Wilderness Lodge Concierge
Cast:
ME- 32, planner, borderline Disney obsessed
DH-Fred: 38, likes Disney, but now calls me the Disney drill instructor!
DS- Jared: 4 ½, Buzzs biggest fan (or so we thought)
Day 1- Fri. Sept. 12
Well the big day has arrived and we can barely stand the excitement! My DS keeps asking me if we are going to miss the plane ..silly kid, I keep reassuring him that wont happen! We are due to depart Pittsburgh airport at 9:10. We had decided a few days before to use an off-site parking facility trying to save about $45. This was almost a disastrous mistake.
We left the house at about 6:30 and are really only about 30 minutes from the airport at that time of the day. The directions that I had gotten off of Mapquest to the the parking facility turned out to leave out one very important thing
.the exit name has changed!! So we missed our exit and when we realized it we just jumped right off the next exit
..BIG mistake! The exit had construction going on all around it and the re-entry onto the highway was closed due to this. So we had to go about ten miles out of our way to get back on the highway. I was a little stressed about the time at this point but knew we would be ok
or so I thought! When we got back on the highway of course by this time rush hour was getting going so we are now sitting in traffic! I was really sweating it by this time! I told DH to forget the offsite parking and just get us to the airport
.we arrived and he dropped us off curbside and there was a wonderful skycap that helped zip us through check in in no time and I was relieved. Of course when we were getting on the plane I told DS See I told you we wouldnt miss the plane! Whew!!
Our flight was fine and DS was very good!
We arrived at MCO and made a very good judgment call when we decided to pick up the rental car before we got our bags and this really saved us a lot of time we were on our way to the lodge in no time. We made a quick stop at the grocery for some snacks and such and pulled up to the WL security at about 1:00. He pointed us in the right direction and when we pulled up they greeted us very warmly with Good afternoon Mr. And Mrs. Adams, welcome to the Wilderness Lodge I just looked at DH and smiled! When we walked in I was really struck by how lovely this resort is .I just knew we were gonna be happy here! A very nice
man took us right up to the 7th floor and we got all checked in and they gave us a small comcierge tour
and showed us to our room. We were in room # 7044 with 2 queen beds and a view of the castle, space mountain and the otter pond. This overlooked the back service area and even though some have had some complaints of it being noisy we personally never had any complaints to this. It was beautiful and we found it to be large enough for the 3 of us. I quickly unpacked us and we decided to hit the pool where we enjoyed a very nice swim which we shared with some ducks. DS thought this was great.
We briefly ran into the lodge Mercantile for a fat pen for autographs.
We had PS for 5:00 at Chef Mickeys so we took the boat over to MK and then grabbed the monorail to Contemporary (we wanted DS to have a little monorail ride). We found the food here to be great, prime rib, ham, Parmesan mashed potatoes (yummy), a really great seafood and pasta Newburg, great desserts, lots of other things as well. So heres where the dreaded question comes ..first character at our table- Chip, Jared was a little shy at first but he warmed up pretty quickly. After Chip leaves he says to me Mommy, why arent they talking to me? OH NO!!!! This cant be happening to me
.what do I say? I look to DH
hes no help!!! I have visions of Jared figuring out this grand con we are trying to pull on him and I just wasnt ready for the magic to be ruined for him.
I feel
myself break into a cold sweat .think, think, think!! I finally give him the lame excuse that they have to save their voices for the shows .if they talk to every kid they wont have their voices left. Im not
sure he bought it .I am not sure I bought it either!! Oh, well I was in the hot seat I had to improvise!
We also meet up with Dale, Goofy, Mickey, Minnie, and Donald out in the foyer area. All characters were great and they really loved his autograph book
that I had made prior to the trip (Thanks Ratpack!). We head back to the lodge. I headed to the concierge desk to ask a ? and who do I run into but Majestic (Fred) and his family. I really enjoyed meeting him and his family. We chatted for a few minutes and he gave me a tour of his room to see his view .we were down the hall from him and his view was slightly better. We were fortunate to run into him and his family several times throughout the trip but unfortunately never had as much time with them as we would of liked. Definitely nice people and just love their little one! We decided to go for another swim and a quick dip in the hot tub before we turned in. I will make one WL complaint here and maybe its just me but I thought they had the most uncomfortable pillows I have ever come across .this was a problem for me throughout the week. Even with that though I am feeling the magic and as I was falling asleep I realized I had a smile on my face.
