Animal Kingdom Lodge

Beautiful hotel. Great service. Because of the Savannah (which is amazing) the layout of the hotel can make for a very long walk to your room, so if you have accessibility issues be sure to make that known during reservations to possibly get a room closer to the elevator.
5 7 years ago (09-05-2018)

Really great service! I love Bomba It is my fav. place to eat! I also love how it is convenient.
5 7 years ago (24-04-2018)

Oh AKL, I wish I could give you 5 stars, but I just can't. Just to start of with the negatives, I was not too impressed with service. As someone who visits Disneyland in California quite often, and that includes the hotels, I had quite an expectation for Disney service. At the time of check in, the cast member I spoke to wasn't the friendliest. I had to ask all sorts of questions and she gave such a sarcastic or rude tone to everything I had to say. This was my first trip to WDW and my first encounter while on vacation, so the fact that it was a negative one definitely bumps down my rating to 4 out 5 stars. On to the positives! Without a surprise the resort is absolutely stunning! My bf and I were lucky to stay at a Kilimanjaro Club Level room even though we are not DVC members. We arrived extremely early to the resort and by early I mean 6:30am. Since we were overwhelmed by the hotel's beauty we decided to wait until 7am to check in. Surprisingly, our room was already ready!!! Hooray! The room itself wasn't anything out of the ordinary. The theme to the room was a South African theme, so the sheets, curtains, wallpaper, and all features had a consistent theme to them. I love how the curtains covering the balcony had Lion King characters on them, so detailed! The view from our room was amazing. We were able to view all of the animal's from our balcony. They leave a pamphlet in the room with all the animals that live within the resort and a short description about the aninal. Once you spot the animal, you can check it off your list. The one thing I loved about being able to stay at the club level was the access to the concierge level. With our magic bands, we had special access to the food offerings offered to Kilimanjaro guests only. They offered breakfast, lunch, snacks, and light dinner offerings. They also have coffee, soda, juices, beer, and wine. The best part was some of the wines and beers they offered were from South Africa. The great thing about the food was we were able to take advantage of the food from the start of breakfast the day we checked in to the end of dinner the day we checked out. There was really no need for us to purchase any food because we had plenty of options at the club level. If you're able to splurge, definitely do it! I definitely recommend staying here at least for one night! I will say, stay here on a day you're not planning on visiting the theme parks. We stayed here the first day of our trip. Our only plan for the day was to visit Disney Springs, other than that we wanted to take full advantage of the hotel, which we did! The days we visited the theme park, we stayed at the POP Century. Quite honestly, there's no point in staying on property of this hotel if you're only there to sleep and shower. Anyways, the hotel offers plenty of food options. The pool is directly next to the savanna area, so you might spot an animal or two while in the pool. Souvenir shops offer quite a unique selection. The buses did run a bit slow since they have to stop at both AKL villages. Take advantage of the late night animal sightings. At night, I believe after 8pm, if you head outside there's an area where cast members provide you with night vision goggles, so you could view the animals at night. It was a slow night the day we went, nonetheless still a cool feature. Like I said, after leaving AKL we headed over to POP Century Hotel. The transition was easy thanks to bell services. They took care of our luggage and had it timely delivered over to POP. Check out was quick and easy. My bf forgot his treasured Golden State Warriors hoodie in our room after we had checked out and luckily they let us back in without any hassle.
4 7 years ago (15-05-2018)

Didn’t get to see much of the animals because I was night time...Nice arcade for kids...Love the architecture...Great family resort.
5 7 years ago (17-03-2018)

I stayed here in a Savannah room for 4 nights and was not impressed. At first I was very excited to see my room and balcony. See the animals from my room was nice. But after the first day, it all wore off. We tried to check out the night vision goggles but were redirected 4 times before we actually talked to someone who knew what was going on. We walked out near the pool area where the goggles should have been, in the pouring rain with a 3 year old mind you at 8pm. The guy then tells us, that it was moved to the lobby level on either the left or right observation areas. Once we took the rainy walk back, it wasn't where he said it was. The front desk was also no help. They told us to go to the pool area. After 4 simpletons finally figured it out, they told us it would be in the lobby level observation area at 8:45pm...We went there and it was awful. Totally not worth walking 5 feet to do this. I said to the front desk, don't you guys do this everyday? They said yes, but it's raining today. Doesn't it rain all the time in Florida? It poured last night, what did they do then? On to other things...The transportation from park to park isn't great. Everything is far. If I recall MK is a 39 min bus ride. I thought catching a bus back to the resort would have been a lesser walk then let's say Pop Century. But the bus stop for AK is also a long distance away also. The bar by the pool closed at 8pm the night I looked. Pop had them open until midnight in the rain. I don't think I'll be staying at AK again...
2 8 years ago (29-08-2017)