The 3 week Sept extravaganza – which turned into a 2 week trip in June and no cruise! Summary

DVC Comparison

We stayed at Boardwalk, Bay Lake Tower, Animal Kingdom Lodge (both Kidani and Jambo) during our stay. All studios, albeit Jambo was the value studio so slightly smaller (although not noticeably).

I still prefer our home resort (BLT) to the rest (which clearly means we picked the right resort). I know lots of people say the studio is too small but we really like it and the kitchen being a bit bigger feels so much more usable.

In the Kidani studio there isn’t room to use the toaster and coffee maker at the same time – I had to butter our toast on the table as there wasn’t room. Oddly the kitchen in the Jambo studio is larger and more functional. It means a smaller bathroom but I prefer that.

Kidani

Jambo

Bay Lake Tower

I expected to like Boardwalk more but the lack of food options on our arrival night meant it was my least favourite of the trip. I suspect if we had stayed here at a different point I might have liked it more. Maybe we’ll try it again on another trip.

Restaurants

Despite our illness we got quite a few restaurants in:

• The Plaza
• Yachtsman Steakhouse
• Steakhouse 71
• Space 220
• Skippers Canteen
• Sana’a

We had long waits at the first 3 which was disappointing, I think Disney might be overbooking at some venues.

Space 220, Sana’a and Skippers Canteen were all really good but Skipper’s Canteen just takes the “best meal of the trip award”. It was really good and I think we will go back.

Highlight of the trip

Wild Africa Trek was amazing, such a good experience despite the heat (not sure if I mentioned it before?!)

I would definitely consider doing it again on a future trip, although there are other tour options so I will look at what else we can do before a repeat.

The food on the tour was also brilliant and although I wouldn’t necessarily choose the options we had it was great to try different options. I’ll keep skipping the olives though!

Lowlight of the trip

Obviously getting covid and missing our cruise wasn’t ideal but I was prepared for this and had a plan just in case.

I had looked at hotel options (and had even considered booking a contingency hotel from home) and as soon as Rob tested positive we booked a hotel that we could cancel if we managed to cruise (which in hindsight wouldn’t have been possible because Royal Caribbean require no covid in 10 days before cruise).

We picked a hotel at Disney Springs which meant we could go and get food and as Uber eats and grub hub were big fails was a good move.

Future Plans

Rob doesn’t want to return to Disney anytime soon  I will bank our DVC points and hopefully convince him to take a short trip in a little while.

He said Disney was too busy and Genie + was a massive cash grab (which I agree with) but I would still go back!

Our next trip is an Alaska cruise from Seattle in September and then we may go and visit friends in December depending on work and holiday budget.

Rob then wants to do a trip to the Maldives – which I think will have to be at the end of 2023/early 2024 so maybe we’ll get back to Florida later in 2024?

The 3 week Sept extravaganza – which turned into a 2 week trip in June and no cruise! Day 14 - Going home!

Sat 25 June into Sun 26 June

This morning we had our last late start of the trip and we didn’t have much packing to do as we had only opened one of our bags deliberately.

We left the room just before 11 dropping our bags with Bell Services on the way, we decided to venture into the shop at Jambo for the first time.

We also headed out to the viewing areas to see what the Savannah was like at Jambo. I think the selection of animals is better at Kidani (but not on Pembe obviously), but we did see some birds being fed which was good.

We had our much-awaited lunch at Sana’a, having had to cancel our dinner reservation last week, and we checked in and got a window table which was great.

We attracted 2 birds (outside the restaurant) who appeared to be labelled 12 and 14 and they stayed watching us for most of our meal which was amusing.

We of course started with the bread service, which we amended as always to only have naan breads as we don’t like the 2 other breads and they were happy to accommodate.

In a poor choice I chose the vegetable curry with chicken and Rob had a burger which came with chips (not fries).

My meal was really tasty but far too big and Rob thought he was getting fries. With hindsight we should have shared the potjie inspired choices as it would have been a perfect size for lunch.

