We're Here! AKL Trip Report 2008...

Hi all! Just checking in from the balcony. Not too many animals out today, but they're going around with the food trucks, so I'm sure our giraffe-y and zebra-y friends will be out soon.

I had a funny experience last night when I couldn't sleep: I went out on the balcony to find four impala in various modes of sleep right outside! I guess it's true that they don't have to go back to their "houses" at night if they don't want to!

Here are a few random pics from the first couple of days. Full trip report to follow:

Beaches and Cream!!

Beaches and Cream dessert!

Our Mousekeeping Gift

View from the Balcony

Fun magnet advertising AKL Villas

Pre-Day-One and Day One:

Well, at the last minute we decided to come down a day early to beat Hurricane Hanna and hopefully not end up sitting in airports for 12 hours until she passed. (We were also hoping to get some good Hurricane pictures to post for you!) We booked a standard view room at AKL and ended up getting a view of the construction of the Villas.

We strolled down to Boma and waited about 30 minutes for a table (no ADR). No Hurricane yet!!

Woke up in the morning for MK Extra Magic Hour and the park was deserted! Took some photos of the Halloween decor and rode all of our favorites in record time. Then it was off to Liberty Tree Tavern for lunch, ordering the Pot Roast and a Burger. We were upset that the Pot Roast didn't come with those yummy onion-y straws on it anymore! Made it not quite as worthwhile a choice. However, the toffee cake dessert was a lovely surprise!

MK

Liberty Tree Tavern

We headed back to the room to get some work done (we weren't technically on vacation yet, after all), go to the gym, and get dressed for our yummy Jiko dinner! (Yes. All we do is eat. )

Hurricane wasn't too bad. A little rain off and on yesterday, but that's all. It's been gorgeous since!

So Jiko was wonderful! I hadn't been before and we tried the beef ribs and filet mignon for entrees, cheese plate and grilled ostrich (with Vidalia Onion Fondue?!?!) for appetizers, and pistachio creme brulee and lemon curd with sour cream ice cream for dessert. All was delicious! (Sorry I forgot my camera!!)

Woke up the next morning and both had some work to do at the Coronado Springs Business Center. We headed out after that to the Target over on Conroy Road (by the Mall of/at Milennia) and bought a few essentials and a wireless router--figured we should at least try to create wireless internet in our room this time around so that we could both be on our computers at the same time. (Wonder of wonders--the wireless router worked! I imagine it's not exactly legal, but it's a complete necessity when both of us have to get work done from Disney World.)

We also had to switch rooms, as it was time to move into our savanna view room. I worked with the Front Desk to get my Zebra Trail, Arusha Savanna room, but we were irked to find little sugar ants ALL OVER THE ROOM when we got there. Luckily, they quickly put us in a different room (a better one, incidentally, which makes me wonder why we didn't get that room in the first place), which also had ants on the balcony. The ants hadn't yet made it into the actual room, however, so a quick call to maintenance and some ant spray fixed that (I hope!!!).

Here are some pics:

Wallpaper in AKL room:

I love that they have an "Animal Information" Button!

Hidden Mickey in the bedspread:

More views:

The Villas Construction at the Contemporary:

We requested a fireworks table at Ohana and were quickly seated at a fantastic window-side table with a perfect castle view. Very quickly into the meal the MNSSHP fireworks started. I think this is a pretty boring show except for the 360 degree fireworks at the end, which I think are fabulous to watch from Ohana or California Grille! Ohana was good, though we still sorely miss those yummy gratin potatoes. For me, the noodles, broccoli, and pot stickers aren't enough of a replacement.

Woke up the next morning for Hollywood Studios EMH and got to ride Toy Story Mania twice, RNR Coaster, and Tower of Terror (waits for the latter two were minimal). We left to run some more errands after that, as we'd decided we were still too full from Ohana to even think about honoring our 50's Prime Time Cafe ADR at 11:00am.

We headed to the Target again and to Circuit City to replace my camera battery charger that I'd left in the previous room (and that wasn't found by Mousekeeping, unfortunately). We did some work and watched the animals from the room. We've got everybody out there--zebra, giraffe, ankole cattle, impala, eland, lots of birds, tommies, etc. We went to the gym again and were quickly off to Narcoossees for dinner.

