Animal Kingdom Lodge has two buildings. Jambo house, and Kidani village. Jambo house is considered the main hotel with a large lobby. Kidani village is the Disney Vacation Club (DVC) villa side, which you can only book with DVC points. Jambo house can be booked as a regular hotel, and they also have DVC villas which can be booked with DVC points. We booked Kidani Village with renting DVC points from David’s DVC website. Let me start by saying the best part about staying here is seeing the animals, and the worst part about staying here is the busses transportation. We booked a standard view room for 7 nights. We specifically requested a partial savannah view room. Our request was granted, however since we were close to the Pool, we had a view of the savannah overlook from the lobby, which could be quite loud at times. So maybe we would sacrifice a longer walk to the room for more quiet. However we had a great view of the savannah and within the first few hours we were able to see all of the animals that were in the savannah. We had a view of the Pembe savannah which includes Okapi, hornbills, cranes, waterbuck, nyala antelope, red river hogs, vultures, and kudu. They refresh the hay and the hanging browse so the animals rotate around throughout the day and you will see them multiple times. Even when it was raining, hot and sunny, and even at midnight! There were animals out and about. The patio was not that deep, but it was long and wide. It came with 2 chairs and a small table. The patio door though had a lot of condensation and you could hear through it. Our room was ready two hours before check in time at 2pm, and we got the notification on the app after doing online check in. They do have bell services to hold your luggage if you wish, which we utilized due to the free waterpark day and were at blizzard beach until around 5pm. The room was cleaned and stocked, however the Disney conservation fund book was well used and in need of being replaced. We booked a studio villa. The toilet and shower are in a separate room, which is awesome, with the single sink vanity separate (but lots of counter pace and shelf space. The shower had really poor water pressure. There was a table with 2 chairs, a small coffee table, a couch (a pull out), and a double bed. There is a closet with two opening doors, and a closet with one door with the ironing board and safe. There is lots of drawer space in the dresser under the TV. There are multiple mirrors. One of the lightbulbs on the mirror was out. There was plenty of storage space. The room is themed very dark with the wooden tones, and the lighting is very dim, so you have to rely a lot on the daylight from the sliding door. The kitchenette part had a mini fridge, sink with soap/sponge/towel, microwave, toaster, and plastic silverware, plastic cups, and paper plates and bowls. The sign in the room said that there would be housekeeping service on the 4th day. But daily they came in to take out and replace the trash cans. On the 4th day, they replaced all of the towels and toiletries, but never gave us back our drying towel. There is a small shop in the lobby, which is where you can refill your resort refillable mug. There is also a station at the pool bar as well. There is also a lot of African art and photos to take a look at. There is one main savannah overlook if you go down the stairs at the end of the lobby. There are representatives here to ask questions and they can talk about the animals here. There is another overlook on the side of the pool area, and this is where they have a campfire nightly as well. There are also stairs downstairs to get to Sanaa, the restaurant. This is a table service restaurant for breakfast and dinner. Superb food, but a little on the pricey side. You can also mobile order it to go. They also have the simba clubhouse for kids to do activities just a little down the path from the lobby as well. Every single cast member we encountered was welcoming and friendly and helpful. They have an internal shuttle that runs between Jambo house and Kidani village. They also have the bus system out front, which runs to all parks and Disney springs. Busses stop at Kidani village first, then Jambo, then to the destination. Be warned about the busses as they do not come as often as other resorts, and they have to make the extra stop at the other resort building. We did notice that at peak morning time they run a bus from each building individually, but that only lasts for a few hours and then it is back to combined. Since AKL is farther away from the parks, it takes a decent bus ride (15-20 minutes) to get to the parks. So factor in about 30 minutes or so in travel time alone, not including waiting 20 minutes for a bus to even come. We have seen 2 busses for each of the 3 all star resorts come before one AKL bus came. This is true of the hotel stop and the park stop. The busses to and from here are not reliable and are quite crowded. So if you are the kind who wants to take a mid day break at the hotel and then come back to the parks, it is a huge timesuck for all parks except maybe animal kingdom. Overall, we enjoyed our stay here, but would not stay again due to the inconvenient location.
