My 2026 DVC stays: CCV cabin

[cruisehopeful]

We just finished up a stay at Copper Creek Cabins at the Wilderness Lodge. It was just my husband and myself, but I purchased a resale contract last year that had banked points and I didn't want them to expire. We already had a few cruises booked and we couldn't schedule another vacation that could use the points.

My husband isn't exactly as Disney crazy as I am, but I thought he would enjoy the Cascade cabins. I booked a 3 night stay in front of a cruise we had booked on the Destiny out of Fort Lauderdale. Logistics were going to be a bit of a challenge. After some research and mapping out different strategies, I put us on a red eye flight from California direct to Orlando and I reserved a rental car that I would keep through the DVC stay and return to Fort Lauderdale the night before the cruise. I was hoping our room would be ready early, but I knew that might not happen. While I dozed off and on during the flight, my husband probably slept less than an hour. He was having restless legs and we had a crying baby in the row right behind us. I hadn't been to the Wilderness Lodge before, but I watched many YouTube videos and I was sure that we could find a quiet place to nap if we needed to before our room was ready.

It ended up taking 2 hours from when we got off the plane to resort arrival. There were a lot of little things that got in the way of getting the rental car and getting on the road. We used a no toll road route. There was a race that messed up the drive into the resort and then my husband took a wrong turn. Because of the race, that made us go a few miles out of the way .

We arrived right about 7:30am. We needed coffee and some food. My husband wanted to sit down and be served, so Whispering Canyon was our first stop. I have to say that the hostesses and our server were absolutely amazing. They were so friendly and had such good service skills that we were off to a great start of our stay, just because of them.

I had the "Light Skillet" which had tons of food so wasn't quite light, but it had several items that I wanted. It was good. My husband just ordered some side items and we split the French press coffee. It was a great experience. My husband wanted to eat there every morning because it was so good, but I already had our park visits and rides on a schedule. He's a very late riser and I didn't want to get to the parks later than we already were.

 

[MyDogTink]

Hoping there’s more to this trip report. Anxiously waiting….

 

[RivShore]

We used a no toll road route.

I would suggest getting an EPass if you are going to rent cars often in FL. You can either get a free stick on transponder or order a multi state version on Amazon.

Can't wait to hear what you thought of the cabin.

 

[airjay75]

https://www.visitortollpass.com

Another option for tolls that I’ve been using. They have kiosks in the airport and you pick up a hang tag for your car and then return it at the end of your trip.

 

[VGCgroupie]

ohh excited to hear the rest! How early did you get our Cabin? Was it amazing?! I know I know writing trip reports is time consuming. I will be patient!

 

[cruisehopeful]

Hoping there’s more to this trip report. Anxiously waiting….

I'm still traveling and will add as I have downtime.

I would suggest getting an EPass if you are going to rent cars often in FL. You can either get a free stick on transponder or order a multi state version on Amazon.

Can't wait to hear what you thought of the cabin.

https://www.visitortollpass.com

Another option for tolls that I’ve been using. They have kiosks in the airport and you pick up a hang tag for your car and then return it at the end of your trip.

I hope to never have a car in future trips, but I'll look those if I do. I drive 2-3 hours per day at home and I hate driving!

ohh excited to hear the rest! How early did you get our Cabin? Was it amazing?! I know I know writing trip reports is time consuming. I will be patient!

It was amazing. Oddly, the cabins were full the night before and it wasn't ready very early. I did get it before 4:00pm, but not nearly as early as I would have liked. Details are coming, haha.

Just adding a pictures of my arrival breakfast. It was good. I honestly didn't expect to like Whispering Canyon that much. The videos made it look chaotic and annoying. At 7:30am, it was quiet. Our server gave us playful sass and told some good jokes. She even offered to quietly bring ketchup, but we don't use ketchup and declined.

 

[VGCgroupie]

I'm still traveling and will add as I have downtime.



I hope to never have a car in future trips, but I'll look those if I do. I drive 2-3 hours per day at home and I hate driving!

It was amazing. Oddly, the cabins were full the night before and it wasn't ready very early. I did get it before 4:00pm, but not nearly as early as I would have liked. Details are coming, haha.

Just adding a pictures of my arrival breakfast. It was good. I honestly didn't expect to like Whispering Canyon that much. The videos made it look chaotic and annoying. At 7:30am, it was quiet. Our server gave us playful sass and told some good jokes. She even offered to quietly bring ketchup, but we don't use ketchup and declined.

View attachment 1053310View attachment 1053311

Thats good to know. So far I have been to chicken to eat there!

