Our weekend of outdoor fun and lots of food!! 6/22-6/24

[M&M126]

Hi all! This is my very first trip report so please forgive me if it is a little boring! Mert (my fiancé) and I spent a wonderful weekend at the Wilderness Lodge recently. I just wanted to share all the fun things we did and yummy food we ate with all of you. Enjoy!

Friday, June 22nd, 2007
We arrived at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge around 3pm and were able to get our room right away. In the check-in line, we actually bumped into some old neighbors of mine from back home in VA. I used to baby-sit for their girls who are now 16 and 13. Man I feel old. Anyways it was neat to see them all the way down here! Especially since I am now living in Orlando and am not back in VA all that often. So we go to check out our room.
Mickey was there to welcome us!

We were checking out the studio room. It was pretty spacious with only one bed. I definitely prefer that. Not much of a view but we weren’t in there all that much so it didn’t really matter.
Mert being silly. Not really sure what he was doing...

Our room



After the room, we went around the Lodge to explore and played some Chinese Checkers too.




I have never stayed here before and I must say it is now one of my favorite resorts. It’s so cozy and peaceful there. I love it!

We went for a quick swim and then went back to the room to get ready for our 7:30PM ADRs at Artist Point. Here are a couple pics of us before we left the room.
Mert was sad he left his hair product at home. haha




Artist Point is located right off the lobby of the Wilderness Lodge which I forgot to mention is awesome!!.....


All the wines and meals at Artist are inspired by the flavors and products of the Pacific Northwest. We ordered some yummy drinks. Mert had some coconut rum concoction that was delicious. And I had a glass of Evolution wine which coincidentally we’ve been searching for since December. We had it as Mert’s sisters house then and we haven’t found it since. It’s very good.


Here we are waiting for food...getting antsy!



For our first course we got a smoky mushroom soup. It was so delicious! I love that smoky flavor and it was really strong. The soup was very creamy. We finished it quickly!


For my main course I had scallops with corn and corn nectar…another amazing dish! The scallops were very large and fresh and the corn was sweet.


Mert tried the buffalo steak. Actually that was the reason we wanted to eat here in the first place. It was good. Tender and very flavorful. It came with sweet potatoes which Mert didn’t care for but I loved! I should note that he’s not a big potato fan.


We loved the food! Can you tell?!
*

For dessert, we wanted the cobbler but I didn’t like the raspberry part of it so our server graciously altered the dish to include vanilla ice cream instead of black raspberry and excluded the raspberries in the fresh fruit on the side. YUMMY!


We were seriously full after this so we walked around the resort a little bit and ended up on the beach overlooking Bay Lake. It’s so gorgeous there at night. A great spot for couples

Saturday, June 23rd, 2007
We woke up around 9am and got ready for the day.


We decided to grab a quick breakfast at Roaring Forks in the Wilderness Lodge. We didn’t have any set plans for the day. We knew we wouldn’t be going to any of the parks, though. This weekend was exclusively for resort activities and eating! Because I’m a cast member, we get to see the parks enough and it was nice to enjoy the other things Walt Disney World has to offer.
Here’s our breakfast. I got the child’s breakfast and Mert got a crossaint sandwich. Both filled us up and we were ready to move on to our fun outdoor activities.



Up next the start of our outdoor activities!....

 

[M&M126]

First, we wanted to ride the Sea Raycers. We headed down the marina and rented two of them. We spent about an hour and a ½ out on Bay Lake and the Seven Seas Lagoon. It was SO much fun!! I highly recommend this to anyone. We had a great time racing around, taking pictures, and searching for alligators. Haha. We didn’t see any, although we were informed that they do live there. I’m sure they stay pretty well hidden though b/c there is always so much traffic in those waterways. Here are some pictures of our boating adventures.
But first here is the duck family we saw at least a couple times a day at the Lodge








We took this one for the future brides wishing to get married at Sunset Pointe. It’s really gorgeous. I have some more pics taken of the same spot on land. I’ll show those later.


Here is the wedding pavilion. My sister got married here back in 2000 so it always brings up some good memories.


This is a good shot of the geyser that erupts every hour.


After the boats, we rented bikes and headed over to Ft. Wilderness. It’s a pretty easy bike ride and it’s so peaceful. This was another great thing to do as a couple or even with the whole family.


We explored Ft. Wilderness a little bit and rode all around.

After all this activity, we felt like we needed a little relaxation time so we went over to the Polynesian resort to hang out by the pool and beach. Plus we had dinner reservations there for the luau so we wanted to get into the Hawaiian mood


Those hammocks on the beach are heaven! We grabbed a quick bite to eat at Captain Cooks. I had BBQ chicken flatbread that was pretty good. We also got some fruity cocktails at the pool bar. Drinks on the beach=paradise!


Up next the Spirit of Aloha dinner show and our big mistake!....

