It's a time of great change in Central Florida! Universal's Rip Ride Rockit coaster has been delayed by some weeks or months, but Manta at SeaWorld is plowing ahead. In fact, it's open early for test audiences. I hope to have a report for you next week. Ditto the Stitch's Supersonic Celebration at the Magic Kingdom.

Meanwhile, something else new has popped into existence: the Kidani Village Disney Vacation Club (DVC) expansion to Disney's Animal Kingdom (DAK) Lodge is now open, together with its restaurant Sanaa.

Let's look at Sanaa first, which officially opened on May 1. It's operating on a limited basis so far--reportedly just 50% or 75%, as they ramp up to full production while they work out any operational kinks (thanks to Denise from MouseSteps for the heads up). But we didn't see any kinks on our visit. But that's getting ahead of the story.

When we called Disney Dining (407-WDW-DINE) seven days ago, we got an operator who didn't immediately recognize our restaurant's name, but was able to look it up. She then declared she would have to transfer me to a "specialist" to make the reservation--apparently not all of the dining reservation agents have the same capability? In any rate, we got a time slot we wanted for a few days hence with no fuss.

The word "Sanaa" means artwork, our hostess told us as she led us to a table for our lunch reservation, and accordingly, there were pieces of art all over the walls, on the ceiling, and even represented on the printed menus. We liked the atmosphere instantly and instinctively. The ceiling is covered by theming to represent a canopy of trees, booths are divided by low walls made to look like adobe (or mud?), and a light music plays in the background.

It's the perfect mixture of upscale and relaxing, refined yet family-friendly, nice but not too nice. It's low-volume enough that folks might find it romantic or sedate, yet not so somber that families with kids will feel out of place. Frankly, I don't know how they managed that.

I'm not sure if he plans to continue doing so after the soft opening, but every table was visited by the chef on our visit. He wanted to drop by and verify that everything was well-prepared and things were fine. For the record, they were! I've been to several new restaurants at WDW (including the more-expensive Wave at Contemporary), and in my experience, the chef visiting every table is NOT a normal occurrence at Disney.

Let's cut to the chase: the food and the value. We spent $85 (including tip) for two adults and one child. Was it worth it? Yes, though it's neither a breakaway, raving hit nor a ripoff. Here's the full lunch menu (dinner is a touch more expensive):

Appetizers

Salad Sampler: Choice of Three Salads - $6.99

Soups

From the Tandoor Ovens

African Cooking with Indian Flavors

We found the tandoori fish in Naan bread to be light, flavorful, with surprising flavor accents, like the yogurt and the lettuce. The cuisine is advertised as African, with Indian overtones, and that sums up this dish well enough (though if I had to nitpick, it seems to me the menu is more Indian or Pakistani than African). The Naan bread should not be underestimated. I wanted to replicate it at home, but our server gladly shared that the bread is tucked up against the 900-degree clay oven, something I don't have at home, and then peeled off by hand. Besides, I suspect it's not just technique which accounts for the amazing taste. The ingredients are probably beyond my reach, too. There was a minty quality to the bread, but that wasn't all for the exotic hints here and there.

My entrée, the choose-two combo, came with basmati rice and was served in three small bowls. I choose the green curry shrimp and the beef short ribs. The shrimp was tender and tasty in its own way, though I'd rank it as unremarkable. The beef short ribs stood out more for their bold flavor, unafraid to taste like the sauce and away from the beef. It was also extremely soft, almost like a pot roast, though with quite a bit more flavor.

This alone would probably not have sated our hunger, but we had also tried the appetizer sampler. The five cauliflower with tomato sauce was passable, though nothing to write home about. Better were the two vegetarian samosas, which were extremely spicy and offered a mango chutney that we later sopped up with the Naan bread. Delicious! The highlight, though, were the two kefta lamb balls, with tamarind and papaya sauce. No ifs, ands or buts: you must get this when you go to Sanaa.

