Spending time at the Resort questions

[Shanti]

Animal Kingdom Lodge

AKL to MK is about a 20-25 minute transfer, plus any time you must wait for a bus. AKL is about 5 minutes to AK, plus any time you must wait for a bus. AKL is about 10-15 minutes from EP and HS, plus any time you must wait for a bus.

So the time to budget depends on which park you're at, and whether or not you plan to hop to another park or go back to the first park. Four hours just for transport will never be necessary if you're staying at AKL, which does not share buses with any other resort. Four hours can be a good amount of time to set aside for the whole experience of downtime at the resort, including transportation, though. It all depends on what you feel like doing. If you're planning to eat at the resort, add time for that. If you're planning to nap or watch a movie on your own portable dvd player, that takes awhile. If you want to swim, that takes a certain amount of time. Consider what you want to do and plan accordingly. It's best to plan your break the day of, since only then will you know what's happening with the weather that day. Yet another reason to set your FP+ for the morning.

The key is to set up your plans to be fairly flexible on days when you take breaks (and it's not like a break is always a necessity). I do recommend scheduling all of your FPs for the morning before your break, then getting a 4th or higher FP for later that evening, when you plan on going back or to another park. Remember, you can schedule your 4th or higher FP for another park using the App, without actually being in that park. Just set the FP for late enough that you won't feel a lot of time pressure while on your break. The idea of a break is to be able to relax.

The biggest disadvantage of Deluxe is the general lack of QS selection,(vs moderate or value food courts) so we find it important to use parks for QS as much as possible.

Oh good point! Thank you. I didnt think of the quick service limitations.

Actually, the Mara at AKL is a really good & pleasant quick service location, one of our favorites at WDW. We used it repeatedly during our AKL stay in April. It's nicely decorated, and also has a nice patio area for additional seating that is shady & you can look out at the pool.

 

[hakepb]

Animal Kingdom Lodge

Nice!
Definitely plan to spend some mid-afternoon time in the Jambo lobby to interact with the cultural representatives. And the night time fireside story telling, and night-vision goggle animal viewing on the safari!

 

[JZCubed]

Hi all. Hopefully the pros here can help me out. We are staying Deluxe for the first time on our next trip. It will be during the summer heat so we are thinking of spending a lot of time at our resort for pool time and to really get the full deluxe resort experience. How do you all balance taking advantage of the resort activities and also doing the parks? I guess I'm just not sure the best way to go about it. Breaks in the middle of the day (what times?), resort all morning/afternoon then parks in the evening or vise versa. My father and sister are coming with us as well and they aren't convinced that Disney can be a great vacation. So They will definitely want to have that relaxing vacation feel mixed in. Any advice for getting a balance of Disney parks and also a relaxing resort vaca would be very much appreciated! Thank you!

Before we ever went to Disney with a young child, I read some touring books that suggested most children only have a 4-hour window before the stimuli needs to change. With that in mind.....

In the summer, we would go to the Parks at Rope Drop and leave on or about that 4-hour time frame.

On most days, we'd go back to the swimming pool.

We would typically have a 'nice' dinner plan - on the early'ish side.

Now what?

If we were lucky, the child had the energy to go to an evening activity back in a Park.

And if at a deluxe resort - there are activities and likely a charming lounge too, instead of more Park time.

 

[abnihon]

AKL is such a great place for resort time! DS could have spent the whole trip there and had a great time. The Kidani splash pad is awesome. They have a schedule of cultural activities where you earn a bead to add to a string with each one. They also have free face-painting and cookie decorating. And of course the animal viewing. We're staying there again in Dec and may end up doing a full resort day especially if warm enough to swim.

 

[nicolej92]

We aren't DVC yet, but you are so right about getting to enjoy the resort! We were going to buy for our next trip but felt it wasn't worth it quite yet as it will be our wedding trip, and we will be running around like crazy!

However, I did stay with a friend's family who owned DVC. We would get up and do the parks super early, come back around noon or 1, swim and nap, and then go back for 5-6 at night depending on what else we wanted to do.