Rob managed to find room for the African Triple Chocolate Mousse but I was stuffed. Another dessert fail on my part!

We walked back over to Jambo where I bought a few last treats and we retrieved our bags before requesting a Lyft, which caused a tiny issue as it kept saying we were at Kidani – we messaged the driver in the app and all was fine.

The car arrived in 6 mins and cost just under $60 inc tip for the trip to the airport which we thought was very reasonable.

We were flying home Upper Class so had an easy check in – it was literally just inside the entrance which was convenient.

We dropped back our Visitor Toll Pass tag (and have since received our deposit back as expected) before getting in a 20 min + queue for security which was rubbish as always. I don’t understand why it is always such a long queue or why they insist on being so grumpy / rude.

We took the monorail across and then headed straight to the Delta lounge which was busy but we found seats and were able to relax while we waited for our flight.

The food selection was definitely not the same as the Virgin lounge in London but we found some pretzels, crisps and soft drinks while we waited.

Our flight left just about on time, we boarded and had a water (still declining all of those glasses of fizz). Once we were in the air I got my seat turned into a bed (as did Rob) and we settled down to sleep so I’m afraid I can’t comment on any of the food.

We landed at 0645 and were able to quickly leave the aircraft where we were then faced with a massive line for immigration (how does that happen both ways?)

Luckily despite its’ length the line moved reasonably fast and in a miracle I got through the e-gates first time (it’s always a battle as I have to remove glasses and balance everything).

We arrived a few days after the luggage chaos and there were bags everywhere (not piled up, all neatly arranged in rows) and our bags took over an hour to start arriving (apparently due to a tech issue).

We assume due to being in UC our bags (all 3 of them) were literally the first to arrive.

We practically ran out of the baggage hall as we were worried about getting lynched by the other passengers (joke).

We debated heading straight to the car park but decided to stick to our original plan and so we followed the signs to the revivals lounge.

Slightly awkward getting into a lift (there were many people waiting) but we found the entrance and were greeted by a nice host who asked if we would like showers. We did indeed and he allocated us bathrooms to use which was so much nicer than a normal arrival.

Nicely refreshed we sat down to order breakfast, we both had similar choices to when we left 2 weeks earlier.

Feeling like we were normal people and wearing fresh clothes (such a novelty) we dragged ourselves away from the lounge and down to the bus stop.

In a pleasant surprise it was warm out so we waited for our bus in relative comfort.

We got dropped off at our awesome parking space (right next to the bus stop) and crammed all of our bags into our little Skoda.

We started on our journey home and the range looked like we could get home without charging so we passed our normal chargers near Fleet feeling confident.

Well that didn’t pan out so well and as we approached Amesbury we thought we had better stop and top up…..which would be fine had any of the chargers been available. We could have waited but we were impatient so carried on hoping we would make it! (There are no other chargers between Amesbury and our house) 

Well that lead to a very stressful end to our journey as our miles left were decreasing at a faster rate than we were travelling.

We coasted down lots of hills, managing to get a little bit of charge through the regeneration and we turned off the A303 earlier than normal which reduced our mileage and the roads are slower so uses less charge.

We arrived home at 1230 and practically floated onto our drive with about 6 miles left! Such relief!

We did still have a little nap when we got home, but I got out onto the Peloton in the afternoon, did 11 miles towards my challenge and then 15 miles for the next 4 days managing to finish my 300-mile challenge by 30th June!

The 3 week Sept extravaganza – which turned into a 2 week trip in June with no cruise! Day 13 - MK

Fri 24th June

This morning we ventured down to breakfast for the first and only time at the hotel, having packed up most of our things for our final move (we were of course supposed to be returning to Orlando following our cruise).

Rob had an omelette (that I forgot to photo) and some items from the buffet. He made me Mickey waffles using the waffle maker and we both had hot drinks (coffee for me, tea for Rob) plus some orange juice.

