I Got Work to Pay for My Disney Vacation! w/PICS - COMPLETE 11/21 - Last Hoorah at WL

[NorweJenNY]

Pardon the slight delay in updating this report... I had some computer issues and a certain computer company took TWO MONTHS to send a simple part in the mail... arrrrrgh!

Anyhoo... moving right along to the good stuff...


Our First Time at Wilderness Lodge!

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Saturday morning, I had one last conference workshop to attend, so I let hubby and the boys sleep in before they'd check in at Wilderness Lodge!

The anticipation was too much... I don't even really remember what my workshop was about that morning!

Anyway, I got out around 11am, and it was time to head from Regal Sun to the Downtown Disney bus stop... a whopping <5 minute walk...

My most eager anticipated bus ride... pulling up to Wilderness Lodge, where we'd actually be staying for the first time ever! BUT the bus took FOREVER! Considering that the whole week we had virtually no wait for buses, this was the LONGEST wait I had! Ok... so it wasn't really THAT bad... it took every bit of 20 minutes, which is how long everyone says it should take between buses. I must have just approached the bus stop after the last WL bus pulled away.

In the mean time, I got a call from hubby just after he and the boys checked in. We had been upgraded!

They say your chances of an upgrade are better with shorter stays. This proved it!

Let's start by saying I first looked at rack rates for POR for one extra night after our B4G3 promo... no discounts available for that one night! BUT I asked about WL, because I thought I'd seen good deals there... when they looked at standard rooms, the price wasn't so good, but apparently the woods view rooms were cheaper than standard AND the woods view rooms were also cheaper than rack rates at POR at this point in the year! So I already thought I had gotten a good deal...

Well, we were upgraded to a bunk beds room! The kids LOVED IT! And it was right on the first floor, just around the corner from Roaring Forks, and we couldn't have been much closer to the pool either! Awesome location!

Here's some pictures of the room:

Just outside the bathroom...

And yes, those are the H20 Aquatics Shampoo and Conditioners that are FABULOUS! Disney only gives them at deluxe resorts, and my hair never feels as good as when I use that stuff! I can't tell you how much of a temptation there was when I found an unattended maid's cart in the hallway... but I was a good girl!

Patio area...

Hidden Mickeys in the hallway rug...

Outside...

And waiting on the dock (which was also quite a short walk from our room... man, we had a good location!)

And this last picture leads us to the rest of our day... our short boat ride to the Magic Kingdom - one last time (at least for this trip! )

Stay tuned!

 

[NorweJenNY]

Our Last Day at Magic Kingdom!

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Sad... sad that it was our last trip to Magic Kingdom...

BUT...

Glad... glad that it was the most relaxing trip we had to the Magic Kingdom!

We had done the parking cars, and waiting to crowd into monorails before... we'd done the endless bus rides... but such a quick walk from our room at Wilderness Lodge to the boat dock... and we didn't have much of a wait either.

And the best part is pulling up right in front of Magic Kingdom... no long walk from the buses (we always seemed to have the longest walk for the resorts we stayed at over the years)... right to security, through the gates, and in the park!

Well, first things first... we needed lunch... snack credits left... a healthy trip to Sleepy Hollow for some funnel cakes!

Then, given our location, we headed off to...

If you haven't looked at her long enough before, stare at the tombstone of Madame Leota for a minute...

Can you guess what Little Guy's reaction was afterward?

"I didn't like that ride!"



Poor kid... he was just not up for being the least bit scared...

So to make up for it, we decided to do things that he really liked. So given our location, his closest favorite ride was...

The wonderful...

The most entertaining...

With the most memorable score in all of Disney World....

It's a Small World...



(and something tells me that we got there by around 2:30...)

I don't think we ever really paid much attention to the times under the "big moon" before (that's what Little Guy calls the big white smiley circle).



Then, of course the boys wanted the Buzz Lightyear ride, so we started toward Tomorrowland... making a few stops along the way... like this one... which Mommy finally caved in for...

The HOTTEST ride to wait for and ride! Out there in the sun... in the middle of the afternoon... ugh! I hate that! And then your car can only go so fast because it is so hard to control that steering wheel, so your body just bangs from side to side as you keep hitting the track, especially around the bends...

