My Animal Kingdom Lodge Grand Villa Vacation!! With a side trip to see Harry!

Yep! A grand villa at Animal Kingdom Lodge. :sohappy: No words can describe the awesomeness. Any other resort, no matter how deluxe, is going to be a letdown from here on out. In fact, my house was a bit of a disappointment when I got back. :lol:

Who: Us, the DVC members who were kind enough to use our points to take family. That's me Tammy- travel agent extraordinaire:lol:, dear hubby - air force officer extraordinaire who was wise enough to buy DVC two years ago, ds15 - our high school student/the quarterback who missed a football game for this trip and whose coach wasn't very happy with me :lookaroun and dd12 - who turned 13 today.

My in-laws whom you may recognize from my Mediterranean cruise report from May.

My brother in law and his family.

Here we are!

When: October 3-10. On my niece’s fall break. My kids flat out skipped school.

What: This was supposed to be a relaxing, enjoy our resort kind of trip. I think we succeeded. We took a lot of breaks. We also took advantage of our full kitchen. The in-laws loaded us up on groceries. We ate breakfast in the room every morning and came back for another meal most days. We were trying to cut down on the quantity of food we ate.

Disclaimers: First, I took a bazillion pictures and am working my way through them, but life gets in the way. This report may take a while, but I've got the first couple of days done. Second, I am not good at food pictures. I forget to take them and someone's usually eating before I get a chance.:lol: You'll have to go elsewhere for those. Third, I may offend some with my rather conservative opinions on Disney appropriate behavior. You may think me a prude and I don't mean to offend, lets just agree to disagree.

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Loving the report!!
Great pics.... AKL looks AMAZING!!!

Cant wait to read more!!! :sohappy:

It is amazing! Thanks for reading auroragirl!

What a great TR! So many things so far that I just LOVE...your pictures, your unreal villa, your beautiful family, your opinion/pictures of Harry, the kids (your daughter in particular) with their wands...it's just ALL GOOD! I cannot wait to read more!

Thank you Southern_Tink! More to come!

the wwohp looks AMAZING! i want to go so bad but i can't stand crowds! i want to wait until the hype dies down a bit but from looking at all the pictures, i doubt that will happen anytime soon. :lol: maybe next year. and i didn't know they sold wands! i want one! :lol: never thought i would have said that!

sounds like a great start to your trip, even though it wasn't spent in a disney park!

Yep, I think it's going to be a long while before it quiets down there! And I don't blame you, I think everyone who sees them wants a wand!:lol:

 

[Nicole220]

Yay! Another Tammy TR! :sohappy:

It's been said many times, but I have to say it: That villa is stunning! And massive! Wow. You wouldn't be able to tear me away from that place if I stayed there. :lol: AKL is my favorite resort, I just love it there. If only it wasn't so far away from everything else, then it'd be the only place we would stay each trip!

Your WWoHP pictures are beautiful! The best I've seen.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

LOVING the TR! I am going to have to send a link to my brother so he and SIL can check out your pics of AKL (some of the best I've seen!). They're meeting us for our upcoming trip and they'll be staying there, but I think they just took my word on it (sight unseen). The Harry Potter pics are really making me want to skip out and head over to Universal for a little while. I wonder if anyone would notice:lookaroun. Can't wait to see more!

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Yay! Another Tammy TR! :sohappy:

It's been said many times, but I have to say it: That villa is stunning! And massive! Wow. You wouldn't be able to tear me away from that place if I stayed there. :lol: AKL is my favorite resort, I just love it there. If only it wasn't so far away from everything else, then it'd be the only place we would stay each trip!

Your WWoHP pictures are beautiful! The best I've seen.

Hi Nicole! The villa was amazing. It made it so much easier to talk everyone into taking breaks when we had that to go back to.

