CoolDisneyCat
North Carolina
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2003
- Messages
- 4,676
Hello, CoolDisneyCats DD23 here to tell you all about our (CoolDisneyCat aka, Mom and I) lovely stay at the Villas at the Wilderness Lodge! I already posted this on the Resort board, but I thought y'all might be interested, too. Wed never stayed there before, so it was fun and exciting to stay somewhere new.
We checked in around 1:30pm on Sunday, December 12, but our room wasnt ready yet. We were given the little card w/ the phone number on it and told to call to find out when our room was ready, so we headed off to DTD and Earl of Sandwich (see (insert link) for a review!). When we called the resort around 3 our room was ready! We were really glad, b/c DTD was crowded and we were ready for some peace and quiet.
We had a 1 bedroom dedicated villa on the third floor, number 3514. We rounded the corner from the elevators and there was our room! Mom requested close to the elevators, and boy we got it. It was a non-smoking room, per our request, and shed requested a high floor; 3 isnt high, per se, but she does that just so we wont be on the first floor, so we were just fine w/ the third. J
We had a wonderful, heart-stopping view of the bus stop. Bum, bum, bum. Oh well, I dont go to Disney to stand out on the balcony anyway. At least not when the wind chill is 28 degrees! We were a little concerned that wed be able to hear the busses, but we didnt at all. Occasionally we could hear excited children running down the wooden walkway, or luggage or room service carts being wheeled to the villas, so we were really glad to not be on the first or second floor. Over all, though, it was a pretty quiet stay, and definitely no louder than anywhere else weve stayed. Im just a really light sleeper, so the people walking by in the mornings always wakes me up. It doesnt bother me anymore.
The Christmas decorations were very nice and well-themed. We enjoyed sitting in the lobby and watching the cute children marvel at the huge Christmas tree. The only problem was the lobby could be really, really cold from people coming in and out all the time. And, of course, Whispering Canyon is the loudest place on the face of the earth. Never has a restaurant been so misnamed. We started calling it Roaring Canyon or Screaming Canyon or Whoopin, Hollerin Canyon which, frankly, would be a much better name given the theme. We both preferred the much quieter, warmer lobby of the Villas, where I spent a nice afternoon reading my book by the fire.
On Monday we went to Roaring Fork to get a refillable mug and rustle up some grub, but we were sorely disappointed. Not in the mug though we dont really like the new, smaller design the WL mugs have but in Roaring Fork itself. The Mara at AKL is so big and bright and nice, and we were expecting something at least sort of similar from Roaring Fork, especially considering the grand scale with which everything else is done at WL. How wrong we were. The space was small, dark and way too hot. The selection of food was not very good, and we bought our mug, filled it and bolted. We renamed that restaurant, too: Dark Cave.
We had one rather major disaster during our stay. We usually dont bring a whole lot of clothes w/ us since the 1br villas have a w/d, and this time was no exception. Mom had basically all of her clothes in one load of laundry, and when she went to get them out of the dryer, the door wouldnt open! I tried to open it, too, and I couldnt get it to budge.
We called maintenance, and w/in 10 minutes or so there was a knock on the door. The man knew immediately that the lint screen dohickey had popped up and gotten the door stuck, so he opened it no problem. The issue was that our clothes had become horribly twisted in the lint screen! It was awful! He had to cut the lint screen out of our clothes. The rest of our clothes in the dryer were tied into a knot like a giant pretzel. Ive never seen such wrinkles in my entire life! The lint screen was ruined since he had to cut it apart, so he left to get another one.
Mom emerged from the bedroom to inspect our twisted clothes and discovered that a sweater of hers (one of her favorites) had been basically destroyed. Its neckline had a rather delicate open-weave pattern, and the threads were shredded. When the maintenance guy returned, we pointed it out to him and he radioed to have the head engineer call us, and the phone rang in about 20 seconds.
Mom told the head engineer what had happened, and he said hed have the manager call and take care of it. However, about 2 minutes later the head engineer called back and said hed take care of it. He asked how much the sweater had cost, and that amount was applied back to our bill. He asked if anything else had been messed up, and Mom said she didnt think so, but he told her if we noticed anything else damaged after wed washed it again to immediately call and it would be taken care of. They were very nice about the whole thing, and couldnt have responded more quickly or thoroughly to the problem.
