***The Official AKV Owners And Lovers Thread***. Come And Chat

[twinklebug]

That is a great video! This is one of the things I love about staying there -- you get to see the way the animals interact with their environment, with the animal care team and with the other animals. You captured it all in this great video.

I hope the storm doesn't cause you any problems tomorrow!

Isn't it fun? I have lots of footage with the giraffes attempting to get to their new salad buffet and it's all funny, but the zebra just put this one over the top. I wonder if he was thinking "If I can't have any, neither can they"

Thanks for the well wishes on the flight. It'll be an adventure... southwest has already canceled the flight leaving after ours and all the others for the rest of the afternoon.

 

[thebigman65]

Great Video!....We first stayed at AKL last March (our very first WDW visit)....our good friends, who are DVC members, took us. We went again to Pop this past Christmas and decided to buy into DVC at AKV!.....we booked our first trip as owners for March 5 to 12th and we are so looking forward to it.....we are taking our good friends again as payback!.....but also because we enjoy going with them... ....Can't Wait!!

 

[amv1605]

What's the Difference Between a Value and a Standard view 2 Bedroom at Animal Kingdom?? Anybody know from First hand experience or otherwise ...


We'll be staying at Kadani in a Savannah View Room in May --- Yay! But I'm looking at booking a 2 Bedroom for Christmas and really wanted to know the difference ...

Thanks!

 

[twinklebug]

What's the Difference Between a Value and a Standard view 2 Bedroom at Animal Kingdom?? Anybody know from First hand experience or otherwise ...


We'll be staying at Kadani in a Savannah View Room in May --- Yay! But I'm looking at booking a 2 Bedroom for Christmas and really wanted to know the difference ...

Thanks!

All value rooms are on the higher floors of the Jambo House. All standard view rooms are in Kidani. Note that the kidani 1 &2br rooms in Kidani have the extra bathroom.

 

[BigDogHU75]

hello everyone. My wife and i are now (or close to being) new dvc members. We received the fedex with our closing documents today and are purchasing 250 points at akl with an august use year. We are planning our first trip to kidani for early may and are just waiting to hear back from my parents to see whether they will be able to join us before we proceed with booking a room. We had an existing pin code reservation booked at cbr that we have now cancelled.

I can't wait to check out the kidani side of the resort (i've only previously stayed at jambo) and watch our son play in uwanja camp. He will have just turned 2 at the time of our trip and he loves playing in water and foutains, sprinklers, etc.

I look forward to sharing our "home" over the coming years with all of my new neighbors!

-mike

just purchased at akv after falling in love with the resort on our january visit we already have plans to stay for 4 nights in october and 7 nights in january!!!!

welcome home & congratulations!

 

[mamaprincess]

All value rooms are on the higher floors of the Jambo House. All standard view rooms are in Kidani.

No. Concierge rooms are on the 6th floor all other rooms are on the 5th floor in Jambo house. There are standard rooms in both Jambo and Kidani. Their are no values or concierge level rooms in kidani. The standard 1br in kidani have an extra bathroom but not at Jambo.

I can't wait to be home for christmas. It is such an exceptionally gorgeous place and such a unique vacation experience.

 

[The Rivers' Rats]

Well we are now almost at the 100 day mark prior to our trip to AKV for our first trip "home". We will be spending five days at AKV and then heading over to the Boardwalk Villas for the remaining 5 days of the trip (my son wants to go to Star Wars Weekend and we'd rather be closer to the park since he'll likely have us there from park opening to closing!!).

Does anyone have any advice of what "can't miss" activities and events are at Kidani? We are travelling with three kids (2, 5, & 8 years old) and plan on hitting the pools and play areas, but what other activities at AKV should we add to our itinerary? Since we have limited our stay at AKV, I don't want to waste our time and miss anything....

Thanks,
Scott

 

[Granny]

Hi there, AKV Lovers!

I just booked our first stay at your great resort for the last week in April. I've been reading a lot of this thread to get a feel for the resort and of course to tap into your enthusiasm!

Looking through the thread I saw Lisa's great photo-map of Jambo house but I don't think I've seen anything on Kidani that shows the layout of the resort. Is there a good map of some sort that shows the relationship to the savannas, etc?

We booked a 1BR Savanna view and I'm sure it will be great. I just like to have a sense of the resort layout before we get there since I'm supposed to be the WDW Expert in the family!