 

[Parker Clan]

We stay at the Grand Floridian & last year found mid day breaks to be key! We go in August every year so pool time is absolutely crucial! We also relaxed in their lobby listening to the Grand Orchestra and pianist. We usually do close to RD, then mid day breaks for several hours, dinner and back to parks for the evening and pool before bed. Plenty of relaxing time! We do plan whole days of rest on our trip too. Have fun!!

 

[mamamelody2]

thats great advice. thank you! I read to plan on 4 hours in travel to take breaks. Is that true? That seems like it would only leave about 30 minutes of pool time to get it all in.

I have read the 4 hour thing a few times, too, but they were talking about the whole break, not just travel time. Generally at Disney the recommendation is to reserve 1 hour travel time each way. It could easily be less, but especially if you need to be there at a certain time, make sure to give yourself an hour just in case.

 

[tinkerbella16]

We spend time at our resort and take midday breaks each day of our trips and it really is wonderful! We are early risers, so we always do rope drop at the parks, leave around 12:30-1pm to relax, swim, nap and freshen up for dinner and we go back to the parks for the rest of the evening. Doing it this way is much more relaxing for us, and we love spending more time at the resort. We go in September when it is really hot, so it is nice to get away from the parks when they're at their most crowded and during the hottest part of the day.

 

[isabellea]

If staying at a Deluxe resort I would reserve a full resort day. We do it even at Values and Moderates sone trips at my kids request. If not possible, I would plan a RD day until 1-2pm or evening only park day and spend the rest of the day at the resort.

 

[chs27]

Thank you! Do you normally try to only do this when there are PM magic hours? I assume 3 hours wouldn't be enough time to be at the park? Or would it?

Yes, pm hours

 

[BOST99]

Like most we did early ours at the park and then back to the resort after lunch. We swam, napped or explored and then went back to the parks around dinner.

We stayed at AKL when my DD was 3 and it was great. If she didn't want to nap (but my DH did) we were able to explore the lobby, visit the gift shop, or go out and see the animals. We found so much to do at the resort we never made it over to Kidani's pool. It is one of our favorite resorts.

We always rent a car, so outside of MK, this does save us time traveling. We have never found that we wasted time traveling - much needed break during August.

 

[jedi jen]

We have taken mostly summer trips when kids are out of school. Rope drop (cooler and no lines) then break around noon for sit down lunch (we stay a deluxe hotel and do DxDP) go back to resort for resort time and then out for evening dinner and parks. This year my DS is 19 and my DD is 15 and they want to go all day rope to park close soak everything in. We'll see how that goes.

 

[BriarRose924]

Thank you everyone for such great information and suggestions! I really appreciate it. I feel much better about things now!

 

[Accidental Magpie]

Do you find making a lunch reservation is best? so you dont waste your morning and night park time dining?

Or - book an in-park breakfast in the 7:00-8:00 range and be ready to go already there for rope drop. have the whole morning, a snack after 12 and head back to resort to swim/rest before returning recharged.

We come for very short visits every 2-3 years. We know we wont see everything and they we will be back. We each (2 of us) have favorites we wish to hit and everything else is gravy.

 

[KittyKitty]

I stayed at AKL last Oct. and loved it. One suggestion is if anyone has walking issues, to request room near transportation and elevators. The halls were long.

 

[gracelrm]

When our kids were young, we always hit the parks early and then came back to the resort for a swim and a nap and then returned to the parks in the evening. It always worked well for us with young children. As our kids got older, it was a little harder to get them up early to get in the parks once they started those "sleep until noon" habits. Now we're back to hitting the parks at rope drop, staying until the crowds are hard to handle and then back to the resort for pool time, relaxing and exploring the resort. Sometimes we return to a park for a few rides and fireworks and sometimes we don't. I like the idea of having some non-park days in the future to just enjoy the resort and relax, as if it were a beach vacation instead of a Disney one!