Our trip to the Wilderness Lodge August 11th - 18th, 2004 - Day 8, (Completed 9-8-04) About This Page:

[PhillyPooh]

Cast of Characters:



Me, Wanda (41), 7th trip to WDW

(married to John, (50) doesn't do WDW)

DD, Pam (18), 6th trip to WDW

DS, Matt (16), 6th trip to WDW



Trip dates: August 11th-18th 2004



Resort: Wilderness Lodge Room 6051 (courtyard view)



Transportation: Pam and me-US Air, Matt-Air Tran, Quicksilver Town Car



Purpose of trip: To celebrate Pam graduating #4 in her graduating class, have some "bonding time" before she leaves for college and to just relax. I work between 6 and 7 days a week. I work full time as a secretary at a hospital and then part time on the weekends as a waitress. My mom was diagnosed in January with pancreatic cancer and to say this has been a stressful year is an understatement.



This is my first attempt at writing a trip report so please bear with me. Our last trip to WDW was June 2002 and we stayed at the Beach Club. It rained the entire week we were there and my son basically complained and was miserable the entire trip . Looking back now I realize it was his age, hormones and basically him going through growing pains but it was not a pleasant trip. Both my son and daughter announced that they had had enough of WDW and had no desire to come back anytime soon . My son announced "I hate WDW, everyone is to happy". Can you imagine? I was so depressed when we got home from that trip. I figured I would never get back to my "happy place" until I had grandbabies some day. Fast forward to September 2003. My son and daughter are both in choir and they announce that they will be performing in WDW over spring break. As tempting as it was to go along I couldn't imagine spending 17 hours traveling each way on a bus to spend two days at WDW . The second day they were there, my daughter called me and said "Mom, we have absolutely no time to do anything here. Before I leave for college can just you and I come back to WDW?" Of course it took me about one second to think that one over . I of course asked my son if he wanted to join us and he said "no". Now I had to decide where to stay. The Animal Kingdom Lodge and Wilderness Lodge both looked very appealing and we had never stayed at either one. My daughter had no interest in staying at the Animal Kingdom Lodge so I showed her lots of on-line pictures of the Wilderness Lodge and we decided to stay there. I had Nancy from YMJ's book our room (standard view). After the 7 for 5 package was released we switched over to that. I next booked our airfare with US Air. I don't like flying them but our seats were only $176 each round trip, non-stop, with the times we were looking for.



With our room and airfare booked I now had to wait to make our priority seatings. We always go to Chef Mickeys for dinner on our first night. Below is a list of our priority seatings:



Day 1 - Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 6:10pm Chef Mickeys

Day 3 - Friday, August 13, 2004 - 5:35pm Crystal Palace (this would get changed because of Hurricane Charley)

Day 4 - Saturday, August 14, 2004 - 12:10pm 50's Prime Time Café

Day 5 - Sunday, August 15, 2004 – 8pm California Grille

Day 6 - Monday, August 16, 2004 - 7:15pm Hoop Dee Doo Review



My daughter also wanted to see Cirque du Soleil again, so I jumped on line and got tickets for this. We were lucky enough to get seats in the last row of section 102. Since we have been to WDW a few times I wanted to make this a more "relaxing" trip. I seriously don't know if that is possible unless you go more than once every couple of years. So now that all our plans are in place, it is time to just sit back, read the "boards" and wait for August. Fast forward, again, to one week before we leave. My son (yes the one who hates WDW) asks me "mom, would it cost a lot for you to take me with you and Pam to WDW? I replied "no". Of course it would cost more but I would love for him to join Pam and me. Since this was originally supposed to be just Pam and I, I felt it was only right to ask her if it was o.k. if Matt joined us. I was looking forward to spending mother/daughter time with Pam but also knew I was really going to miss Matt. Pam said "YES, that would be great!" She was so excited to have him going with us, this way they could go to the water parks together and do the rides that I don't do. It is really nice now that they are older and can come and go back to the hotel and parks by themselves. I now quickly sent an e-mail off to Nancy to inquire about adding him to our room and jumped on line to find airfare for him. Of course the tickets for US Air are now $350 a piece. I now check Air Tran. They also offer non-stop flights and their tickets were only $145, cheaper than what I paid. I was able to book Matt on a flight that left Philly a ½ hour after ours and left Orlando coming back to Philly the same time as ours. I sent Quicksilver an e-mail to let them know what was going on and they quickly responded with an e-mail telling me exactly where to go to meet Matt when he arrived. I can't say enough good things about Quicksilver. This is the first time we used them and they were wonderful. We will definitely use them again. Next I called WDW dining to change my PS's from two people to three. I had no trouble changing any of them but it did take about ½ an hour on the phone. So this is how I unexpectedly got to go to WDW this summer. I hope this isn't to "wordy". We had an absolutely wonderful vacation. It was so wonderful spending a week with my two wonderful children, enjoying my "happy place". I guess one of the highlights of the trip is that Matt had a great time and wants to go back to WDW "someday". I will try to get Day 1 posted soon.

