Part 4
“Apparently, there is nothing that cannot happen today”- Mark Twain
Remember that wakeup call I set for 6:50? Either it never happened, or I was sleeping like a rock and totally missed it. Through some stroke of Disney Magic, the phone rang randomly at 8:30, and nobody was there, but at least it woke me up! I threw on some clothes and ran down to the Intermission Food Court for breakfast (biscuits and gravy and a bottle of water- $5.63), which I took back up to my room so I could sit in bed and watch WDW TV while I ate. I flipped on the TV, and there was a commercial for Dixie Stampede on, with my friend Tiffany in it! (She actually works at the Dixie here in Missouri where I used to work, but they use the casts pretty interchangeably in the commercials.) I couldn’t believe that here I was in Florida, and there was Tiffany, who has always wanted to come to WDW with me, right there with me!
I didn’t really unpack anything last night, so I called Bell Services to come pick up my suitcase, and set off for the bus stop to go to MK! I was way too late to make the opening ceremony by now, but that’s what long trips are for, right?
SO cute window display someone downstairs in my building had set up.
I had an awesome bus driver on the way to MK. He filled us in on lots of WDW trivia, like…
* WDW is twice the size of Manhattan Island, or about the same size as San Francisco
* On your way to MK, you might drive by what looks like a parking lot, which is marked “STOL”. It’s a little runway- “Short Takeoff and Landing”, and was actually the very first thing built at WDW!
*Buena Vista Drive is named after the street that the Disney Studios are on in California
He told us a lot more, but somehow that all slips out of my brain too quickly!
I got to Guest Services about 10am to pick up my new Annual Pass ($531.46 for the Premium Annual Pass, including tax, although this may have changed now that they have MYW) Half of my future children’s college tuition later, I had that pretty annual pass in my hand, and was off to Mickey’s Philharmagic! This show was SO good, even better than my expectations! Everything about it is perfect, and I had tears in my eyes half of the show (shut up, I’m a girl.) My favorite part is definitely the flying carpet. Whee! Sorry, Legend of the Lion King, but I’m glad to see you gone.
It was HOT this morning, so my next stop was the nice dark, cool Pirates of the Caribbean. I had just rounded the corner in the line where you can first see the boats, and the guy behind me goes “Oh, it’s a RIDE?”. No, sir, Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom are here to reenact the movie in person. (Hey, wait a second, I LIKE that idea an awful lot!)
Next stop was the Haunted Mansion, always a favorite, and then the Enchanted Tiki Room. I know that the Tikis are a love it or hate it attraction, but I can never resist at least one visit every trip. I could sit around listening to the Tiki Gods sing “In The Still of the Night” all day, but it’s a quick show, so it wasn’t long before I was waving goodbye to Jose and the gang, and on my way across the street to the Swiss Family Treehouse.
The Swiss Treehouse is one of those attractions that I’ve just never gotten around to doing. Usually when I pass by and think “Humm, that could be fun”, my feet are too tired for me to find the motivation to climb up a bunch of stairs, so I always end up skipping it. So, this made two new attractions for me in just a couple of hours!
The treehouse will never be a favorite of mine, but it’s worth going through at least once. It was pretty crowded today, despite the relatively small crowds in the park, so I’d hate to see how smushed it gets in there on a busier day!
Next Stop: the wilds of the Jungle Cruise! Are you brave enough to come along? Not everyone who has gone before us has made it back!
Take your time in the JC line, there’s some hilarious stuff!
Following in the cool bus driver’s footsteps, I had a great skipper for the Jungle Cruise, too!
Look, the back side of water!
I was ready to see my old friend the Wilderness Lodge, so it was time to head for the front of the park! I cut through Liberty Square, where I noticed that you can see the Contemporary from here, which totally goes against that thing you see on the net a lot about only being able to see the Contemporary from Tomorrowland! Gasp!
I swung through the Emporium on my way out, and they have so much cool new stuff! I could easily spend a TON of money here, if only I had a ton of money to spend! Since I’m on a budget, I just looked around, making mental notes of things to look for when I did my big shopping spree at World of Disney later in the week. My favorite thing was how cool all the Nemo toys looked all lined up on the wall!
Bye, Magic Kingdom! See ya real soon!
(It’s illegal to have a post about the MK without including a Castle photo.)
Time to hop the boat from MK to the Wilderness Lodge.
Ahh, “Wilderness Lodge”. I get happy just saying it. Anyone who has been there can close their eyes and be right there in that amazing lobby. I did a little research on National Park Lodges, and it’s amazing how authentic the WL is.
National Park Lodge Photo:
Freakishly similar, eeh? Except the WL check-in is on the other side, and the columns don't have bark.
My first stop was the gift shop, since it was only about 1:45, so I didn’t think my room would be ready yet. I picked up a few postcards, some band-aids for my poor toes (How could I forget band-aids?), some milk, a couple of postcard stamps, and a CUTE brown WL t-shirt with the bears on it. (The milk goes with the brownie I would pick up at Roaring Fork on the way to my room. I am w WL Brownie addict!)
