Hi Stacy,
My family loves to travel with other families to Walt Disney World. We find that we have fun enjoying the magic that Walt Disney World has to offer with a large group, which often allows guests of all ages to explore with others close to their own age. You are considering two great resorts.
Disney's Animal Kingdom Villas - Jambo House is exotic and beautiful, with amazing animals to see from nearly every window.
Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa is relaxing and lovely.
It sounds like you are considering a three-bedroom grand villa. The grand villas sleep up to 12 guests and would therefore accommodate your entire party. The other option would be to stay in two villas, and how you did this would depend on the makeup of each family. For example, if you have one family of four and one family of eight, you could stay in a one-bedroom villa and a two-bedroom villa.
As to which accommodations are right for you, it is going to depend on your traveling party. When we visit Walt Disney World with another family, we often are visiting with a family who we do not get to see very often and want to maximize our time with. Therefore, we typically choose a setup where we can all be together, which in your case would be the three-bedroom grand villa. If you think that it might be good for each family unit to have their own space, then two separate villas might be a better choice. Another reason that you might want to consider two separate villas is that this way, you would have a full kitchen in each villa, as well as a washer and dryer in each villa, instead of just one kitchen and washer dryer in a grand villa. This is assuming that each party is in a one-bedroom or larger villa.
Please do let us know if you have any further questions, Stacy!