We just arrived home from animal kingdom lodge. My grandchildren loved doing crafts in both activity centers. The rooms were spacious and up to date. Our room was in the main building with close proximity to the pool. Transportation and restaurants. This was the best room location I’ve ever had out of the 50 years I’ve been visiting Disney Both areas had family friendly pools. I would definitely return again. Suggestion. A lifeguard should be at the top of slides at pools to organize misbehaved pool slide riders. Offer more food choices at quick serve and stay open until midnight Bus service was ok considering distance from other parks. The only real problem was waiting 30 minutes for departure buses from Disney springs
Just got here today and had a table booked at Boma for 9.15pm. We’d had a long day at the park and left on closing at 8pm By the time we got to hotel and checked in, got our bags from concierge and showered we got to the restaurant at 9.35pm. Yes 20 mins late but you would expect a deluxe hotel to be accommodating. We were quite rudely turned away saying they were closing. A deluxe hotel can’t serve food past 9.30pm? How ridiculous! It wasn’t full either they just wanted to close. It was a birthday celebration and we had got dressed up for our one nice meal out of our holiday having spent the previous week eating at City Walk way past 10pm. Their other restaurant Jiko was also closed. We were told there was quick service downstairs but when we got there they only had cold sandwiches and crisps. Not even a burger or chips were available. Pool was open until 11 but no food there either. They do not offer anything else anywhere in the hotel apart from vending machines and no room service either. So my birthday celebration meal was ruined by a hotel we paid a lot of money for. Save your money and stay at a less expensive Universal hotel that has fantastic customer service. This hotel obviously has staff issues as nothing is open past 9.30pm. Such a disappointment as this was supposed to be the highlight at the end of our holiday.
Arrived after a long day travelling , checked in quickly by a very friendly lady but nowhere to have something to eat or drink apart from the vending machines (the one on our floor wasn't working) . Room was just about big enough for us , not much storage and bathroom on the small side but the beds are so comfy . The hotel itself looks stunning with views of wildlife all around. The pool is also a nice place to sit and take a dip after a day in the parks or just relax . Sun loungers are readily available and the life guards on duty or on the ball. The only downsides were - 1 - the service in the smaller "Mara" restaurant , this is more like a cafeteria . The food was ok but sometimes had to wait ages for coffee and milk to be refilled at the self service area even after members of staff had been informed and on more than one occasion had to clean the table ourselves before sitting down. 2 - The noise in the rooms , Now I don't know if the walls are thinner in this hotel (it's not the 1st Disney resort we have stayed at) but the noise from the rooms above and to the sides was very loud to the point I could have joined in the conversations . Also being on the 2nd floor we heard every tap and toilet flush from the floors above , not ideal . But all in all a very enjoyable stay and seeing zebra and giraffe from your room make up for the little faults.
We just returned from five days staying at AKL. Overall the experience was okay, but okay was disappointing for what I had hoped for. Some of that's on me - I shouldn't have booked a trip to Florida in August when the heat and humidity are at their worst - but some of it is in the small details that are gone since our last trip to DisneyWorld in 2017. It starts with the bus transport from the airport. The Sunshine Flyer did a great job, but it's now no longer a Disney service, the bags aren't delivered to your room, and you have to pay for it. Also it's difficult to find at the airport. When traveling with little kids, having the transportation and luggage transfer be easy and quick adds a certain level of "special" to the trip. Next, there was housekeeping only every other day at the most. This seems to have resulted in a lot of people putting their garbage in the hallways. Although I (thankfully) did not see any cockroaches like another reviewer did, I can see why the resort might have them with all the food garbage lying around. You have to ask for an ironing board. The restaurants were good, but extremely expensive (close to $100 for a breakfast buffet for 3 people with tip, $150 for the buffet dinner). You have to pay for little fun things like s'mores, What I think Disney doesn't understand about why that's annoying is not that it costs an additional $7, but that it no longer feels like a special thing they're doing for you as a guest of their resort. Instead it feels like another way to nickle and dime you because of course the kids want to do it. I don't mind overall that the housekeeping staff/bus drivers aren't that friendly because I think they're working really hard in the oppressive heat and to expect them to smile and be subservient is classist and from a different era that we should be past. I do wonder if they get paid what they deserve to be paid, or if it's another way that Disney is saving a dime. No idea on that that, though - that's just speculation. Anyway, bottom line for me is that while the kids love it, without some of those little features, it's just not worth it to me. If we go back to Orlando, we won't go in August - and we won't stay on a Disney property.
