Club Africana, Drinks Are Free! - Day 9: Pack your bags and leave tonight *COMPLETE*

[Stewboy]

The Index

Wednesday 1st November 2017

"All good things come to an end" as they say, and so here we are on our last morning at Animal Kingdom Lodge, sipping our club lounge procured coffee whilst overlooking the savanna - as beautiful as it was on our first morning here - from our balcony.


That view

As we drank in the view, and the sunshine, a rather uninspiring day lay ahead. With no time for parks, or even a quick shopping trip to Disney Springs, or an outlet, the rest of the day would be mostly packing and travelling.

However, we did have a little bit of time for Isabella to have some fun at least; while Jo packed I took her down to the Uzima Flamingo Pond to participate in one last bead activity. Called the ‘Flamingo Activity’ it involved simulating different birds - including flamingos obviously - feeding from water full of waste. Surprisingly well attended for the 9am start, this involved the kids using combs and bags to try and get the food items and avoid the waste.


Uzima Flamingo Pond








Flamingo Activity

As with all the activities and displays around Animal Kingdom Lodge the cultural and environmental message is well communicated, to both kids and adults, through education and fun - one of the many great things about the resort.

Isabella had her bead, but unfortunately we had run out of time to get them all, so a visit to Kidani Village on one of our future visits may well be in order to earn the three that remain outstanding.

We returned to the room by 9:30am and then all three of us headed up for one last breakfast in the club lounge - our usual smorgasbord of bagels, meats, cheese etc.

Desperate to have a final few hours of Disney fun, we enquired at the airline check-in desk in the lobby as to whether we’d be able to do check-in there; as we were flying indirect we suspected it wouldn’t be possible.

The woman at the desk wasn’t sure, but she was certainly willing to try. After careful consideration we decided it would probably be better not to risk it - we really didn’t fancy any misplaced cases on the way home!

Hopes crushed, we decided there was nothing left to do other than head for the airport.

After one last look over the savanna, under the bed, in the drawers, and in the bathroom, we gathered our cases and left room 4421 for the final time.

Reuniting with our underused hire car at about 10am, we departed Animal Kingdom Lodge full of sadness and memories of a wonderful stay.


"Remember me?"

Despite lack of use, we thought it best to ensure the car was as full of petrol as it could be. We managed to squeeze $5 of gas into it before hitting the I-4 on our way to Orlando International Airport.

We’ve done this drive countless time - mostly full of gloomy acceptance of another holiday over, and unexcited anticipation for the long journey ahead - and this time was like all the others, which I suppose is something to be grateful for.

We pulled into the car drop off lane, unpacked the car, politely declined the porters, ignored the $5 trolley charge, and dragged our own cases towards the terminal building; the one plus side being that as Isabella gets older, the luggage will decrease.

With all the work going on around MCO, the queue for the lifts to check in was far busier than usual.

Jo wasn’t looking forward to check-in as she’d had some stress with seat allocation in the months leading up the holiday. Despite choosing seats together when originally booking online, those seats had subsequently disappeared. Unable to sort this out online, she’d rang American Airlines, who had assured her that according to their system we still had those seats.

She had checked again online this morning, and still we had no assigned seats; additionally there were no more three seats together left.

On the journey to the airport, she was worried that we would be split up - she’d read stories of American Airlines making young children sit on their own, so was understandably concerned.

Checking in to flights is always something that worries us for a variety of reasons; Will we be sitting together? In a three… a four? By the window? In the middle? At the front of the plane? At the back of the plan? What will the entertainment be like? Will there be entertainment? Will it work?! And so on... Fortunately, upon check-in everything turned out well; we got seats together, in a three, with extra leg room, and Jo got to be next to the window.

As seems to always be the case now, passport control at MCO was really busy - getting through this in time is another concern of ours. Fortunately with plenty of time until our (slightly delayed) flight, we were fairly laid back about this, and we were soon heading down to our gate, with time to grab some lunch before boarding.


Random people in an airport queue




There was a Ruby Tuesday close to our gate, so we gave it a try. Jo and I both had burgers and a Sprite; Isabella had the corn dogs.

