Showing posts with label Animal Kingdom Villas. Show all posts
Disney Vacation Club Resort - Kidani Village
Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge Offers Unique Resort Experience
Unique Disney World Resort
The Animal Kingdom Lodge and the Animal Kingdom Villas at the Walt Disney World Resort present a unique experience to resort guests. Here the lodge is not only themed to bring the feel of Africa, but the resort has its own savannahs to view native African wildlife.
The Animal Kingdom Lodge and the Animal Kingdom Villas at the Walt Disney World Resort present a unique experience to resort guests. Here the lodge is not only themed to bring the feel of Africa, but the resort has its own savannahs to view native African wildlife.
Many of the rooms at the resort are designated as Savannah View. This means that your room has a balcony with a view of one of the resort's savannahs. The views are breathtaking and it is an wonderful experience to sit with your coffee in the early morning and watch the animals roam around.
Many of the best viewing experiences happy in the early morning as it is still quiet and the animals are more active before the heat of the day sets in. The feeling is almost surreal as you take it all in.
Bringing The African Savannah To Florida
There are over 33 acres of wildilfe preserve for the resort. These are divided into several savannah grassland areas that wrap around the resorts and provide room for the animals to roam.
Some of the 30 species of animals that you may see include:
Ankole Cattle, Bongo, Eland, Grant's Zebra, Impala, Reticulated Giraffe, Thomson's Gazelle, African Spoonbill, Red River Hog, White-Bearded Wildebeest, & Ostrich.
The graceful giraffes are family favorites to watch, as well as, the ostriches.
Great Views Of The Animals For All Guests
One of the great parts of both the main Animal Kingdom Lodge (referred to as Jambo House) and the new Kidani Village is that you do not have to have a savannah view room to have an opportunity to view the animals on the savannahs.
There are great public areas for viewing the animals. At Jambo House they have Arusha Rock, which is an elevated stone platform that provides the opportunity for great close-up views of the animals. Kidani Village has a smaller, but similar viewing area that is pictured below. Often they will have cast members available to answer your questions about the animals.
To make the resort's savannahs more closely resemble the native grasslands of the animals, Disney has planted thousands of indigenous African shrubs and grasses. They have also included the copperpod, which is the most recogized canopy tree of Africa.
The savannahs are accessible for viewing 24 hours a day. The resort staff also has night viewing goggle sessions each evening for a special animal viewing experience.
Memorable Disney World Vacation Experience
Staying at either the Animal Kingdom Lodge or Animal Kingdom Villas creates a memorable vacation experience. This is truly unlike any other resort. The theming and attention to detail is incredible. The ability to view the animals automatically puts a calming, relaxing, feel to your stay.
The Animal Kingdom Lodge can be a vacation destination unto its self. To then realize that you still have all of Disney World left to experience can almost be overwhelming.
This resort is highly recommend for all who are planning a Disney World Vacation to try at least once. The experience is one that you will always remember.
Hidden Mickeys Underfoot At The Animal Kingdom Lodge's Kidani Village
One of the favorite activities of many families is to see how many Hidden Mickeys you can discover during your trip to the Walt Disney World Resort.
A Hidden Mickey is a likeness of Mickey Mouse or the characteristic circle with two adjoining "ear" circles hidden by Disney Imagineers in the artwork or theming of the Parks, rides, attractions, or resorts. There are nearly a 1,000 different ones located at Disney World.
At the new Kidani Village section of the Animal Kingdom Lodge, we found these four examples of Hidden Mickeys right at our feet.
You can see that the Disney Imagineers cleverly worked the Hidden Mickey into the designs of the carpet. If you are not looking for them, you might easily overlook them.
This is what makes finding the Hidden Mickeys so much fun - they're hidden!
Some, like the ones in the carpet pictured here, are relatively easily to spot, while others are much more difficult.
After a while you may start to imagine that Hidden Mickeys are everywhere. This search can be very addictive.
If you enjoy looking for Hidden Mickeys, Steven M. Barrett has an excellent book called "Hidden Mickeys - A Field Guide To Walt Disney World's Best Kept Secrets."
This book provides insights and clues to help you with your searching. It is a great reference to bring along with you on a trip to add new excitement to attractions you have been on many times before. You will start to notice things that you never knew existed, even though they have been right in front of you the whole time.
Steven also has a website at: http://www.hiddenmickeysguide.com/ that you can check out for more information about Hidden Mickeys. He is really considered the authority on the topic.
If you have never looked for Hidden Mickeys before consider adding this fun activity to your next Disney World Vacation plans.
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Animal Kingdom Villas
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Hidden Mickeys
Special Tapestries Recognize Founding Members at Disney Vacation Club's Animal Kingdom Villas
When the Disney Vacation Club, aka DVC, announced in early 2007 that they were starting to sell ownership interest in the to be built Animal Kingdom Villas there was a lot of excitement.
In addition to the usual incentives to prompt current DVC members to purchase they advertised that if you purchased a certain amount of points within the initial time frame of the offering they would consider you to be a "Founding Member of the new Animal Kingdom Villas".
These founding members would also be recognized on a special tapestry that would be hung in the yet to be built section of the resort (Kidani Village).
This sounded like a neat perk, and since my family already loved the Animal Kingdom Lodge, we made the decision to become "Founding Members" of the DVC Animal Kingdom Villas. Mind you this was in February of 2007.
Time went on and despite Internet conjecture no one really knew what was going to happen with the "Tapestry" that was promised. Eventually a flier arrived in the mail, asking how we wanted our name to appear on the "Tapestry", so we figured it was still going to happen.
Then no new news came out about the "Tapestry", everything was quiet, and I was afraid that maybe they (DVC) had decided not to proceed with the idea.
Well, the Kidani Village finally opened to the public earlier this year(2009). My family had the opportunity to visit the new resort for the first time just recently (August).
When we checked in, we asked the Cast Member that helped us, if she could tell us where the "Tapestry" was located. I wasn't really sure whether she would know what I was talking about or just look at me like I had been out in the Florida sun for too long.
When we checked in, we asked the Cast Member that helped us, if she could tell us where the "Tapestry" was located. I wasn't really sure whether she would know what I was talking about or just look at me like I had been out in the Florida sun for too long.
Fortunately she knew of the tapestry that I referred to and didn't appear to regard me as crazy for asking. She directed us to the Library, so we went to check it out.
The tapestry ended up being two tapestries that are very impressive.
We found our family name at the bottom of the left hand one. The names don't seem to be in any special order, so it took awhile to locate it, but we enjoyed the adventure of looking for it.
This was a neat idea for the Disney Vacation Club to do, and it is something that will always give my family a close connection to the resort. When they tell us their famous "Welcome Home!" it will mean a little more to us now.
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Animal Kingdom Villas
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DVC
