Category — d. Where to Stay at Walt Disney World

(For the first page of this review of Kidani Village, see this.)

THE SAMAWATI SPRINGS POOL AT KIDANI VILLAGE

The Samawati Springs pool at Kidani Village is one of two pools at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge–the other is the Uzima Springs pool at the main Jambo House.

Guests at Kidani can use either.

Some prefer Uzima Springs, despite the distance, for being a little more verdant, or for having a broader range of quick-service dining available.

But Samawati Springs is a great pool, and of course much more convenient.

Samawati is not the kind of low-amenity quiet pool that you will find near some other DVC resorts, but rather comes with all  the pluses that you’ll find at any main pool.

My favorite feature, though, is simpler–it’s the vista from the zero entry side. I love the sky and trees…

Here’s the pool from another angle–this shows the smaller of the two slides here.

A couple of shots of the larger pool slide:

There’s also two hot tubs, one by the pool deck…

… and a more secluded one on an upper level:

Nearby is a water play area…

…the water play area at night…

…a playground for kids…

…and a ping pong table.

There’s also a bar. It has a real menu–albeit not with a lot of options. See the  bottom of the image (click it to enlarge it):

Near the bar is a refillable mug station.

Also in the pool area, in an upper level, is the spa.

Kidani guests are also welcome at the Uzima Springs pool at Jambo House, and can walk, take a theme park bus (check with the driver first to see if the bus is stopping at Jambo) or take the couretsy van at the guest drop-off point.

 THE ART OF KIDANI VILLAGE

This review continues here!

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(For the first page of this review of Kidani Village, see this.)

THE ART OF KIDANI VILLAGE

The animals are the star at Kidani Village, and are covered on my page on Kidani Village theming here, but also a delight is the art of Kidani Village, in both its private and public spaces.

The rooms combine carved adventurous-looking furniture and fixtures with interesting textures in the floors and curtains, plus fun art on each side wall.

More art on the doors.

Outside the rooms there’s not as much scope as at sister resort Jambo House for public art, but I still find the light fixtures charming…

…these…

…and these.

There’s also original art here and there–not as much as in Jambo, but still fun.

More:

Kidani’s principal negatives are its distance from Walt Disney World theme parks other than the Animal Kingdom, its limited quick-service meal options, and the lack of drama of its lobby compared to that of Jambo House.

…although the lobby does gain grandeur in an evening storm.

Returning visitors will likely find Kidani Village to be a favorite. Its spaciousness is a delight, it is quieter and more serene than Jambo House, and then there’s those animals!!

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There’s no single topic that Disney World guide books, websites and forums get wrong more often than the Disney World resorts.

There’s several obvious reasons for this—most important among them being that frequent and recent stays among all the room options is critical, but hard to pull off because of how much time and money it takes, so most don’t bother.

Without frequent and recent stays, however, it’s hard to offer accurate, up-to-date descriptions of the resorts and their rooms themselves, or to do sensible current comparisons among them. As a result, writers can mislead people about which rooms they will fit or be comfortable in, or which will best fit their plans, causing them to miss their best options.

Where you stay matters because you’ll spend more than a third of your time in your resort, and, if you are like most people, you will pick just one of the more than 40 different options (including distinct room variants) on offer. Moreover, with reasonable options ranging from around $100 to $1,000 a night, what you spend on your room is the single biggest budget variable in your trip.

No one knows more about the Disney World resorts than my co-author Josh of easyWDW and I do. For example, I’ve stayed in 135 different Disney World-owned rooms, villas, suites, cabins, and campsites, (and also a dozen key non-Disney rooms at the Swan, Dolphin, Four Seasons, and Shade of Green) plus sat around here and there in the resorts and done next to nothing.

Chapter 5 of The easy Guide to Your Walt Disney World Visit, Where to Stay, brings together our experience and perspectives into a short, easy to read, but complete and accurate set of material.

• We start with why we think you should stay at a Disney-owned resort—especially if you are a first-timer, or have not visited Disney World since FastPass+ began.
• Next we go over the basic differences among the three main Disney resort price classes, highlighting pros and cons of the options within them as we go.
• Then we do detailed reviews of each Disney-owned resort, so you can make the best fit to your budget, wishes, and preferences.
• Finally we offer thoughts on the principal alternatives, including detailed reviews of the main non-Disney options.

Here’s a bit of an example, a few lines from our review of Port Orleans Riverside:

While we don’t have everything right (I know of at least one floor plan I’ll be fixing as part our next free update), a simple comparison will show you how hard it is to get things even close to right.

I just looked through the 2017 edition of a guidebook that I commonly recommend as an alternative to ours and have a lot of respect for (except for its materials on the Disney World resorts).

