Kidani Village

[Hurricaneduke77]

Hi all! I was hoping to get some "expert" information on the ins and outs of Kidani village. We are taking our 3 year old in June for her birthday and are getting excited!

[40turning7]

My family and I were there last April ('12) with a 4 year old boy and a 9 month girl and again at Jambo House in March ('08). We love the animal kingdom lodge but last year was our first visit to Kidani village. Here are some pros and cons we came up with...

Pros
-If you can get a savanna room, go for it, higher floor is better but if you can't don't worry, you have plenty of viewing sites for the animals both indoors and out. By the way, since most of the parking is under the resort, a non-savanna room is not all parking lot view like other resorts.
-since they are DVC, the rooms have a kitchenette which is great for reheating food or making your own meal and eat on the balcony while viewing the animals...
-free washers and dryers next to the arcade allows you to pack lighter and keep more room for mementos
-the pool has a great kids area with lots to do, both our children loved all the water activities, they also loved the main pool with two slides - big and smaller
-resort mug filling stations in the lobby gift shop and pool side as well
-museum African art everywhere, really fascinating to look at and read about (if you are into that)
-animals everywhere with guides who love to talk about anything -always start on animals then to Africa and what they love about being here, etc...
-bonfire outside of Sana is a nice evening activity with more animal viewing (also a great place to wait for your table using the pager they give you)
-Sana is a great mix of Indian/African although I am looking forward to going back to Boma this coming April

Cons
-resort is spread out so if you can request a room close to the lobby you won't have far to walk for the bus stop (unless you are renting a car, since most parking is underground, you can park closer to your elevator)
-there is a walkway to Jambo House but in the hot sun I would rather wait for the bus...
-no daily maid service since its DVC (not an issue for us but some people don't like it)



-Not really a con but the lobby lacks the "Wow" factor of Jambo House and the gift shop is smaller as well
-Last time the bus stopped at Kidani first, then Jambo and off to whatever destination, can make the trip over to Jambo easier in the hot sun - some have said its a long bus ride to MK but the excitement always makes it feel short for us - late night return is hard no matter where you are staying, especially if the kids are sleeping and you need to juggle them plus gear

Have stayed at both Animal Kingdom resorts and love them both. Hope this helps....

Hi all! I was hoping to get some "expert" information on the ins and outs of Kidani village. We are taking our 3 year old in June for her birthday and are getting excited!

[Hurricaneduke77]

Thanks!!!

[Kiliki]

Can anyone shed some light on what the main differences are between a "value" and a "standard" room are in the DVC rooms at Animal Kingdom? There's a significant price difference in points.... so I assume there's got to be a reason?

[HauntedGabe]

Can anyone shed some light on what the main differences are between a "value" and a "standard" room are in the DVC rooms at Animal Kingdom? There's a significant price difference in points.... so I assume there's got to be a reason?

Those are the rooms that are in the Jambo house formerly Animal Kingdom Lodge resort rooms.

The DVC villas at Jambo House were created by renovating the hotel rooms on the 5th and 6th floors. Since these were not originally designed as villas, and were hotel rooms of different sizes, the resulting villas are not all the same as each other. Some of the rooms that were renovated were considered too small to market as standard DVC villas, thus the ‘value’ category was created.

The value villas are still a decent size, guarantee a stay on the 5th or 6th floors, still have 2 bathrooms, use fewer vacation points and most are a pool or savannah view. Jambo has the 2 restaurants, 2 lounges, a much larger pool and much larger gift shop/store than the Village Villa DVC's.

[Kiliki]

Perfect! Thanks for the info!