[sarah_belle]

We were at Hoop Dee Doo the day before you. I hope you had as much fun as we did!

[CRCrazy]

This is awesome - can't wait to hear about your trip. So glad your son decided to join you - hope that things are going well!

[JenS]

How great that your son is able to join you! I am looking forward to your report!

[Colexis Mom]

What a great start It sounds like you had a magical vacation! Can't wait to hear all the details

[imagineerwannabe]

Wanda,

I really enjoyed your pre-trip report, and anxiously await further details. I sometimes get the same thing from my oldest daughter who makes statements of not liking WDW. I try to feed her information every now and then, and just happen to leave the Travel Channel on when the Disney shows are on. I am interested in hearing how you handle some of this, and how they liked WDW after making it through Charley.

[luvnwdwgal]

Great start Wanda and it's not too wordy at all!! Looking forward to Day 1!!

[katspjs]

Great start. Can't wait to hear about WL, since we'll be staying there next month.

[PhillyPooh]

Me, Wanda (41), 7th trip to WDW
DD, Pam (18), 6th trip to WDW
DS, Matt (16), 6th trip to WDW

Trip dates: August 11th - 18th 2004

Resort: Wilderness Lodge Room 6051 (courtyard view)

Day 1 - Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Since I get up everyday for work at 5:10am I actually got to sleep in today until 6am. Usually the night before I leave to go on a trip I can't sleep. Last night I slept like a baby. We were all packed and in bed by 11pm. I'm sorry but I will never be able to pack light. I figure I would rather have it with me and not need it then not have it and need it. Pam had one big suitcase, Matt had one big suitcase and I had a big suitcase and a little suitcase plus my rolling tote bag. We got up, showered and headed for the airport at 8am. I know it's early but I still had to have my mini "stinger" to calm my nerves before leaving. It's nice living only 15 minutes away from the airport. I figured since it was a weekday morning we might run into traffic but we didn't. I had already checked in on-line the day before for Pam and my flight (US Air) and Matt's flight on Air Tran. When I booked the flight on US Air I picked out our seats. When I booked Matt's flight I couldn't get a seat assignment so I did that when I checked him in on-line. It was nice being able to have our boarding passes in our hands when we got to the airport. I had hubby drop off Matt first even though his flight left ½ hour after ours just so I could make sure he got where he needed to be. I gave him $5 to give to the guy to do curbside check in. I told him to leave his cell phone on and head to his gate once he checked in. Next, hubby dropped off Pam and I and all our luggage at US Air. There were about 15 people in front of us for curbside check in but the line moved fast. We were all checked in and through security by 8:45am. I called Matt on his cell phone and Pam and I walked over to his gate to get him and go get some breakfast. We got some coffee and breakfast sandwiches from Burger King. Matt's flight was delayed leaving Philly 15 minutes. So now Matt's flight is leaving at 10:45am and our flight is still leaving on time at 10:00am. Pam and I said good-bye to Matt, told him to call my cell phone when his plane landed and headed for our gate. Sidenote - I'll never understand why everyone is so anxious to rush on to the plane when you are going to be sitting in cramped quarters for the next 2+ hours. I would rather sit in the chairs at the gate and take my time getting on the plane. The people at the boarding area had to tell more than one person that they hadn'T called their row yet. Sorry, I just don't get it. We landed right on time around 12:30pm. We went and got our luggage from "B" side and then had to go up to the 3rd floor and make our way over to the "C" side to wait for Matt's flight. After a mix up, we were waiting at the bottom of the wrong escalator, we found Matt and then our Quicksilver driver. I apologized to him for keeping him waiting and let him know that we had changed our minds about stopping for groceries. It was now 2pm and the kids were anxious to get to our hotel. We were only going to buy water and snacks anyway.

