"I"m Only Going Because My Teacher Told Me To" Nov. 2016 PTR * update 12/2 TRIP REPORT STARTED! *

[Jfsag123]

Welcome back! Glad you had a great trip!

 

[kittylady1972]

WELCOME BACK!

I can't wait to hear all about the trip and any changes you may be making, especially for November.

Hopefully your ticket upgrades went fine as well since I'll be doing that too!

 

[ALEXandFAB]

So happy you had a fun kid-free trip! I'm curious to learn more about your planned November trip changes. And a dining report sounds

 

[ariane37]

Arrival Day! part 1​

I'm going to try scaling down this TR from a "regular" TR, just so I don't bore you guys. I'll start by saying staying at a hotel in Hartford Friday night was really a good idea. I think I got a little more sleep than I would have if we stayed home, and the hotel was literally 5 minutes from the airport so we left 10 minutes before we wanted to be there. The airport was easy to find and get through, and we were quickly sitting at our gate waiting. We did have a 15 minute delay due to some weather they were apparently having in Puerto Rico where the plane was coming from, but we landed right on time. Waited a little longer than Steve would have liked for ME (he is a total cranky-pants and gets a little pouty boy look on his face whenever we're waiting for any Disney bus) but eventually we were on our way. I wanted to get a better shot of this because the Gaylord Palms comes up a lot on the boards around the holidays, but this is the best I could do:



The front of it, which I didn't get a shot of but saw very well, is really impressive. During the Christmas season they do some type of huge ice sculptures here and apparently a character meal? From the outside the resort looks gorgeous.

After stops at the Poly and GF we were finally at our destination - the Wilderness Lodge!! It was about 12:30 and our room wasn't ready yet. A really nice CM, Gloria, saw we had requested high floor and said she'd call to see if anything high was available right then-but would we take something on a lower floor? I really wanted a high floor with a chance for a MK view, which I mentioned, so I said we'd wait. She called anyway and nothing at all was ready, but she said she'd do her best to get us what I wanted We were starving so we grabbed lunch at Roaring Forks (saving pictures for dining report) and decided to take in the resort. We'd been there once a few years ago to eat at Whispering Canyon but that was it, and Steve had no recollection of that.

I will now bombard you with pictures of the beautiful WL, which if you don't figure out after I've posted them all, we loved:

We went out a side door of the lobby and worked our way counter-clockwise:


Swimming pool! It was.....not chilly today, so quite a few people swimming


Here you can see the slide a little better. The beginning of the slide is at the top of the rocks where the little boy is

Construction wall/scrim walking back around the side of the pool kind of behind Trout Pass pool bar which is directly to left in pic behind pool:


Trout Pass pool bar, wall above is to right:


Made our way around to the geyser which goes off every hour on the hour. Starts off low and shoots pretty high!


Kids splash area. This I actually took on our last night which is why it's a little darker outside. For anyone considering a stay there with little ones, possibly next June The pool is in front of the splash area and the geyser is almost directly behind


After watching the geyser we continued down the path and came to the boat dock, which I took no pictures of. The boat going to MK happened to be there so Steve said we should hop on for a ride since our room wasn't ready. Man, let me tell you how convenient having this boat is! And the ride is so relaxing; you get a breeze but not a WIND where your hair is whipping around your face. And it's very pretty, especially passing the resorts all lit up at night. Our captains were always friendly and usually gave us all some trivia questions, also. I had no idea 3 of the "islands" you pass had names! Not the old Discovery Island or where River Country was, but Shipwreck island and 2 other names which of course escape me now. One of these islands is where fireworks are sometimes shot off from for special events like NYE and 4th of July.
We got off at MK and were going to go to guest services to upgrade to AP's - except that the bag check line was the most outrageously long line we'd ever seen in all our trips, and when we walked to where we could glimpse the GS line it wasn't much better! So we hopped on the monorail and rode around, stopping at the GF just to walk around a bit. Decided to go to Epcot, got off at the TTC and got the text our room was ready so decided to head back! May have been a waste of time but I had an issue I need to take care of. Um, I was wearing this really cute and 100% comfortable dress from Kohl's for the first time. It was a mustardy-yellow color, gauzy material, and my, panties, were black. While in the airport ladies room I noticed you could completely see through the dress! I'm not a prude at all but I AM 45 and while I wouldn't have cared 20 years ago, I don't think anyone would line up to stare at what's under there anymore........but I felt like everyone in the airport, the resort, on the monorail etc. was staring. So I really wanted to get changed lol and we were both anxious to see where our room was and what the view looked like. So back to MK we went, grabbed the boat and walked to the 5th floor (yay!!!) room 5016......

UP NEXT: WHAT DID WE THINK OF OUR ROOM AND MORE INSIDE PICS!