Another (slight but still annoying) problem we had was w/ room service. We got back from MVMCP at about 11:40pm. I looked at the room service menu and it reads as follows:
Um. WHAT is available until 12 midnight? It doesnt actually have a section on the menu labeled Dinners. Theres a box on the right hand side describing the pizzas, and it says theyre served until 12 midnight. Ok, got that. But the rest of it was really confusing, and the main thing I saw was Available until 12 midnight. It was 11:40 and I was darn hungry, so I called room service. I ordered two cheeseburgers (Mom was hungry, too), only to be told (very contritely, Ill admit) that the only things available were cold sandwiches (either turkey or ham) and pizza. We didnt want a cold sandwich, and pizza at nearly midnight just didnt seem like a good idea. I hung up, disappointed and confused. Now, looking at Debs site, I see that she has the pizzas and sandwiches listed in a separate section, but thats not how it was listed in our menu. It wouldve been much less confusing done the way it is on Debs site. Another thing is they dont have room service offerings from 11am-4pm, and apparently from 4-5 again all you can get is cold sandwiches and pizza. Both the BW and Y&B have all-day selections, which is way preferable to us.
Overall we enjoyed our stay at the WL, but we probably wont stay there again. Like it would probably be our 3rd choice for DVC resorts and probably 5th or 6th choice overall. The staff was very nice, but it was really, really crowded even earlier in the week, when the other resorts werent nearly as crowded. Also, for us there really wasnt anywhere to eat. Theres no way we could eat at Whoopin, Hollerin Canyon our noise tolerance is way too low and the menu at Artist Point just doesnt really appeal to us. The food at Roaring Fork/Dark Cave was ok (we did end up eating there later in the week), but it was just so unpleasant to be in there for us. The resort doesnt have room service lunch, and regular room service stops at 10pm, which for us is just ridiculously early. Were night owls who dont like to cook! So, yeah, nice place but not really our cup o tea.
We checked in around 1:30pm on Sunday, December 12, but our room wasnt ready yet. We were given the little card w/ the phone number on it and told to call to find out when our room was ready, so we headed off to DTD and Earl of Sandwich (see (insert link) for a review!). When we called the resort around 3 our room was ready! We were really glad, b/c DTD was crowded and we were ready for some peace and quiet.
We had a 1 bedroom dedicated villa on the third floor, number 3514. We rounded the corner from the elevators and there was our room! Mom requested close to the elevators, and boy we got it. It was a non-smoking room, per our request, and shed requested a high floor; 3 isnt high, per se, but she does that just so we wont be on the first floor, so we were just fine w/ the third. J
We had a wonderful, heart-stopping view of the bus stop. Bum, bum, bum. Oh well, I dont go to Disney to stand out on the balcony anyway. At least not when the wind chill is 28 degrees! We were a little concerned that wed be able to hear the busses, but we didnt at all. Occasionally we could hear excited children running down the wooden walkway, or luggage or room service carts being wheeled to the villas, so we were really glad to not be on the first or second floor. Over all, though, it was a pretty quiet stay, and definitely no louder than anywhere else weve stayed. Im just a really light sleeper, so the people walking by in the mornings always wakes me up. It doesnt bother me anymore.
The Christmas decorations were very nice and well-themed. We enjoyed sitting in the lobby and watching the cute children marvel at the huge Christmas tree. The only problem was the lobby could be really, really cold from people coming in and out all the time. And, of course, Whispering Canyon is the loudest place on the face of the earth. Never has a restaurant been so misnamed. We started calling it Roaring Canyon or Screaming Canyon or Whoopin, Hollerin Canyon which, frankly, would be a much better name given the theme. We both preferred the much quieter, warmer lobby of the Villas, where I spent a nice afternoon reading my book by the fire.
