# YEAH!  First time to Disney's Animal Kingdom Villas



## dannybaker (Aug 25, 2013)

We are really excited, we are heading to Disney's Animal Kingdom Villas in two weeks. We have never stayed at Disney's Animal Kingdom Villas and would really enjoy any pointers.


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## chriskre (Aug 25, 2013)

Eat at sanaa
They have a free culinary tour at 3pm most days and its free.  
They will let you sample the bread service and the many spicy sauces.  A delight for the senses.  

Indaba shiraz wine sold in the giftshop is also great.  _

Bring a coffee mug cause they have the tiniest coffee cups on the kidani kitchens.   


Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2


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## tomandrobin (Aug 25, 2013)

Love AKV....one of my home resorts! 

I will second Sanaa, one of our favs at Disney. 

Room Service is available, but plan ahead.....don't wait until 5pm to call for dinner. 

Which section are you staying in.....Jambo or Kidani?


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## dannybaker (Aug 26, 2013)

*Looks like we are in Kidani*

Looks like we are in Kidani in a one bedroom unit.


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## sb2313 (Aug 26, 2013)

We just returned about 2 weeks ago from staying at Kidani in a 2 bedroom.  Honestly I had real high expectations for the resort-and they were all met or even exceeded!  Nice sized rooms compared to beach club villas or boardwalk villas, lots of great areas to see the animals throughout the resort if you don't have a savannah view(though we did and that was real nice as well!), enjoyed the parking being under the resort as we could park near the elevator for our section, and just a great overall feel to the resort.  Hope you enjoy your trip as much as we did, but I do agree on the coffee cup part!!


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## tomandrobin (Aug 26, 2013)

dannybaker said:


> Looks like we are in Kidani in a one bedroom unit.



The 1-bedroom units are great. Nice size, full kitchen, two full bathrooms, big walk-in shower in the master, washer/dryer. 

The Kindani pool is was of the best on property pools. Great water play area for kids, nice slide for older kids (or adults), big pool bar. The pool bar has two food options, if you want to eat lunch there. The first is you can order lite fare from the "limited" pool bar menu. The second is you can order room service pool side. At the bar, on the right hand side, all the way at the end is a phone to Disney Dining. You can place an order for a much larger and better meal. 

Coffee cups has been said. 

Both sides of the resort has a ton of activities throughout the day and night.


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## dannybaker (Aug 27, 2013)

*Coffee cups check*

Sounds like great pointers. We confirmed today we do not have a savannah view. We are just thrilled to be going to Disney. I always feel like a kid when we go to Disney. 

We are big coffee drinkers and will bring filters and Kona coffee. I guess we will need a couple large coffee mugs. We usually try to eat breakfast in the room, then we pack our lunch and snacks in the back pack. We usually open and close the Parks and spend one day at the parks and then one day at the resort. 

11 days until we check in.  :rofl:


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## tomandrobin (Aug 27, 2013)

dannybaker said:


> Sounds like great pointers. We confirmed today we do not have a savannah view. We are just thrilled to be going to Disney. I always feel like a kid when we go to Disney.
> 
> We are big coffee drinkers and will bring filters and Kona coffee. I guess we will need a couple large coffee mugs. We usually try to eat breakfast in the room, then we pack our lunch and snacks in the back pack. We usually open and close the Parks and spend one day at the parks and then one day at the resort.
> 
> 11 days until we check in.  :rofl:



FYI....You are going at a fantastic time.....Extremely low crowds. 

Even still....There is still a lot of animal viewing opportunities. When you check-in......since its a slow time, ask "nicely" if there was a room with a better view available. The resort will not be busy.


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## MichaelColey (Aug 27, 2013)

dannybaker said:


> We usually try to eat breakfast in the room, then we pack our lunch and snacks in the back pack. We usually open and close the Parks and spend one day at the parks and then one day at the resort.


We usually do mornings in the park, afternoons at the resort, then every other evening in the park.  Those first couple hours in the morning are when we get most headliners in.  And it helps us avoid the parks during the hot, crowded, and often rainy afternoons.  The only park where this doesn't work well is Hollywood Studios, when you have be there during the afternoon to fit in all of the shows.

Animal Kingdom tips:

1) Get a car.  IMHO, it's the best resort to have a car at.  You can park directly under the timeshares, so it's far closer than at most DVC properties.

2) There is a great animal viewing area just beyond the lobby.  They also do night vision glasses in the evenings, I think.