Here’s some of the issues I found in its presentation of the Disney Word resorts:

Values

• At Art of Animation, the claim that “The resort’s Family Suites are rarely discounted” is wrong. The Family Suites have been included in discounts for years. It’s the other rooms here, the Little Mermaid standard rooms, that have yet to be included in discounts.

Moderates

• The description of the Port Orleans Riverside floor plan refers to a “trundle bed for child (54” long)” that has been gone for years, replaced by a ~66” murphy bed in 2012.
• The refurb at the Cabins at Fort Wilderness yielded a queen bed in the back bedroom, not the incorrectly shown and described full bed.
• At Coronado Springs, the “overly complicated…stamping tickets…and multiple tickets to pay” at Pepper Market are long gone.

Deluxes

• The floor plan for the Animal Kingdom Lodge has the connecting door and mini-fridge in reversed positions.
• The Beach Club floor plan is slightly outdated after its 2015 refurb.
• The Contemporary boat service goes not only to Fort Wilderness, but also to the Wilderness Lodge.
• The dressing area in Grand Floridian Rooms does not “include a sliding door that separates it from the sleeping area”—the dressing space between the sinks and hall is open, like in other Disney deluxe resorts.
• The Polynesian floor plan shows an outdated sink and toilet layout; the Great Ceremonial House has two stories, not “four,” and the Poly “sofas” are also flip-down beds.
• The Swan room description (“large, round mirror”) is outdated since its 2015 refurb, and both the discussion of it and an included reader comment about it confuse the Dolphin’s bath for the Swan’s bath.

Disney Vacation Club

• Animal Kingdom Lodge’s Kidani Village has 493 “rooms,”*, not “ 324.”
• Bay Lake Tower One Bedroom villas do not include “the studio bedroom.” The Studio bedroom is the second bedroom of lock-off Two Bedroom villas, and has no role in One Bedrooms. Also, Bay Lake Tower has 428 “rooms,”* not “295.”
• The Beach Club Studios floor plan is outdated, as it does not show the drop-down bed installed in the 2016 refurb, and its guest occupancy limit “4” is also wrong—it is now 5.
• The BoardWalk Villas Studios floor plan is also outdated, as it does not show the drop-down bed installed in its 2015 refurb, and its guest occupancy limit “4” is also wrong—it is now 5.
• The Old Key West One Bedroom description should include the fold out chair, rather than omitting it.
• The Polynesian Studios probably should be labeled “Polynesian Village Studios,” not “Polynesian Village Villas.”
• Saratoga Springs has 18 buildings, not “12.” Its floor plan is mis-labeled as “Sarasota Springs.”
• The Villas at the Grand Floridian has 147 “rooms,”* not “200.”
• The Villas at the Wilderness Lodge has 181 “rooms,”*, not “136.”

I have a lot of sympathy for those who try to write such material without recent frequent stays. It’s hard to keep up with refurbs and other changes, and it’s even harder to judge and write about them if you don’t actually stay in the rooms, and as I’ve learned since I got into the guide book game, it’s harder than you might think to assure that your new insights actually make their way into your book.

But, if you try, you can avoid errors like these, as we mostly do.

My most recent stays, by resort:

The asterisks indicate a stay booked for later 2016; the color code is to remind me where to go next, although some of these resorts are in refurbs or expected refurbs soon, so the priority will be to visit them when they are done—these include Kidani Village, Bay Lake Tower, the Dolphin, Coronado Springs, Pop Century, etc.

Ok, that’s it for now. More to come on other features of the 2017 easy Guide later! Meanwhile, buy the book, OK?

And when you do, don;t forget to sign up for the free updates:

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*There’s no one best way to measure DVC spaces. The only repeatable way is “keys,” which is the number of separately rentable spaces. This is the industry standard, and what I have used above. Using this industry standard, a dedicated Two Bedroom Villa would count as one key, and a lock off Two Bedroom as two keys–one for the Studio, and one for the One Bedroom.

But since the proportion of lock-off vs dedicated spaces varies so much across the DVC resorts, for comparisons of relative scope it would also make sense to talk about bays, or about two bedroom equivalents (that is, bays divided by three), although the peculiar inventory at the Polynesian makes either of these a little less sensible than they used to be.

This particular guidebook sometimes uses keys, and sometimes seems to use something else, like two bedroom equivalents. For consistency, it should use one or the other, and I’d recommend keys.

My review of Disney’s Beach Club Villas is now fully updated based on stays in a refurbed Studio and a refurbed One Bedroom Villa in August 2016.

The review begins here, and includes the following pages:

• An overview of Disney’s Beach Club Villas
• Theming and accommodations at Disney’s Beach Club Villas
• Photo tour of a Studio at Disney’s Beach Club Villas
• Photo tour of the living/dining/kitchen space in One and Two Bedroom Villas at Disney’s Beach Club Villas
• Photo tour of the bath and master bedroom in One and Two Bedroom Villas at Disney’s Beach Club Villas

Details of the revised spaces are in each of the “photo tour” pages, but here’s some summary comments from the first page of the updated review:

Studios now sleep five–the fifth on a fold-down bed.