We'd never been to Narcoossees before and it was WONDERFUL! It's probably gotten itself onto my top 5 places to eat now. We ordered the cheese plate and salad, filet mignon with potatoes gratin, and two desserts: chocolate gateau and cherry cheesecake. Everything was top notch and the service was perfect. High marks from us!! Plus, the view of Magic Kingdom and the Polynesian was gorgeous. Must be a great place to watch fireworks!

Lots of weddings this weekend at the Grand Floridian!

Decor/Mural

Salad

Cheese Plate

Castle View

Grand Floridian Lobby

Our original plan at this point was to see Illuminations and then head to the Adventurer's Club, but knowing that was a tall order, we went back to the room to change and just headed over to the Adventurer's Club. PI was BUSY BUSY BUSY!!! We got a parking space easily enough, but there was a line for the Club and the pressing crowd of people waiting to get into the Library was unappetizing. I've never seen it like that; it made the experience not so magical. Once the Library opened, there was a mad squeeze to get in and dozens of patrons were kept outside once the room was full. We luckily got a table, a couple of drinks, and settled in for the Radio-thon, which was great.

Not wanting to brave the crowds again, we headed home after this and got a good night's sleep.

I woke up early the next morning for a run and a swim. I always like to run around the resort grounds and explore, and this morning I headed over to the construction area and got some good views of Kidani Village. The post-run swim was sooooooooooo nice! The water's still cool from the night before (usually AKL's pool is like bath water), there's nobody around, and the sun isn't too oppressive just yet! Aaaaaaaaah!

Next, over to Boma for a late breakfast--yummmm jungle juice! Then we had to settle in for a day of work. The weather was gorgeous all day, so we spent a lot of time on our balcony with the animals (and the mosquitos!!!! )

We chose to head to Red Lobster for dinner (what can I say?) and then went over to the Poly beach to watch Wishes (so romatic ).

Woke up early for AK EMH and discovered to our chagrin that Primeval Whirl was closed until November . No amount of planning, I guess... We rode Expedition Everest twice (no wait) and headed over to catch the first Lion King show of the day .

From there we went to our 50'sPrime Time Cafe ADR. Again, to our chagrin, they've taken the Boursin Cheese off of the menu ! So sad! Alas, ordered chicken noodle soup, fried chicken, and the grilled chicken sandwich (wow--a chicken-y day!) followed by a couple of milkshakes. We grabbed a fastpass for Toy Story Mania (as we knew we'd be back in the park tonight) and headed back to the hotel for a couple of conference calls.

Done with work, we were off again to the Epcot resort area for dinner at Yachtsman Steakhouse--one of our favorites. They've taken the Ribeye steak off of the menu for the Free Dining period (our waiter said that there's not enough room on the grill for the amount of Porterhouses and Ribeyes ordered during free dining, so they had to take one off of the menu?), unfortunately, but we ordered the NY Strip and the Filet. Good as always--this is one of the best steakhouses in WDW in my opinion; very under-utilized!

Then, we were back on our way to Hollywood Studios to use those Toy Story Mania fastpasses and grab seats for Fantasmic. It was BUSY tonight!! Once Fantasmic was over, we took a quick spin on Tower of Terror (it was EMH tonight) and called it quits! No reason to battle those crowds!

Woke up for Epcot EMH the next morning and caught Turtle Talk, Living with the Land, Maelstrom, Test Track, and Spaceship Earth. Our Spaceship Earth car had no sound, so we had a strangely quiet ride through the big golf ball. We had lunch at Beaches and Cream and headed back into Epcot for a spin through World Showcase. Lots of signs of prep for Food and Wine Festival!

We spent the rest of the day working in our room and ordered room service from AKL before heading out for MNSSHP. The place was DESOLATE ! We found out later that they'd only sold 8000 tickets for the evening, but couldn't believe that every single ride was a walk-on. We had the chance to discover how to ride Space Mountain without walking all the way through the line again (just ask them how to go "upstairs!") . We closed down the park and headed home to bed after a great evening.

AKL Villas Construction

AKL Hidden Mickeys

Epcot: Spaceship Earth, Turtle Talk, World Showcase, Livin with the Land, Test Track

Empty Magic Kingdom at MNSSHP