 

[Steelers0854]

https://www.visitortollpass.com

Another option for tolls that I’ve been using. They have kiosks in the airport and you pick up a hang tag for your car and then return it at the end of your trip.

+1 for this, it could not have been easier. You literally have to walk by the kiosk to get to the rental car, it took 2 seconds to get the hang tag and done. You also enter the license plate of your rental in the app after you get it and you never have to think about it til you return it.

 

[cruisehopeful]

I was looking forward to the tour of the resort. The Wilderness Lodge offers a one hour walking tour of the resort every morning at 9:00am. We waited by the fireplace like it said to on the activities list. Another family was waiting, as well. After about 15 minutes past 9:00am, one of the other people waiting went to ask if we were waiting in the right place. Shortly thereafter, someone from the front desk came to the fireplace and told us they were sorry, the tour ranger was out sick and there was no tour today. I was bummed because I had plans for the rest of our mornings and wouldn't be able to do it another day.

My husband and I walked around, basically giving ourselves a tour. We both loved everything about the resort. The lobby is stunning. The grounds are amazing because of the trees and waterways with the docks. The building at Boulder Ridge is gorgeous. My husband had a nap in BRV building.

We ended up needing to go to Costco because one of my husband's hearing aids wasn't working. That was a whole project and took over an hour. When we got back, I decided to ask the front desk about the room being ready early. We were told it was unlikely that it would be ready early because they were all booked the night before and they take a long time to clean, which makes sense.

By this time, we were ready for lunch. We went to Geyser Point. The hostess and our server were spectacular. Great service. The food was mid and it took a very long time. Our server came to our table a couple times to apologize for the long wait. We had lots of animal friends visit our table while we waited. I mean real animals. Squirrels, birds and ducks kept coming by for a visit like in Snow White. Our view of the water was great and Lakeshore Lodge looks ridiculous, but not as ridiculous as the Poly tower.

I tried to get a virgin cocktail or anything zero proof and I was told that they didn't have anything like that except for the smoothies. I think that's weird because it's a full bar. We each got the "multi grain" salad which has a total of one type of grain. I got it with chicken and my husband got it with salmon. We ordered dessert. I had a fruit tart and he had creme brulee without the donuts that usually come with it to keep it gluten free. His dessert was a lot better than mine.

 

[cruisehopeful]

I don't recommend the S'mores Latte at Roaring Fork. I ordered it with half of the sweetners and it was still too sweet to drink. I drank half of it and tossed the rest.

In spite of the negatives and mid type stuff, this is currently my favorite WDW resort. I'll get to the cabin soon. I'm trying to post somewhat in order of what happened.

 

[cruisehopeful]

Our lunch at Geyser Grill took nearly 2 hours. We saw the geyser go off twice while we were there. We were trying to figure out what to do next when I got my room ready text. It was just after 2:00pm. Once we figured out where it was, we moved the car closer to get our luggage out of the car.

We had a nice smaller parking lot and the walk to the room was beautiful on a wooden dock pathway. There were lots of signs about alligators and snakes. I took pictures out of order on different days, but I am trying to post in a cohesive way.

 

[kgou]

Thats good to know. So far I have been to chicken to eat there!

It's a blast. Ask for Sunshine (a server) if she is there! It's really fun.

 

[cruisehopeful]

We were in cabin # 8003 and I would love to have that same cabin again whenever I go to WDW. I didn't take a lot of pictures of the inside of the cabin because there are so many online already and so many YouTube walk throughs. I mostly took pictures of what made cabin #8003 unique. It was just a couple cabins away from the wood path to the parking lot and there was a grill only 2 cabins away (which we didn't use).

Normally, I don't use hot tubs and the like when I am at a hotel, but this was our private one with a view of the water and the Contemporary. The view was stunning. Watching the dried moss blowing in the wind in the trees was better than anything on TV. We did see more ducks and squirrels. It was truly fantastic to be in a cabin with actual wildlife all around, but also be part of a full service hotel. I used the hot tub 2 of our 3 nights. A red light automatically turns on and stays on all night in the jacuzzi. It must be a safety feature so people don't fall into it. It's VERY dark out there at night if you don't turn the patio lights on (we never did).

 

[Nicnicnic.nic]

Following

 

[cruisehopeful]

The cabin was very peaceful and relaxing. The weather was great and the entire resort had a nice relaxed vibe to it. My husband, who thinks we have too much DVC, said he would stay at the resort twice a year if we could. I asked if he just meant the cabin but he said any room in any building there would be great.

