***The Official AKV Owners And Lovers Thread***. Come And Chat

As a new DVC member and currently staying at AKV, I’m hoping someone can answer some newbie questions.

1. Can we have towels exchanged during our stay? If so, how; bringing old ones to HK or front desk?

2. There were 2 what seemed to be garbage bags with towels in them in the hall most of today not far from our room, do we place old towels there?

3. If we need other items refilled like soap, shampoo, etc., is there additional fees in having this done?

We are used to non-DVC resorts and new to the differences. Thanks!
 
As a new DVC member and currently staying at AKV, I’m hoping someone can answer some newbie questions.

1. Can we have towels exchanged during our stay? If so, how; bringing old ones to HK or front desk?

2. There were 2 what seemed to be garbage bags with towels in them in the hall most of today not far from our room, do we place old towels there?

3. If we need other items refilled like soap, shampoo, etc., is there additional fees in having this done?

We are used to non-DVC resorts and new to the differences. Thanks!
Welcome home! So exciting to be using your points for the first time. There's a special feeling to knowing that you own that now.

Re #1 & 2:
Towels are exchanged out on the fourth day of the trip as your "trash and towel day". Note if you are only staying 3 nights or less there will be no T&T day.
You can call down to change the day, but in general you only get one set of fresh towels included every 4 days (day 8 is full cleaning which you can also call to change the day on if you are there 8 or more nights.)

The laundry room is free for those staying in the villas. In Jambo it's close to the lobby on the 5th floor. Laundry soap is $1 from the machine there. In Kidani it is next to the arcade and across from the community hall.

You can call and purchase towel packages as often as you'd like.

Additional Trash & Towel Service Rates:
  • Deluxe Studio: $10 per day requested
  • 1-Bedroom Villa: $15 per day requested
  • 2-Bedroom Villa: $20 per day requested
  • 3-Bedroom Grand Villa: $30 per day requested
For emergencies such as someone being sick in bed I've called housekeeping and they've run to the rescue to fix up the situation asap with no charge. Disney's wonderful like this. Any critical care issues and they're on it.

Re #3:

With the change over to wall pump shampoo, conditioner and body wash, you should not be running out. But, if you're looking for more lotion or hand soap you'll need to purchase a 'package' through housekeeping. Take the following only as a guide. they have probably changed:
  • Toiletries Package: $5 - includes 1 facial soap, 1 bath soap, 1 shampoo, 1 conditioner, 1 shower gel
  • Coffee Package: $3 - includes 1 package of coffee, 8 sugars, 8 creamers, 8 artificial sweeteners
  • Laundry Detergent (only in 1-, 2- and 3-Bedroom Villas): $1 - includes 1 box for 1 load of laundry
 
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Hello all! New AKV owners here. Bought majority of our points resale but did do 75 direct with Disney for perks (AP discount primarily). We're actually staying here CL on rented points in less than 2 weeks! We've got our welcome home stay booked for a resort only trip in October. We've tried over half of the resorts and do enjoy others but AKV has always felt like home and now it is!
 


Hello all. I love AKV and we stayed on points in January in a Savannah View Studio on the Arusha Savannah.

Just had our first resale offer accepted and waiting now on Disney. So fingers crossed in another month we will be DVC Owners.

I love that you can get Club level at this resort that was definitely a draw.

Next April we get married and have our honeymoon scheduled from the 26th of April. As we are flying from the UK we have this all booked now on a cash reservation and £100 deposit that however is for POFQ, hopefully if all goes to plan I will be able to book AKL for our honeymoon instead on our first stay as members.
 
Good evening everyone. Does anybody know how many 2 bedroom value lock-off villas Jambo House has in total? I’ve heard it’s not that many and booking them can be difficult due to their limited numbers. Thanks.
 
Good evening everyone. Does anybody know how many 2 bedroom value lock-off villas Jambo House has in total? I’ve heard it’s not that many and booking them can be difficult due to their limited numbers. Thanks.
10 and you'll be competing with everyone looking for studios (though there are 8 dedicated value studios) or 1 bedrooms.
 


Another question, if I was in a party of 5, with 3 of us were in a club level room and the other 2 were in a non club level room would all 5 of us still have access to the club lounge? Sorry if this is a silly question but I’ve seen videos where club level members take guests in with them. Is this something they allow?
 
Another question, if I was in a party of 5, with 3 of us were in a club level room and the other 2 were in a non club level room would all 5 of us still have access to the club lounge? Sorry if this is a silly question but I’ve seen videos where club level members take guests in with them. Is this something they allow?
You'd have to have those who are not staying on your club level reservation added to it for them to have unrestricted access. Remember, for studios and 1 bedrooms the limit is 4 people, not including infants.
As for asking the concierge if you can bring them in, I cannot answer. I've read some reports that say they've been able to bring visiting guests up, but that is really at the discretion of the concierges.
 
