Good Morning, Lodgers! Well, we made it to the lodge last night and it TRULY is beautiful. All the pictures I have seen....it looks just as amazing as I had envisioned!
All the CM's are kind and helpful, as always. I thought I would give a bit of info on our experiences, so far:
1. Stream/waterfall project: still no water flowing.

I said a little prayer when we pulled in last night that we would in and it would be going, but it wasn't so. The tree blockade is still up in the lobby surrounding the bridge - but, other than that, we have seen zero signs of work. No workers, no equipment, etc. I will ask later today if there is a completion date update and will also see if workers appear later today.
2. Room request: We had originally requested a "bear face" room and I had even called 5 days ahead to confirm the request was still noted. We were not granted our request. We are in room 4125. This is a courtyard view room and still looks directly out over the the pool at Bay Lake. Beautiful.

. The rooms are good, the decor is really cute (love the woodsy character tiles in the shower!) although the rooms are a bit smaller than other deluxes- which we knew and expected. It works for us though!
3. Magical Express: we arrive at MCO last night at 6:05 pm and by 6:30 we were the first people on the ME. We had to wait another 30 (torturous! Lol) minutes for others to board and the ME to depart. It took 42 minutes to arrive at WL. We were the second stop and the drop off order was: Fort Wilderness, Wilderness Lodge, Grand Floridian and Contemporary.
4. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the boat to MK! Can't say that one enough!
This morning, we are on our way to Hollywood Studios for EMH - a little later than we had anticipated. It was a late night at MK (returned to the room at 12:20 AM)! We waited just over 20 minutes for a bus this morning, it arrived empty but our stop filled it up! It was direct service to the studios. Check in again later!