I was excited to have something different to take pictures of this time! I took so so many pictures at WWoHP!:lol:

LOVING the TR! I am going to have to send a link to my brother so he and SIL can check out your pics of AKL (some of the best I've seen!). They're meeting us for our upcoming trip and they'll be staying there, but I think they just took my word on it (sight unseen). The Harry Potter pics are really making me want to skip out and head over to Universal for a little while. I wonder if anyone would notice:lookaroun. Can't wait to see more!

They might notice if you were gone for a whole day!!:lol: Thanks HouCuseChickie!

 

[diddy_mouse]

Tammy, if I ever had a reason to go back to AKL this would be it. I've only been a night when we had dinner at Boma so I didn't get to see the full beauty of the place. Talk about a lush pool area! Oh...and don't get me started on your grand villa...:lol:

Our trip overlapped yours by a couple of days (the 8th-10th) so I'm curious to see where you went and if we might have been in the same park(s) during that time.

Fantastic pictures as always!

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Tammy, if I ever had a reason to go back to AKL this would be it. I've only been a night when we had dinner at Boma so I didn't get to see the full beauty of the place. Talk about a lush pool area! Oh...and don't get me started on your grand villa...:lol:

Our trip overlapped yours by a couple of days (the 8th-10th) so I'm curious to see where you went and if we might have been in the same park(s) during that time.

Fantastic pictures as always!

Thank you, Diddy Mouse!! You do have to really take the time to walk around and see it all! Of course that's easiest if you stay there.

Ooh, let's see. On the 8th we were at Magic Kingdom, the 9th we were at Epcot, and the 10th we were sad and on our way home.

 

[Disneyfalcon]

The Wizarding World was our main goal for the day and we finished surprisingly early, so we started to wander. First up was Jurassic Park.

We’ve ridden this ride at Universal Hollywood many times, so we knew what to expect. It’s a very fun ride.

Here’s the queue:

On the ride before I put my camera up:

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Next we came to Dudley Do Right. The kids wanted to ride. They did and were soaked.

Next up? Another wet ride whose name escapes me!! Soaked again.

The adults were dry and happy.

 

[Disneyfalcon]

We came to Spider Man next. I don’t do simulators, remember, but everyone who rode it loved it. My Fil was convinced he had hit one of the 3D villains and singlehandedly defeated him.:lookaroun

The kids rode Fear Fall next. They thought it was so so.

Most of us got in line for the Hulk next. This coaster was a little jerky for me, but the launch was awesome!

The only other thing we were really interested in was the Cat in the Hat ride. It was a little spinny, but cute.

On our way out:

So that was it! We were done with Universal by 3:00! We walked through City Walk, but didn’t really go in anywhere. We did stop for some TCBY and ds got some orange chicken from Panda Express. His favorite meal on the planet. He was apparently having second lunch or first dinner like the Hobbits.:lol:

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Then we were back to the resort for some chilaxin. There were animals everywhere off our balconies. Dare I say it? Animalpalooza.

Hey, I recognize this truck!

 

[Disneyfalcon]

At one point I was on the balcony and heard a boy below us trying to get his parents to come look at the animals. He kept saying, “ but there’s zebras!!” to no avail. Finally he looked inside his room and said, “Okay, now there is a LION and he is EATING the zebras!” Hilarious! :lol:

Here’s our chairs:

There are signs asking you to not hang anything on the balconies for obvious reasons. Here’s a balcony below us:

And here it is a little while later:

Really? Is it that hard to follow the rules?

 

[Disneyfalcon]

We decided to explore a little. Here’s the main savannah. We watched this guy all week. One horn was apparently so heavy it completely drug on the ground. Ouch!

This spider was scary big. Seriously:

Next we walked over to Kidani. We debated Kidani vs. Jambo for this trip and settled on Jambo for a few reasons. One was the food court, although we really didn’t use it much. One was the curb appeal of Jambo. Kidani is just not pretty when you drive up. Kidani has two story grand villas and a second living area (although Jambo’s have more square footage) so that would be nice. They did not have our awesome balconies though. I wouldn’t trade those balconies for anything!