It was an enjoyable pre-flight meal with a nice view of planes taking off and landing. The waitress was friendly, and asked everyone who ordered an alcohol drink for ID, regardless of how old they looked. I assume this must restaurant policy, as she asked a man who looked at least 70 for ID. Amusing.


Burger

Once our food was finished we made the short walk down to the gate. There was a short wait at the gate, and we were soon in our extra leg room seats and awaiting take off of the first leg of our journey home via Chicago O’Hare International Airport.

The flight took off at 2:30pm and Isabella was tired, so she had a nap. As the plane had no seat-back entertainment, Jo connected the iPad to the onboard wifi and watched ‘Aloha’ - which she describes as a good ‘plane film’, but probably not actually a good film - from the onboard library.


Plane selfie


Orlando (I think)


Sleeping

Meanwhile I watched some more of season 2 of ‘The Leftovers’ which I had downloaded to my phone - after three flights with no seat back entertainment, I was beginning to get used to having to make do!

The time was about 4:30pm when we landed at O’Hare. With about 3 hours until our flight back to Manchester, we had a browse around the airport; visiting Duty Free to buy for spirits for us Jo’s mum, and cigarettes for Jo’s dad.


Lame of Thrones (I mean this throne is lame, not the tv show)

Before the flight home we were going to need some dinner and Chili’s Too looked like it would fit the bill nicely.

For our last alcoholic drinks on American soil (until next time of course) I opted for a Goose Island Green Line Pale Ale, and Jo had a margarita - what else?!

As per the majority of this trip, I didn’t make any detailed notes about what we ate, but I can tell you that Jo had some kind of chicken rice bowl, I had a Chicken sandwich, and Isabella had mac & cheese. In the interest of trying to provide details I checked the Chili’s Too menu online, but it appears to have been updated since then!










Chili’s Too

While we waited for our food Isabella suddenly felt sick. I rushed her to the toilet, but fortunately it was a false alarm. She felt ok again, so we returned to the table in time for our food. It seems to be the lack of sleep combined with the flying that always seems to get her on the way home - hopefully that gets better as she gets older.

It was finally time to head to the gate, through a scene familiar to anyone that’s watched Home Alone (who hasn’t?!). Jo wanted me to ‘do a Kevin’, but it was pretty busy and I’m a miserable old git…


Kevin!

On the way to the gate we stopped at Starbucks, and after another short wait at the gate, we were on board.

We were seated in another three with extra leg room, but again there was no seat back entertainment, and no wifi this time either.

The people behind were noisy with annoyingly loud children - this was going to be a fun flight…

In preparation for the fun ahead Jo had some wine, and I had my last Bud Light of the holiday - it didn’t taste the same outside of the club lounge

In between dozing, and eating the rubbish food, I played some games on my phone, and Jo stared into space!

Fortunately Isabella managed to sleep the whole way home, waking up about 45 minutes before landing.

With all the show watching, and game playing, my phone was in serious need of recharging. Throughout the flight I’d been trying to find the charging port which I knew was under my seat, but with Isabella asleep next to me I’d been unable to manoeuvre myself to reach it. With her awake, I managed to plug my phone in so at least it could get half an hours worth of charge.

We’d saved Isabella a bit of food in case she was hungry, but she was feeling a little sick again - the seat back sick bags came in handy on a couple of occasions!

Finally arriving at Manchester Airport, we we were stuck on plane for a further 20 minutes or so because the jet bridge was stuck or something. Once they eventually managed to sort themselves out, we were off the plane and into the queue at passport control. What followed was an extremely frustrating and poorly organised 45 minutes.

Families were being made to queue as young children aren’t allowed through the ePassport gates like all the other passengers, and there only appeared to be one manned desk. Understandably people were getting very annoyed - nobody wants to fly for 7 and a half hour flight only to be held up for 45 minutes due to poorly managed passport control. The customer service people wandering about were only making things worse by being confrontational and non-apologetic top customers who were obviously asking very sensible questions - one young man definitely needed some lessons in customer service!

To make matters worse people with premium security were being directed to the front of this queue.

Finally we were through and able to pick up our cases, which because we’d been so long had been unloaded and piled up in a corner.

