13 glorious days at Christmas - Kidani & Jambo Club Level

[momof2disprincesses]

Originally Posted by lilpooh108

Your girls are beautiful and you look like such a happy family. Great pics of the club level offerings. Can't wait to see more.

Our favorite Disney trips are when all 4 of us can be there. As our DD's get older, it is harder and harder to make that happen, so I really cherish it when it does and to make it work for 13 days was truly glorious!

Our final full day was probably the best of the whole trip, so stay tuned!

Thanks for following along.

[rockinrollercoasters]

Originally Posted by momof2disprincesses

Thanks so much for these kind words! Are you staying Club Level in November? It was really wonderful. We felt very pampered and all commented on how we'd like to do it again.

My daughter has been in India for almost a month now and she is having amazing adventures and loving the culture and people very much!

Thanks for following along.

YES!! We will be club level in November. I know people say the views are disappointing but there are so many other spots at Jambo House that have great views I'm not too concerned.

My son will be turning 16 and is not a big eater but loves milk and chocolate milk so I showed him the pic of the fridge with all the milk in it and he was thrilled! My younger son is a food lover so any place that has cheese, sweets, etc. is right up his alley. Thanks for all the pictures. It is really getting us excited!!!

[Wicket's Mom]

What a wonderful trip you had! The villa at Kidani was beautiful, I love all the amenities.

We are staying Club level in September for the first time which is why I jumped into your TR.

[Angeejoe]

Thanks for sharing! Wonderful pictures & beautiful family!

[NHKristy76]

I'm so excited to read your trip report! I'll be staying club level at AKL with my DD10, her Best friend 11, and her mom (my good friend) in August.

I cannot wait to experience all the AKL has to offer!

[wrighter]

Can't wait to hear about Sunrise Safari and see some pics!

[momof2disprincesses]

Originally Posted by Wicket's Mom

What a wonderful trip you had! The villa at Kidani was beautiful, I love all the amenities.

We are staying Club level in September for the first time which is why I jumped into your TR.

I'm glad to help you get excited for your upcoming trip. I'm sure you will have an amazing time!

[momof2disprincesses]

Originally Posted by Angeejoe

Thanks for sharing! Wonderful pictures & beautiful family!

Thanks for following along!

[momof2disprincesses]

Originally Posted by NHKristy76

I'm so excited to read your trip report! I'll be staying club level at AKL with my DD10, her Best friend 11, and her mom (my good friend) in August.

I cannot wait to experience all the AKL has to offer!

How fun! I'm sure you will all have a magical trip!

[momof2disprincesses]

Originally Posted by wrighter

Can't wait to hear about Sunrise Safari and see some pics!

Coming right up! Thanks for following along!

[momof2disprincesses]

Sunday, Dec. 30 was our last full day of this trip and it started off VERY early. We had the Sunrise Safari booked for this morning and we had to meet in the Club lounge at 6:30am.

So that meant with 4 of us and 1 bathroom (and 2 being "teen" girls), we got up at 4:30am to be ready for our 6:30am meeting. YIKES! No sleeping in on the last day of vacation for us...but it was well worth getting up early for!

Everyone gathers in the lounge and then we moved down to the main lobby. Once in the main lobby, we were organized into 2 groups. There were 2 animal specialists from Animal Kingdom park, each leading 1 group.

Unfortunately I believe this was the coldest morning of our whole trip! Our guide said it was 39 degrees outside!!

Because it was so cold that morning, they had provided blankets for us. You could grab them in the lounge and then they collected them at the restaurant after the safari ride. This was very nice! We had brought a blanket of our own too and dressed very warm and even though it was so cold, we were fine with these preparations.

We enjoyed a few more lobby photos since there was almost no one around at this time of morning. As you can see, it was still quite dark outside.





So we loaded onto the buses (in the same area where ME drops off and picks up). It indeed was chilly outside.

The ride over to Animal Kingdom is very quick, obviously. You enter through a back way and get to see lots of behind the scenes things like the buildings where the animals stay at night. Of course, no photos were allowed backstage, but it was cool to see how it all works. When you're on the safari ride, you don't realize that each different animals "barn" is basically right behind where they are located on the savanna.