We didn’t have these little cuties by us:

The lobby:

Ping pong by the pool:

Then we went back to our room for some grilled cheeses, swimming and bed.

 

[erstwo]

At one point I was on the balcony and heard a boy below us trying to get his parents to come look at the animals. He kept saying, “ but there’s zebras!!” to no avail. Finally he looked inside his room and said, “Okay, now there is a LION and he is EATING the zebras!” Hilarious! :lol:

:ROFLOL: I LOVE it!

 

[Disneyfalcon]

:ROFLOL: I LOVE it!

I did too!:lol:

 

[sweetpee_1993]

Catching up again! Love all your pics, Tammy. I know everyone tells you that constantly but you really do have some serious skills there, sweetie. It makes everything look so inviting. Totally draws you in.

Wow! A pool table, too! I think with Brian on the balconies and Chandler on the pool table I'd have never gotten my boys out of the villa! LOL!

Seeing as how she has read each Harry Potter book at least 5 times, she will be thrilled not to look like a muggle!:lol:

All wands are now $28.95. They come in a beautiful box lined with silk (or fake silk probably:lol. I've got pictures of the boxes at some point.

I think AKL had so many complaints that the water was dirty in the pool that they decided it wasn't worth it. :lol: I don't remember how long ago they did it.

Nope. We waived our wands to make them bigger, didn't work.

The color change at the pool must've been part of the big refurb back in January when we were there. After seeing Holly's pics of the gorgeous pool when she stayed I was so looking forward to seeing it for myself when we stayed there. Not that it was anywhere remotely close to swimming weather. Seeing your beautiful pics makes me sad (again) that we didn't get to see that. Boooo!!!! Guess we'll have to put AKL back on the list....

We decided to explore a little. Here’s the main savannah. We watched this guy all week. One horn was apparently so heavy it completely drug on the ground. Ouch!

Hey! I know that guy with the head-tilt! In January when we went on our Sunrise Safari we had the curator for animals at the lodge(s) as our guide. Greg. There's actually two of those giant-horn cattle thingies that have the same head-tilt. And they eat with one horn resting on the ground. It looks horrible, huh? We asked Greg what was up with those guys, why they didn't saw off the horns if they were so heavy. He told us the horns aren't heavy. They're actually hollow with like a honeycomb inside. The horns are sorta their sinuses. The head tilt is not normal. They had been going thru trying to test all sorts of things to see what was wrong. At first they thought it was a problem with their inner ears / equilibrium. Lots of looking and xrays and such and the ears were fine. Then they started doing more tests. At the time we were there in January they were thinking there was fluid built up inside the horns due to sinus infection so they were doing a course of heavy antibiotics on the boys. Whatever the problem is, it's stemming from some genetic because the two that they have on the Arusha savanna are brothers and both have the same problem. One started presenting just before the other did. When we were there we noticed one seemed worse than the other. But that's the long and short of the poor tilted big--cattle out there. Or at least that's how it was all explained to us by Greg in January. I guess the sinus thing wasn't it either. Or maybe they got used to holding their heads that way so that's what they do now. :shrug:

Um...and can I say that your pics of all those animals look so nice and warm??? All the critters look so much happier and warmer than they did in our pics from January. :lol:

Did you get to hear any of them eating? We had some grazing critter so close to our balcony one night that we could literally hear the rip of the grass being pulled up then the occasional smacking noise. It was so freaking awesome! :sohappy:

 

[disneygirl1]

Oh I just love a Tammy Trip Report!!!! YAY!!! Great start!!! Your pictures have me that much more excited about staying at AKL in December!!! I so can not wait!!! We went to HP in August! Have to agree it is VERY well done!!! Forbidden Journey was amazing, literally felt as though I was walking thru Hogwarts!!!

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Catching up again! Love all your pics, Tammy. I know everyone tells you that constantly but you really do have some serious skills there, sweetie. It makes everything look so inviting. Totally draws you in.