In the evening, we were close to the geyser when it was about to go off so we went there and waited for it. There was a man standing there waiting and when he turned around to let us know that it was almost geyser time, I recognized him as our table mate from our cruise last summer. I couldn't believe it! We live in California and he lives in Toronto, but here we were, sharing a random geyser moment in Florida together. The geyser went up so high. It was dark and I didn't take pictures because I thought I would get some during the day. Alas, we were never at the geyser at the right time again during our stay. We vowed to come back someday to get an up close and wet daytime geyser experience.

For dinner, we went to Territory Lounge. I had the baked potato flatbread, hold the bacon, and a spiced sangria. We had another great server with very slow kitchen turn around time. It made me wonder if all meals were going to be long and if it is normal for restaurants to be really slow outside of California.

 

[cruisehopeful]

We thought we'd get to bed early because of the red eye, but we adjusted to the time change (+ 3 hours) immediately. At this point, I was thinking the red eye was great because we get a full day right when we arrive and "save money" on points by not arriving late and paying for a room just to sleep in. Meanwhile, my husband shared that he thought taking a red eye was terrible and that he didn't want to do that again. I'm not sure how I'll deal with that going forward. I could book us on different flights or he can stay home. He doesn't really want to go to Disney that much, but he gets FOMO. More about that later.

We had a nearly perfect view of the fireworks from our patio. I turned on the music and we watched them during the first 2 nights. I was over it by the third night. I wasn't in the jacuzzi during the fireworks, but it looked like it would have potentially an even better view.

I heard the electric water pageant twice each night, but my view wasn't the greatest. I could see some of it during the first time I heard it, but I couldn't see it at all during the very loud showing.

 

[cruisehopeful]

Our first park day was a visit to Epcot. I had only been to Epcot once before and that was about 15 years ago. I was looking forward to doing as many things as possible while minimizing walking because my husband doesn't walk much. We also had a meal scheduled at Le Cellier later in the day. The sit down meal is the thing that my husband looks forward to the most. So, I try to schedule one for each vacation day, even though I don't particularly like them because they are such a time suck.

We drove our rental car and it was so much easier than driving into Disneyland California. I also couldn't believe how easy it was to go through security. I had my bag opened up to be searched, but they just waved me through. Security lines and park entry lines take so much longer in California.

Epcot was fun and we didn't get to do nearly the amount of stuff that I wanted to do. It's so big and spread out. I knew it was a 2 day park, but we were only doing the one day because I wanted to go to Magic Kingdom and Hollywood studios and we only had 3 days for parks. Actually, we only had 2 1/2 days for parks, but I'll get to that later. According to my Google map, we walked 5 1/2 miles at Epcot while minimizing walking.

We did some front of the park rides and I realized we hadn't eaten anything and it was a long time until our Le Cellier reservation. I noticed the grab and go items at Seasons and we grabbed a few things to hold us over.

A lot of the topiaries were up in preparation for the Flower and Garden festival which was going to open in a couple days. They were so cute and I definitely want to come back during the event the next few years.

Going places with my husband is exhausting for me. He doesn't really want to go, but he doesn't want to be left out so he decides to come along. He doesn't think he's difficult at all, but he is a TON of work for me. I had to adjust my day constantly and then he spent an entire hour in the China pavilion and only left it because we needed to get moving to get to Canada for our reservation. He's both narcissistic and somewhat disabled. My saving grace was seeing the Skyliner and thinking that the next time I come, I'll do a solo trip and stay at Riviera and take the Skyliner. Okay, enough about that. I like to focus on the positives.

We actually both liked Le Cellier as far as food and atmosphere. I ordered a cheese plate to share and for my entree I had poutine and a side of creamed spinach. Everything was good and my husband enjoyed his steak, but both of us said that we wouldn't go there again. I don't think it's worth the time to eat there. We were so full when we were done that we didn't want to do anything else. I think we did Remy single rider and left the park.

I'm attaching a few pictures of our grab and go from Season's, a couple topiaries.We never made it to the DVC lounge or to Test Track or most of the pavilions. I'll plan for 2 Epcot days next time.

 

[VGCgroupie]

Our first park day was a visit to Epcot. I had only been to Epcot once before and that was about 15 years ago. I was looking forward to doing as many things as possible while minimizing walking because my husband doesn't walk much. We also had a meal scheduled at Le Cellier later in the day. The sit down meal is the thing that my husband looks forward to the most. So, I try to schedule one for each vacation day, even though I don't particularly like them because they are such a time suck.

We drove our rental car and it was so much easier than driving into Disneyland California. I also couldn't believe how easy it was to go through security. I had my bag opened up to be searched, but they just waved me through. Security lines and park entry lines take so much longer in California.

