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Animal Kingdom Lodge: Amazing Views, But Who’s in Charge of Programming?

Having never stayed at Animal Kingdom Lodge, we were thrilled to secure a 2-bedroom lock-off villa via DVCRequest.com. We were celebrating my 41st birthday and running three RunDisney races between the two of us, so why not splurge?

The resort is absolutely breathtaking. Truly. You walk into the lobby and just go, WOW.

Our resort room was HUGE; and that was a bit of an issue, Ronan was in a studio room all by his lonesome. I think he felt overwhelmed by the sheer size of it and had a few night-time and early-morning wake ups during our trip.

We were able to see giraffe, zebras and other animals from our balcony, which was a fantastic experience. The pool at Jambo House was great, but the splash pad and pool at Kidani Village were even more amazing – and just a 7 minute walk away. Early mornings (see above) afforded the opportunity to check out more animals from the viewing area by the pool and some solo fun on the adjacent playground.

We also ran into issues with Mousekeeping; ended up doing two loads of towels and taking out our own trash during the trip because they didn’t provide service until the last day/night of our trip. It just so happened that day, kiddo was a rock star and took two stroller naps at Magic Kingdom – so we didn’t return to our resort as originally planned. I can’t imagine that ALL guests would be away from their room(s) all day…we have a little kid, we take breaks. But I digress.

My final beef is with whoever handles the resort activities here. Every night around 8pm, usually when we were putting Ronan to bed, there was a drum circle in the lobby. At this resort, the lobby is on the 3rd floor. Our room was on the 5th floor. Trying to put a toddler to bed when 12 kids are banging on bongo drums about 200 feet away was easily the most irritating thing I’ve ever had to contend with. Seriously. Who plans this stuff?

We’ll stay here again, for sure, but maybe in Kidani to be closer to the splash pad.

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