But I did it... and got to experience Little Guy's driving skills for a whopping 30 seconds...

Then I had to steer by reaching over with my left hand (and I'm a righty). That's how we drove the whole time! That's one way of having extra jerkiness!

We continued on into Tomorrowland. I believe Buzz was around a 20 min wait, so we decided to make things easier, we'd just grab FastPasses and stop at Carousel of Progress first.

By the time we finished there... we were ready for Buzz Lightyear... BUT... there was strategy to get onto favorite rides more often, which we had to take advantage of...


(Continued in next post)

 

[NorweJenNY]

We are a family of four, but we got eight FastPasses for Buzz Lightyear...

I remember reading about this on DIS a while back, and thinking... why didn't I think of that?

It depends on your location, and you could do it for different rides too, but after the beginning return time has come for the FastPasses you have in your hand, you can get FastPasses for the next ride you want to do. (I think it's 5 minutes after the beginning return time that you can do this.)

So we snatched our second set of Buzz FastPasses and then rode it with our first set.

Then off to the Laugh Floor again... I love shows that are different every time you see them!

The only problem was that we were the lucky ones on which they shut the doors and said "next show."

So here is a picture of the boys waiting right in front of the just-shut doors...

Then it was time to use our second set of Buzz FP's... here's Hubby with Big Guy...

I rode with Little Guy, and despite his wanting to move us around and around, I still managed to pull off a six-digit score!

And of course... last ride being Buzz, we had to have a sad last ride picture:

It was coming close to time for our ADR at Whispering Canyon in the Wilderness Lodge, so we headed toward Main Street, and the exit... but we were just in time to catch a bit of the parade...

Normally, we're not parade people, and we don't understand people saving spots on the side of the road an hour ahead of time... we had a perfectly fine spot showing up at the last minute!

But I will say seeing the characters in the parade made the perfect ending to our last day in the parks!

But the party wasn't quite over yet...

Stay tuned!

 

[NorweJenNY]

Last Hoorahs at Wilderness Lodge...

Saturday night, July 18, 2009

We took the boat from Magic Kingdom back to Wilderness Lodge...

(The boys like to be goofy... )

I love how much the dock at Wilderness Lodge even makes you feel like that's where you are.

And Big Guy led the way inside...

We had our dinner at Whispering Canyon... loved it! (For complete review, see my signature for my dining report.)

But here's a sneak peak of the good stuff...

When we finished though, we had little ones with potty emergencies... so hubby took them back to our room! Yes, back to our own bathroom in our own room at Wilderness Lodge! (I'm still amazed we were actually able to stay there!)

I finished covering the bill and waited for the doggie bag, then I headed back to the room too.

Now, it was a logical time to kind of wind down, get into jammies and into bed, but it was our last night, and our only one at WL, so hubby and I figured we'd take advantage of the pool.

I don't think the boys had ever been swimming at night before, so this was a treat for them!

Hubby let watched the boys, and I ventured out on the dock a little bit. We could actually see some of the fireworks over the trees from the dock! That was kinda neat. My pictures didn't turn out very good though, except for this really cool ghost boat...

And while hubby had the boys, I also took ten minutes in the hot tub.

Every little ounce of ache or pain from all the walking on this trip just melted away... and it was particularly incredible to be sitting in the hot tub with this view (although it was a bit clearer when I saw it )...

Big Guy discovered that moonlight is not quite as effective as sunlight for drying himself quickly...

There's a reason why he's still so pale...

Little Guy just looked cute drying off... could tell he was tired...

He looks tan, but that's just because he's blessed with Daddy's skin tone. Big Guy and I aren't so lucky.

So I'm sure it was at least 10:30 or so by the time we got back to the room, and we still had to shower off and get in our jammies. It was a late night for the boys, but we all slept very well!

We ate our Whispering Canyon desserts for breakfast, with some hot chocolate from just down the hall at Roaring Forks (soooo convenient)... the boys got a kick outta cookies for breakfast! I was already getting used to cake for breakfast this trip though.

But all good things must come to an end...

More good stuff to come though! Our fall trip report, AND my mom's last minute brilliant idea to go back just before Christmas... for which we actually snagged a studio villa at Wilderness Lodge for a mere $120 for our last night!

You ain't seen the last of this Disney Trip / Dining Review Reporter