My 2026 DVC stays: CCV cabin

[cruisehopeful]

Check out day! We were both feeling let down because we were leaving the cabins and the Wilderness Lodge. The good news is that I was going to ride Tower of Terror at Hollywood studios. Ever since they rethemed the one in California Adventure Park, I've been planning on riding the one at Hollywood studios. So, I have been waiting for many years.

My husband never rode Tower of Terror or Guardians of the Galaxy at DCA, but has often said that he was going to ride. Today was the day. Let's just say that he ended up being terrorized by the ride and he didn't want to go on any rides after that. Meanwhile, I was very happy with the ride and I enjoyed how it was a bit different than the old one in California. I immediately plotted my solo trip and how I could ride the Skyliner from Riviera and just ride the one ride at the beginning or the end of each day (or even both the beginning and the end).

He needed to have a long sit after the ride and I ended up getting a flavorless kid's meal or chicken strips and fries to pass the time. Note to self- I don't like chicken strips or fries. Just because every vlogger says that they are good doesn't mean that they are.

We watched the Indiana Jones show and I rode Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railroad. It was very cute how the queue was different than the one in Disneyland. After that, I watched the Villain show. I can't say the show was bad, but it's not like I'll ever recommend it to anyone. That was about all we had time for before going to The Brown Derby.

I didn't order an entree. I ordered the asparagus soup (so good that I wish I ordered 4 bowls), a beet salad and the carrots side dish (which was huge). My husband had the halibut. We both thought our meals were excellent and we would actually come back to this park just to eat there again. The lounge outside serves the full menu so we don't need to worry about making a reservation next time. Very good place. I couldn't decide what to have for dessert and I ordered 2 desserts, neither of which were good. So, I only had a few bites of each of them.

We got on the road about 3:30pm to drive to Fort Lauderdale. Due to an accident, road construction and avoiding the tolls, it took us 5 hours to get to the fort Lauderdale airport to return the car. If that wasn't bad enough, things went downhill quickly after that.

 

[cruisehopeful]

 

[DL1WDW2]

Thanks for Brown Derby suggestions …My family always wants to go there but I went and ordered the signature salad not knowing it had blue cheese .
But everything you took pictures of looks really good.

 

[cruisehopeful]

We expected a 3 1/2 hour drive to Fort Lauderdale, but GPS was showing closer to 4 hours. That would still put us an hour early for the car drop off and I thought maybe we'd want to get something to eat at or near the hotel when we checked in. As it happens, the time kept getting longer and longer. We ended up arriving at the car return right at the designated return time.

From there, it was quite a walk with our luggage to the ride share and taxi area. When we finally got to a sign pointing two different directions ( one way for ride share and another for the taxi), I chose the closer one, which was a taxi. Our taxi was very old and dingy. He put stretchy cloth over the seats, but those seemed old and dirty and I was actually starting to feel very itchy. At this point, it was about 9:30pm and I thought I'd have a nice hot shower and just go to bed when we got to the hotel. Since it was a Hilton and DCL contracted with them and I paid over $500. for one night, I assumed it was a good hotel and I imagined it was a higher end, full service hotel. So many assumptions that I was very wrong about.

Check in was fine, but they said we had to go out the front door of the hotel and walk up a ramp to get to our room. From there, I took a junky looking elevator to our floor and it was a long walk down a hallway to get to the room. I was lugging most of the luggage with me and I just wanted to shower and crawl into bed. My husband was looking for water and never made it to the room. As soon as I opened the door, I saw all the pillows on the floor. I've never seen that and while it was gross to see the pillows on the floor, I already had a very long day and I was going to overlook that just so I could finish out the day and be done with it.

I had the creepy crawlies about bringing my luggage in and I decided to look in the bathroom. The trash was full with something gross and the bathtub was full of poop or vomit towels. There were brown lines on the floor. I snapped a couple pictures and made the very long walk back to the front desk.

