Thanks for sharing your adventures. We're headed to AKL 4th of July week with 18 people! Planning has been an adventure. When you get a chance, can you post a list of things that met your expectations and things that didn't?
There are definitely pluses and minuses to staying here at Kidani. The HUGE plus is the square footage. Traveling with teenage boys it's nice to have my own private room and bathroom. It makes simple things like showering, getting dressed, changing clothes, etc, so much easier. Also it gives the boys their own bathroom and TV, so I haven't been subjected to endless tournament games this week.
The full kitchen is awesome, we've had breakfast here every morning, and I love brewing my own Starbucks coffee first thing when I wake up. We have plenty of space for drinks and snacks, so I think it saves money in the end. I don't choose to cook meals, but we definitely could if we wanted to do that. Also I've used the washer/dryer a few times, we are all leaving tomorrow with suitcases full of clean clothes. So that helps a lot.
The view from our balcony is awesome, we've really enjoyed watching the animals. Everything I've requested from housekeeping has come quickly. We haven't had any issues with noise. All in all a great trip!
On the negative side... you really are pretty far away from the action out here. Normally when staying at an Epcot resort (for example) we would walk the Boardwalk area almost every night, enjoy the entertainment, have ice cream, movie on the beach, and usually find a spot to watch Illuminations. Or over at a monorail resort, we'd make an effort to see Wishes and/or the EWP, monorail hop to different resorts for shopping and dining. Out here you don't have nighttime options, so you have to get on a bus, or drive somewhere to hunt down some entertainment. That isn't a big deal but we seem to lose our motivation to head back out late at night once we get back here to the resort. It just seems far. One night we did regroup and go to DTD to the movies. But most other nights we purposely planned to stay out later to avoid coming back here and going back out. I don't know why it seems like more of a hassle.
We were really missing Stormalong Bay on this trip. We had some perfect days early in the week that would have been ideal for the pool. We did go down to the Uzima pool here one day, it was OK, but my kids are too old for the splash playground and we felt the pool didn't really have much to offer. The deck area is too small so you can't really sit around the pool, plus it felt pretty crowded. It would probably be better to head over to the main AKL pool for a better experience.
Taking everything into consideration I will definitely keep Kidani in the rotation. I believe our last stay here was in 2011, so I'm sure we'll be back at some point. I'm very excited for our next stay at the GF!!!
I didn't get nearly enough time at MK this trip and we only saw Wishes one time, so it will be nice to focus on that area. The boys are begging to go back to the YC/BC again soon, so maybe we'll head there in the fall. I'm toying around with the idea of a
Disney cruise, if I can muster up the nerve to get on a boat for the first time
I know, I know, I'm really missing out. I need to bite the bullet and just go for it.