Studios have also lost drawer space.

One and Two Bedroom Villas have had much carpet replaced with wooden flooring.

The master bath in One and Two Bedroom Villas is simplified, with the whirlpool tub being replaced with a soaking tub, and the window between the bath and the master bedroom now gone.

In all villas and studios, the refurbed spaces have a more austere and less playful color palette than the former decor.

Compare the above from an old Studio…

…with this from a new one.

The new review begins here, with all new room photos and floor plans. Check it out!

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Yesterday I published updated materiel on Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort based on my July visit–our seventh here.

The review begins here and includes the following pages

• An overview of Saratoga Springs
• Theming and accommodations at Saratoga Springs
• A three page photo tour of a Studio and a One Bedroom Villa (the two combined being a Two Bedroom Villa):
  • Photo tour of a Studio at Sratoga Springs
  • Photo tour of the Living/Dining/Kitchen Space in One and Two Bedroom Villas at Saratoga Springs
  • Photo tour of the Bath and Master Bedroom in One and Two Bedroom Villas at Saratoga Springs
• Amenities at Saratoga Springs
• Dining at Saratoga Springs
• The Pools at Saratoga Springs

There have been only minor changes here since my last review–i.e. very light changes to the rooms, mostly bed linen.

All the room photos are new…

…and I’ve also updated all the floor plans.

The order of the material also now matches how I’ve been restructuring these reviews lately, with the overview of the accommodation options here preceding, rather than following, the photo tours.

All the great new restaurants opening at Disney Springs (detailed in Chapter 7 of the book I co-author) have made Saratoga Spring’s location within walking distance of Disney Springs a feature rather than a bug. This should make the resort much more appealing to returning visitors.

For first-timers, however, I’m still not keen on it–Saratoga Springs still has weaker kid appeal and lower convenience than Disney Vacation Club alternatives.

Moreover, the rooms, though in quite good repair, are now a generation behind many other DVC spaces, which have added larger flat screen TVs, a fifth sleeping spot to their Studios, and more power points.

Check out the updated review–it beings here.

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During my Disney World visit earlier this month I dropped by the Wilderness Lodge to do a status check on the current refurbishment.

There’s been a lot of progress since my July stop by, but not enough to make me believe that this will be done in 2016, as some have indicated it will.

Half of the upper walkways surrounding the lobby continue to be walled off–this is the principal aesthetic issue with the refurb.

Along the shores, the eastern set of “bungalows” and buildings is well under way.

The replacement pool is also a little clearer, and the larger new building in the back left is also walled in. Many expect this to be restaurant, but I’m not seeing the venting that I’d associate with a restaurant. Maybe the venting comes in later, or maybe this will be a community room for DVC folks.

Another view of the pool area (peer through the trees to spot the pool formers)…

…and another view of the larger new building, from the water.

The western set of bungalows is still largely piles of dirt. (Click any of these photos to enlarge them.)

As you can also see in this shot of the western end, a lot of trees are gone.  This is yielding some nice Wishes views from many of the rooms on this side of this half of the Lodge. There’s a link here in the comments in co-author Josh’s Wilderness Lodge update to a great (zoomed) view of Wishes.

The other half of the Lodge remains closed during conversion into Disney Vacation Club spaces. (This has resulted in low crowds in the lobby, restaurants, pool, bus stops, etc.)

I find it interesting that the entire interior of this wing has been gutted.

In the image, note how you can see through the window all the way to the window on the far side of the floor–the corridor walls and interior walls are gone.

It’s unclear what Disney is building in this wing of the Lodge. The footprints of the old rooms were pretty small, but Disney put studios and one bedroom villas in equivalently small spots at the Animal Kingdom, in its “value” studios and villas there.

Micah, great contributor to the easyWDW forums and author of MousePerks, just stayed in an Animal Kingdom value and regular studio on consecutive nights, and emailed me these observations:

– The bed and couch are in opposite locations (bed closer to the balcony).
– The small table with a lamp on it is missing from the Value room.
– The small padded bench is missing from the Value room (location where the connecting door can be in some rooms). The wardrobe/closet is immediately after the kitchenette (with only 6″ or so for the thermostat).

Otherwise it really does feel the same, and everything else matches exactly, but they just removed those two pieces of furniture to make it work in the smaller space.

The Studio as Disney has traditionally laid it out is the space that’s hardest to fit into the footprint of the old Wilderness Lodge rooms, so if those can work, one and two bedroom villas can work too–and the spaces at the corridor ends that used to contain two deluxe rooms and two regular rooms would make for an interesting location for Grand Villas.

But why gut everything? Could something more interesting be being planned here?

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