We arrived at the Wilderness Lodge at 2:30pm. I paid our driver and made arrangements for our return trip. There was only one other person checking in when we did. I booked a standard view room. We had a really nice CM who checked us in. I inquired about being upgraded to concierge. She told me "well you have already been upgraded to a courtyard view and I would recommend that you keep this room". She told me concierge would be an additional $70 a night. I decided to keep our free upgraded courtyard view room. Boy am I glad I did. Our room was 6051 and was perfect. We had a view of the courtyard, pool and Bay Lake. We called to have our bags sent up and they were there in less than 5 minutes. We now decided to go explore the resort and get some lunch. We found our way to Roaring Forks and had lunch. We also purchased just one refillable mug to share which worked out good. After lunch we went back to the room to unpack a little and decided to head to the pool before going to dinner. When we got down to the pool area we couldn't find any chairs so we decided to head to the beach for a little while. We were only at the beach around 15 minutes when the dark clouds and thunderstorms moved in. We now headed back to the room to relax and unpack. Around 4:30pm the rain moved out and we decided to head over to the Contemporary. Before we left for the Contemporary Matt informed me that his ear was still bothering him. In case you haven't been following everything leading up to this trip, Matt had surgery 10 days before we left to have a cyst removed behind his ear. I looked at it and it wasn't looking to good. He only took about 2 days worth of the antibiotic that the surgeon had prescribed to him. Of course I didn't find this out until 7 days after the surgery. I kept reminding him three times a day to take his antibiotic. He told me he was taking it but he didn't. Kids! Luckily I brought the prescription along (remember I don't pack light) so I started him back on that.

At 5pm we headed to the boat dock to take the boat over to the Contemporary for our dinner at Chef Mickey's. I really liked using the boats to get to the Contemporary and Magic Kingdom. We walked around the gift shop and then checked in early for our 6:10pm priority seating. We love going to Chef Mickey's for our first dinner. Dinner was great and I got some wonderful pictures of the kids and the characters. After dinner we decided to take the monorail over to Epcot. Epcot wasn't to crowded but had a 60 minute wait for Test Track. We decided to head over to the World Showcase. Our first stop was Mexico. My kids don't like the boat ride but went on it with me to humor me. We walked around the gift shop but didn't get anything. We went over to Norway but the wait was to long for the ride there. Around 8:30pm we decided to go find a good spot for Illuminations. We found an excellent spot with no one in front of us. Illuminations was great but I still prefer the old show. After Illuminations we headed to the bus back to the Wilderness Lodge. Pam headed to the lobby to call her boyfriend and Matt and I headed to the hot tub. It felt so good after our long day. I stayed for about a half hour and chatted with Matt, it was nice. He thanked me for bringing him along. He really has turned into such a nice young man. I thanked him for deciding to join Pam and I. I got back to the room at 11pm and Pam was fast asleep. At 11:45pm when Matt wasn't back I went on the hunt for him. I found him schmoozing in the pool with a young lady named Kristin. Kids! I told him it was time to head back to the room. I called for our wake up call for 7:35am. Lights out at 12:15am.

[Colexis Mom]

What a great first day Wanda

How fantastic to be upgraded Can't wait for more

[luvnwdwgal]

Thanks for day 1 Wanda!! Looking forward to the next day!!

[Bellaciavo]

Here's to free upgrades and flights being on time.
Looking forward to your next post.

Karen

[katspjs]

Great first day. Looking forward to reading more.

[IdahoDisneyMom]

Wanda,
Great first trip report! It's easy to read, and gives just enough detail! Keep them coming (after your "baby girl leaves for college"). Enjoy your last day home with her, and then we'd love to read more!!
Stephanie

[wdw4me]

I'm enjoying your trip report - looking forward to your next installment!