Disney Recap: Animal Kingdom Lodge Resort & Animal Kingdom

If it was a little quiet here last week, it was because I was on a family vacation with my family to Disney and I tried to stay offline as much as possible. We had a great time, even though it was ‘hot as hell’… Shelly’s (The Queen In Between) exact words, because she was in Orlando last week, too! I’ll be sharing a few Disney trip recap posts, since I know some of my readers are huge Disney fans and because I love looking back on these family vacation recap posts. If this isn’t your cup of tea, just skip on over these. Today I’m sharing a little about the resort we stayed at, which was the Animal Kingdom Lodge and our first theme park, which was Animal Kingdom. The photo above shows the kids at the airport, we took this before our flight. We got up at 3:30 a.m. for this bright and early flight!

We arrived at Animal Kingdom Lodge Resort right around lunchtime. We always use the Magical Express, which takes our luggage directly to our resort for us (Yay! No suitcases to lug around with us!) and it delivers us via bus to the resort. We had lunch at The Mara, which was quick service and near the pool. We had lunch here again later in the week on our rest day. I got the Mixed Tomato Flatbread and it was DELICIOUS!

Animal Kingdom Lodge (we stayed at the Jambo House side) has a huge pool! The water was so warm and refreshing. We literally spent hours and hours in this pool.

There was a bar by the pool, but you can’t bring your drinks to the edge or in the pool. I enjoyed a Mai Tai cocktail.

We stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge resort 6 years ago with the kids, on our first trip with them to Disney. We loved it so much that we wanted to stay here again this trip. We got a safari view room, so we could see live animals from our balcony.

Our first night in Disney, we had a rest day and just stayed at the resort. We had dinner at Sanaa for the first time, which is on the other side of the Animal Kingdom Lodge in Kidani Village (just a short mile walk). It has Indian and African infused flavors, so yes… VERY spicy!! We got the Indian Style Bread Service, which includes five types of Naan bread (the garlic was my favorite) and nine dips!

For my meal, I got the Potjie, which includes four pots of your choosing. I ordered the Spicy Durban Shrimp, potatoes, cubes of cheese and scented basmati rice. Very good and VERY, very spicy! Whew!!

Sanaa has a great view while you are dining, with a view of the safari outside. We had a table by the window, which provided great entertainment for us while we dined.

The next day we headed over to Animal Kingdom, our first theme park of the trip. It was incredibly hot and dry our entire stay at Disney. So, we had to duck into a lot of air conditioned stores and stay hydrated! We’re used to it raining in the afternoon when we are at the theme parks, but it didn’t rain once while we were out. The temperatures were close to 100 the entire week we were there, such a scorcher!

This is the second time I’ve purchased the Memory Maker for our Disney trip. It is so convenient, because they have photographers around the park and they scan your Disney band after they take your photo. I don’t even bring my expensive camera on the trips anymore. Plus, it is great for family shots!

I only had one Dole Whip on this Disney trip, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I got this Dole Whip with Coconut Rum at Tamu Tamu in Africa. So, so delicious!

Here is a family shot taken in Pandora, the new area in Animal Kingdom. We saw Pandora for the first time on our last Disney trip two years ago and it is so, so pretty! I love to walk around and admire all of the plants/flowers (even in the hot heat!).

I finally tried the Night Blossom drink at the Pongu Pongu Lounge in Pandora. Everyone has been talking about this drink and the fun passion fruit boba balls in it. This drink is such a beauty, but it was wayyy too sweet for me! Autumn didn’t like hers either… so, we won’t be getting it again! Brian tried a sip of it and agreed it was way too sweet. And, we love sweet! Oh well! 🙂 It made for a cute photo!

Here we are cooling off in a quick service restaurant, we were incredibly hot!!

My sweet girl and I hanging out, she loves to get photos with just me!

We love to try new restaurants (to us) at each Disney stay and this time I booked the Tusker House. It is a character themed buffet restaurant.

I had to stop and take a photo of these beautiful yellow flowers from off of the trees on our walk into Tusker House. I’m not sure what these trees are called.