Lisa F
is a very wise woman
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2000
- Messages
- 11,129
Here's my report on our first stay at VWL, as promised. It's very long and in excruciating detail but I'm guessing that a bunch of you are obsessive like I am and would love to hear about it. Anyway, here it is!
We checked in at around 10am on Saturday the 17th and were really surprised to find out that our room was ready (the CM at the front desk said that they had a lot of empty rooms the night before which is why our room was ready). Checkin was fairly painless, though there appear to be many new CM there, probably to handle the additional guests with the villas opening up. The CM we had was nice and very friendly, but a little bit clueless (admitting that he was new there). We asked for the list of DVC member discounts and the CM had no idea what DVC was, let alone that there were discounts available for it (though he did seem to understand that we were staying there using some mysterious form of currency called "points.") We discovered later that you could pick up the list of member discounts from the guest services desk, right to the left of the checkin desk.
At this point we were running late and needed to meet some friends at the safari at AK so we decided to head out without checking out the room first (it killed me!) When we got back to the WL that afternoon with our friends (who still needed to check in) I once again asked at the front desk for the DVC member discounts and the CM doing the checkin was clueless. Eventually my husband tried with guest services and they had the list.
We took our friends up to their room and were once again struck by how small the rooms feel at the Wilderness Lodge. We had stayed there once before for just one night and weren't particularly impressed by the rooms. Our friends had a courtyard view on the top floor and really loved their room (except for the size). Then we FINALLY were able to head over to the villas to check out our room.
If you're familiar with the WL at all, the walkway connects the old walkway that goes from the lodge (near the mercantile) to the bus stop. In fact, if you are into bus transportation (we are not, we prefer to drive) then the villas are really very convenient to the bus. The walkway is outdoors but it is very wide and covered so even in very heavy rain (which we had) you stay dry on it. The whole thing is sloped and it's not unusual to see someone from bell services "riding" their cart like a skateboard down the walkway.
The new building with the villas themselves is beautiful. I remember being vaguely unimpressed by construction photos but make no mistake, the outside of the building has just as much detail as the lodge does. I think they go quite well together. Inside, the main atrium is also very well done. I have seen complaints about the "fake" logs from other people who have been there so of course I went to check those out first. They seem to be done in exactly the same way as the ones in the Wilderness Lodge and although they are not perfect reproductions of the natural counterparts, they look ok to me. I, for one, am glad that Disney chose to "imagineer" logs of that size rather than cut down old growth trees just for the sake of having real logs in the villas.
There is a lot of great detail everywhere in the building and I won't go into all of that detail now, but just let me say that it's worth it to look around (at the elevator doors, at the main atrium (both from the first floor and from above), etc. I'm a bit of a "hallway" person (a dark, dingy hallway really turns me off to a place and when we stayed at the beach club a while back, the hallways there really turned me off to the place... it was just an unpleasant walk from the elevators to the rooms) and the hallways here are every bit as beautifully done as those in the boardwalk. The carpets are beautiful, the wood trimwork is beautiful and there are even "cast iron" mickeys decorating the brackets framing each bay of rooms that made me smile every time we walked down the hall.
We stayed in a studio and for me, it was love at first sight. THe layout of the studio is essentially the same as the studios are in the BWV. you come into a little vestibule area that is painted a beautiful rich red (one of my favorite colors anyway) and has a really lovely wood mirror corner console unit. Like the boardwalk, you then walk past the kitchenette and sink area (which are opposite each other). The one thing I didn't really care for in the decor of the room were the dark wood cabinets here. To me they too closely resembled cheap cabinetry because they were stained rustic looking wood like everything else (the green cabinets in the one bedroom look a lot nicer to me). But, how much time to you spend in the kitchenette, anyway?
The rest of the room was like the boardwalk but with some minor improvements. The armoire has 4 very good sized drawers in it and easily accomodated the clothes of two adults for a week with plenty of room to spare. Instead of the old fashioned kind of thermostat, the rooms at the villas have a new digital one which is nice because you can set the temperature and it just maintains that temp. I don't know about you, but one thing we struggle with in a hotel room is trying to find the right temperature and the new digital thermostat cut out a LOT of that. The other thing that was different than the BW was the arrangment of the furniture. The armoire is now directly across from the bed and the table and chairs are next to the connecting door (it is the other way aroudn in the BW).
