed at end of the hall since they were the easiest two as far as "stuff" goes. We planned on being at the MK first thing in the morning so we were told just to have whatever luggage out of old room and when we got back at the end of the day the new room would be ready.
So, Sunday morning hubby gets up early to pack up and leave room, be down at my room to help with the others and get out the door. Needless to say no bus came for 40 minutes and the crowd was huge. I am guessing the buses kept filling up at Kidani and couldn't fit any more people on. Finally an attendant called and we got a completely empty bus. We all missed park opening - what a bummer! Great day at the park, crowds were manageable and weather was wonderful. I was surprised however that 2 of our fastpass rides were down for technical difficulties. Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain. They said we could come back whenever and ride when they became operational. That was great but it them made the fastpass line about a 35 minute wait for Space Mountain. I have never seen a ride closed at Disney before like I did all week long...in every park. I'll discuss this more later as it was a huge issue the entire week.
We returned to AKL at 4:30pm and went to check into new room. They told us the room was 5372...nope, that was the room we are moving out of. The lady calls the "back office". 25 minutes later we get Tim...a man in a jacket...uh oh must be serious. He tells us they made a mistake and have booked another person into the room already. What???? Yeah, probably that person didn't want to be way down in 5372!!! He says he is looking for another option...we may both have to move. They are completely full due to it being Thanksgiving. This is no easy feat with 6 people with a weeks worth of stuff. We had a dinner reservation so he said to check with him when we got back from that. After a great dinner at O'hana we got back to the hotel about 10pm...we are exhausted and need beds for the kids. He shows us 2 rooms across the hall from each other that are "stock rooms" not DVC rooms on floor 4. They are the first 2 rooms and one looks right at the pull up area to the hotel and the other overlooks the beginning of the pool area...plus they are just plain ugly rooms....must be extreme value....all of us cringe....I mean we were looking at giraffes and zebras! Hubby says no, fix it and fins us a better option. It is so late, and now we have spent almost 2 hours total doing room stuff between check in day and Sunday that he moves back down the hall to room 5372. Tim calls my cell phone and tells me that tomorrow he will have 2 rooms next to each other. He is extremely apologetic and I really did feel like he was trying and felt bad.
Monday, after 2 nights in our rooms and moving in and out of the same room twice, Tim put us in connecting rooms on the third floor. Again, they were resort rooms and not DVC rooms so not quite what we were expecting, but having the extra beds instead of the sleeper sofa was a great bonus! So as not to mess up our DVC stuff on our magic bands he just printed out room keys...he also didn't put our DVC rooms back into inventory because he said that would mess up the system. So, we ended up with FOUR rooms...if only we knew some people nearby we could have given them a free place to stay for 4 nights! Apparently these managers also have a supply of fast passes they can put onto people's accounts because he gave each of us 3 extra fast passes for our DHS day and MK day. So those two days we had 6 fast passes each and 3 were freebies and didn't require a reservation! That was absolutely worth any hassle we had...especially as the week became more crowded and there were a couple rides we wanted to do twice!
Speaking of rides...holy cow! So, on Wednesday it was a little rainy in the morning and we were going to AK. I guess Everest was down most of the morning so when we went for our FP time the FP line was 45 minutes and was almost to Dino-land. We waited....just when we were next to get on the ride....at the gate...it got shut down for technical difficulty. We actually saw what happened. There was a young adult who had a disability and was concerned his lap restraint was not tight enough so as the train was pulling out of the station he panicked and stood up. The operator hit the emergency stop and then each train car had to be evacuated before the ride could then be inspected and started back up. We were given a paper fast pass to come back later. Which we did and that FP line was 30 minutes. So, with our FP's at Everest we waited a total of an hour and 15 minutes to ride!!! Just crazy.
The rides that we went to and were turned away from during the week for "technical" difficulties were: Space Mountain twice, Pirates of the Caribbean, Big Thunder Mountain, Toy Story Mania (FP line ended up being 40 minutes when it got up and running), Everest twice, Star Tours and the best was The Barnstormer. We were actually on it when it shut down and had to be manually let off the ride...again we were given a paper fast pass for any of the rides in Fantasyland - heck yeah we used it for Seven Dwarfs! Come to find out though that ride was excluded from this pass, but the man let us use it anyway and keep it. We chatted with another family of 6 who was telling us the Peter Pan line was too long for them so we gave them our paper passes...we had already ridden everything we wanted to in fantasyland and were so lucky to have the fast passes we already had...it made them SO happy and we knew how that felt!
