Just got back from our WDW trip, 16 days at Animal Kingdom Lodge.
This was our 11th trip to the 'World and we managed to get AKL as a freebie replacement for being displaced out of Coronado Springs, which is our usual haunt.
What can I say about AKL? Its an amazing place, although our room was Standard View in Jambo House, but did overlook part of the Savanna which had the odd giraffe and zebra wandering around, but to be honest, we didn't have too much time wandering around the hotel or looking at the animals. I would comment about the 40 mins spent at their Express Check In, which didn't go down to well having got off a nine hour plane and driven from the airport. But once sorted, it was time to find the room, which was miles away from Reception. The room was immaculate (as expected), but had nothing which I wouldn't expect to see in our usual Coronado Springs room in a Moderate Resort. It was more-or-less the same apart from décor. If I had to have paid full price for this room which would have nearly doubled the cost, I would have been severely disappointed.
However, I will comment on the staff, as two days in, we had some mechanical problems with our hire car. I asked at Reception if I can call the hire company and they asked me what the problem was and they simply took over and arranged for me to go to Magic Kingdom to the Car Center where there was a replacement upgraded car waiting for me. Full marks for the service they did not have to give and the aggravation I avoided.
I have a lot of comments about some of the non WDW places we went to, but I'm not sure I can comment on them here. As for the usual four parks I have a list of the best and worst things we encountered.
Likes.
1. Loved the new turrets at MK Castle. I was sceptical of what they would do to the park appearance, but seeing them for real convinced me they are a good addition and not some distraction I know they have been called.
2. Loved the new rebuilt area in front of the castle. I think the modifications were well justified and given the number of people who use it and well worth the effort (And looks really good)
3. In general, its nice to go to WDW and not experience line-cutters, bad language, no schoolgirl cheerleader teams taking up all the space and being a pain.
4. Osbourn Dancing Lights. The crowds were heaving for the final year of viewing and we did the dining package to go with it. Come on WDW- Is there anything you cannot do to relocate these to another location?? This is a major crowd pull to the parks and it seems short-sighted to simply do away with them altogether.
5. Ban on selfie sticks. Another antisocial behaviour done away with. Hate the things.
Dislikes.
1. Epcot Illuminations. Our first scheduled attempt at seeing them was rained off as I really don't like standing for ages getting soaked and risking my expensive cameras. However, we Fastpassed a second attempt. So here's a question - Where exactly is the Fastpass viewing area? Because we couldn't find it and neither could the 7 (Yes, SEVEN CM's) we spoke to, who were marshalling people around had no idea. We walked around the entire lake and could not find it and as it was fifteen minutes before the start and every inch of fenceline was five layers deep in people, the only chance of seeing anything would be to climb on top of someone. We gave up and complained to Guest Services....who also had no idea where the Fasspass area was!! Presumably it had vanished into some unknown dimension. This really stinks and put a cloud on day. To be honest, we have been coming to WDW since 1998 and I commented then that the Epcot firework viewing is chaotic and disorganised with no thought on proper viewing stadiums and/or seating. Our complaint gave us an invite to the Italy Area to a private guest viewing area on another night, which we again had to pass up because of the weather did not stop raining when we showed up.
2. Fultons Crab House. I have enjoyed their crab cakes in the past, but on this venture, they were kind enough to give me incredible stomach pains and nausea for three days with slight signs of food poisoning. Never again will we venture there again!.
3. Magic Bands. We have had enormous pain and tears with these wretched things in the past, but this time it was a lot less painful - almost to the point where towards the end of our trip, they became unreadable by their scanners due to some software glitch and lost everything on them. It was resolved in a few hours, but it was a few hours we had to take away from the parks. They still haven't got them right.
That said, we had lots of good Pixie dust and was very sad to leave the place and come home, which is a sign of having had a good vacation. Would we go back to AKL? Not if we had to pay full price and end up with a room no different than a lesser resort. Our first option would be to go back to Coronado's (or similar) again. But a lot of stuff has to happen before we can begin to book more Pixie Dust and it this time, I cannot say when this will be, if it ever happens again.