The pictures of the room make it seem sort of bland and colorless, but in reality the walls are painted a really rich cream color that just doesn't come through in photographs. The room was really beautiful, tasteful, and probably the most strongly themed of any other dvc resort.
Compared to the rooms at the lodge, the studio was definately significantly larger and more rustic in detailing. The only thing I liked better at the lodge were the balconies. The balcones on the villas side were barely large enough for two people to stand or sit on while at the lodge, our friends had a "dormer" balcony and it was plenty large for the 4 of us to sit on and talk while the kids were sleeping inside.
The other really great thing about the WL itself is the pool. We have never swam in the pool at the BW, mostly because I'm not a big fan of the theming over there... but with kids who love swimming with us, we were forced to try out the pool at the WL and it was WONDERFUL. The themeing is beautiful and nothing is more relaxing than the hot tub. My husband loved the slide and went on it over and over and over again. We didn't actually try out the new quiet pool but passed it quite a bit and it is basically a mini version of the larger pool without the slide, but it does have a hot tub. I am looking forward to trying that pool as well.
The thing I missed over BWV is the proximity to the parks. WL seems REALLY out there. Even though there is water transportation to the MK, the one night we really would've loved to take advantage of it, it wasn't running. They stop running the boats for e-ride night and instead you need to take a bus. We were actually considering doing this until we learned that you could NOT get the bus at the MK gate like you could get buses to every other resort but rather you had to take the monorail to TTC and THEN get the bus that is shared with fort wilderness. We opted to drive to TTC since it made no sense to have to monorail there and then possibly wait a half hour for a bus that might even go to ft. wilderness first (we didn't know the route). Personally, I feel like if you are staying at a deluxe level resort that you should have transportation options at least equal to the value and moderates. I didn't mind so much that they stopped running the boat but expected to be able to get a bus at the MK gate like for every other resort.
I hope I don't offend any OKW owners here, but we stayed there twice, trying to understand the "relaxing" "away from it all" atmosphere there and frankly, it was just plain boring to me. When we stayed there I felt completely isolated and like I was out on the boonies. I have to say that after staying at the WL i can KIND of understand why people like being out of the way a bit but at the same time, the WL was much more my style. The fact that we weren't so close to all of the action plus the fact that we were traveling with little ones and that there was such a beautiful pool there forced us to slow down adn enjoy the resort more. The main difference between OKW and VWL, though, is that the WL is a lot more compact and I guess I really do prefer that hotel feel. I like being able to walk down to the lobby in less than 5 minutes, I like having restaurant choices, I loved the big fireplace, I loved the beautiful pool, and I didn't have to drive to any of these places. I'm really glad that Disney built these villas because I think they are right in between OKW and BWV as far as action vs. relaxation goes and it's at a perfect level for me to take my vacation activity down a notch (so maybe you OKW owners who think the BWV is too busy might want to check out the VWL if you feel like bringing your activity up a notch
).
The other really great thing about the WL that the BW just doesn't have is the refillable mug program. For $10 you buy a really cute mug and you can have free refills on soft drinks, tea, hot chocolate and coffee. We got our money's worth in lemonade in about 3 days and I am in love with any place that has a "add your own marshmallows" bar for the hot chocolate. I really wish that the BW had a place like the roaring forks to go to. Even though we didn't eat any of the counter service type food there, I can certainly see us using it at some point in the future.
The BWV still wins out when it comes to room service, though. The menu at BWV is a lot larger and more varied and I believe the hours are longer (maybe 24 hours?). From 10pm - midnight you can only order a pizza or a couple of sandwiches and then no room service after midnight. It does seem like disney originally intended there to be 24 hour room service because when we visited the model, in the info packet we took away it listed 24 hour room service as one of the amenities. We did order the pizza one night and it was pretty decent (and huge... it pretty much kept us in midnight snacks for the rest of the week) and we ordered a room service breakfast also. As at the boardwalk, the kids portions were quite large and we ended up ordering kids waffles and an adult omelette and splitting it all. The food was good and delivered very quickly (in 20 minutes instead of the estimated 45).
