In 2016, N and I stayed in AKL with my parents and A. We had an amazing time! The full review is here. This time, with N, myself our two girls and N’s parents we had a very different experience.

As I discussed last time, AKL has several room types with corresponding price differences that depend on the desired view. Once again, we knew we would be staying in the room all of Shabbos so we spent extra to get a Savanna view. The Savanna view rooms are special because they provide a view of the animals roaming the Savanna directly from the room balcony.

Sadly, this time, our view was terrible. Some of that was due to the fact that as a result of the unseasonal cold weather, some animals were not out. However, most of it was due to our room location, which was way down at the far end by the pool. As we discovered on this stay, when staying at AKL in a Savanna view, it is worth it to request a room near the lobby as that is where most of the animals are.

We had a few animals but sadly most of the weekend, A kept asking where the animals were and we had to walk down to the lobby to see them. This was extremely disappointing as the Savanna view rooms are more expensive. We could have saved the extra cost and had the same experience of no animal views from our room but plenty from the lobby. I wish we had. This would have been cheaper and less disappointing.

The room was still very nice, but any one bedroom villa at AKL would have been as nice. The rooms are themed very nicely and have spacious cooking, dining, bathing, sleeping and relaxing areas. The shower in AKL is N and my dream shower.

The entire experience was good but not great. It was sad that a stay we had so looked forward to repeating did not live up to our past experience. We definitely plan to stay at AKL again but next time we will be sure to request a room by the lobby, or we will not spend the extra on the Savanna view.