We arrived at the WL today.
We had an uneventful flight down but hit a huge mob at the Magical Express loading area. It took almost an hour from the time we walked off the plane until the bus pulled away from the airport. But after stopping at the Poly and GF, we pulled into the WL and were checked in by a nice CM with an iPad. He even had us sit on the couch while he handed us our KTTW cards and other information. I think he just wanted to rest, too, since he sat down with us.
The room wasn't ready yet so we headed over to MK. It was 1:50pm and we had a 2:10pm fastpass reservation for Be Our Guest for lunch. We made it there by 2:15pm - MagicBands worked perfectly. Since we hadn't had anything to eat except a granola bar since 5:30am, we were hungry. I had the braised pork which was very delicious.
My DH had the french onion soup, which was just okay, and the roast beef, again, just okay, and cold french fries. I definitely got the better meal.
I decided to cancel our ADR for Monday night. I really just wanted to see the inside of the castle, which was gorgeous. But lunch is good enough for us.
Then we rode the PeopleMover and went back to the room. Unfortunately, I was disappointed in the room when we got in it. We had booked a woods view room and I had requested an open balcony and the north wing, neither of which we got. We got a closed balcony on the south side and we are right above the Cub's Den. It is nice and wooded here, though. I'll post some pictures later. The luggage hadn't arrived yet either, and we had landed 5 hours earlier. I guess that's what happens when you arrive on a Saturday during the holidays.
So DH and I decided to check out the Territory Lounge. That really helped to relax us a bit. We decided to just hang around the resort tonight, rather than head off to a park. We were walking toward the beach when we smelled the campfire. It was marshmallow roasting time.
My marshmallow only caught on fire a few times,
, but that was fun. I haven't roasted marshmallows over a fire in ages. Then we headed off to explore the villas.
The Hidden Springs pool is open and looks the same. They didn't put a fence around it. We found the train room, which really doesn't have too many trains. DH and I played Chinese Checkers on one of the game tables. He beat me but that was okay. We had fun. Then we sat in these big leather rocking chairs in front of the fire. It was like we had our own personal den, since we were the only ones there for awhile. They moved the movie to that room because of the wind. We left once the movie began and headed off to Roaring Forks for a bite to eat. Since we ate such a late lunch, we shared a meal.
We stopped in the Mercantile to see if they had any Christmas merchandise. They have a bunch of "stuff" but it wasn't themed to the Wilderness Lodge. I had a nice chat with the CM who told me that the Mercantile was going to be completely overhauled with a different layout, more merchandise and less clothing. He said that the only thing that was a Wilderness Lodge item with a Christmas theme was a pin. It was pretty cute and the pin slides open.
Then we turned in early. I'm really glad we decided to just hang around the resort and relax. This is the perfect resort to do it at, too.
Tomorrow morning we are walking over to Fort Wilderness for breakfast at Trail's End. I got a lot of things checked off my WL bucket list today. And Trails End will be another one.
ETA: The MagicBands were great. We put them on at the airport and they worked for the Magical Express. They worked at MK, for our room, at the Territory Lounge and Roaring Forks. We haven't tried our KTTW cards yet for anything. But I want to see if they will pull a traditional fastpass, so I'll let you know if they work for that.
And the Bounceback calendar is in the Be Our guest book in the welcome packet that is in the room. It is 35% off deluxe villas and resorts, and 30% off moderate resorts. I will post a picture later.
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