Anyway, in the 40 years I have been going to Disney - I grew up 4 hours south of there so went MANY times growing up and went to college over in Lakeland - I have NEVER encountered a ride closed unless it was for refurbishment. I also have never had any problems with rooms at any resort. We go every year and it is usually over Thanksgiving. I don't know if they are just trying to pack too many people into the resorts and therefore into the parks that their system and attractions just can't keep up or what. This was the first trip we have ever had where we weren't leaving talking about when we were coming back. Even the kids asked if we could go on a cruise next year instead. Neons get me wrong, we had a great time...even met Anna and Elsa and only waited 5 minutes...at 12:45am, lol. We slept in, swam and had great dining reservations...really no complaints. Disney just seemed like it couldn't keep up with the masses of people.
Oh, one more thing on the Magic Bands. Since we do DVC I always buy my tickets separately. I linked them to the magic bands on the MDE website. The first day I carried them with me just in case.....everyone got in with no problems except for me. No big deal though, just scanned the ticket and had the hotel link it later than evening when we got back. I must say the magic bands almost eliminate the line getting into the parks...so much quicker as it is on the wrist and people arent fooling around trying to see which park ticket belongs to who and where they are in their wallets! Now, if only bag check could go faster. But, having older kids we really didn't need anything so my husband kept my lipgloss and cell phone in his pocket the whole week and we even skipped bag check! The magic bands worked great everywhere and we just put everything on the room or it came out of our dining plan. I was quite nervous about how it would all work and how the FP would stay organized, but it magically does! Oh, the MDE app is pretty amazing. I have Verizon and it had a hard time updating throughout the week when we were checking ride times, but my hubby has AT&T and his stayed updated every time he got on it. That was a huge help especially knowing ahead of time if a ride was operating or not before walking across the park!
Needless to say, we will go back...eventually...maybe we will give it a few years and try some other spots in the meantime...like Aulani!!!
So, Sunday morning hubby gets up early to pack up and leave room, be down at my room to help with the others and get out the door. Needless to say no bus came for 40 minutes and the crowd was huge. I am guessing the buses kept filling up at Kidani and couldn't fit any more people on. Finally an attendant called and we got a completely empty bus. We all missed park opening - what a bummer! Great day at the park, crowds were manageable and weather was wonderful. I was surprised however that 2 of our fastpass rides were down for technical difficulties. Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain. They said we could come back whenever and ride when they became operational. That was great but it them made the fastpass line about a 35 minute wait for Space Mountain. I have never seen a ride closed at Disney before like I did all week long...in every park. I'll discuss this more later as it was a huge issue the entire week.
We returned to AKL at 4:30pm and went to check into new room. They told us the room was 5372...nope, that was the room we are moving out of. The lady calls the "back office". 25 minutes later we get Tim...a man in a jacket...uh oh must be serious. He tells us they made a mistake and have booked another person into the room already. What???? Yeah, probably that person didn't want to be way down in 5372!!! He says he is looking for another option...we may both have to move. They are completely full due to it being Thanksgiving. This is no easy feat with 6 people with a weeks worth of stuff. We had a dinner reservation so he said to check with him when we got back from that. After a great dinner at O'hana we got back to the hotel about 10pm...we are exhausted and need beds for the kids. He shows us 2 rooms across the hall from each other that are "stock rooms" not DVC rooms on floor 4. They are the first 2 rooms and one looks right at the pull up area to the hotel and the other overlooks the beginning of the pool area...plus they are just plain ugly rooms....must be extreme value....all of us cringe....I mean we were looking at giraffes and zebras! Hubby says no, fix it and fins us a better option. It is so late, and now we have spent almost 2 hours total doing room stuff between check in day and Sunday that he moves back down the hall to room 5372. Tim calls my cell phone and tells me that tomorrow he will have 2 rooms next to each other. He is extremely apologetic and I really did feel like he was trying and felt bad.