I'm one of those VWL Groupies and am looking very much forward to staying at AKV which has so much strong theming and ambience.

 

[stopher1]

Hi there, AKV Lovers!

I just booked our first stay at your great resort for the last week in April. I've been reading a lot of this thread to get a feel for the resort and of course to tap into your enthusiasm!

Looking through the thread I saw Lisa's great photo-map of Jambo house but I don't think I've seen anything on Kidani that shows the layout of the resort. Is there a good map of some sort that shows the relationship to the savannas, etc?

We booked a 1BR Savanna view and I'm sure it will be great. I just like to have a sense of the resort layout before we get there since I'm supposed to be the WDW Expert in the family!

I'm one of those VWL Groupies and am looking very much forward to staying at AKV which has so much strong theming and ambience.

Here's are two maps for you Granny. First Kidani, then Jambo. Kidani Village's lobby faces the Kudo Trail wing of Jambo House, straight on. If you look at the Jambo pic, the small image of Kidani is essentially how the two buildings are facing each other - just imagine Kidani full sized instead of small as they show on the Jambo map.

I hope you like staying at AKV - it is a wonderful resort!

If you want to see more pics, we stayed at Kidani last month, and my TR (shown below in my signature) has a bunch of various pics from that stay as well as various descriptions of Kidani and it's amenities, etc. This link will take you to the first page talking about Kidani but scroll down to post #89 near the bottom of the page

 

[franandaj]

We booked a 1BR Savanna view and I'm sure it will be great. I just like to have a sense of the resort layout before we get there since I'm supposed to be the WDW Expert in the family!

Another thing you should think about is that the resort is VERY large. Depending on where your room is, there could be a long hike to one or more of the amenities. Some people can't deal with the lack of a CS restaurant, and if you are staying in the part of the resort farthest from Jambo, it's a pretty good walk, 15 minutes or so. My room was really close, only 5 minutes, but we didn't need CS since we had enough food in the villa to feed an army!

The pool is on the opposite side of the resort from Jambo, so if being close to both was important you would need to make a decision. Also the bus service is just off the lobby (a little to the Jambo side), if you want to be close to that, you might request close to the lobby. If you purchase refillable mugs, you fill them in the gift store which is off the lobby and also where you check out DVDs to watch.

For us none of this was important since we had our own car. What was important to us was being near an elevator which they honored and put us right next to Zazu. This may not be as important, but the animals are a little territorial. Evidently the Ankole Cattle stay on one side of the savannah, and the Roan Antelope stay on the other. The Giraffes & Zebras get around, and the day we were leaving they introduced male vultures to the Sunset Savannah. It was quite amusing, they were surrounded by the storks who were eyeing them with sort of a "who are you and what are you doing sitting on OUR tree" look.

However it turns out, I'm sure you'll have a great time! It's a neat resort.

 

[Granny]

Here's are two maps for you Granny. First Kidani, then Jambo. Kidani Village's lobby faces the Kudo Trail wing of Jambo House, straight on. If you look at the Jambo pic, the small image of Kidani is essentially how the two buildings are facing each other - just imagine Kidani full sized instead of small as they show on the Jambo map.


I hope you like staying at AKV - it is a wonderful resort!

If you want to see more pics, we stayed at Kidani last month, and my TR (shown below in my signature) has a bunch of various pics from that stay as well as various descriptions of Kidani and it's amenities, etc. This link will take you to the first page talking about Kidani but scroll down to post #89 near the bottom of the page

Count on a fellow Groupie to help out with AKV questions! Seriously, these help a lot as did the TR link. Thank you!!

Another thing you should think about is that the resort is VERY large. Depending on where your room is, there could be a long hike to one or more of the amenities. Some people can't deal with the lack of a CS restaurant, and if you are staying in the part of the resort farthest from Jambo, it's a pretty good walk, 15 minutes or so. My room was really close, only 5 minutes, but we didn't need CS since we had enough food in the villa to feed an army!

The pool is on the opposite side of the resort from Jambo, so if being close to both was important you would need to make a decision. Also the bus service is just off the lobby (a little to the Jambo side), if you want to be close to that, you might request close to the lobby. If you purchase refillable mugs, you fill them in the gift store which is off the lobby and also where you check out DVDs to watch.