​

 

[fallonkendra]

The Wilderness Lodge looks so gorgeous! I think I might have to add it to my maybe one day list...

I laughed at your story of your see-through dress! I would have been the same, trying to get into the room to change as quickly as possible!

Can't wait to see your room pictures!

 

[ariane37]

WELCOME BACK!

I can't wait to hear all about the trip and any changes you may be making, especially for November.

Hopefully your ticket upgrades went fine as well since I'll be doing that too!

Ticket upgrade worked out fine! We ended up doing it at MK guest services after all when the line wasn't quite so scary lol. Definitely know beforehand what you should be paying, though.

So happy you had a fun kid-free trip! I'm curious to learn more about your planned November trip changes. And a dining report sounds

Kid-free trips are totally different than the ones with the kids in many positive ways! There are always times though when I see a family with boys' my own kids ages and miss them. But then we see and hear meltdowns and that fades quickly!
I will definitely explain my changes for Nov. and why. For now I'll just say the kids aren't the only ones you have to keep in mind when making your touring and eating plans

The Wilderness Lodge looks so gorgeous! I think I might have to add it to my maybe one day list...

I laughed at your story of your see-through dress! I would have been the same, trying to get into the room to change as quickly as possible!

Can't wait to see your room pictures!

The WL was truly gorgeous, during the day and at night. It has a relaxing atmosphere much like we found at AKL but with the added convenience of 2 modes of transportation, being so close to MK and that in turn putting it close to the monorail resorts if you have plans to visit or eat there

 

[Raeven]

Oh yes we were looking into maybe visiting the Gaylord Palms in December it sounds interesting.

The Wilderness Lodge is so pretty I want to stay there sometime next year. (Although we haven't even visited it yet but we will in December).

Oh no see through dress I would've wanted to take care of that too. At least you noticed it early in the day.

 

[Saphire5742]

I've been slowly catching up during work downtime on your PTR. Finally all caught up.
I have to say I love your title, although I can't say that I can at all relate. It's funny though.
You have a lovely family.
And I absolutely LOVE all your Disney apparel. I wish there was more of that where I live. I'll need to remember to send you a message next time I'm in NY (which won't be for another year) for a list of which stores to check!
So jealous that you got to stay at WL. Didn't have time to explore there during my last trip (added to the next time list). Love the photos you shared and hope there's a lot more to come.

 

[MamaMeggie]

While in the airport ladies room I noticed you could completely see through the dress! I'm not a prude at all but I AM 45 and

I am so glad I'm not the only adult these things happen to. I'll be 40 in December and a few months ago I managed to leave the house in a bright orange bra that you could see through my top.

 

[kclark9830]

Welcome back! WL looks fabulous. I would love to stay there, and I can't wait to follow along this mini TR .

 

[ALEXandFAB]

WL is beautiful! It reminds me so much of the Grand Californian Resort at Disneyland

Can't wait to see your room!! 5th floor

 

[Jenny Sanders]

Your trip sounds like it's off to a great start!! I can't wait to hear what your room was like. We are heading to St Pete tomorrow (just me and the hubby) and I CANNOT wait!!!

 

[kittylady1972]

I loved the WL the time we stayed there, but we only had one or two nights there and it was way too short to enjoy it. I'm hoping once the DVC expansion is done I can plan another stay there, maybe next October?!

 

[ariane37]

Arrival Day! part two​

On our way back to the room from the boat Steve though he figured out which rooms would have a MK view. I'd read here on the WL thread that some current standard view rooms that used to have trees blocking the view of the castle now had a clear view due to trees being cut down for the construction. Well, you can imagine how excited I was when I opened the curtains and saw this view looking down.....


Because this was our view looking straight out!!!!


Woohoo!! I don't know if Gloria had anything to do with it or not, but we totally scored on the room location. The Contemporary is just off to the right and we had a perfect view of the whole resort. Sadly I'm pretty positive once the construction is all done that this room and others with similar views will be upgraded to TPV, thereby increasing the room rate. But for now we were going to enjoy it! Also loved the view of the lake.

Actually we loved everything about the room. Steve was even impressed and he has been fighting me on staying here for the last couple years! Because his listening skills aren't the greatest he was under the impression WL was "far away" from everything......whatever. Here are the couple interior pictures I took. For whatever reason Steve loved the headboards and lamps (I did too)

Nice little touch:


Then these guys were on the wall in the shower. Chris thinks this is awesome!