I showed them the pictures and the 2 at the front desk said they were sorry and they both asked me if it looked like that "right now, " neither of them seemed surprised by the disgust. There was a manager walking around behind them and he didn't look at me or acknowledge the situation at all. They gave me an "upgraded" room in the main building. We got to the room after 10pm. The new room looked like a Motel 6 at best and we could hear everything from the next room. I opted to not take a shower because I was so grossed out by the hotel. Tomorrow morning, DCL would be picking us up from the hotel and taking us to the ship. I was incredibly pissed at DCL for the absolute crap of a hotel that they charged me over $500 for. If I hadn't already had 7 good experiences with DCL, this would have been a one and done for me. I went to bed hating Fort Lauderdale, all things Hilton and severely regretting leaving the Cabins at the Wilderness Lodge.

Hilton Fort Lauderdale Marina dirty room and clean room pics.

 

[cruisehopeful]

In the clean, upgraded room, I pulled the sheets back. The bed was made. There was some blue plastic thing on the floor of the shower. Normally, that wouldn't bother me, but the overall quality of the room did bother me for the price paid.

 

[VGCgroupie]

We expected a 3 1/2 hour drive to Fort Lauderdale, but GPS was showing closer to 4 hours. That would still put us an hour early for the car drop off and I thought maybe we'd want to get something to eat at or near the hotel when we checked in. As it happens, the time kept getting longer and longer. We ended up arriving at the car return right at the designated return time.

From there, it was quite a walk with our luggage to the ride share and taxi area. When we finally got to a sign pointing two different directions ( one way for ride share and another for the taxi), I chose the closer one, which was a taxi. Our taxi was very old and dingy. He put stretchy cloth over the seats, but those seemed old and dirty and I was actually starting to feel very itchy. At this point, it was about 9:30pm and I thought I'd have a nice hot shower and just go to bed when we got to the hotel. Since it was a Hilton and DCL contracted with them and I paid over $500. for one night, I assumed it was a good hotel and I imagined it was a higher end, full service hotel. So many assumptions that I was very wrong about.

Check in was fine, but they said we had to go out the front door of the hotel and walk up a ramp to get to our room. From there, I took a junky looking elevator to our floor and it was a long walk down a hallway to get to the room. I was lugging most of the luggage with me and I just wanted to shower and crawl into bed. My husband was looking for water and never made it to the room. As soon as I opened the door, I saw all the pillows on the floor. I've never seen that and while it was gross to see the pillows on the floor, I already had a very long day and I was going to overlook that just so I could finish out the day and be done with it.

I had the creepy crawlies about bringing my luggage in and I decided to look in the bathroom. The trash was full with something gross and the bathtub was full of poop or vomit towels. There were brown lines on the floor. I snapped a couple pictures and made the very long walk back to the front desk.

I showed them the pictures and the 2 at the front desk said they were sorry and they both asked me if it looked like that "right now, " neither of them seemed surprised by the disgust. There was a manager walking around behind them and he didn't look at me or acknowledge the situation at all. They gave me an "upgraded" room in the main building. We got to the room after 10pm. The new room looked like a Motel 6 at best and we could hear everything from the next room. I opted to not take a shower because I was so grossed out by the hotel. Tomorrow morning, DCL would be picking us up from the hotel and taking us to the ship. I was incredibly pissed at DCL for the absolute crap of a hotel that they charged me over $500 for. If I hadn't already had 7 good experiences with DCL, this would have been a one and done for me. I went to bed hating Fort Lauderdale, all things Hilton and severely regretting leaving the Cabins at the Wilderness Lodge.

Hilton Fort Lauderdale Marina dirty room and clean room pics.

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I am so sorry. I can only imagine how frustrating and icky this was. I would for sure be reaching out to DCL and Hilton for compensation. A new “upgraded” room isn’t compensation enough. When you get to a hotel you don’t want to think of what occured in that room before you arrived. I also would’ve skipped a shower. *Hugs*

 

[cruisehopeful]

In the morning, I just stayed in the room until it was time to transfer to the cruise ship. I was still regretting leaving The Wilderness Lodge, but I had a feeling that I would get over it once I got on the ship. We were instructed to meet up at 10:45 for an 11:15 departure. I was so happy when the time came to get out of there.