Monday, after 2 nights in our rooms and moving in and out of the same room twice, Tim put us in connecting rooms on the third floor. Again, they were resort rooms and not DVC rooms so not quite what we were expecting, but having the extra beds instead of the sleeper sofa was a great bonus! So as not to mess up our DVC stuff on our magic bands he just printed out room keys...he also didn't put our DVC rooms back into inventory because he said that would mess up the system. So, we ended up with FOUR rooms...if only we knew some people nearby we could have given them a free place to stay for 4 nights! Apparently these managers also have a supply of fast passes they can put onto people's accounts because he gave each of us 3 extra fast passes for our DHS day and MK day. So those two days we had 6 fast passes each and 3 were freebies and didn't require a reservation! That was absolutely worth any hassle we had...especially as the week became more crowded and there were a couple rides we wanted to do twice!
Speaking of rides...holy cow! So, on Wednesday it was a little rainy in the morning and we were going to AK. I guess Everest was down most of the morning so when we went for our FP time the FP line was 45 minutes and was almost to Dino-land. We waited....just when we were next to get on the ride....at the gate...it got shut down for technical difficulty. We actually saw what happened. There was a young adult who had a disability and was concerned his lap restraint was not tight enough so as the train was pulling out of the station he panicked and stood up. The operator hit the emergency stop and then each train car had to be evacuated before the ride could then be inspected and started back up. We were given a paper fast pass to come back later. Which we did and that FP line was 30 minutes. So, with our FP's at Everest we waited a total of an hour and 15 minutes to ride!!! Just crazy.
The rides that we went to and were turned away from during the week for "technical" difficulties were: Space Mountain twice, Pirates of the Caribbean, Big Thunder Mountain, Toy Story Mania (FP line ended up being 40 minutes when it got up and running), Everest twice, Star Tours and the best was The Barnstormer. We were actually on it when it shut down and had to be manually let off the ride...again we were given a paper fast pass for any of the rides in Fantasyland - heck yeah we used it for Seven Dwarfs! Come to find out though that ride was excluded from this pass, but the man let us use it anyway and keep it. We chatted with another family of 6 who was telling us the Peter Pan line was too long for them so we gave them our paper passes...we had already ridden everything we wanted to in fantasyland and were so lucky to have the fast passes we already had...it made them SO happy and we knew how that felt!
Anyway, in the 40 years I have been going to Disney - I grew up 4 hours south of there so went MANY times growing up and went to college over in Lakeland - I have NEVER encountered a ride closed unless it was for refurbishment. I also have never had any problems with rooms at any resort. We go every year and it is usually over Thanksgiving. I don't know if they are just trying to pack too many people into the resorts and therefore into the parks that their system and attractions just can't keep up or what. This was the first trip we have ever had where we weren't leaving talking about when we were coming back. Even the kids asked if we could go on a cruise next year instead. Neons get me wrong, we had a great time...even met Anna and Elsa and only waited 5 minutes...at 12:45am, lol. We slept in, swam and had great dining reservations...really no complaints. Disney just seemed like it couldn't keep up with the masses of people.
Oh, one more thing on the Magic Bands. Since we do DVC I always buy my tickets separately. I linked them to the magic bands on the MDE website. The first day I carried them with me just in case.....everyone got in with no problems except for me. No big deal though, just scanned the ticket and had the hotel link it later than evening when we got back. I must say the magic bands almost eliminate the line getting into the parks...so much quicker as it is on the wrist and people arent fooling around trying to see which park ticket belongs to who and where they are in their wallets! Now, if only bag check could go faster. But, having older kids we really didn't need anything so my husband kept my lipgloss and cell phone in his pocket the whole week and we even skipped bag check! The magic bands worked great everywhere and we just put everything on the room or it came out of our dining plan. I was quite nervous about how it would all work and how the FP would stay organized, but it magically does! Oh, the MDE app is pretty amazing. I have Verizon and it had a hard time updating throughout the week when we were checking ride times, but my hubby has AT&T and his stayed updated every time he got on it. That was a huge help especially knowing ahead of time if a ride was operating or not before walking across the park!
Needless to say, we will go back...eventually...maybe we will give it a few years and try some other spots in the meantime...like Aulani!!!
