Picnic at Animal Kingdom Lodge?

Since I only have a mere two months until I can make my first ADR, my mind is on food/dining.

On one of our rest days I thought we’d check out the AKL. Maybe spread out a blanket where we can see some animals and have a picnic. We will have a car and will be grocery shopping more than once. We also drive to FL. I looked into the AKL dining and I’m not interested. It seems like something I’d be interested in only if I were trapped in the bubble. That had been what started the AKL idea, though.

Is this possible? Not worth the bother? What say you?

I also see on the schedule that the AKL rest day would be three days after the AK Trek. So, maybe we’ll be tired of animals by then. Is it worth wandering around the grounds? Do you see animals? Or is it just hotel grounds?

Problem is, if we don’t do that, I’ll have this empty square on our schedule. You understand the problem. Maybe it will help if I say what our other rest day activities are, so you can suggest something we’re missing (assuming AKL isn’t worthwhile).

Arrival Day (Sat): Toppolino’s late breakfast and pool time. We are always tired when we arrive.
(Wed): DiveQuest afternoon and Hoop De Doo for dinner. So, cool that DiveQuest can be done on a non-park day.
(Sat): Last Trattoria breakfast and pool time
(Wed) Explore AKL and pool time
We could also do something at the end of the trip. Friday will be our last park day, but we don’t absolutely need to leave until Sunday noon. Likely we will head home Saturday evening. So, a rest activity not involving the pool might be nice.

I am assuming that the DiveQuest and AK Trek will be back by then. They have to be high-profit add-ons.

I’m very doubtful the special tours and especially divequest will be back in 2 months. Honestly it’s unclear if they plan to bring any of it back at least identical to what it was before and not exorbitantly more expensive.

AKL has some viewing areas for the animals but not sure about having a “picnic”. They also don’t want people food to accidentally get to the animals so they tend to sort of discourage eating right next to the savannah.

A good activity at akl is to do the scavenger hunt they have it at the front desk.

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There are some viewing areas with chairs/rocking chairs but I cannot think of any picnic appropriate areas.

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Well, the trip isn’t until Feb. It is two-ish months until I can make ADR’s.

Yeah I’m just really not hopeful, they haven’t brought behind the seeds back yet and that would be easy to keep distanced. Putting people into shared scuba suits seems way out there.

AKL has three or four savanna overlooks, the best is outside the lobby(lower level) of Jambo.

I used spend 20-30 minutes before dinner, at Boma, on arrival day.

Even if you went to all of the overlooks, and looked around the lobby, I think it’s less than a half day activity, but enjoyable.

Well, I guess if they don’t bring the AK Trek and the DiveQuest back, that will save me some serious money.

I just googled the AKL hunt, which of course brought up all the resort scavenger hunts. Old info, but some of them look interesting.

QS or TS takeout somewhere in the lodge or even poolside, yes. Picnic as you describe here, no.

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You could bring your own food and eat it in the Kidani Village Library which exits onto an animal viewing area with rocking chairs. You could do that and then join some of the resort activities, which often bring in cultural elements, and walk some of the “on the ground trails”.

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Are they currently allowing people onto AKL property that aren’t staying there and aren’t eating at one of the restaurants?

I know you can get in by Disney bus from one of the parks, but not sure about private car?

I don’t know, good question. If we had done a picnic we would have used one of those pop-up wagons. But, since we aren’t we’ll just fit everything we need in the backpack. At the moment, I think we’ll do a resort/scavenger hunt day. So, we’ll park someplace convenient (and we’re allowed) and I’ll figure out a route. We also might be staying on-site. So, now my mind is going to cool things to do at the resorts. (and as usual I’ll have to research both what is available now, and what used to be available and therefore might be available in Feb)

Didn’t there used to be a animation thingy at one of the resorts?

Also, isn’t the Poly an Iconic place to get a Dole Whip?

In slightly related news, I looked into the Holy Land Experience in Orlando. I’d vaguely put that on a list of interesting things to do one day. We haven’t done it the last four times we’ve gone. But, it is closed now.

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Yes! Aloha Isle! That would make a fun stop!

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In addition to Aloha Isle, you can get dole whip adult beverages at the Poly pool bar. It has an ungated serving window on the dock side.


We do drink, but not while we’re in the sun. Last thing I need is something to dehydrate me.

I’ve heard that there is an orange dole whip. We love us some orange. Pineapple is a close second, so that is obvious. I wonder if they’ll come out with a POG Dole Whip? I’ve never had POG, but it sounds awesome. Of course I’m cheap, so I might buy some Pineapple, Orange and Guava Juices to keep in the hotel.

At the moment, with my mind on Disney food, I am making a mental list of worthwhile Disney food. By worthwhile I mean competitive with offsite food in both quality and price. The exceptions are characters and iconic stuff. So, we’ll be getting some Mickey Ice Cream and I won’t complain that Blue Bell is better.

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That price thing is a bit of a hurdle for Disney. I found some really good offsite food in Orlando. But there is typically a trade off in proximity. Since you’ll have a car, there are so many good offsite options.

Touring plans has a fairly up-to-date menu search tool so you can do things like “find me all the dole whips!” Just doublecheck in the Disney app to make sure things haven’t changed.


Oh, man, that looks so awesome!
I remember using something similar at USF our first trip (I think)

We’ll be taking mid-day breaks all or almost all days and will have our car so we’ll be driving to the parks except if we are on-site for MK. So, easy enough to stop off on the way to and from.

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