The theme is rustic in a way but not too woodsy or boonies feeling, but very relaxing like AKL is. Sorry I didn't take any more of the room! But I did take a picture of the cute pins they gave us as a little "please excuse our mess" gift:


Christopher really likes these too lol. I think it's a nice offering even if you don't pin trade. Honestly the construction didn't impact our trip at all. Even if our view straight out hadn't been of the castle but our view down was still a muddy mess, it wouldn't have impacted our enjoyment. Elsewhere around the resort nothing we wanted to do or needed to use was impacted. On our last day I took some lobby pictures showing how they've closed off the south side of the resort but it took me until that day to realize the differences on that side.
Once the excitement of scoring a TPV room at a moderate resort price wore off a bit, we started thinking about dinner. It was nearing 5:00 and we were getting hungry again. My original thought had been to try Il Mulino, and when I checked online around 3:30 they had some times available. So I jumped on the app again - and nothing We settled on Citricos at 5:50 which was fine with us as we loved it in January and it would be a simple boat ride + monorail ride to the GF. We changed quick into our "fancy" clothes and walked outside to some drizzle, which made us decide to take a bus instead of the boat (Steve makes me take these selfies)


We had a little time to spare and took a look at MK bag check again, thinking we'd quick do our upgrade. It wasn't that bad so we went through and got on the GS line. About 8 people in front of us. Eleven minutes later there were still 8 people in front of us, so on the monorail we went. Just like January our dinner was fantastic! So was our server, Adrian. We saw our server Rony from January who was the best and almost asked to sit in his section. Back then I was wearing a black skirt and when he noticed, he switched out my white linen napkin for a black one so I wouldn't get lint on my skirt. He had made great meal suggestions and Adrian did the same thing. I'm still planning to start a dining report so I'll save the pictures and descriptions for that, but I'll say that I actually ate something with peas in it for the first time in about 33 years!

After dinner we were finally able to upgrade to our AP's. It was only about 8:00 so we decided to go in to MK. I didn't feel like getting on the app to make any FP's so we figured we'd just see what had short waits, which wasn't much! Remember two of our favorites were down for refurbs, BTMRR and IASW. We decided on another one we both love


And then it was back to the resort! We'd been up so early that morning and I was looking forward to watching Wishes from our balcony at 10. Again we took the boat back and it was SO pretty at night. So right at 10:00 we walked outside our room and watched this:








And finally


I know they aren't the greatest fireworks pictures but you get the idea. We've had views of Illuminations from our BW rooms and even a slight view of Wishes from one of our BW rooms last year, but this was by far the best view we've ever had! With that we ended our first day.

UP NEXT: LET'S GET TO A PARK!

 

[Raeven]

Well, you can imagine how excited I was when I opened the curtains and saw this view looking down.....

We had a really bad construction view at Cabana Bay last year, but like you say later on the view really didn't impact our enjoyment levels at all. We had a pretty nice view at Pop Century (well the end of our room row did), but we didn't use it once since we were in the parks so much.

Then these guys were on the wall in the shower. Chris thinks this is awesome!

The shower is so cute!

The theme is rustic in a way but not too woodsy or boonies feeling, but very relaxing like AKL is. Sorry I didn't take any more of the room! But I did take a picture of the cute pins they gave us as a little "please excuse our mess" gift:

Those are so cute too. Disney is the best.

We decided on another one we both love

 

[ariane37]

Oh yes we were looking into maybe visiting the Gaylord Palms in December it sounds interesting.

The Wilderness Lodge is so pretty I want to stay there sometime next year. (Although we haven't even visited it yet but we will in December).

Oh no see through dress I would've wanted to take care of that too. At least you noticed it early in the day.

I hope you do visit Gaylord Palms because then I can see the inside in your TR!
You'll be visiting it at what I've heard is the best time. We've seen all the deluxe resorts decorated for the holidays except WL and I hear it's the prettiest. We're making a point to visit in November
Ha Ha I wish I'd noticed the transparency of the dress when I tried it on in the store!

I've been slowly catching up during work downtime on your PTR. Finally all caught up.
I have to say I love your title, although I can't say that I can at all relate. It's funny though.
You have a lovely family.
And I absolutely LOVE all your Disney apparel. I wish there was more of that where I live. I'll need to remember to send you a message next time I'm in NY (which won't be for another year) for a list of which stores to check!
So jealous that you got to stay at WL. Didn't have time to explore there during my last trip (added to the next time list). Love the photos you shared and hope there's a lot more to come.

Hello and Just an FYI my stupid multi-quote function doesn't work on my computer so I know how to use it - but can't
Thank you for the compliments on my title and family! And glad you like my clothing. I will definitely give you a list of the good places to find Disney apparel when you visit NY
Keep a visit to WL on your list for next time! I'm truly shocked at how much we loved it and how comfortable we felt there.

I am so glad I'm not the only adult these things happen to. I'll be 40 in December and a few months ago I managed to leave the house in a bright orange bra that you could see through my top.

so funny about your bra! Normally I notice if something is see-thru, but I guess I tried the dress on quickly in the store? And of course we were rushing to get out of the hotel that morning to the airport........

Welcome back! WL looks fabulous. I would love to stay there, and I can't wait to follow along this mini TR .