I also had a yoghurt and a muffin I think but again forgot to take a picture.

We used Lyft to move to Animal Kingdom Lodge – Jambo House although we had a slight issue when we booked it. We saw the time quoted and assumed it was the time the Lyft would arrive to collect us but it was in fact the time it estimated we would arrive at our destination.

Luckily, we were ready and got an elevator down to the lobby before our car had arrived.

The driver loaded our bags (we had selected an XL to make sure it would all fit) and he took us the short drive to our resort. On arrival we stored our bags with Bell Services and took the bus to the Magic Kingdom.

Somewhere along the way we caved and bought Genie Plus for the day as our first Magic Kingdom day hadn’t exactly been full of rides.

I booked Splash Mountain as our first LL and set an alarm for the next window (it was over 2 hours’ time).

Bafflingly when we were on the bus on the way to the Magic Kingdom we had our room ready notification! We had a value studio so suspected we had been allocated one of the rooms with a parking lot view.

On arrival at the park we headed for Tomorrowland, the Peoplemover was down when we arrived but looked like it was just about to reopen…and it did in fact open a few mins later. 

Tron construction

We took a nice relaxing ride around Tomorrowland and then onto Carousel of Progress again. I was able to book us a 2nd LL and selected Buzz Lightyear and whilst we waited for our window to open we went to bake ourselves in the sun at the Speedway. The line was only 20 mins but it was so hot, and then when we had to wait to ‘return’ our car it was hotter than the sun!

As we had a couple of hours until our Splash Mountain slot we got the bus back to our room to freshen up.

This reminded me why I don’t really like Disney transport, we were lucky and got a bus almost immediately on the way back. We got our luggage brought up and both had quick showers before taking waters with us and headed to the bus stop.

Here we waited 20/30 mins until one arrived and I knew we would struggle to get back in time for our Splash slot.

We got back into the Magic Kingdom and speed walked to the ride, we got there, tapped in and the heavens opened.

The ride was obviously closed and we waited in the line for a while – mostly because it was nice and dry. After about an hour we decided to leave as I had booked us a LL for Pirates so we thought we could see if we could get there without getting too wet.

We managed it and then afterward visited the Tiki Room and the Country Bears as they are both inside 

We then popped into Pecos Bills for a drink while we waited for our reservation at Skippers Canteen.

We checked in on time and in a pleasant surprise were once again seated almost immediately.

We ordered drinks and Rob ordered a starter which isn’t on the online menu, basically they were garlic and cheese balls and they were really good.

For our mains we ordered Irrawaddy Irma's Hanger Steak and "Tastes like Chicken" Because it is! There was a brief issue where the restaurant apparently had an issue with its gas supply, they asked if we wanted to change our choices but we said we would wait and hardly noticed the delay.

For dessert we both had Kungaloosh! which was really good. The manager gave us 10% off our bill because of the delay and we concluded it would have been a bit cheeky to try and get a DVC discount too!

So, our total was $120 with tip and I think this was possibly our best dinner of the whole trip. The food was so much better than I expected for a theme park restaurant, and in fact I think I’d call it our best meal of the whole trip!

After dinner I had a few more LL’s booked so we headed over to Space Mountain as that had the shortest window.

It was closely followed by Haunted Mansion (which is another of my favourites) and as we exited the fireworks were still going so we stopped and watched the remainder from Liberty Square.

We had a Big Thunder Mountain LL from earlier in the day when rain had stopped play so we went to use that intending to leave after the ride.

But we saw the line for Splash Mountain was only 20 mins and as this might be the last trip before the change to Tiana’s ride we got in line and off we went.

Then as a final bonus ride we stopped by Jungle Cruise where the posted wait was 30 mins but the line was very short….it took 5 whole mins and was as cheesy as always.

We headed out of the park with a brief visit to the Emporium and a photo on Main Street.

We were again lucky and there was a bus waiting so we got back to Jambo House at about 2320.