The Views at AKL

[fuzzlekins]

Personally, if you are at the parks open to close, don't pay the $$ for savannah view. If you're going to take an entire day to explore the resort there are so many places that you can get excellent views of the animals. Plus, if you're going to be exploring the resort on that one day off, you won't be sitting in you room looking off the balcony, anyway. I'd get the least expensive room that had the amenities that I needed and go to the animal observation areas.

The main reason I love staying at Jambo House is Jambo House itself. I love entering the lobby, it's gorgeous, it smells wonderful, and it really is my home away from home.

That said, when we stay at AKL, we do a 10 day split stay. We stay 5 days at POP so we can commando the parks and we are rarely in our room. Then we switch to Jambo House savannah view. For those days, we are much more leisurely. We wake up late, drink coffee on the balcony. The kids will eat breakfast while watching the animals. We come back for cocktails on the balcony after a few hours at the parks. We do the resort activities in the afternoon. We really tailor our vacation so that we get the maximum benefit for the money that we are spending. I wouldn't commando and stay at AKL. It's just not worth the money.

Good luck on deciding! We have always wanted to stay at WL, but the kids are obsessed with POP and AKL.

I was thinking about a split stay but am not certain how that would work. If you split your ticket purchase, then you pay a lot more for tickets (since less days costs more), but if you put all the tickets on the first stay, you can't add DP to the second stay. Is there some way around this?

 

[Koh1977]

I was thinking about a split stay but am not certain how that would work. If you split your ticket purchase, then you pay a lot more for tickets (since less days costs more), but if you put all the tickets on the first stay, you can't add DP to the second stay. Is there some way around this?

I'd be interested to see answers to this as well...

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[dansdad]

I was thinking about a split stay but am not certain how that would work. If you split your ticket purchase, then you pay a lot more for tickets (since less days costs more), but if you put all the tickets on the first stay, you can't add DP to the second stay. Is there some way around this?

I'd be interested to see answers to this as well...

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Unfortunately, there is no way around this. Disney's reservation system does not recognize a split stay. It is treated as 2 separate stays.

 

[purple figment]

I was thinking about a split stay but am not certain how that would work. If you split your ticket purchase, then you pay a lot more for tickets (since less days costs more), but if you put all the tickets on the first stay, you can't add DP to the second stay. Is there some way around this?

It's true that Disney doesn't recognize split stays. They are seen as 2 separate reservations, but there are some ways of doing a split stay and getting the dining plan. Here are 3 options:

If you rent points you can add the dining plan without buying tickets, but you'll have to arrange it with the member who will have to add the dining plan for you. You will have to pay the member.

If you have an Annual Pass or are staying on military rates you can book a ticketless package and add the paid dining plan. This won't work for free dining or specials like the Stay/Play/Dine.

You can pick up your park tickets up to 3 days before the start of your package reservation. If your first reservation is fairly short and you don't mind paying OOP for food on those days, you can do the dining plan with the second resort reservation.

 

[magicbob]

I appreciate the input! We usually are at the parks from open to close every day of vacation but this time I was planning to set aside one full day to just spend at the resort as well as being there in the evenings most nights before the parks close.

Once you start spending more time relaxing at resorts like AKL instead of being in parks from open to close, you'll probably never go back to the old way. There's an entire universe of other fun things to do outside of the parks. The savannah views at AKL are great and, since you mentioned food earlier, the dining there is awesome too.

 

[Koh1977]

It's true that Disney doesn't recognize split stays. They are seen as 2 separate reservations, but there are some ways of doing a split stay and getting the dining plan. Here are 3 options:

If you rent points you can add the dining plan without buying tickets, but you'll have to arrange it with the member who will have to add the dining plan for you. You will have to pay the member.

If you have an Annual Pass or are staying on military rates you can book a ticketless package and add the paid dining plan. This won't work for free dining or specials like the Stay/Play/Dine.

You can pick up your park tickets up to 3 days before the start of your package reservation. If your first reservation is fairly short and you don't mind paying OOP for food on those days, you can do the dining plan with the second resort reservation.

Where do you pick up your tickets then?

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[purple figment]

Where do you pick up your tickets then?

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Here's a link to the ticket sticky on the Theme Park Planning board. Cheshire Figment is a CM who works in ticketing. See post 15 I in the sticky:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1452684

 

[Ilivetogo]

DSCN9106 by Ilivetogo toFL, on Flickr


IMGP0676 by Ilivetogo toFL, on Flickr

All these animals were seen from our room ...


IMGP0646 by Ilivetogo toFL, on Flickr


DSCN9188 by Ilivetogo toFL, on Flickr


DSCN9318 by Ilivetogo toFL, on Flickr


DSCN9319 by Ilivetogo toFL, on Flickr


DSCN9321 by Ilivetogo toFL, on Flickr


DSCN9334 by Ilivetogo toFL, on Flickr


IMGP1176 by Ilivetogo toFL, on Flickr


IMGP1175 by Ilivetogo toFL, on Flickr

.

 

[Koh1977]

Here's a link to the ticket sticky on the Theme Park Planning board. Cheshire Figment is a CM who works in ticketing. See post 15 I in the sticky:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1452684

Thanks!!

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