Thanks! I'm sure I'll have lots of updates for you to catch up on when you get BACK FROM DISNEY!!!!

 

[ariane37]

WL is beautiful! It reminds me so much of the Grand Californian Resort at Disneyland

Can't wait to see your room!! 5th floor

I just recently saw pictures of the Grand Californian for the first time and you're right!

Your trip sounds like it's off to a great start!! I can't wait to hear what your room was like. We are heading to St Pete tomorrow (just me and the hubby) and I CANNOT wait!!!

Definitely off to a good start Have a wonderful time in St. Pete!

I loved the WL the time we stayed there, but we only had one or two nights there and it was way too short to enjoy it. I'm hoping once the DVC expansion is done I can plan another stay there, maybe next October?!

I know it's hard to schedule in "resort time", especially on short trips. We rarely do it with the boys, and in January when we did adults only we really regret not exploring AKL more. That's why this time we tried to spend time just walking around and taking it in. Little spoiler, we wanted to swim a couple days when we returned to the resort mid-afternoon, but on our way back it rained so we never got to. But at least we tried!

 

[LadyD]

Ahhh I can't wait to hear more about this mini trip!! That is such a spectacular view you lucked out on! We received some pixie dust for our Disneyland Hotel stay during our wedding and received an upgrade to a park view room, and watching the fireworks from the comfort of your room is so, so nice. Are they building more DVC there??

I didn't realize how close WL is to everything. I think I may need to check this resort out!

 

[ArielSRL]

Yah! A couple updates from the trip! I'm so behind on the Dis so I just got caught up! I'm so glad you loved the resort! I almost wish we were staying in a regular room so we could try to score a tpv view for a standard rate. But with renting points, we won't be on that side, plus by June they may have the categories revised. And, of course, we still have to wait til 7 months out (2 more months from now) to see if we even get it.

Thanks for the kids splash area photos. I had seen them on another TR and in a couple videos and I think it looks wonderful. My only concern is I didn't see any tables with umbrellas in that section. I'm hoping they are there but just didn't show up in the photos and videos. At SSR this past June, AJ took advantage of the splash area and I took advantage of an umbrella table and some wine...lol.

Glad to hear how much you enjoyed the boat. I haven't heard a bad story yet about it! Also, wonderful fireworks view and photos! So excited for your view!

I'm in if you do a DR and of course, looking forward to both more from your mini TR and more pre-planning plans!

 

[ariane37]

Ahhh I can't wait to hear more about this mini trip!! That is such a spectacular view you lucked out on! We received some pixie dust for our Disneyland Hotel stay during our wedding and received an upgrade to a park view room, and watching the fireworks from the comfort of your room is so, so nice. Are they building more DVC there??

I didn't realize how close WL is to everything. I think I may need to check this resort out!

That's awesome about the honeymoon pixie dust You know, I'm not 100% positive what exactly they're doing at WL, and I should be since I read the WL thread on the Resorts board pretty much from beginning to end lol. I believe they are though and that's what it looked like. And yes it's extremely close to the MK! And also Fort Wilderness, so very convenient for our breakfast on Sunday morning at Trails End. Even the bus ride to MK was super quick and between all the parks, sometimes we went straight there and sometimes we shared with either FW or the Contemporary which was right down the road. Maybe you'll have to plan another trip after your upcoming one to stay there

Yah! A couple updates from the trip! I'm so behind on the Dis so I just got caught up! I'm so glad you loved the resort! I almost wish we were staying in a regular room so we could try to score a tpv view for a standard rate. But with renting points, we won't be on that side, plus by June they may have the categories revised. And, of course, we still have to wait til 7 months out (2 more months from now) to see if we even get it.

Thanks for the kids splash area photos. I had seen them on another TR and in a couple videos and I think it looks wonderful. My only concern is I didn't see any tables with umbrellas in that section. I'm hoping they are there but just didn't show up in the photos and videos. At SSR this past June, AJ took advantage of the splash area and I took advantage of an umbrella table and some wine...lol.

Glad to hear how much you enjoyed the boat. I haven't heard a bad story yet about it! Also, wonderful fireworks view and photos! So excited for your view!

I'm in if you do a DR and of course, looking forward to both more from your mini TR and more pre-planning plans!

I do hope you get the WL We walked over to the VWL side and I have some pics from there, too; it's very convenient to the busses and the WL lobby except maybe if your rom is on the way, way end of the villas. Looked really relaxing over there, too! I'm not sure exactly when the construction is supposed to be done but I would bet $ that when it is, the catagories are DEFINITELY revised
There are definitely no tables with umbrellas in the kids splash section, and I'm trying to remember if there are any right on the other side by the pool. I think there are but the kids area is like, separate, so it might be hard for you to while they swim!

You will love the convenience of the boat with the boys, especially for all those RD's your going to make