As far as other dining choices go, you can click here if you wish to read my report on restaurants at WDW posted to the restaurants board (don't worry, I put the WL restaurants first! and this report is getting quite long enough) but basically, it's really nice to have the "3 levels" of food service available (counter service, family dining and a more adult dining option).
Last, but not least, I just have to say how impressed we were with the staff at the WL in general. Although the checkin CM's were kind of clueless (yet still very very nice), everyone else was just wonderful. On our first day there, we turned in a parkhopper ticket that we found in the parking lot of AK. It seemed to be fairly beat up but of course there was no way of telling if it had any days left on it. Anyway, we dropped it off at guest services at the resort (since we were on our way back to the resort when we found it) and pretty much forgot about it. On our last full day there, we came back to find a basket of goodies in our room (chips, pretzels, cheese and crackers and two HUGE amazing chocolate chunk cookies, have to find out where they go tthose from!). In it was a note from the front desk manager thanking us for our honesty in turning in the ticket. I couldn't believe it and I'm not even sure how they tracked us down since my husband didn't recall giving our name or anything when we turned in the ticket. We still can't figure out how they did it, but at this point we've just chalked it up to some Disney magic.
All in all we had a WONDERFUL time. We have a 1br booked there for 5 days in august (booked sight unseen) and for the two days before that we have the AP rate at the new DAK lodge and I can't wait to get back to that beautiful place and its wonderful hot tub (BW wasn't available for the week we wanted!) I still think our home resort of the BWV just barely edges out VWL for me (restaurants are a bit better, room service is more varied and proximity to the parks can't be beat) BUT I have to say that, at least for us, the VWL is a very close second and I can definately see myself CHOOSING to stay there every so often rather than just taking it because nothing is available at the BWV. For those of you anticipating your first trip to the VWL, be very very excited. You won't be disappointed. It was truly wonderful... get your refillable mugs and bring your bathing suits and have a great time.
Lisa
"You employ stone, wood, and concrete, and with these materials you build house and palaces. That is construction. Ingenuity is at work. But suddenly, you touch my heart, you do me good. I am happy and I say 'This is beautiful.' That is architecture. Art enters in."
-Le Corbusier
[This message was edited by Lisa F on 03-25-01 at 01:10 PM.]
We checked in at around 10am on Saturday the 17th and were really surprised to find out that our room was ready (the CM at the front desk said that they had a lot of empty rooms the night before which is why our room was ready). Checkin was fairly painless, though there appear to be many new CM there, probably to handle the additional guests with the villas opening up. The CM we had was nice and very friendly, but a little bit clueless (admitting that he was new there). We asked for the list of DVC member discounts and the CM had no idea what DVC was, let alone that there were discounts available for it (though he did seem to understand that we were staying there using some mysterious form of currency called "points.") We discovered later that you could pick up the list of member discounts from the guest services desk, right to the left of the checkin desk.
At this point we were running late and needed to meet some friends at the safari at AK so we decided to head out without checking out the room first (it killed me!) When we got back to the WL that afternoon with our friends (who still needed to check in) I once again asked at the front desk for the DVC member discounts and the CM doing the checkin was clueless. Eventually my husband tried with guest services and they had the list.
We took our friends up to their room and were once again struck by how small the rooms feel at the Wilderness Lodge. We had stayed there once before for just one night and weren't particularly impressed by the rooms. Our friends had a courtyard view on the top floor and really loved their room (except for the size). Then we FINALLY were able to head over to the villas to check out our room.
If you're familiar with the WL at all, the walkway connects the old walkway that goes from the lodge (near the mercantile) to the bus stop. In fact, if you are into bus transportation (we are not, we prefer to drive) then the villas are really very convenient to the bus. The walkway is outdoors but it is very wide and covered so even in very heavy rain (which we had) you stay dry on it. The whole thing is sloped and it's not unusual to see someone from bell services "riding" their cart like a skateboard down the walkway.
The new building with the villas themselves is beautiful. I remember being vaguely unimpressed by construction photos but make no mistake, the outside of the building has just as much detail as the lodge does. I think they go quite well together. Inside, the main atrium is also very well done. I have seen complaints about the "fake" logs from other people who have been there so of course I went to check those out first. They seem to be done in exactly the same way as the ones in the Wilderness Lodge and although they are not perfect reproductions of the natural counterparts, they look ok to me. I, for one, am glad that Disney chose to "imagineer" logs of that size rather than cut down old growth trees just for the sake of having real logs in the villas.