Wow: All I can say is this hotel was amazing. Okay, I can say more. We were pixie dusted with a Savannah room. We were in awe of all the animals we saw every day…giraffes, zebras, emus, wildebeests… and more. It was definitely magical. Upon arriving we were greeted with:.. welcome home. Our room wasn’t ready when we got there, but we got there before check in. When we got our room we were amazed by the view. The room was spotlessly clean. The keurig was well supplied with plenty of coffee for our three night stay. The staff was all wonderful. The only negatives are the long walks to the rooms because it’s so large and the limited food selections in the quick service cafe. I totally don’t get the negative reviews. We also got the Disney + discount so honestly the price was reasonable. Honestly I loved this resort. The lobby is gorgeous.
This hotel's location and surrounds, especially with a savannah room, is lovely. The rooms are themed well and the coffee machine/TV options are good. We spent 2 weeks here and so I can say we went to all of the different parts of it. The pool was awesome for my 4 and 6 year old. The animals out the window are lush and make it feel special. But... The rooms are not cleaned daily; this is a disgrace for a hotel at this price. The price of EVERYTHING is bonkers. The stuff in the shop, the drinks, just everything. I enjoy buying quality things and don't mind a high price to reflect that. This stuff is expensive crap/mediocre produce. The reception.....each of the three times I needed assistance they were extremely slow and then totally useless in helping/resolving an issue. For context, the entire second week of our holiday there was no availability to go to Magic Kingdom or Hollywood Studios. Imagine booking to go to Disney, travelling ~5000 miles and being told you are not able to see the castle /fireworks despite having tickets for every day. So, there is a need to also do a park reservation every single day of your holiday, which they did not tell us when checking in. Meaning we discovered this when we went to book Magic Kingdom and couldn't go. So I asked how they could help. "There is nothing we can do". Totally, utterly useless. Phoned them another day to say the safe wasn't working anymore. "We will send someone" 1 hour later.... Call again as I need my camera to take out with me. "Oh, sorry, let me transfer you." Phone rings for 5 mins and no one answers. Call again: "Oh hi no problem, I will get someone to come". No acknowledgement of previous calls. Anyway the maid/person comes and says this safe keeps being a pain. It has taken ~2 hours from my first call - to get access to my camera. Again useless. Other unrelated time I wanted to ask a quick question about Typhoon Lagoon, the queue of 4 people took more than 20 minutes to the point I didn't want to wait anymore. Disney Animal Kingdom Lodge has such wonderful theming, locations, and if you don't need to interact with any reception staff, buy anything from the place, and eat out at the many places around, you will leave happy and think it was magical.
Beautiful resort! Friendly staff and love seeing all of the animals. Clean and beautiful!
Animal Kingdom is a great place vacation. The savanna is gorgeous and the staff was wonderful.
We loved this hotel the first time we stayed. Unfortunately, this time was not as pleasant. We found out they only provide maid service every other day. We were 3 adults in the room but only given two hand towels and 3 bath towels. We really liked having breakfast in the basement cafeteria last time. This time it wasn’t so good. $3.69 for an .89 cent supermarket style croissant. $4 for a $1 Oikos. The amount of food was very skimpy. I think next year we’ll go elsewhere. The animals weren’t out during the day. We saw 2 zebras.
Stayed for three nights with my sister and adult niece, initially wowed over by the architecture, interior and design of the hotel. Our room overlooked the pool, the room was spacious, with fridge and coffee maker, nice big bathroom. We arrived at 10.30pm and it took over half an hour to check in so short of staff. Then told there was nowhere open past 11.00pm to get food. Bags not deliver by midnight called no one answered had to walk to reception wait 15mins only to be told they have one bellman for two hotels. Rooms not cleaned every day, we were not told until l complained. There is no food room service. We ate in the buffet restaurant food was a mixture of African/European as we could make out, very nice but way overpriced as were the drinks. We had food at the pool, just snacks and coffee good selections but again very expensive. We wanted to check out the idea for future visits of watching the animals from the rooms, but we saw so few animals wandering around , all felt disappointment and decided we would not waste our money. Two morning in a row we were woken up from 6.30am by a man cleaning with a jet washer around the pool. The pool opens at 10.00am, we had to complain ridiculous. I has issues with the reception staff not passing important information on for my partner to join me the following night , caused him great embarrassment and stress. The hotel has a good gift shop if you need it, a small pool for the size of the hotel, we saw no Disney characters during our stay. It has a free shuttle service to the parks , although we had a hire car so did not use it. The price you are paying should be for a five star hotel, although it was beautiful it was not worth it due to lack of services, staff and amenities. Any where else in the world this would be a 3 star