darthmacho
09-01-2010, 11:55 AM
Date: August 17, 2010
Location: The Wilderness Lodge
The Cast:
DM: Me, Darth Macho, Celebrating Our 12th Anniversary. (Belatedly)
DW: Dear Wife, The Queen, Celebrating Our 12th Anniversary. (Belatedly)
DD1: Princess, 9yo, Celebrating 1st Visit (That she'll remember. She was just 2yo on her actual first visit.)
DD2: Princess, 6yo, Celebrating 1st Visit (She was born mysteriously 9 months after our last visit…)
The Wilderness Lodge
We were off to make our traditional trip to the Wilderness Lodge, which we make every return visit. The reason is that WL is by far our favorite resort, not only because it is so beautiful, but also because it holds a great deal of sentimental value in that it was the first resort at which we've ever stayed, which also happens to have been our honeymoon in April of 1998. Therefore, no matter how much we enjoy staying at any other resort, we'll always make it a point to visit the Wilderness Lodge. I do have to replace my WL t-shirts after all, and as an added bonus, I can't think of a better place to take a 6yo and 9yo for dinner than Whispering Canyon!
We decided that without a car, the best route was to take the bus to MK, and transfer there for the bus to WL. My wife suggested we take the boat instead of the second bus, so that became the new plan. Regardless, it was excruciating to take the bus to the front gate of MK and not even go in for a short time. Luckily, we were heading to one of my favorite places in the entire world, so I was put at ease by that notion.
The boat ride was very relaxing, and it was breezier along the water, so the ride was pleasant. Much better than the bus. Stepping foot on the boat doc at WL brought back a flood of memories, and soon we were out and about exploring the grounds and taking tons of pictures and some video. We filled up our mugs with water at Roaring Forks, checked out the Mercantile to get my shirt, looked at the décor and for Hidden Mickeys, and of course the girls spent some time at the pin cart seeing what they had.
One funny thing did happen while we were in the courtyard, and I'm only relaying this story to warn others than may potentially make the same mistake. I was walking along the path looking everywhere, even up, as I've trained myself to do at WDW, when I noticed a woman on the third floor balcony of her room. She had probably just come from the pool because she was laying a bathing suit over a deck chair, and she was wearing just a towel. That might not sound like such a big deal, since she was covered, but she probably didn't consider that the angle of my view, and with jaw agape I managed to see more than I should have. :rub: Being a penitent husband, lol, I averted my eyes and reported the incident immediately to DW, whose horrified reaction was, "Please tell me you didn't have the video camera on!" Thankfully, I did not. So this serves as a warning to anyone walking about their deck in a towel: there are people down below! :blush:
Soon we were ready for our ADRs, and they even took us early. Things were already getting rowdy there with so many celebrations going on, and we had a great waitress, who was really friendly and played the part well. It wasn't long before we were doing the hokey pokey, and the kids were trotting around on their wooden horses. We opted for Canyon Skillet, and the kids got burgers. I ate a ridiculous amount of ribs! Seriously, it was absurd. The only thing missing from the old days was the variety of bbq sauces they used to give you at the table. The food was so good, it didn't really matter. Of course the kids needed ketchup, so all heck broke loose, and we had 31 bottles of ketchup on our table. Poor DD2 didn't even have time to put any on her burger when another table was yelling for the ketchup, so we had to carry all 31 bottles away.
Then we were brought some bubbly and DW and I were herded along with two other anniversary couples to the front of the restaurant to partake in a kissing contest. It was quite embarrassing, but at least we weren't alone. DD1 captured it all on film for us. When we were done, we were so full that we had to take our cheesecake with us back to POR.
Before we headed for the boat dock, we waited patiently for the geyser to go off, and we even missed the boat because of it. My DDs kept asking when the geyser was going to "geys?" lol, but it didn't while we were there. Of course it went off as we were standing on the boat dock getting ready to board.:doh:
We had a wonderful visit to WL, but we were off POR, our home resort, because I wanted to get everyone to bed early for Animal Kingdom's EMH the next morning. Wake up call was going to be 6am, and our first encounter with "disco" yeti was on the horizon…
Next time...