 

[M&M126]

We had tickets for the 8pm Spirit of Aloha dinner show that night. We got showered and dressed and headed back over to the Polynesian around 7pm. We had never been to the Luau but had seen Hoop De Doo and loved that so we thought we’d try Disney’s other dinner show.


We got our leis and pictures taken and then waited in the garden area to be seated.




Our seats were pretty good. Although it seems with tables of 2 at Disney you always have to sit across from each other which we don’t love, but what can you do. We had another great server tonight.
They have the most delicious pina colada at the luau! SO good!


The serve pineapple coconut bread first along with fresh pineapple and a salad. The bread was ok and the salad was blah, but we loved the fruit!


The main course was chicken, rice and ribs. All of which were decent but nothing to rave about.



Our server wanted her picture taken too!


The dessert was brought out by the servers with a lot of fanfare. It was a chocolate volcano and it tasted pretty good.

The show was corny, however, I really enjoyed the dancing and the fire guy. He was AWESOME. I would see it again just to see him. Overall, I prefer Hoop De Doo as far as dinner shows go, but it was a good experience to see this one.

We went back to the Wilderness Lodge and played some Chinese checkers and regular checkers in the quiet lounge area. I think we also played some Yahtzee in the room too. I have a good story about Yahtzee but I’ll save that for tomorrow’s description.

Hidden Mickey

And another


Up next a grumpy boy and our last day at the Lodge...

 

[M&M126]

Mert and I stayed up way too late Saturday night. We ended up going to the springs pool for a swim which was wonderful at the time. However, it left us very sleepy and a little grumpy the next morning. Especially Mert And on top of that we realized our mistake!! We had purchased the pictures at the Spirit of Aloha dinner show and LEFT THEM ON THE TABLE! Yikes! So before our 10:30am ADR at Whispering Canyon Café I headed down to the Guest Services desk while Mert took our luggage out to the car. The CM tried to help but there wasn’t much she could do. She talked to Lost and Found at the Polynesian, but they didn’t have anything there. I was discouraged yet, though. We decided after breakfast we’d head over to the Polynesian and ask around there.

Mert looking a little less than happy.


Whispering Canyon Café was pretty fun. The food was hot and good. We had the skillet breakfast. Our server wasn’t the best….maybe she’s not a morning person


We had about 10 bottles of ketchup delivered to our table by another family which was pretty amusing. Ten minutes later we were off to the other side of the restaurant to make a delivery of our own. The environment is fun and great for kids.


At the Polynesian, they told me they still could not find the pictures! And they told me that no one would be working the Luau until Tuesday b/c it was closed on Sunday and Monday. I was pretty sure at that point we were not going to get them back which was sad. Plus I had to go through the hassle of getting them to take the charge off my bill, but I’d deal with that later.

We wanted to walk from the Polynesian to the Grand Floridian just to look around. We’ll be staying there a couple nights right after our Disney wedding next spring so we just wanted to check it out Along the way we saw that the gate was open to the Luau dinner theater. Mert went out on a limb and walked in there to look for our pictures. We hoped they’d be behind the desk or something. Well come to find out…they were right there on the table where we’d left them!! Can you believe they didn’t even pick them up?! In one way, it was good for us b/c we got them back. Yet in another I was a little shocked that they didn’t store them away indoors. Oh well. We got them back and we were happy.

While we were at GF a huge storm rolled through so we spent about an hour hanging out there and enjoying the live music in the lobby.

Upon returning to the Polynesian, we got out our Yahtzee game again. Mert just played this game for the first time a few weeks ago and now we have to play it all the time! It was fun to sit outside and play though. We were waiting for our ADRs at Ohana that evening. So we played and I had the BEST game ever! I got FOUR Yahtzees in ONE game. Now, if you don’t play Yahtzee that may mean nothing to you, but if you do then you know it’s pretty hard to accomplish that! I got a score of 628! It was great 



We walked up to Ohana for dinner a little before our ADR time. We were seated pretty quickly and the food started coming. Our server was very good and quick. We had the Lapu Lapu drink in the pineapple. Strong, but good.


The appetizers are wonton chips with 3 dipping sauces (Chimchurri, Peanut, and Roasted Red Pepper) and some yummmmmy wings. Oh and shrimp too. They were great!



They brought out the potatoes and the veggies which I liked a lot.


Then the meat came…pork, turkey, chicken and sausage (I think). Most of it was pretty good. Mert’s plate got very full!


The entertainment was fun. The kids had a conga line around the restaurant and did the coconut races. It’s a very fun environment. We’re actually considering having our rehearsal party there

After the main meal, we got the pineapple bread pudding with the bananas foster sauce and WOW is that AWESOME. I LOVED it! Too bad I was so full from dinner that I could hardly get it down but I think we managed to still eat most of it.

YUM.





