Postscript, final thoughts and magical memories
Best thing about our trip: Spending time together at our new vacation home – and knowing that we'll get to do it for the next 49 years!
Worst thing about our trip: Being soggy
So we finally got our luggage delivered from AirTran. But not without a rigamarole. I called the dispatcher at 11:30 a.m. Friday morning, and they told me it had come in on the first flight of the day, and would be here within four hours. I hadn't heard anything by 4, so I called and got an answering machine. Shortly after, I got a call from the delivery service, saying that they'd be leaving Raleigh just before 5. Sigh. He finally delivered it around 7 p.m. By the time I got it upstairs to take the laundry out, I realized that the bag was also pretty badly damaged. The supports that hold up the handle from the inside were completely snapped in two. Great.
So we're still working that out.
But overall, we had such a wonderful vacation.
Kidani Village is still growing into itself, and I think it will get even better with age – as the flowers and trees get settled and more people discover how wonderful it is.
The cast member at check in said they were 90 percent booked (but only 2/3 of the resort is open so far.) Still, with that being the case, we never had to wait in line for anything, and no public spaces ever seemed very crowded – even with the rain that kept some people in.
The details like the artifacts and proverbs on the walls and the carvings on the walls into the library are classic Disney.
There were lots of quiet spaces, too, like the library and the porches with rocking chairs overlooking the savanna.
The attention to detail greets you as soon as you walk in the front entry.
There were little things about the rooms that might need a tweak for future designers – the fans in the bathroom turn on and off based on motion, which is great, except at night, when they took a while to cycle off. The room in the bathroom with just the water closet needs a picture or something. It's like a jail cell. An extra hook or towel bar would be handy in the studio bathroom. There needs to be a nightstand on both sides of the bed. And mostly, we need a covering for the path to the buses.
The service was top-notch Disney, and nearly every cast member we encountered – both at AKLV and other places – lived up to our expectations. It's one reason we return again and again, much to the bewilderment of many of our friends and family. But it truly is an escape, and the people who work there really do go out of their way to fulfill any reasonable request that you have. They know you're dropping a lot of money there, and they want you to come back. We certainly will.
And we wish we had bought into DVC much sooner. The advertised rack rate for the room we stayed in for four nights was $450!
So that's worth $1800. Now, would we ever have actually stayed in a room that cost that much? No way. But even assuming that we would have likely stayed in a moderate resort, that would have been $150 a night. ($600). We each got $100 off of annual passes, and got several discounts on some restaurants. So using conservative estimates, this trip would have cost $1000. Not too bad when you consider this will be around for 50 years, and it will have paid for itself in five or so years. We'll have enough points to take another trip in the fall, too.
Anyway, for those of you who actually read this much, congratulations.
Trip reports really do give me ideas for future trips and psych me up to go, so I wanted to offer the same for y'all. Thanks! See ya real soon!
Best thing about our trip: Spending time together at our new vacation home – and knowing that we'll get to do it for the next 49 years!
Worst thing about our trip: Being soggy
So we finally got our luggage delivered from AirTran. But not without a rigamarole. I called the dispatcher at 11:30 a.m. Friday morning, and they told me it had come in on the first flight of the day, and would be here within four hours. I hadn't heard anything by 4, so I called and got an answering machine. Shortly after, I got a call from the delivery service, saying that they'd be leaving Raleigh just before 5. Sigh. He finally delivered it around 7 p.m. By the time I got it upstairs to take the laundry out, I realized that the bag was also pretty badly damaged. The supports that hold up the handle from the inside were completely snapped in two. Great.
So we're still working that out.
But overall, we had such a wonderful vacation.
Kidani Village is still growing into itself, and I think it will get even better with age – as the flowers and trees get settled and more people discover how wonderful it is.The cast member at check in said they were 90 percent booked (but only 2/3 of the resort is open so far.) Still, with that being the case, we never had to wait in line for anything, and no public spaces ever seemed very crowded – even with the rain that kept some people in.
The details like the artifacts and proverbs on the walls and the carvings on the walls into the library are classic Disney.
There were lots of quiet spaces, too, like the library and the porches with rocking chairs overlooking the savanna.
The attention to detail greets you as soon as you walk in the front entry.
There were little things about the rooms that might need a tweak for future designers – the fans in the bathroom turn on and off based on motion, which is great, except at night, when they took a while to cycle off. The room in the bathroom with just the water closet needs a picture or something. It's like a jail cell. An extra hook or towel bar would be handy in the studio bathroom. There needs to be a nightstand on both sides of the bed. And mostly, we need a covering for the path to the buses.
The service was top-notch Disney, and nearly every cast member we encountered – both at AKLV and other places – lived up to our expectations. It's one reason we return again and again, much to the bewilderment of many of our friends and family. But it truly is an escape, and the people who work there really do go out of their way to fulfill any reasonable request that you have. They know you're dropping a lot of money there, and they want you to come back. We certainly will.
And we wish we had bought into DVC much sooner. The advertised rack rate for the room we stayed in for four nights was $450!
So that's worth $1800. Now, would we ever have actually stayed in a room that cost that much? No way. But even assuming that we would have likely stayed in a moderate resort, that would have been $150 a night. ($600). We each got $100 off of annual passes, and got several discounts on some restaurants. So using conservative estimates, this trip would have cost $1000. Not too bad when you consider this will be around for 50 years, and it will have paid for itself in five or so years. We'll have enough points to take another trip in the fall, too.Anyway, for those of you who actually read this much, congratulations.
Trip reports really do give me ideas for future trips and psych me up to go, so I wanted to offer the same for y'all. Thanks! See ya real soon!
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