It was still a little dark when we drove through the backstage area, so it wasn't super easy to see everything.

After we got to our drop off site, we walked a little ways and entered the safari ride and got on 2 different trucks.

Soon we were on our way and got to see the animals.

The advantage to this safari over riding it in the park as a normal park guest is that they stop and really talk in depth about the animals and their environment on the savanna. It makes it so much easier to take photos. Plus you could interact with the guide, ask questions, etc.

Here is our nice & knowledgeable guide for our safari. He kind of sat on the back of the front seat of the safari vehicle, so he was facing all of us and spoke into his microphone so everyone could hear him easily.



In no time, we were off and seeing animals!

Hippos!



So many birds!



Crocodile!









Up next, lots more animals!

[momof2disprincesses]

As our nice, slow safari continued, we saw the giraffes just coming out for the day. They are my favorite...as you can tell by the numerous pictures I took of them.

They must put giraffe treats up in the trees to coax them out because they all were reaching for these areas to eat.



















My second favorite animal on the safari is the elephants, so we were very disappointed to hear they weren't coming out quite that early this day because it was just too darn cold for them. So we missed seeing them on this safari adventure.

Up next - even more animals!

[momof2disprincesses]

Our safari continued on and we saw these flamingos on the Mickey-head shaped island.







Gotta love the baobab tree!



A rare and wonderful sighting of the cheetah! He was pacing back & forth. The guide said he was actually doing a natural behavior of stalking his prey. Of course, the prey was the guy in the photo under the cheetah and obviously the cheetah will never "get" his prey, but he still tries.







Next was the lions! It was nice seeing them out and about. We usually just see them sleeping in the distance.















The new zebra area is now open.











One last photo of our awesome guide!



One small note about the sunrise safari. A few years ago, our family was at WDW on Easter Sunday and we decided to hand out Easter eggs filled with candy for the CM's that had to work the holiday. A manager-type CM (in a suit) saw us doing this near the safari ride and gave us a magical moment - a private safari! That safari was just our family (so we each got our own row) and that driver was our guide and didn't use the script and told us all about the animals and stopped so we could take photos, etc.

This safari was very similar to that one. However, that Easter morning one was slightly better in the fact that it was just us 4 in the vehicle and it didn't feel rushed at all.

Because of extended park hours between Christmas & New Years, there were EMH at AK starting at 7am - when our sunrise safari was going, so even though our 2 vehicles were the only ones out on the safari that early in the morning, it felt a little bit rushed. It just seemed like the sunrise safari normally would go a little slower and offer more details - like our Easter private safari did.

Don't get me wrong, we were not dissatisfied in any way with this experience. However, I would have preferred to do it on a day when the park opened later. I suspect it would not have felt as rushed in that case.

Up next - the sunrise safari breakfast at Pizzafari!

[momof2disprincesses]

So after the safari ride was over, we walked over to Pizzafari as a group for the breakfast buffet that is included with the sunrise safari. The park had been open for about 45 minutes for EMH and it was starting to get busy already.

Once we arrived at Pizzafari, we turned in our blankets they had given us and were brought to our private table.

We were in the small, private back room of Pizzafari and here's how it looked.



After everyone was seated, the chef came out and explained all the offerings.



Up first, cereals, fruits and make your own yogurt parfaits



Breads and pastries



An egg with hamburger meat casserole. I was NOT a fan, but the rest of my family liked it.



Biscuits & gravy



Seasoned potatoes



Sausage



Bacon



Smoke sausage (or as my Polish Dad would call it - Polish sausage). I ate so much of this as a kid, I now HATE it, so I skipped this bowl.



Ham



I can't remember the actual name of this, but it was my FAVORITE thing on the buffet. It was some kind of banana french toast. MMMMMM!!



Fried plantains



French toast sticks



Some of our plates full of yummy-ness!





My lovely DD's



Up next, our day at Animal Kingdom Park

[PrincessSarah314]

Just read your whole report thus far! We are DVC owners at AKL but have never stayed CL yet--but we are booked for 7 nights CL in June!! All the pics are wonderful! Did you use the IPO or CL CMs other than the mon alcoholic beer request?