There is a lot of great detail everywhere in the building and I won't go into all of that detail now, but just let me say that it's worth it to look around (at the elevator doors, at the main atrium (both from the first floor and from above), etc. I'm a bit of a "hallway" person (a dark, dingy hallway really turns me off to a place and when we stayed at the beach club a while back, the hallways there really turned me off to the place... it was just an unpleasant walk from the elevators to the rooms) and the hallways here are every bit as beautifully done as those in the boardwalk. The carpets are beautiful, the wood trimwork is beautiful and there are even "cast iron" mickeys decorating the brackets framing each bay of rooms that made me smile every time we walked down the hall.
We stayed in a studio and for me, it was love at first sight. THe layout of the studio is essentially the same as the studios are in the BWV. you come into a little vestibule area that is painted a beautiful rich red (one of my favorite colors anyway) and has a really lovely wood mirror corner console unit. Like the boardwalk, you then walk past the kitchenette and sink area (which are opposite each other). The one thing I didn't really care for in the decor of the room were the dark wood cabinets here. To me they too closely resembled cheap cabinetry because they were stained rustic looking wood like everything else (the green cabinets in the one bedroom look a lot nicer to me). But, how much time to you spend in the kitchenette, anyway?
The rest of the room was like the boardwalk but with some minor improvements. The armoire has 4 very good sized drawers in it and easily accomodated the clothes of two adults for a week with plenty of room to spare. Instead of the old fashioned kind of thermostat, the rooms at the villas have a new digital one which is nice because you can set the temperature and it just maintains that temp. I don't know about you, but one thing we struggle with in a hotel room is trying to find the right temperature and the new digital thermostat cut out a LOT of that. The other thing that was different than the BW was the arrangment of the furniture. The armoire is now directly across from the bed and the table and chairs are next to the connecting door (it is the other way aroudn in the BW).
The pictures of the room make it seem sort of bland and colorless, but in reality the walls are painted a really rich cream color that just doesn't come through in photographs. The room was really beautiful, tasteful, and probably the most strongly themed of any other dvc resort.
Compared to the rooms at the lodge, the studio was definately significantly larger and more rustic in detailing. The only thing I liked better at the lodge were the balconies. The balcones on the villas side were barely large enough for two people to stand or sit on while at the lodge, our friends had a "dormer" balcony and it was plenty large for the 4 of us to sit on and talk while the kids were sleeping inside.
The other really great thing about the WL itself is the pool. We have never swam in the pool at the BW, mostly because I'm not a big fan of the theming over there... but with kids who love swimming with us, we were forced to try out the pool at the WL and it was WONDERFUL. The themeing is beautiful and nothing is more relaxing than the hot tub. My husband loved the slide and went on it over and over and over again. We didn't actually try out the new quiet pool but passed it quite a bit and it is basically a mini version of the larger pool without the slide, but it does have a hot tub. I am looking forward to trying that pool as well.
The thing I missed over BWV is the proximity to the parks. WL seems REALLY out there. Even though there is water transportation to the MK, the one night we really would've loved to take advantage of it, it wasn't running. They stop running the boats for e-ride night and instead you need to take a bus. We were actually considering doing this until we learned that you could NOT get the bus at the MK gate like you could get buses to every other resort but rather you had to take the monorail to TTC and THEN get the bus that is shared with fort wilderness. We opted to drive to TTC since it made no sense to have to monorail there and then possibly wait a half hour for a bus that might even go to ft. wilderness first (we didn't know the route). Personally, I feel like if you are staying at a deluxe level resort that you should have transportation options at least equal to the value and moderates. I didn't mind so much that they stopped running the boat but expected to be able to get a bus at the MK gate like for every other resort.