By far, though, the main attraction at Sanaa is not the atmosphere or the food. It's the view. Most tables in the restaurant have great views out of the bay windows which line one entire (curved) side of the restaurant. And what's out there? Animals!

Unlike Boma and Jiko, the restaurants at the original DAK Lodge, here the animals roam right up to the windows (plus or minus five yards, I suppose), and the views are spectacular.

At Boma and Jiko, the animals are far away, and you can't see them because the pool is in the way. People pay enormous sums of money to "Dine with Shamu"…. Well, here at Sanaa you can dine with zebras, giraffes, wildebeest, ostrich, and Ankole cattle for the cost of your food, but there is no obvious premium price added to the menu. That's an amazing benefit. The animals here are separate from the regular DAK herds (in fact, they are sometimes sent from place to place within the DAK/DAK Lodge community as a form of punishment or banishment for misbehavior, but at least they don't need to be quarantined as they move from place to place, since it's all the same "zoo").

The Kidani Village not only has views of the existing DAK Lodge savanna (now called Sunset), it has its own savanna still under construction, called Pembe, and it's scheduled to be fully open by November 2009.

Kidani Village is not just a set of rooms in the regular DAK Lodge; it's a new building (really, a whole new wing) to the resort. Since cars might be arriving for either location, they built a new security screening station before the road splits from DAK Lodge and Kidani Village, so you only have to go through one checkpoint.

The original DAK Lodge itself has been renamed to Jambo House (which, frankly, grates on my ears) in an effort to pretend that the DAK Lodge concept now stretches to two structures, Jambo and Kidani.

As noted early on, Kidani is a DVC expansion, and thus not targeted at the "regular" visitors at all. It has its own lobby, check-in area, gift shop, and pool/water playground and frankly, I'm impressed, as I'm usually pretty cynical about the DVC offerings.

The lobby is quite a bit smaller than the soaring Jambo House architecture, but that's fine by me. The rooms and hallways feature full-bore theming; this is no mere hotel room. I didn't set foot in the rooms, but they are reported to be nice indeed (and a bit larger than most DVC rooms).

Frankly, if I were a DVC holder, this is where I would want my points. Truly solid theming, amazing views of live animals just outside the balcony, and a tremendous restaurant right there.

The pool is a "zero-entry" pool, meaning its slope is so gradual that young children, older grandparents, and people using wheelchairs can enter the pool with difficulty. A smallish water playground nearby encourages splashing and playing. This would be hard to resist for my kids!

But as a sign that my five brief years in Florida have been enough to mark me, let me finish by pointing out one of the very strongest elements of Kidani Village: covered parking! Like an apartment complex, the structure is actually built on stilts. The ground floor is all car parking, with elevators providing access to the rooms and facilities above.

It was a bit jarring to see those bare carport ceilings, I'll admit, but by golly I was still a fan of the concept of covered parking. If you haven't noticed before, it gets HOT here in Florida during the summer. About all I could say was not "Where's the theming?" but rather "what took them so long?!"

Kevin is the author of many books on Disney theme parks, including:

• Mouse Trap: Memoir of a Disneyland Cast Member provides the first authentic glimpse of what it's like to work at Disneyland.
• The Walt Disney World Menu Book lists restaurants, their menus, and prices for entrees, all in one handy pocket-sized guide.
• Tokyo Disney Made Easy is a travel guide to Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySeas, written to make the entire trip stress-free for non-speakers of Japanese.
• Magic Quizdom offers an exhaustive trivia quiz on Disneyland park, with expansive paragraph-length answers that flesh out the fuller story on this place rich with details.
• 101 Things You Never Knew About Disneyland is a list-oriented book that covers ground left intentionally unexposed in the trivia book, namely the tributes and homages around Disneyland, especially to past rides and attractions.
• 101 Things You Never Knew About Walt Disney World follows the example of the Disneyland book, detailing tributes and homages in the four Disney World parks.

More information on the above books, along with ordering options are at this link. Kevin is currently working on other theme park related books, and expects the next one to be published soon.