Once we’d located them, we left Manchester Airport, vowing never to return - the drive up there, and the lack of facilities were enough to put us off - the farce at passport control was the final straw!

Finally we were heading off to get the car, which fortunately was only a short walk from the terminal building. As we put the luggage back in the car, we discovered that our car seat had been broken by the luggage handlers - the icing on the cake!.

(We were reimbursed for the car seat without issue by American Airlines within a few weeks).

At about 8:45am we were driving home. The drive was uneventful besides the stop at the Stafford Southbound services, (the nice ones with the fountain) where Isabella was sick in the McDonald’s. Fortunately the rest of the journey home was fine, and we finally arrived home by about 1pm.

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So that’s that, the end of our amazing Animal Kingdom Lodge Club Level stay.

All in all, an absolutely fantastic holiday. AKL is a beautiful resort, with so much to see and do. As I’ve said throughout, and as others have commented, you probably could stay there, not go to the parks, and be entertained.

Staying club level was brilliant. Again, I’ve said throughout that as long as you make the most of it, it’s worth the money - I think we did that. It did mean a few rushed trips to get back to the hotel in time for evening meals, but that was our own fault.

My advice if you’re thinking about doing it, and want value for money, is to make sure you’re ok with eating many of your meals there. We did breakfast and evening most days, although we did have the odd breakfast and dinner out. The club lounge food is really good - it’s the same food as gets served in he AKL restaurants Boma, Jiko, Saana - so it’s good stuff, and it changes every day, so you don’t get bored. The free drinks were also good

We relied on the buses a lot on this trip, something we don’t usually do. The buses at AKL were really convenient, and as there’s only two stops - Jambo House & Kidani Village - it’s quick, unlike say Saratoga Springs were there were 4 or 5 stops and it takes 15 minutes to drive round the resort!
We have talked about not bothering with a car in the future, but doubt we’ll do it (unless this new parking charge makes staying on site too expensive) as it’s so convenient being able to jump in the car and go anywhere you want to if you need to.

The highlights of the trip were definitely MNSSHP - we had great fun, especially with Judy Hopps at the parade - and spending a wonderful day at Epcot with Bambikate and her lovely family - hopefully we get to that again one day in the future.

In summary, we would definitely do Club Level again, and we would definitely stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge again. I highly recommend both to anyone that wants to listen!

So now that this trip report is done, I can direct you to my pre trip report - we leave on Thursday!

Thanks to everyone for reading, and commenting.

The Sears

[Minnie Mum]

Fantastic report. Akl is a fab resort and we loved club level when we last stayed there.
Looking forward to the next one... 😊

[Palm trees]

Sad to have come to the end of another fabulous trip report... although I see from your countdown that you're just about to head off again! Sorry to hear that Isabella was poorly on the way home. Also sorry to hear that you didn't like Manchester airport. We've used it for our last two trips but are going from Gatwick next time (just booked flights at a much better price than Manchester was looking). It's waaay further for us but the price made it irresistible. I don't think I've ever flown (anywhere) from Gatwick before so it will add an extra layer of stress/excitement to the trip. Not sure which, will find out on the day
Have a fab upcoming trip

[margyloveswdw]

Another great trip report that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading. Thank you for sharing you family experiences and putting in the time and effort these reports take.

Off to read your next pre trip!

[l33na]

Great report and so lucky your next trip is imminent. I hate the last day. Your accommodation was gorgeous. Definitely worthwhile making the most of a club room

[mrsdjh]

AKL sounds like a great resort. Glad you had another great holiday and looking forward to reading about the next one pretty soon!

[Jakey Neverland]

Fantastic report, thank you for sharing. Looking forward to reading your next one

[MrsSilverStar]

Thanks for your report. We're off to AKL next October so it was great to read so much about it. We're tempted to upgrade to club, but have the DDP so we'll be drowning in food! Morning mimosas might swing it for me though

Off to read your next pre-trippie now!

[flo-tinka]

Thanks for sharing your adventure again and making us all want to AKL Club level

[jb_82]

Great report. Thanks for sharing, AKL another one to the list for future visits.

Enjoy your next trip!