3) If you like Disney TS meals, definitely check out the ones there.  They're among the best at Disney.

4) If you have a car and want to dine off site, you have a ton of choices off 192, just south of AK/AKV.  Take Sherbeth Road for easy access.

5) If you're going to grill, it's easiest to drive to the grills.

6) Definitely enjoy the pool.  Second only to Stormalong Bay, IMHO, especially if you have kids.

Enjoy!


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## heathpack (Aug 27, 2013)

The young men & women who work as "guides" near the animal exhibits are on an exchange from Africa.  Many of them are at experts one way or another about African animals.  Strike up a conversation and you may be surprised.  One young guy we spoke with was an ornithologist- a flamingo expert.  Now we know flamingos live a very long time and in a pinch we even learned how to catch one!

We really like Jiko for fine dining.  Even the younger set in that restuarant were well behaved- maybe parents only bring the more mature ones out for "African" food?

Plan a less frenetic pace than a typical Disney vacation.  The resort is so nice you'll want to savor it a bit.

H


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## dannybaker (Sep 16, 2013)

*Trip report*

Well we spent part of last week at the Disney Animal park. All I can say was we really loved the resort and the staff. Every staff member we ran across was outstanding. We had a one bedroom on the third floor next to the elevator and the front lobby. The parking was awesome, you park under the building and your car stays nice and cool.  Disney needs carts to use for luggage and groceries, it took us nine trips to the car. The hallways seem to go on forever, really good exercise walking from end to end. If you want to BBQ don't forget the charcoal and a long walk, the grills are past the bus transportation by the basketball goals, no gas grills. In fact three of the four employees I asked did not know they had grills for BBQ. The rooms are by far the nicest Disney rooms we have stayed in. The tub is awesome, I think you can swim laps. The beds were extremely comfortable both in our room and the pull out sofa bed. The kitchen was perfect for our stay. Disney really needs to have coffee filters, just my opinion. They do provide two bags of Joffreys coffee in the room. Also provided was Disney shampoo, conditioner, salt soap, and bath gel. The transportation to the parks was great and ran real smoothly, 20 minutes to Epcot, 18 to Studios, 17 to Disney, 20 plus to water parks. Really is nice to park your car and relax. The resort is a long way from everything which we really enjoyed. There were employees from Africa and Australia on site and were extremely knowledgable about the animals. The new drink cups were at the resort, we buy our own soda so we did not purchase the 17.99 cup. They have the new chip in the cups and you can pay for one day or the week. We still have our old cups and use them all the time with our own soda and coffee. You must have the new cups for them to work on the soda machine. The new color for the mugs are purple, green, and orange.


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## MichaelColey (Sep 16, 2013)

dannybaker said:


> Disney needs carts to use for luggage and groceries, it took us nine trips to the car.


We use our stroller.  



dannybaker said:


> If you want to BBQ don't forget the charcoal and a long walk, the grills are past the bus transportation by the basketball goals, no gas grills. In fact three of the four employees I asked did not know they had grills for BBQ.


I always just drive to the grills.  You can park next to the sports court.



dannybaker said:


> The rooms are by far the nicest Disney rooms we have stayed in.


Bay Lake Tower is the only one we like better (other than Old Key West, and only because the units are HUGE).  Definitely beats all of the other DVC properties, though.


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## bnoble (Sep 16, 2013)

Or, if you don't have a stroller, you can call bell services and they will bring a cart.  You should tip the bell hop who helps you, but that might be worth it---after all, it is vacation.


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## rickandcindy23 (Sep 16, 2013)

> We use our stroller.



I recently talked to our daughter about future trips to Disney, and I asked what we would do without the stroller.  It's a blessing with kids and all of their stuff for the parks. Our grandson will be 4 1/2 by our next trip, one year from now.  She said we can get by for another year or two.  The stroller was awesome, but Oliver won't sit in it anymore.


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## MichaelColey (Sep 16, 2013)

Yeah, they're handy for much more than just getting infants and toddlers from point A to point B.  

On our recent road trip (6 people, 6 weeks, staying 11 places and having two business trips included), we also brought a folding dolly.  It was a whole lot less useful than we had hoped, because you need stackable stuff to use it.  We did put the cooler and a laundry basket full of groceries on it, and I used it to take boxes of clothes to the wholesale market that I worked on the trip.  But the stroller was more useful most of the time.


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