Wow! A pool table, too! I think with Brian on the balconies and Chandler on the pool table I'd have never gotten my boys out of the villa! LOL!



The color change at the pool must've been part of the big refurb back in January when we were there. After seeing Holly's pics of the gorgeous pool when she stayed I was so looking forward to seeing it for myself when we stayed there. Not that it was anywhere remotely close to swimming weather. Seeing your beautiful pics makes me sad (again) that we didn't get to see that. Boooo!!!! Guess we'll have to put AKL back on the list....



Hey! I know that guy with the head-tilt! In January when we went on our Sunrise Safari we had the curator for animals at the lodge(s) as our guide. Greg. There's actually two of those giant-horn cattle thingies that have the same head-tilt. And they eat with one horn resting on the ground. It looks horrible, huh? We asked Greg what was up with those guys, why they didn't saw off the horns if they were so heavy. He told us the horns aren't heavy. They're actually hollow with like a honeycomb inside. The horns are sorta their sinuses. The head tilt is not normal. They had been going thru trying to test all sorts of things to see what was wrong. At first they thought it was a problem with their inner ears / equilibrium. Lots of looking and xrays and such and the ears were fine. Then they started doing more tests. At the time we were there in January they were thinking there was fluid built up inside the horns due to sinus infection so they were doing a course of heavy antibiotics on the boys. Whatever the problem is, it's stemming from some genetic because the two that they have on the Arusha savanna are brothers and both have the same problem. One started presenting just before the other did. When we were there we noticed one seemed worse than the other. But that's the long and short of the poor tilted big--cattle out there. Or at least that's how it was all explained to us by Greg in January. I guess the sinus thing wasn't it either. Or maybe they got used to holding their heads that way so that's what they do now. :shrug:

Um...and can I say that your pics of all those animals look so nice and warm??? All the critters look so much happier and warmer than they did in our pics from January. :lol:

Did you get to hear any of them eating? We had some grazing critter so close to our balcony one night that we could literally hear the rip of the grass being pulled up then the occasional smacking noise. It was so freaking awesome! :sohappy:

That's so nice of you sweetpee! Pictures bring me a lot of joy.

Did they just paint the pool in January? That might be! I liked the watering hole effect they used to have, but it did make it look dirty. So I understand the change.

You're right about the giant horn cattle thingies!! That's the scientific name :lookaroun. I didn't go watch the animals with the night goggles, but the people in our group who did told me the guide told them their horns weren't heavy and were in fact hollow. Well you will be happy to know that the other one's head isn't tilting anymore! He looked great! I think I've got pictures of both of them on our savannah later int the trip.

The animals probably were happier in my temps then they were in yours!:lol:

I don't think I heard any of them eating but that is very cool! We heard the zebras barking and some other great noises.

Oh I just love a Tammy Trip Report!!!! YAY!!! Great start!!! Your pictures have me that much more excited about staying at AKL in December!!! I so can not wait!!! We went to HP in August! Have to agree it is VERY well done!!! Forbidden Journey was amazing, literally felt as though I was walking thru Hogwarts!!!

You are going to love it disneygirl! I agree, about Forbidden Journey, I felt like I was in the school.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

Tammy, so glad to hear at least one of the boys is better. I think the animal sounds on the savanna views is one thing people don't really anticipate. The views are obvious. But even when it's dark out there & you can't really see what's out there, you can sometimes hear the animals so you know they're there. Very cool!

Can't wait for more!:sohappy:

 

[sleepy01020]

love all your pictures, makes me more excited for our trip the first week of Dec!

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Tammy, so glad to hear at least one of the boys is better. I think the animal sounds on the savanna views is one thing people don't really anticipate. The views are obvious. But even when it's dark out there & you can't really see what's out there, you can sometimes hear the animals so you know they're there. Very cool!

Can't wait for more!:sohappy:

I totally agree. Living next to those animals is nothing like seeing them on a safari.

love all your pictures, makes me more excited for our trip the first week of Dec!

Thanks sleepy!