My family just returned from AKL Sept 19 - 29. We had a great time!! We had a standard view room off the lobby on the 4th floor which is directly under the construction happening on the 5th & 6th floors. The only real impact we noticed was that they had black out cloths hanging over the 5th & 6th floor walkways so you didn't see the construction from the lobby. This blended in well with the lobby decor and wasn't particularly distracting at all. We tended to be out of our room by 8:30AM most days and never heard any construction noise before then. One day we were in the room after 9AM and did heard a very light tapping noise from the floors above. I believe the construction was only going on from 9-5. Never heard anything at night. We had 2 other families with us that had rooms on corridors off the lobby and they never commented about hearing any construction noise.
The grounds looked beautiful as they always do. We won't hesitate to go back to AKL right now during the "construction." This was our 3rd stay at AKL and it is one of our favorite resorts. Very peaceful with nice dining choices.
We have also stayed at WL and CBR. WL was designed by the same person as AKL and so we really liked the feel there to. We didn't like the dining choices at WL as much so we lean toward the AKL. CBR (and POR I believe) have sort of a campus style layout. Meaning your room can be a 5 - 10 minute walk from the dining and main pool. Also this means the Disney Transportation bus must make several stop inside the resort. I believe CBR had around 5-7 stops and we were one of the last stops made. This was a little less than ideal at the end of a long day. This also meant in the morning sometimes the bus filled up before it got to our stop and wasn't able to pick us up. Overall the bus situation at CBR was a turn off for us - I'm not sure how much of this applies to POR but I believe it is somewhat similar. AKL has 1 covered bus stop that runs directly to each park w/o any other resort stops - we really liked that.
The pool at AKL is very nice. It is huge! It has a water slide on 1 side and a zero entry (ramp) side also. There are also 2 hot tubs near the pool. Not sure what POR has but I don't know what more you could want out of a hotel pool.
AT AKL, we have stayed in both a Savanah View room and a Standard View room. The Savanah View room is neat but unless you plan on spending alot of time in your room or on your balcony I'm not sure if it's worth the extra $$. There are many places to see animals from the hallways and there is a main overlook off the lobby, so we were very pleased with our Standard View room
For us, the extra money to stay at AKL is worth it. We find it to be so extremely relaxing. Also, the quick serve restaurant has great choices for breakfast and the pool and restaurants are convienently located to the rooms. If you find that you will have to sacrifice most of your souveniers or your dining budget to stay at AKL then it's not worth it. But if you have the extra money available, I think you will find it a very enjoyable experience.