Epcot was fun and we didn't get to do nearly the amount of stuff that I wanted to do. It's so big and spread out. I knew it was a 2 day park, but we were only doing the one day because I wanted to go to Magic Kingdom and Hollywood studios and we only had 3 days for parks. Actually, we only had 2 1/2 days for parks, but I'll get to that later. According to my Google map, we walked 5 1/2 miles at Epcot while minimizing walking.

We did some front of the park rides and I realized we hadn't eaten anything and it was a long time until our Le Cellier reservation. I noticed the grab and go items at Seasons and we grabbed a few things to hold us over.

A lot of the topiaries were up in preparation for the Flower and Garden festival which was going to open in a couple days. They were so cute and I definitely want to come back during the event the next few years.

Going places with my husband is exhausting for me. He doesn't really want to go, but he doesn't want to be left out so he decides to come along. He doesn't think he's difficult at all, but he is a TON of work for me. I had to adjust my day constantly and then he spent an entire hour in the China pavilion and only left it because we needed to get moving to get to Canada for our reservation. He's both narcissistic and somewhat disabled. My saving grace was seeing the Skyliner and thinking that the next time I come, I'll do a solo trip and stay at Riviera and take the Skyliner. Okay, enough about that. I like to focus on the positives.

We actually both liked Le Cellier as far as food and atmosphere. I ordered a cheese plate to share and for my entree I had poutine and a side of creamed spinach. Everything was good and my husband enjoyed his steak, but both of us said that we wouldn't go there again. I don't think it's worth the time to eat there. We were so full when we were done that we didn't want to do anything else. I think we did Remy single rider and left the park.

I'm attaching a few pictures of our grab and go from Season's, a couple topiaries.View attachment 1053890View attachment 1053891View attachment 1053892We never made it to the DVC lounge or to Test Track or most of the pavilions. I'll plan for 2 Epcot days next time.

My first Epcot experience I thought it was such a boring park and not much to do there (I was tired from a red eye and taking Benadryl) Now that I have been back I realize its a 2 or even a 3 day park! Sorry you missed the lounge. Sometimes you are just so far away from it to bother getting back over there. But just more to look forward to next time.

 

[cruisehopeful]

I brought my leftovers from Le Cellier back to the cabin. I ended up not eating them and I tossed them when we checked out.

It was great to kick back in the cabin. I took 6 empty water bottles over to refill in the hotel lobby. I don't know if there are other places to refill water bottles. The place I used was always busy with people refilling multiple bottles and it was also a far walk back when carrying several bottles.

The next day was Magic Kingdom day. My priorities were all the things that Disneyland used to have, but no longer has. We also wanted to ride some of the classics to compare. Most of the similar rides were actually very fun. The slight differences were nice. I think we had the best captain on the Jungle cruise that I've ever had.

We used the boat transportation from the Wilderness Lodge and it was perfect. What a fun way to get there!

Pirates of the Caribbean was such an incredible let down. I've probably been on the one at Disneyland 100 times in my life. I was expecting Magic Kingdom to be different, but not that different. We'll never ride it again at magic Kingdom unless we're desperate for something to do.

This day rained off and on all day. For the most part, we were inside during the bigger downpours. We could tell that we were missing big rains because of how wet the ground was when we went outside. We did get to visit the DVC lounge in were seated right away. My husband napped and I ate 2 bags of potato chips, 1 bag of apple chips and drank 2 cups of flavored coke. I wouldn't have eaten any of those things if we weren't in the lounge. What a huge amount of junk food calories.

Our dining reservation was for Skipper Canteen. All in all, it was a good experience. I had the vegetarian curry and I think I had dessert, but I can't remember it. The sit down meal was once again our downfall. Eating a lot in one sitting just isn't condusive to a busy theme park visit. We thought this meal was better than LeCellier, however, we don't think we'd eat here again.

The park was very busy and I wouldn't have thought much about that, but I had 2 other people mention how crowded it was to me while we were in lines. After eating, we only did a couple more things and then we took the boat back to the cabin. I didn't take any pictures of this day.

It was our third and final night at the Cascade cabins. I was very much wishing that I was staying longer and not going on the Destiny cruise.

Tomorrow was going to be a busy day. We had plans to go to Hollywood studios, a reservation for Brown Derby and then we were going to drive to Fort Lauderdale, leave the rental car at the airport, and then taxi to Hilton Fort Lauderdale Marina so we could get on the Disney Destiny the following day for a 4 night cruise. As I mentioned earlier, I only booked the cabins at the Wilderness Lodge because I wanted to use some expiring banked points that came with a contract we bought last year. The "real" vacation was scheduled to go on a cruise on the Destiny. I was enjoying myself so much that I was regretting having to go on the cruise. If there was any possible way that I could have changed things right then without a lot of losses, I probably would have.