I hope I don't offend any OKW owners here, but we stayed there twice, trying to understand the "relaxing" "away from it all" atmosphere there and frankly, it was just plain boring to me. When we stayed there I felt completely isolated and like I was out on the boonies. I have to say that after staying at the WL i can KIND of understand why people like being out of the way a bit but at the same time, the WL was much more my style. The fact that we weren't so close to all of the action plus the fact that we were traveling with little ones and that there was such a beautiful pool there forced us to slow down adn enjoy the resort more. The main difference between OKW and VWL, though, is that the WL is a lot more compact and I guess I really do prefer that hotel feel. I like being able to walk down to the lobby in less than 5 minutes, I like having restaurant choices, I loved the big fireplace, I loved the beautiful pool, and I didn't have to drive to any of these places. I'm really glad that Disney built these villas because I think they are right in between OKW and BWV as far as action vs. relaxation goes and it's at a perfect level for me to take my vacation activity down a notch (so maybe you OKW owners who think the BWV is too busy might want to check out the VWL if you feel like bringing your activity up a notch
). The other really great thing about the WL that the BW just doesn't have is the refillable mug program. For $10 you buy a really cute mug and you can have free refills on soft drinks, tea, hot chocolate and coffee. We got our money's worth in lemonade in about 3 days and I am in love with any place that has a "add your own marshmallows" bar for the hot chocolate. I really wish that the BW had a place like the roaring forks to go to. Even though we didn't eat any of the counter service type food there, I can certainly see us using it at some point in the future.
The BWV still wins out when it comes to room service, though. The menu at BWV is a lot larger and more varied and I believe the hours are longer (maybe 24 hours?). From 10pm - midnight you can only order a pizza or a couple of sandwiches and then no room service after midnight. It does seem like disney originally intended there to be 24 hour room service because when we visited the model, in the info packet we took away it listed 24 hour room service as one of the amenities. We did order the pizza one night and it was pretty decent (and huge... it pretty much kept us in midnight snacks for the rest of the week) and we ordered a room service breakfast also. As at the boardwalk, the kids portions were quite large and we ended up ordering kids waffles and an adult omelette and splitting it all. The food was good and delivered very quickly (in 20 minutes instead of the estimated 45).
As far as other dining choices go, you can click here if you wish to read my report on restaurants at WDW posted to the restaurants board (don't worry, I put the WL restaurants first! and this report is getting quite long enough) but basically, it's really nice to have the "3 levels" of food service available (counter service, family dining and a more adult dining option).
Last, but not least, I just have to say how impressed we were with the staff at the WL in general. Although the checkin CM's were kind of clueless (yet still very very nice), everyone else was just wonderful. On our first day there, we turned in a parkhopper ticket that we found in the parking lot of AK. It seemed to be fairly beat up but of course there was no way of telling if it had any days left on it. Anyway, we dropped it off at guest services at the resort (since we were on our way back to the resort when we found it) and pretty much forgot about it. On our last full day there, we came back to find a basket of goodies in our room (chips, pretzels, cheese and crackers and two HUGE amazing chocolate chunk cookies, have to find out where they go tthose from!). In it was a note from the front desk manager thanking us for our honesty in turning in the ticket. I couldn't believe it and I'm not even sure how they tracked us down since my husband didn't recall giving our name or anything when we turned in the ticket. We still can't figure out how they did it, but at this point we've just chalked it up to some Disney magic.
All in all we had a WONDERFUL time. We have a 1br booked there for 5 days in august (booked sight unseen) and for the two days before that we have the AP rate at the new DAK lodge and I can't wait to get back to that beautiful place and its wonderful hot tub (BW wasn't available for the week we wanted!) I still think our home resort of the BWV just barely edges out VWL for me (restaurants are a bit better, room service is more varied and proximity to the parks can't be beat) BUT I have to say that, at least for us, the VWL is a very close second and I can definately see myself CHOOSING to stay there every so often rather than just taking it because nothing is available at the BWV. For those of you anticipating your first trip to the VWL, be very very excited. You won't be disappointed. It was truly wonderful... get your refillable mugs and bring your bathing suits and have a great time.
Lisa
"You employ stone, wood, and concrete, and with these materials you build house and palaces. That is construction. Ingenuity is at work. But suddenly, you touch my heart, you do me good. I am happy and I say 'This is beautiful.' That is architecture. Art enters in."
-Le Corbusier
[This message was edited by Lisa F on 03-25-01 at 01:10 PM.]
I called tonight and asked for an upper floor room w/view; also planned on doing the enight thing tomorrow night, now we have a heads up on the transportation home. We'll see how that goes. If all goes well we'll be coming home owners!