Overall, we had a really great weekend. It was really nice to get to enjoy the resorts and relax. And while I love the parks, I didn’t miss them one bit. I hope to have another fun resort weekend again soon!

 

[mousiemom]

Looked liked you had a really good trip! I love how ya'll did a lot of the recreational activities. we love going to the resort pools! didn't you love the lapu lapu? i did! the sea raycers look like so much fun. we did the kayaks @ POR this past may and it was so relaxing. there's so much to do in disney!!
mousiemom

 

[Richard Bruvofetc]

Great Trippie. Love the photos.

 

[ferretxxxferret]

how relaxing! I think that chilling out at the resorts and restaurants is a great idea!

You ate at some yummy looking places! Thanks for the pics!


yay! I am glad you were able to get your pictures back! How silly that they didn't even check out the table for you! duh!

Congrats on your upcoming wedding!

 

[Avivasmom]

That sounds llike an awesome and relaxing weekend. You make a very cute couple.

Thanks for sharing the pictures.

 

[AlyssinWonderland]

Sounds like a great weekend getaway! Ahhh the food pictures have reduced me to starving! LOL Thanks for writing!!!

 

[M&M126]

Looked liked you had a really good trip! I love how ya'll did a lot of the recreational activities. we love going to the resort pools! didn't you love the lapu lapu? i did! the sea raycers look like so much fun. we did the kayaks @ POR this past may and it was so relaxing. there's so much to do in disney!!
mousiemom

Yes the lapu lapu was great!! We wanted to go canoeing or kayaking but we never got around to it! We'll have to do that next time

Thanks for reading!

 

[M&M126]

Great Trippie. Love the photos.

Thanks!!

how relaxing! I think that chilling out at the resorts and restaurants is a great idea!

You ate at some yummy looking places! Thanks for the pics!


yay! I am glad you were able to get your pictures back! How silly that they didn't even check out the table for you! duh!

Congrats on your upcoming wedding!

I know! It was definitely crazy that they didnt even check the table. Oh well. At least we got them back And thank you for the congrats!

That sounds llike an awesome and relaxing weekend. You make a very cute couple.

Thanks for sharing the pictures.

Thank you for reading and sweet comment

Sounds like a great weekend getaway! Ahhh the food pictures have reduced me to starving! LOL Thanks for writing!!!

Haha sorry! I was getting so hungry just writing the report! I think I need that bread pudding again soon!

 

[M&M126]

how relaxing! I think that chilling out at the resorts and restaurants is a great idea!

You ate at some yummy looking places! Thanks for the pics!


yay! I am glad you were able to get your pictures back! How silly that they didn't even check out the table for you! duh!

Congrats on your upcoming wedding!

Congrats on your wedding too by the way!! SO soon!!! Have a blast!

 

[M&M126]

I have more thing to add that I accidently left out. We also rented the 2 person Surrey bike from the Wilderness Lodge. It was sooo much fun! I definitely recommend that too. Ringing the bell alone makes the whole rental worth it!

 

[KellyJo18]

It looks like you had such a fun weekend. Thanks for sharing it with us! Now all I want to do is go back for a relaxing weekend like yours... although I don't think I could resist going to the parks for some of it. I got mad for you when no one was being helpful when you were trying to find your photo. I am so glad that you guys were able to find access to the area and get it back. I can't believe that they just left it outside!! I guess it worked in your favor but still.

When we were having photos taken on our wedding day a family rode by in on those bikes and DH and I really wanted to stop and ask if we could borrow it for photos . We'll just have to go back and try them out properly. Was it hot when you were there? I don't know if I'd survive riding those bikes with how hot it has been lately. On a day like today the boat rides you went on looked like they were probably a lot of fun and refreshing to have the breeze and mist on you.

 

[M&M126]

It looks like you had such a fun weekend. Thanks for sharing it with us! Now all I want to do is go back for a relaxing weekend like yours... although I don't think I could resist going to the parks for some of it. I got mad for you when no one was being helpful when you were trying to find your photo. I am so glad that you guys were able to find access to the area and get it back. I can't believe that they just left it outside!! I guess it worked in your favor but still.

When we were having photos taken on our wedding day a family rode by in on those bikes and DH and I really wanted to stop and ask if we could borrow it for photos . We'll just have to go back and try them out properly. Was it hot when you were there? I don't know if I'd survive riding those bikes with how hot it has been lately. On a day like today the boat rides you went on looked like they were probably a lot of fun and refreshing to have the breeze and mist on you.

Yeah I was a little irritated at the whole photo situation too. I cannot believe their policy is just to leave them on the table! I still kind of want to email the Manager over there and complain But maybe I should be quiet since I did get the pictures back.

Yes it was very hot but that's why we went swimming afterwards. Haha. You should definitely rent those the next time your down. It's a lot of fun. I want to do the ones at the Boardwalk next time!