Day ten & eleven – the move

November 14, 2013 by Carole 4 Comments

While I always hate to say goodbye to the Beach Club Villas as they’re one of my favourite places on the planet, it helps a lot to know that we’re only going down the road to Animal Kingdom Lodge, another beautiful place. As I type this, Stephen is out on the balcony taking photo after photo of several different types of antelopes plus other assorted animals and birds.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Yesterday we didn’t do a lot worth writing about. Mostly we went shopping. We had a delicious lunch at one of our favourite places – Sweet Tomatoes. We always try to eat there at least once when we’re over here as the food is great. I had a reasonably sized plate of salad before investigating the Chicken pot stew with buttermilk biscuit followed by a couple of muffins. The muffins are mini ones and they had pumpkin flavoured ones which were yummy. They had a new coffee from last time we were here. Usually I have the French vanilla but they had a Vanilla  nut which was just as fragrant and smooth.

We shopped at Premium outlets and got things that Stephen was looking for. He wanted some new trainers and a wallet as he was badly in need of both. We managed to get everything he wanted plus the bamboo socks that I like for work that I can only get in the Ecco outlet here.

We stopped off at Hollywood Studios briefly on the way back to do our FastPass+ but only did Indiana Jones and then came away as it was too cold with the strong wind we had last night. I was close to buying a woolly hat at one point.

I had a nice hot spa bath when we got back to warm up, and then did the packing. I was hoping everything would fit in the cases ok and happily it did. Loads of room. Phew.

This morning I just had to throw the last few items in the cases so Stephen could take everything down to the car and then we sat and relaxed until 10.30. It was quite pleasant on the balcony with my Kindle, especially after yesterday’s chill.

At 10.30 we set off for our home for the next week, and were checking in by 11.00. I’d already done online check in and surprisingly our room was ready so we were able to come straight up. We’d expected to just be leaving our cases with Bell services before heading off to do something for a few hours so we were very happy.

While we were waiting for our luggage to be brought up to us, I took a few photos of the rooms. It’s so beautifully decorated and themed here that you can’t help it. This is our living room and kitchen.

Just where I’m standing, so you can’t see it, is a huge squishy comfy chair. That’s where I’ll be sitting to read.

Stephen headed straight for the balcony to see what animals were out on the savanna, but I paused to take a few more photos.

See that chair to the left of the balcony? That’s where I’m sitting now. It’s very comfy. There’s a bedside table to the side of me for my drink and it has the iPod dock on it so I have music on. I can see out onto the savanna and it’s very distracting 🙂

The beautiful theming even extends into the bathroom.

Which ok, you can’t see so well from this photo, but trust me it’s there. Just look at this little detail.

We spent some time on the balcony when we arrived and then went to Mara, our counter service dining area, for lunch. I had a chicken barbecue flatbread and Stephen had a corned beef sandwich, but this was not corned beef like we get in the UK. It looked delicious. We both had the Pumpkin cheesecake for dessert.

Then we went for a stroll round the resort. This has to be one of the most visually stunning resorts I’ve ever seen. The detail is amazing. I’ll share a few photos from around the resort later in the week but for now, here’s a few photos of the animals taken from our balcony and the viewing areas around the resort.

Reticulated giraffe. We took many, many photos of the giraffes but I like this one as he was looking at me.

Roan Antelope and White-bearded Wildebeest. I had several photos of the Roan, but I loved his expression in this one.

Pink Back Pelican. There were a large group of them by the viewing area. I have several photos of individual Pelicans that I like but this one shows the savanna and the resort building off nicely too.

Eland. This chap came for a stroll and lie down practically beneath our balcony so I have several photos of him. He’s a very handsome chap.

Thomson’s Gazelle. These were a way off beneath some trees so I had to zoom right in to capture them. Thank goodness for high res and 12x zoom. Maybe they’ll come a bit closer another day.

There were a few other antelope out there that I haven’t identified yet, plus some other animals but I think maybe that’s enough photos for one post. I apologise in advance for the amount of animal photos you’ll be seeing over the next week. I just can’t help it.

We’re off out in a moment. We’re going to the Hard Rock Cafe to see if I can add a bear or two to my collection.