September Trips Are For Love Bugs...Like Us!! 9/23-9/29/10 at WL

[twenty3curls]

Greetings, Dis friends!

I wasn’t planning to do a TR. But….my husband and I just returned from an absolutely wonderful September trip and I wanted to prolong the good feelings a little longer and share all the fun…so here I am!
I started did a PTR/partial TR last fall, but I was working full-time, going to graduate school full-time, planning a wedding, and I just couldn’t find time to update. Things are a lot calmer this fall, so I have much more time to dedicate to this TR.

Since I didn’t do a PTR for this trip, let me start with some background info and basic trip details…

Who:
Me… For those who don’t know me, I’m Emily. I’m 29, newly married, a slight workholic, (obviously) a Disney lover, and whole bunch of other things that have nothing to do with Disney or this trip report. I’m from the metro Detroit area and I’ve lived the majority of my life there.

My job is just coming down from crazy season (boss is the managing partner at an outdoor water park, in addition the other two, totally-unrelated companies he owns…weird, I know)….I worked 6-7 days a week, 10-12 hours a day, all summer long. The park closed for the season on Labor Day….and I couldn’t leave for a vacation quickly enough! Man, I needed a break…with a capital B!

J…My husband. General manager and brewer at a local restaurant/brewery. Also a workaholic. And an artist, a furniture maker, and a generally-handy/crafty dude. Since I work a day job and he works a lot of nights at the restaurant, we don’t see each other nearly as much as we’d like. Another reason we both needed this vacation BIG TIME!

J and I were married March 12th of this year at Disney’s Boardwalk Inn. What an amazing day. *le sigh* We were supposed to be married at Sea Breeze Point, the gazebo at the end of the Boardwalk, but it poured for the majority of our wedding day, so we were moved indoors. Although initially disappointed with the forced moved, the whole day was phenomenal. We had a post-wedding dinner party in the private Napa Room at California Grill…what a great way to cap off and great day!




Okay, enough about us! Moving on…

What:
A fall getaway for two love bugs in the land of Love Bugs.

When:
Thursday, September 23rd through Wednesday, September 29th.

Where:
Wilderness Lodge!

We love this hotel. J and I are both outdoorsy people and the whole theme at Wilderness is so spot-on. And so relaxing! I love that it’s just a quick boat ride from Magic Kingdom. I love the walk from CR to MK, but this is a close second. This is our second time at WL and we liked it even more this time around.

While at WDW in March for our wedding, the bounceback offer was 40% off deluxe, room-only rates. Since this was before the discount was released to the public or via pin codes, we were able to get a Woods View before they were snapped up. We talked about changing our dates slightly after the discount was released to the public and there was no availability at all in September (Value Season) at Wilderness Lodge! We definitely lucked out.

Why:
Why not?! Six months of marriage is an important milestone to celebrate, right?! Really, though, the reason we decided to come down so quickly was a combination of the bounceback discount and our annual passes. As part of our Disney wedding package, we received two annual passes. We figured that since we had them we should get as much use out of them as possible! Tickets we didn’t pay for combined with the great room rate made for a trip we couldn’t pass up!

Okay… so on to the trip report!!

 

[twenty3curls]

1. Introductions and the 5 Ws

2. That Didn't Take Too Long, Right?! - Arrival and Day 1 Afternoon

 

[twenty3curls]

Day 1 – Arrival and Afternoon

As we always do, we drove to Disney World from Detroit. Depending on weather, construction, traffic, etc., it’s a 17-18 hour drive. We make the drive straight through because neither J nor I have any trouble driving for long stretches. This may change when we have kids, but for now we like making the drive without stopping and getting there sooner.
We always time our drives so that we can avoid Atlanta during waking hours. It can be such a zoo in the metro-Atlanta stretch of I-75 that we try to avoid it at all costs!

We were planning to be on the road around 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday evening, but I got held up a little trying to put the finishing touches on my Halloween costume (for MNSSHP!). By the time we left our apartment, we were starving. So, we stopped for a quick dinner and finally hit the road around 9:30 p.m. A brief 18 hours later, at 3:30 p.m., we were pulling up to this….

*le sigh*

We headed straight to the Wilderness Lodge to check in.

I had checked-in online a few days prior to our trip, so this was a breeze. Jeff helped the Bell Service CM unload our car, while I headed inside to get our room assignment. There was no one in the Online Check-In line, so we had our room keys and hotel packet within 5 minutes! I had not placed any room requests before our arrival, so I had no expectations as to where our room would be… but we couldn’t have been happier.

As I mentioned in the intro post, we had a Woods View room. Well, for us this meant Room 5037. We loved our room. It was a little far from the elevators in the lobby, but it was a just around the corner from the elevators that are just past Roaring Fork and the doors to the pool. I liked coming in from the pool and only having to walk a few feet to the elevator, instead of traipsing through the main lobby in a cover-up and wet flip-flops!

This was the view from our balcony…

I definitely didn’t hate waking up to that view each morning!

After our bags were delivered and we got settled in, we decided to head downstairs to Roaring Fork for a late lunch. We were both starving because we’d been unwilling to stop in the last 3-4 hours of our trip, so that we could just get there.

**I’m going to admit, right up front, I didn’t get many, if any, food pictures this trip. I decided early on not to be a slave to the “must get” pictures and just snap away when I was in the mood. And, I was rarely in the mood to pause before eating to capture a picture. I found myself very hungry on this trip…and I wasn’t waiting to dig in for anything!**

J and I both got the same thing to eat: Roast Beef and Blue Cheese Sandwich with homemade chips. YUM! It definitely hit our spots! Actually, I couldn’t finish my sandwich and took half back to the room to save for later. The chips were so good. The sandwich had tons of meat on it and I can’t remember what type of spread they put on, but it was delicious. Definitely on par with a sandwich I’d get a “fancy” deli around home.

After our late lunch, we went back up to the room to take a brief nap, shower and change. Our plans for the evening were Hollywood Studios, which closed at 9:30 that night.

Up next: Our evening at Hollywood Studios and, maybe, the most pointless line J’s ever stood in.

 

[heaven2dc]

Loved your view at WL!! Seems like the perfect location - now I can't wait to hear how HS night went.

 

[smidgen21]

Hello! Great start! Awesome view. We both agreed we'd love to stay at WL next time. AKL was awesome, but WL looks so beautiful.

 

[Shannon84]

Aww happy to find your TR...hope you dont mind me jumping in. We just returned last night from WDW and I am already having serious withdrawls!!

 

[twenty3curls]

Loved your view at WL!! Seems like the perfect location - now I can't wait to hear how HS night went.

It really is a great location...and view! Wilderness Lodge for the win!

Hello! Great start! Awesome view. We both agreed we'd love to stay at WL next time. AKL was awesome, but WL looks so beautiful.

Hey! Funny you say that about WL and AKL...because we were just saying last night that maybe next fall we'd try AKL!

Aww happy to find your TR...hope you dont mind me jumping in. We just returned last night from WDW and I am already having serious withdrawls!!

Welcome! I hear you on the withdrawal! I'm having a hard time focusing at work... so I just immerse myself in TRs and my photo album.