Hi, Groupies!
We got back Saturday night from 14 wonderful days at the Lodge.
Our room was 4560, and had a partial view of the service area and the laundry "dumpsters" or whatever. But, unlike our last room, it had a balcony and a coat closet, so we were pretty darned happy! Besides, looking straight out from within the room, the view was of trees, so it's not like the view was any sort of real problem. Not to mention how little time we spend in our room! We'd much rather roam the resort or the parks.
We saw Stan a few times, and talked to him a couple of times. What a great sense of humor he has!
When we checked in, the "euro" style washer (in the shared laundry room) was on the blink. That was still the case a week later, when we needed it. We'd called maintenance, but apparently they were waiting on a part. By the end of our trip, though, it had been fixed.
The only other issue we had was with the refrigerator in our room. Every time it cycled off, it would make a knock-knock-knock-knock-knock sound -- very startling at night as you're drifting off to sleep! A call to maintenance took care of that -- within a half hour of calling, they were there, pulled the refrigerator out of its cubby hole, and found that a copper tube was bent against the back of the refrigerator and was knocking as the motor shut off. They put it back into place, and the knocking went away. No problem!
Otherwise, our stay was perfect as always.
One night as we were enjoying the now-silent Electrical Water Pageant (I think it was silent either due to Hallowishes starting at 9:30 or due to the movie on the beach), and a woman came up to us and asked how to get to the boat dock. It seems she and her family had just arrived, and she had no idea how to get around the Lodge, let alone the World. So we showed her the map board and pointed out how to get around. She then had some other questions for us (which we were glad to answer), and during the course of the conversation it came out that she, her husband, their two or three boys (I forget how many, but I do remember that all were under 6 years old), and her father were there for only three days! We feared they'd have a rush-rush-rush vacation in that time, but she said they would only be going to MK in those three days. That's better than the alternative, but I felt sad for her that she and her family would miss out on the other parks. Maybe the next time!
Here's hoping a new Groupie was born while she and her family were there.
Leaving Sunday for 3 nights at BLT lake view with DH before the rest of the family comes down for Disney niece's Wedding in Lake Mary. 
