Day 5: Break Day - So what happened to the pool anyway?
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
We actually slept in a little and got up around 9:00. The plan for the day was to check out at Pop, check into Wilderness Lodge and hang out at the pool.
We packed up all our stuff and called bell service to take our bags. They were transporting everything to the Wilderness Lodge for us. I went to the lobby to pay our bill for the hotel. We had a ton of gift cards that we got on discount from Target and I wanted to use them instead of the credit card on file. Unfortunately they had already billed the card, but they were able to back out the payment and charge the gift cards instead.
We checked out of the room and decided to wander around the hotel and see some of the things we hadn't really looked at yet. We went over to the 80's rooms to check out the giant Rubik’s Cubes and the computer pool.
We took some pictures with the Mr. Potato heads also.
I gave Mr Potatohead a high-five, so Ryan wanted to give him one too.
Next we walked around Hourglass Lake to check out Art of Animation. It's really cool. We would have liked to stay there, but the suites were way too much and the Little Mermaid rooms were not discounted like Pop was. Ryan really liked all the Cars stuff.
We wandered through the lobby and took the bus from Art of Animation to the Magic Kingdom where we would take a boat to the Wilderness Lodge. While on the bus I got the text that our room at Wilderness Lodge was ready.
Since we were at the Magic Kingdom, we decided to stop in and get Sorcerer's of the Magic Kingdom cards. I had read something that said you could only get new cards if you played a portal so after we got new cards we played a couple of portals in Adventureland.
We also saw the Main Street Trolley show and the Dance Party Parade before heading out of the park,
We took the boat from Magic Kingdom to the Wilderness lodge. We were excited to check out our new hotel. On the way into the hotel we checked out the geyser and the pool. I also noticed that we were passing right by the Roaring Fork, so we filled up our mugs and headed to the lobby. I've seen lots of pictures, but they don't compare to being there. I would love to see it at Christmas. I hear it's the best.
Saw the geyser erupt from one of the upper lobby windows
We took the elevator up to our room. Room 6018 which was the exact room I requested. Top floor with a view of the Magic Kingdom. Well, a little bit of a view. You could barely make out the castle. We could see the Contemporary as well.
I called the lobby to see if our luggage had arrived, but it had not, but there was a package waiting for us.
On the first day of the trip, Jennie realized that her camera battery was almost dead, and she didn't have a charger. I found a cheap one on
Amazon Prime and was going to have it delivered to Pop with 2 day shipping. It was supposed to arrive on Tuesday. After I put it in my cart, but before check-out, the delivery date updated to Wednesday. Frustrating! So I changed the delivery address to the Wilderness Lodge. Of course, the package arrived at the Wilderness Lodge on Tuesday! Argh!
I went down to the lobby to pick up the package. Chatted with the CMs at the concierge desk for a bit. They were much more friendly and relaxed than the ones at Pop. They were jealous that I had been to
Disneyland for the 60th as neither of them had ever even been to Disneyland. Stopped by the Roaring Fork for another refill. Have I mentioned that I am addicted to Diet Coke? Plus, the refillable mugs are pretty small. Had a nice chat with the Cast Member at the pin trading kiosk as well.
We had PB&J sandwiches on the balcony of our room. I realized then that the balconies of the lower floors are more open than the top floor, but being up high, I think we still had a better view.
We got ready for a swim and headed down to the pool.
The pool was awesome. It was one of the things I really liked about the Wilderness Lodge. First we checked out the water play area and had fun squirting each other and standing under the dump bucket. Every day of the trip had been pretty hot and today was no exception.
After a bit we decided to go in the pool. Ryan and I were about to jump in when I noticed that nobody was in the pool. Nobody at all. I asked and they said it was closed. It hadn't been closed when we got there. It was 2:00 in the afternoon on a very hot day. I don't really think it was a scheduled cleaning. My best guess is that somebody had a Caddyshack moment and it wasn't a Baby Ruth bar.
So we went back the the play area, which was starting to get a little more busy since the pool was closed.
The Pool DJ was having a Disney Jr dance party. Ryan and some other kids danced and Jennie and I relaxed in the lounge chairs.
After about an hour we were ready to head back to the room and they finally opened the pool. We didn't have a lot of time left, but we all went down the waterslide a couple of times.
It was awesome that we finally got to enjoy the actual pool, but we were all kind of disappointed because the pool had been closed for most of our only scheduled swim time.
When we got back to the room, I called again about our luggage and it was ready, so they brought it up to the room. We got changed and ready to head to Downtown Disney (It wasn't Disney Springs yet).
We got lucky and got a Downtown Disney bus right after getting to the stop. The bus made a stop at the Contemporary and then headed there.
I took a while to get there. I think this was the longest bus ride of the trip so far.
When we got to Downtown Disney, we headed straight to the
Lego Store. On the first Tuesday and Wednesday of the month, the Lego Store has a Mini-Build where kids can build a small (about 20 pieces) Lego set for free. It used to be first-come first-served, but they changed it recently to a reservation system. They are pretty generous with the times at the store by us, so if you're a little late it's not a huge deal, but we didn't know how busy this store would be. We assumed it would be really busy. We were wrong. There was only one other kid doing the Mini-Build when we got there.
Went into World of Disney next. There was a Cast Member sprinkling Pixie Dust (glitter) on everyone. We all got in on it. Even me! Ryan bought a pin set which was one pin for each park.
Got a great photo of the Rainforest Cafe volcano.
We went into the Ghirardelli store next. The guy at the door giving out chocolates gave me an extra because I was wearing my birthday button. Score!
There was a Photopass photographer outside of the Lego Store, so we got a few pictures.
Notice: Still no Disney shirt. OK, so Marvel is Disney owned now, but wasn't when I got the shirt and certainly wasn't when Secret Wars was first published.
Dinner at T-Rex. We had a reservation, but it was still about a 15 minutes wait. We got to walk through the ice cave on the way to our table.
I had the Bronto Burger and Jennie and Ryan split the pasta. Ryan didn't like the pasta though.
I had recently joined the Landry’s club (specifically for this meal). I had the $25 credit for joining, plus the $25 birthday credit. Our bill came out to less than $50, so we added dessert. We got the ice cream sandwich sundae (sorry, no picture of dessert). It was amazing. We were totally stuffed.
Ryan got a smashed penny at the T-Rex gift shop.
We headed over to DisneyQuest next. I was excited to play all the classic arcade games. Ryan tried out a few too, but he wasn't very good at them (he doesn't play video games very much). He still had fun though. His favorite was the Star Wars Podracer game.
I got a DisneyQuest smashed penny, since I knew it was going away soon. I don't think we would have paid full admission price, but admission was included with our annual passes, so it didn't cost us anything.
We headed back to the bus stop with a quick stop at the Christmas store. We were looking for an ornament to commemorate the trip, but didn't find anything we liked.
Shortly after we got back to our hotel room, the Wishes fireworks started. We could sort of see them, and even hear the music a little bit. Right after the fireworks, the boat parade came around. We could hear the music, but couldn't see it from our room. Too many trees in the way. It turned out it was actually the Contemporary Hotel's performance, and the one at the Wilderness Lodge was earlier in the evening.
For a day that was supposed to be a rest day, it was surprisingly busy, but definitely a fun day.
I about spewed drink all over my keyboard. 
Nevertheless, I"m looking forward to your next report.
Yikes.