On Monday we went to Roaring Fork to get a refillable mug and rustle up some grub, but we were sorely disappointed. Not in the mug though we dont really like the new, smaller design the WL mugs have but in Roaring Fork itself. The Mara at AKL is so big and bright and nice, and we were expecting something at least sort of similar from Roaring Fork, especially considering the grand scale with which everything else is done at WL. How wrong we were. The space was small, dark and way too hot. The selection of food was not very good, and we bought our mug, filled it and bolted. We renamed that restaurant, too: Dark Cave.
We had one rather major disaster during our stay. We usually dont bring a whole lot of clothes w/ us since the 1br villas have a w/d, and this time was no exception. Mom had basically all of her clothes in one load of laundry, and when she went to get them out of the dryer, the door wouldnt open! I tried to open it, too, and I couldnt get it to budge.
We called maintenance, and w/in 10 minutes or so there was a knock on the door. The man knew immediately that the lint screen dohickey had popped up and gotten the door stuck, so he opened it no problem. The issue was that our clothes had become horribly twisted in the lint screen! It was awful! He had to cut the lint screen out of our clothes. The rest of our clothes in the dryer were tied into a knot like a giant pretzel. Ive never seen such wrinkles in my entire life! The lint screen was ruined since he had to cut it apart, so he left to get another one.
Mom emerged from the bedroom to inspect our twisted clothes and discovered that a sweater of hers (one of her favorites) had been basically destroyed. Its neckline had a rather delicate open-weave pattern, and the threads were shredded. When the maintenance guy returned, we pointed it out to him and he radioed to have the head engineer call us, and the phone rang in about 20 seconds.
Mom told the head engineer what had happened, and he said hed have the manager call and take care of it. However, about 2 minutes later the head engineer called back and said hed take care of it. He asked how much the sweater had cost, and that amount was applied back to our bill. He asked if anything else had been messed up, and Mom said she didnt think so, but he told her if we noticed anything else damaged after wed washed it again to immediately call and it would be taken care of. They were very nice about the whole thing, and couldnt have responded more quickly or thoroughly to the problem.
Another (slight but still annoying) problem we had was w/ room service. We got back from MVMCP at about 11:40pm. I looked at the room service menu and it reads as follows:
Dinners served from 5:00PM until 10:00PM
Available until 12 midnight
Available until 12 midnight
Um. WHAT is available until 12 midnight? It doesnt actually have a section on the menu labeled Dinners. Theres a box on the right hand side describing the pizzas, and it says theyre served until 12 midnight. Ok, got that. But the rest of it was really confusing, and the main thing I saw was Available until 12 midnight. It was 11:40 and I was darn hungry, so I called room service. I ordered two cheeseburgers (Mom was hungry, too), only to be told (very contritely, Ill admit) that the only things available were cold sandwiches (either turkey or ham) and pizza. We didnt want a cold sandwich, and pizza at nearly midnight just didnt seem like a good idea. I hung up, disappointed and confused. Now, looking at Debs site, I see that she has the pizzas and sandwiches listed in a separate section, but thats not how it was listed in our menu. It wouldve been much less confusing done the way it is on Debs site. Another thing is they dont have room service offerings from 11am-4pm, and apparently from 4-5 again all you can get is cold sandwiches and pizza. Both the BW and Y&B have all-day selections, which is way preferable to us.
Overall we enjoyed our stay at the WL, but we probably wont stay there again. Like it would probably be our 3rd choice for DVC resorts and probably 5th or 6th choice overall. The staff was very nice, but it was really, really crowded even earlier in the week, when the other resorts werent nearly as crowded. Also, for us there really wasnt anywhere to eat. Theres no way we could eat at Whoopin, Hollerin Canyon our noise tolerance is way too low and the menu at Artist Point just doesnt really appeal to us. The food at Roaring Fork/Dark Cave was ok (we did end up eating there later in the week), but it was just so unpleasant to be in there for us. The resort doesnt have room service lunch, and regular room service stops at 10pm, which for us is just ridiculously early. Were night owls who dont like to cook! So, yeah, nice place but not really our cup o tea.
Sorry to hear about the dryer and runied sweater and very happy to hear how well you think it was handled. 