Another question, if I was in a party of 5, with 3 of us were in a club level room and the other 2 were in a non club level room would all 5 of us still have access to the club lounge? Sorry if this is a silly question but I’ve seen videos where club level members take guests in with them. Is this something they allow?

They would have to be listed on your reservation.
 
I everyone. Quick question . . . I was able to snag a club level studio for next april. We have used club level before with our points before the extra fast pass thing. Actually it ws during the trial fast pass years ago when I think about it. So a while ago now.

Will I have access to extra paid fast passes if I want? do I just call the club level line like a cash room does? I was just wondering in case we decide to take advantage of it.

Thanks everyone.
 
I everyone. Quick question . . . I was able to snag a club level studio for next april. We have used club level before with our points before the extra fast pass thing. Actually it ws during the trial fast pass years ago when I think about it. So a while ago now.

Will I have access to extra paid fast passes if I want? do I just call the club level line like a cash room does? I was just wondering in case we decide to take advantage of it.

Thanks everyone.

Yes you will have access. You will likely need to call DSS since my experience has been that they don’t proactively reach out to you when staying in the DVC CL rooms.
 
I everyone. Quick question . . . I was able to snag a club level studio for next april. We have used club level before with our points before the extra fast pass thing. Actually it ws during the trial fast pass years ago when I think about it. So a while ago now.

Will I have access to extra paid fast passes if I want? do I just call the club level line like a cash room does? I was just wondering in case we decide to take advantage of it.

Thanks everyone.
As gillep said, yes you should. Note that there are restrictions on these passes, such as minimum number of nights staying, call them to make sure you qualify.
 
I was able to snag December 1-3 in a Value studio at Jambo. It's says Values will be under construction December thru Jan. Will I have a room when I get there?
 
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What is the difference between DVC villas in Jambo House and the Villas in Jambo house you can rent directly thru Disney resort website?

Trying to determine pro/con of renting points or just booking with Disney directly. To me it looks like rooms are in the same area and same layout for 1 bedroom.

Just not sure if the differences between the two routes....TIA......
 
What is the difference between DVC villas in Jambo House and the Villas in Jambo house you can rent directly thru Disney resort website?

Trying to determine pro/con of renting points or just booking with Disney directly. To me it looks like rooms are in the same area and same layout for 1 bedroom.

Just not sure if the differences between the two routes....TIA......


The rooms are one and the same.

The DVC Villas at Animal Kingdom Jambo House are on the 5th (normal villas) and 6th (club level villas) floors.

At each DVC resort, a small percentage of the points [and therefore rooms] are "owned" by Disney and therefore they are able to offer them as cash reservations directly to the public [they also use them to take rooms out of inventory for maintenance]. They become available to book at between 10-11 months out [seems to be somewhat variable and once they start loading available rooms at a resort they appear to load them in batches, so availability changes as they are loading them into the system*] (this contrasts with room-only reservations for the hotel side at WDW, whose rooms can be booked at 499 days out).

In addition, if DVC owners at that resort trade in their points for non-DVC stays such as a DCL cruise, those points become available to Disney to use and they can use them to offer the rooms to the public directly.

At some resorts [not sure about if they do it at AKL], Disney does do things like when they rent 2 bedroom villas directly to the public they are always dedicated 2 bedrooms. I don't know if that is a resort-specific policy or something they do across all the DVC resorts - perhaps someone can speak up about that.

So, the rooms themselves are the same. There will be a difference in the housekeeping services you get [daily vs the DVC pattern].

It really comes down to booking directly versus renting points from an owner and the pros and cons of that.

For our family, although the cost savings is appealing, we are not comfortable with the risks and constraints of renting points, so we have booked our DVC stays directly through Disney.

SW

*I spent a lot of time watching the WDW website and how and when it loaded DVC rooms for the public in preparation for our own DVC stays, so I would know when we could book, etc. Not all resorts load their DVC rooms at the same time. Within a resort, not all the room types will load all at once. There can be over a month of variability from when the "first" resort starts to load its rooms for a given date and when some other resorts do [which when I was watching were invariably the resorts I was interested in!]. And the loading pattern is not set. Which for me meant a chunk of getting up early and checking each day when it came time to actually book.
 
I was able to snag December 1-3 in a Value studio at Jambo. It's says Values will be under construction December thru Jan. Will I have a room when I get there?

I think availability was pulled for dates just after this so I would guess you should be fine...
 
Does anyone know if all the standard view DVC studio rooms at Jambo are pool views? Thanks.
 

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