This was our 11th trip to the 'World and we managed to get AKL as a freebie replacement for being displaced out of Coronado Springs, which is our usual haunt.
What can I say about AKL? Its an amazing place, although our room was Standard View in Jambo House, but did overlook part of the Savanna which had the odd giraffe and zebra wandering around, but to be honest, we didn't have too much time wandering around the hotel or looking at the animals. I would comment about the 40 mins spent at their Express Check In, which didn't go down to well having got off a nine hour plane and driven from the airport. But once sorted, it was time to find the room, which was miles away from Reception. The room was immaculate (as expected), but had nothing which I wouldn't expect to see in our usual Coronado Springs room in a Moderate Resort. It was more-or-less the same apart from décor. If I had to have paid full price for this room which would have nearly doubled the cost, I would have been severely disappointed.
However, I will comment on the staff, as two days in, we had some mechanical problems with our hire car. I asked at Reception if I can call the hire company and they asked me what the problem was and they simply took over and arranged for me to go to Magic Kingdom to the Car Center where there was a replacement upgraded car waiting for me. Full marks for the service they did not have to give and the aggravation I avoided.
I have a lot of comments about some of the non WDW places we went to, but I'm not sure I can comment on them here. As for the usual four parks I have a list of the best and worst things we encountered.
Likes.
1. Loved the new turrets at MK Castle. I was sceptical of what they would do to the park appearance, but seeing them for real convinced me they are a good addition and not some distraction I know they have been called.
2. Loved the new rebuilt area in front of the castle. I think the modifications were well justified and given the number of people who use it and well worth the effort (And looks really good)
3. In general, its nice to go to WDW and not experience line-cutters, bad language, no schoolgirl cheerleader teams taking up all the space and being a pain.
4. Osbourn Dancing Lights. The crowds were heaving for the final year of viewing and we did the dining package to go with it. Come on WDW- Is there anything you cannot do to relocate these to another location?? This is a major crowd pull to the parks and it seems short-sighted to simply do away with them altogether.
5. Ban on selfie sticks. Another antisocial behaviour done away with. Hate the things.
Dislikes.
1. Epcot Illuminations. Our first scheduled attempt at seeing them was rained off as I really don't like standing for ages getting soaked and risking my expensive cameras. However, we Fastpassed a second attempt. So here's a question - Where exactly is the Fastpass viewing area? Because we couldn't find it and neither could the 7 (Yes, SEVEN CM's) we spoke to, who were marshalling people around had no idea. We walked around the entire lake and could not find it and as it was fifteen minutes before the start and every inch of fenceline was five layers deep in people, the only chance of seeing anything would be to climb on top of someone. We gave up and complained to Guest Services....who also had no idea where the Fasspass area was!! Presumably it had vanished into some unknown dimension. This really stinks and put a cloud on day. To be honest, we have been coming to WDW since 1998 and I commented then that the Epcot firework viewing is chaotic and disorganised with no thought on proper viewing stadiums and/or seating. Our complaint gave us an invite to the Italy Area to a private guest viewing area on another night, which we again had to pass up because of the weather did not stop raining when we showed up.
2. Fultons Crab House. I have enjoyed their crab cakes in the past, but on this venture, they were kind enough to give me incredible stomach pains and nausea for three days with slight signs of food poisoning. Never again will we venture there again!.
3. Magic Bands. We have had enormous pain and tears with these wretched things in the past, but this time it was a lot less painful - almost to the point where towards the end of our trip, they became unreadable by their scanners due to some software glitch and lost everything on them. It was resolved in a few hours, but it was a few hours we had to take away from the parks. They still haven't got them right.
That said, we had lots of good Pixie dust and was very sad to leave the place and come home, which is a sign of having had a good vacation. Would we go back to AKL? Not if we had to pay full price and end up with a room no different than a lesser resort. Our first option would be to go back to Coronado's (or similar) again. But a lot of stuff has to happen before we can begin to book more Pixie Dust and it this time, I cannot say when this will be, if it ever happens again.