For us none of this was important since we had our own car. What was important to us was being near an elevator which they honored and put us right next to Zazu. This may not be as important, but the animals are a little territorial. Evidently the Ankole Cattle stay on one side of the savannah, and the Roan Antelope stay on the other. The Giraffes & Zebras get around, and the day we were leaving they introduced male vultures to the Sunset Savannah. It was quite amusing, they were surrounded by the storks who were eyeing them with sort of a "who are you and what are you doing sitting on OUR tree" look.

However it turns out, I'm sure you'll have a great time! It's a neat resort.

Thank you for the detailed response. DW and I don't mind walking at all and we will also have our own car while there. I don't really do a lot with room view requests normally but after reading the thread about a savanna view room that really didn't have a savanna view, I thought I should at least be somewhat familiar with the resort layout.

Both these responses are very helpful and much appreciated.

 

[DenLo]

What's the Difference Between a Value and a Standard view 2 Bedroom at Animal Kingdom?? Anybody know from First hand experience or otherwise ...

We'll be staying at Kadani in a Savannah View Room in May --- Yay! But I'm looking at booking a 2 Bedroom for Christmas and really wanted to know the difference ...

Thanks!

No. Concierge rooms are on the 6th floor all other rooms are on the 5th floor in Jambo house. There are standard rooms in both Jambo and Kidani. Their are no values or concierge level rooms in kidani. The standard 1br in kidani have an extra bathroom but not at Jambo.

I can't wait to be home for christmas. It is such an exceptionally gorgeous place and such a unique vacation experience.

The Standard view villas only have views of the pool, parking lot and entrance. Whereas the values do have some savanna views in addition to pool, parking lot and entrance views.

The only other difference is that the standard rooms are longer than the value rooms by about three feet. Standard view rooms have the same square footage as a savanna view room. Here is the actual square footage for each villa.

Two bedroom villa:

AKV Kidani - 1173 square feet
Jambo - 1075 sq. ft.
Value - 945 sq. ft.

One Bedroom:

AKV Kidani - 807
Jambo - 710
Value - 629

Studio:

AKV Kidani - 366
Jambo - 365
Value - 316

 

[bobbiwoz]

Do the studios in Kidani have the sliding bathroom door that the studios in BLT have. We've only stayed in a dedicated 2 bedroom in Kidani, and we were in the master bathroom which was gorgeous and had regular doors.

Thanks.
Bobbi

 

[gkrykewy]

Do the studios in Kidani have the sliding bathroom door that the studios in BLT have. We've only stayed in a dedicated 2 bedroom in Kidani, and we were in the master bathroom which was gorgeous and had regular doors.

Thanks.
Bobbi

No, that is a unique "feature" of BLT studios (and Japanese homes).

 

[Atotty]

No, that is a unique "feature" of BLT studios (and Japanese homes).

And my MIL's condo.

 

[stopher1]

Do the studios in Kidani have the sliding bathroom door that the studios in BLT have. We've only stayed in a dedicated 2 bedroom in Kidani, and we were in the master bathroom which was gorgeous and had regular doors.

Thanks.
Bobbi

And the handicapped/disabled rooms in at least Jambo House, if not both JH & KV.

We were given one of those rooms back in '08, but because they also don't have a tub, we asked to be moved and thankfully were the next morning. We didn't need one of those accesible rooms and weren't all that thrilled when thinking about not giving DD a bath that whole week (she was still just 4 at the time and not yet doing showers).

We were in a lock-off 2 BR in January in KV, and no, the studio portion did not have the sliding door.

 

[Blueyed Girl]

Hello out there!! We just joined DVC and are now proud owners at AKV!! We are so excited to finally be a part of the "club". And are in the process of getting our first stay at AKV booked in June.

 

[lagunn]

Hello out there!! We just joined DVC and are now proud owners at AKV!! We are so excited to finally be a part of the "club". And are in the process of getting our first stay at AKV booked in June.

Welcome home...

 

[BigDogHU75]

Hello out there!! We just joined DVC and are now proud owners at AKV!! We are so excited to finally be a part of the "club". And are in the process of getting our first stay at AKV booked in June.

Welcome home!

 

[stopher1]

Hello out there!! We just joined DVC and are now proud owners at AKV!! We are so excited to finally be a part of the "club". And are in the process of getting our first stay at AKV booked in June.

Congrats & Welcome Home neighbor!