Location: The Wilderness Lodge
The Cast:
DM: Me, Darth Macho, Celebrating Our 12th Anniversary. (Belatedly)
DW: Dear Wife, The Queen, Celebrating Our 12th Anniversary. (Belatedly)
DD1: Princess, 9yo, Celebrating 1st Visit (That she'll remember. She was just 2yo on her actual first visit.)
DD2: Princess, 6yo, Celebrating 1st Visit (She was born mysteriously 9 months after our last visit…)
The Wilderness Lodge
We were off to make our traditional trip to the Wilderness Lodge, which we make every return visit. The reason is that WL is by far our favorite resort, not only because it is so beautiful, but also because it holds a great deal of sentimental value in that it was the first resort at which we've ever stayed, which also happens to have been our honeymoon in April of 1998. Therefore, no matter how much we enjoy staying at any other resort, we'll always make it a point to visit the Wilderness Lodge. I do have to replace my WL t-shirts after all, and as an added bonus, I can't think of a better place to take a 6yo and 9yo for dinner than Whispering Canyon!
We decided that without a car, the best route was to take the bus to MK, and transfer there for the bus to WL. My wife suggested we take the boat instead of the second bus, so that became the new plan. Regardless, it was excruciating to take the bus to the front gate of MK and not even go in for a short time. Luckily, we were heading to one of my favorite places in the entire world, so I was put at ease by that notion.
The boat ride was very relaxing, and it was breezier along the water, so the ride was pleasant. Much better than the bus. Stepping foot on the boat doc at WL brought back a flood of memories, and soon we were out and about exploring the grounds and taking tons of pictures and some video. We filled up our mugs with water at Roaring Forks, checked out the Mercantile to get my shirt, looked at the décor and for Hidden Mickeys, and of course the girls spent some time at the pin cart seeing what they had.
One funny thing did happen while we were in the courtyard, and I'm only relaying this story to warn others than may potentially make the same mistake. I was walking along the path looking everywhere, even up, as I've trained myself to do at WDW, when I noticed a woman on the third floor balcony of her room. She had probably just come from the pool because she was laying a bathing suit over a deck chair, and she was wearing just a towel. That might not sound like such a big deal, since she was covered, but she probably didn't consider that the angle of my view, and with jaw agape I managed to see more than I should have. :rub: Being a penitent husband, lol, I averted my eyes and reported the incident immediately to DW, whose horrified reaction was, "Please tell me you didn't have the video camera on!" Thankfully, I did not. So this serves as a warning to anyone walking about their deck in a towel: there are people down below! :blush:
Soon we were ready for our ADRs, and they even took us early. Things were already getting rowdy there with so many celebrations going on, and we had a great waitress, who was really friendly and played the part well. It wasn't long before we were doing the hokey pokey, and the kids were trotting around on their wooden horses. We opted for Canyon Skillet, and the kids got burgers. I ate a ridiculous amount of ribs! Seriously, it was absurd. The only thing missing from the old days was the variety of bbq sauces they used to give you at the table. The food was so good, it didn't really matter. Of course the kids needed ketchup, so all heck broke loose, and we had 31 bottles of ketchup on our table. Poor DD2 didn't even have time to put any on her burger when another table was yelling for the ketchup, so we had to carry all 31 bottles away.
Then we were brought some bubbly and DW and I were herded along with two other anniversary couples to the front of the restaurant to partake in a kissing contest. It was quite embarrassing, but at least we weren't alone. DD1 captured it all on film for us. When we were done, we were so full that we had to take our cheesecake with us back to POR.
Before we headed for the boat dock, we waited patiently for the geyser to go off, and we even missed the boat because of it. My DDs kept asking when the geyser was going to "geys?" lol, but it didn't while we were there. Of course it went off as we were standing on the boat dock getting ready to board.:doh:
We had a wonderful visit to WL, but we were off POR, our home resort, because I wanted to get everyone to bed early for Animal Kingdom's EMH the next morning. Wake up call was going to be 6am, and our first encounter with "disco" yeti was on the horizon…
Next time...