A Mother/Daughter Animal Kingdom Lodge Adventure

[kcbutterfly]

My mom and I stayed at Animal Kingdom Lodge club level from 6/28 - 7/1. We attended Harambe Nights and did the sunrise safari. We visited Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom. I had only been to Disney once before back in 2000.

Getting There/Daytona Beach​

We left on 6/25 and made the drive down from a little over an hour north of Atlanta to Daytona Shores. We stayed at the Hyatt Place. It was excellent and I would highly recommend it! If anyone has any specific questions about the Daytona Hyatt, I would be happy to answer there. We stayed there until 6/28.

We had a great view from our 10th floor balcony and saw beautiful sunrises over the ocean in the mornings.






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More views from the balcony:​

We had never been on a beach where you can drive on the beach before. It was funny seeing this driving down the beach:
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[LuvEeyore]

Joining the fun.

 

[jenninaustin]

Ooooo! I'm so excited and following. My dream is to go to AKL - and I'd especially love to do that with my mom! Sounds like your trip was my dream trip for sure!

(Although I sure had fun on ours too....)

 

[kcbutterfly]

We arrived at Animal Kingdom Lodge at around 11:30 on Saturday, June 28th. I had gotten an email saying that I did not have to check in. They were just going to text me our room number. I had requested an early check in when I did online check in so I was hoping that we would get a text soon after we arrived. We ate lunch at Mara. Then we walked around and took pictures waiting for our room to be ready. We were blown away by the details in the lobby and around the resort!

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[kcbutterfly]

Thank you LuvEeyore and jenninaustin for following along!

 

[kcbutterfly]

It got to be around 2:00, and we decided to go ask about our room. We went to the online check in desk. They told us our room wasn't ready yet, but they had someone escort us up to the Club Level and complete the check in process. I guess in hindsight we should have ignored the email and gone straight to the check in desk? We enjoyed some snacks in the Club Level lounge. Then we wondered around some more and eventually made it back to the Club Level lounge. By this time it was almost 4:00. We were anxious to get in our room because we were going to Harambe Nights that evening. We went and asked about our room at the Club Level desk. She told us our room was ready, but it had not sent us a text. Not sure why. We were glad to get in our room. It was gorgeous. We freshened up a little bit then headed over to Animal Kingdom for Harambe Nights! We had to wait around 10 minutes for a bus, and we were at the park a little after 5:30. There were CMs with Harambe Nights signs welcoming guests. We received a cheetah wristband and our program for the night. ​

Of course we had to stop by the Tree of Life for some photos. It truly is a beautiful sight seeing it for the first time in person.​

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We had FP+ to meet Mickey and Minnie between 5:30 - 6:30. You can't go to Disney without a Mickey and Minnie picture, right?


We stopped for a Photopass picture before heading into Harambe nights.
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[LuvEeyore]

Great updates.

We are staying at Kidani in a deluxe studio to celebrate the big birthdays
Morgan age 20 in October before we go and my Goddaughter. Mom(my mom) will be 80 in April 2015 and I will be 50 while on the trip. I guess you can say we are having another mother/daughter/goddaughter trip. We are traveling Jan 1-9 because Morgan is out of school and she will have had 3 weeks off already and had the holidays at home with her family.

You look like you are both having a great time. Mom Morgan and I love hanging out together as it looks like you both do.

 

[JennK20]

I'm in, I'm headed to Kidani in just 6 months!

 

[kcbutterfly]

Harambe Nights
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We entered the Harambe Nights area at around 6:40. I should have known from reports that they would actually start letting people in at around 6:30. I trusted the CMs though who said the area wouldn't be opened until 6:45 or 7:00...By the time we got in, all of the tables for the appetizer/welcome reception portion were taken. We finally did snatch a table immediately before they announced the theater was opening. Food and drink stations were plentiful during the appetizers. It was just the tables that were an issue. The appetizers were very good. My favorites were the Safari Cheeseburger rolls and the Picked Fennel Paneer Cheese. I enjoyed these more then some of the food later in the evening. It was hard to eat too much in the heat and humidity though. While we were finishing up our appetizers, they announced that the theater was opening. We lined up in the cheetah section and soon made our way into the theater. We had a somewhat obstructed side view from our seats, but it was ok. To be honest, I was a little disappointed in the show itself. It was good, but it didn't blow me away. I thought there too many movie clips, and they didn't seem to make full use of all of the talent that was available. My mom and I both enjoyed Festival of the Lion King much more the following day. After the show, we made our way outside for the street party. There were food and drinks everywhere you looked, and the atmosphere was amazing. It was also extremely nice that CMs were walking around with trays of cups of water. The food was good, but some of it was very spicy and rich. It was fun seeing the characters out mingling. At around 10, we made our way to the buses. We saw the Tree of Life lit up, and it was beautiful. My mom and I decided to go to the area that we had viewed the Tree of Life from earlier, and we actually saw the "magic" of how they lit it up. It was completely by accident. We honestly didn't mean to go somewhere we shouldn't have. Overall, I am glad that we went to Harambe Nights. It was a very unique experience that you couldn't get anywhere else. We made our way back to the bus and to Animal Kingdom Lodge. We had a Sunrise Safari in the morning!

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[kcbutterfly]

I'm in, I'm headed to Kidani in just 6 months!

Thanks for following along.