Coming up.....Magic Kingdom
Cast:
ME- 32, planner, borderline Disney obsessed
DH-Fred: 38, likes Disney, but now calls me the Disney drill instructor!
DS- Jared: 4 ½, Buzzs biggest fan (or so we thought)
Day 1- Fri. Sept. 12
Well the big day has arrived and we can barely stand the excitement! My DS keeps asking me if we are going to miss the plane ..silly kid, I keep reassuring him that wont happen! We are due to depart Pittsburgh airport at 9:10. We had decided a few days before to use an off-site parking facility trying to save about $45. This was almost a disastrous mistake.
We left the house at about 6:30 and are really only about 30 minutes from the airport at that time of the day. The directions that I had gotten off of Mapquest to the the parking facility turned out to leave out one very important thing
.the exit name has changed!! So we missed our exit and when we realized it we just jumped right off the next exit
..BIG mistake! The exit had construction going on all around it and the re-entry onto the highway was closed due to this. So we had to go about ten miles out of our way to get back on the highway. I was a little stressed about the time at this point but knew we would be ok
or so I thought! When we got back on the highway of course by this time rush hour was getting going so we are now sitting in traffic! I was really sweating it by this time! I told DH to forget the offsite parking and just get us to the airport
.we arrived and he dropped us off curbside and there was a wonderful skycap that helped zip us through check in in no time and I was relieved. Of course when we were getting on the plane I told DS See I told you we wouldnt miss the plane! Whew!! Our flight was fine and DS was very good! We arrived at MCO and made a very good judgment call when we decided to pick up the rental car before we got our bags and this really saved us a lot of time we were on our way to the lodge in no time. We made a quick stop at the grocery for some snacks and such and pulled up to the WL security at about 1:00. He pointed us in the right direction and when we pulled up they greeted us very warmly with Good afternoon Mr. And Mrs. Adams, welcome to the Wilderness Lodge I just looked at DH and smiled! When we walked in I was really struck by how lovely this resort is .I just knew we were gonna be happy here! A very nice
man took us right up to the 7th floor and we got all checked in and they gave us a small comcierge tour
and showed us to our room. We were in room # 7044 with 2 queen beds and a view of the castle, space mountain and the otter pond. This overlooked the back service area and even though some have had some complaints of it being noisy we personally never had any complaints to this. It was beautiful and we found it to be large enough for the 3 of us. I quickly unpacked us and we decided to hit the pool where we enjoyed a very nice swim which we shared with some ducks. DS thought this was great.
We briefly ran into the lodge Mercantile for a fat pen for autographs.
We had PS for 5:00 at Chef Mickeys so we took the boat over to MK and then grabbed the monorail to Contemporary (we wanted DS to have a little monorail ride). We found the food here to be great, prime rib, ham, Parmesan mashed potatoes (yummy), a really great seafood and pasta Newburg, great desserts, lots of other things as well. So heres where the dreaded question comes ..first character at our table- Chip, Jared was a little shy at first but he warmed up pretty quickly. After Chip leaves he says to me Mommy, why arent they talking to me? OH NO!!!!
This cant be happening to me
.what do I say? I look to DH
hes no help!!! I have visions of Jared figuring out this grand con we are trying to pull on him and I just wasnt ready for the magic to be ruined for him.I feel
myself break into a cold sweat .think, think, think!! I finally give him the lame excuse that they have to save their voices for the shows .if they talk to every kid they wont have their voices left. Im not
sure he bought it .I am not sure I bought it either!! Oh, well I was in the hot seat I had to improvise!
We also meet up with Dale, Goofy, Mickey, Minnie, and Donald out in the foyer area. All characters were great and they really loved his autograph book
that I had made prior to the trip (Thanks Ratpack!). We head back to the lodge. I headed to the concierge desk to ask a ? and who do I run into but Majestic (Fred) and his family. I really enjoyed meeting him and his family. We chatted for a few minutes and he gave me a tour of his room to see his view .we were down the hall from him and his view was slightly better. We were fortunate to run into him and his family several times throughout the trip but unfortunately never had as much time with them as we would of liked. Definitely nice people and just love their little one! We decided to go for another swim and a quick dip in the hot tub before we turned in. I will make one WL complaint here and maybe its just me but I thought they had the most uncomfortable pillows I have ever come across .this was a problem for me throughout the week. Even with that though I am feeling the magic and as I was falling asleep I realized I had a smile on my face.
Coming up.....Magic Kingdom