Everything went slow, but smoothly as far as loading the bus and getting checked in at the port. If you've taken Disney cruises before, you know that they announce your family name and the crew claps as you board the ship. I was still in my bad mood when they welcomed us aboard and clapped for us, but it did feel familiar and like home, which I needed to feel. I looked up and saw T'Challa looking down at everyone arriving. I waved to him and as soon as he waved back, I was a happy cruiser. I don't normally pay much attention to characters, but having The Black Panther wave at me was the perfect start to the cruise.

I'm not doing a cruise trip report. The Destiny is a hot commodity and there are plenty of people reviewing it. I did take a few pictures that I'll post here and I'll give my opinion on it. The trend is those who have cruised the older ships do not care for the new class of ships and those who haven't cruised the older ships love the new ships and are not interested in the older ships. I fall right in the middle of the spectrum. I've sailed the older ships 7 times and while I think the ships are very different, they are all equally good. It's a different experience, not better or worse, just different.

If I was to choose one thing that makes the Destiny better than the older ships, it's that there are coffee bars in multiple places. I booked the room based on being able to get a good espresso as needed without too much trouble.

If I was to choose one thing that makes the Destiny worse than the older ships, it's that everything is made of plastic. The stuff that was marble and wood on the other ships is all plastic made to look like wood and stone. I love natural materials.

Here's a few pictures of the De Vil lounge. It is the piano bar, but themed heavily towards Cruella and much smaller than the piano bars on the older ships. The older ships always had spectacular piano players and musicians that were worth going to see. The Destiny has people who can play the piano, which is okay if you happen to already be there, but not worth going to see. They bring M&Ms when you sit down. The black ones are dark chocolate and the white ones are milk chocolate. It's very fun!

 

[VGCgroupie]

In the morning, I just stayed in the room until it was time to transfer to the cruise ship. I was still regretting leaving The Wilderness Lodge, but I had a feeling that I would get over it once I got on the ship. We were instructed to meet up at 10:45 for an 11:15 departure. I was so happy when the time came to get out of there.

Everything went slow, but smoothly as far as loading the bus and getting checked in at the port. If you've taken Disney cruises before, you know that they announce your family name and the crew claps as you board the ship. I was still in my bad mood when they welcomed us aboard and clapped for us, but it did feel familiar and like home, which I needed to feel. I looked up and saw T'Challa looking down at everyone arriving. I waved to him and as soon as he waved back, I was a happy cruiser. I don't normally pay much attention to characters, but having The Black Panther wave at me was the perfect start to the cruise.

I’m so happy to hear things started to turn around.

If I was to choose one thing that makes the Destiny better than the older ships, it's that there are coffee bars in multiple places. I booked the room based on being able to get a good espresso as needed without too much trouble.

If I was to choose one thing that makes the Destiny worse than the older ships, it's that everything is made of plastic. The stuff that was marble and wood on the other ships is all plastic made to look like wood and stone. I love natural materials.

Speaking my love language with both of these paragraphs.

 

[cruisehopeful]

The De Vil lounge pictures since it looks like they didn't upload before. Also, a couple pictures of Serenity Bay at Castaway Cay (coconuts and a star fish).

 

[cruisehopeful]

Overall, the cruise was very good. It had the level of service and cleanliness that I expect from DCL and I appreciated the extra features such a the extra places to get espresso drinks and the Aqua mouse water coaster. Even though the new ships are full of bells and whistles and everything has a fun theme, I prefer the classic older ships with their genuine materials and less Disney in your face staterooms and lounges.

I won't take a cruise out of Fort Lauderdale again. The logistics aren't worth it to me, unfortunately. Lucky for me, the Wonder spends a lot of time cruising out of my home port and I find cruising out of Port Canaveral combined with a DVC stay very convenient.

I loved the Wilderness Lodge! I wish I had enough points to stay in the cabins on the regular. I can easily say it's my favorite DVC resort that I've been to so far. I wish it wasn't so far away considering that I hate flying.

My next DVC stay is going to be a short one nighter with some friends at VDH in just a few weeks.