I checked in, and ended up with room 1003, which is on the first floor. At first, I hated the idea of a first floor room! One of my favorite things to do at WDW is sit out on my balcony and relax, so the whole idea of no balcony was not up my alley! However, once I reached the room, I found out that I had the cutest little patio EVER! As much as I love requesting certain room locations, there’s something to be said for leaving it up to chance, because you find great new locations sometimes!
And the coolest aspect of my patio? If I stepped outside, I could easily see the Otter pond!
Looking back at the lodge from outside my door
This little stairway and door was right next to my room, on the side opposite from the pond. That sign says “Exit only, no reentry.” I meant to go up a floor and figure out where it came from , but never did!
This tree down was a reminder that the hurricanes had been through here so recently. Most of the WDW area was cleaned up by now, but some parts in between the parks were full of trees like this.
The awesome free postcards that come with the room
My friend Katie was supposed to be meeting me in the WL lobby at 5:30, so I had just enough time for a 45 minute nap. Ahhh, sleep!
Refreshed from my nap, I went down to the lobby to meet Katie. “I’ll meet you by the fireplace”, I had told her. “Where’s the fireplace?” “Oh, don’t worry. You can’t miss it.” Gotta love WDW for easy-to-spot landmarks! We were standing around by the fireplace, catching up since we hadn't seen each other in a couple of years, when a Whispering Canyon waiter shouted some names across the lobby- apparently the names of people waiting for a table. He asked if we were the people, and I said no, but we could pretend to be if we got free food! He told us to sprint to the podium, but the real people got there before us. Drat! ;)
I had to show Katie my awesome patio, so we went down the hall to my room, (From the lobby, go down the hallway past Rolling Fork, turn right past the laundry room, and go to the end of the hall. Voila!) We went outside to see the pond, and the otters were in there swimming around! I heard voices, and drew the conclusion that either the otters had learned to speak, or we weren’t the only ones watching them. Looking up, there were about 10 people out on different balconies watching them! Score one for having a first floor room, and being able to just walk out there! (A bit more about my room location- the more time I spent here, the more I fell in love with it. It’s right by the pool area, but on the other side so that you don’t get pool noise. I did hear the boat horns during my nap, but they weren’t a big deal. I especially loved that Roaring Forks was so close. I like my brownie supply to be kept in close proximity!)
Katie and I hopped the boat to MK, with plans to hit a couple of rides before Spectromagic and Wishes. Buzz Lightyear said 10 minute wait, but it was more like 20. I didn’t write down who won, so let’s just assume it was me, shall we? We checked out our ride photo after, and we both looked so serious! Well, we were defending the galaxy! I wish they had Photopass for ride photos, I’d probably end up buying a few when I get home!
We wanted to ride Pooh, but it had a 20 minute wait, and we were worried we wouldn’t make it out in time, so we did the Haunted Mansion instead. Afterwards, we found a spot to sit on the fence in Frontierland to watch the parade from. It was so funny to watch the people who were set on getting out of the park before the parade- every few seconds someone would rush by with a super-serious expression on their face.
Spectro was lots of fun as always- Chernabog (The villian guy that comes out of the volcano- I have no idea what movie he’s from) was our favorite, especially since Prince Charming wasn’t there tonight! Apparently Cinderella had heard about our diabolical plans to kidnap him and make him build us castles. Curses, foiled again!
We had some time between Spectro and Wishes, so we went back to Pooh, which now had a shorter line. I FINALLY managed to see Toad handing over the deed! Fifty thousandth time’s the charm! The Heffalump and Woozle part is always my favorite. There’s just no way whoever came up with the concept wasn’t on drugs. You could take a photo of your child on that part of the ride and label it “Baby’s First Acid Trip.” Or, um, maybe not. Still, freaky!
We went over to the Teacups to watch Wishes, since that was always a good place for the old fireworks, but it just didn’t work so well for Wishes. They seem to shoot them off from two different places now, so we looked like we were watching a tennis match looking back and forth between the two spots in the sky. We tried to make it around to the front of the castle to watch from there, but gave up and just watched from the steps of Starlight Ray’s.
Katie and I are usually both huge camera hogs, but we didn’t take a single picture all night at MK! Crazy!
We checked the Main St. Expo Hall for characters on our way out, but there were none to be found, so we just went out to join the long line for the WL boat. Katie went back home, and I went to Roaring Forks to find FOOD! (Pepperoni pizza, another brownie, and milk. Have I mentioned I could live off of WL brownies?) I called my mom for a while while I ate, and then ran outside just in time to catch the Electrical Water Pagent on the lake. (Shorter than it used to be! I think some of the floats were damaged in the hurricane?)
As I walked back to my room past the hot tub, I realized that hot tubbing for a little while sounded REALLY nice to my poor sore feet, so I ran back to my room to change into my swimsuit, and spent about twenty minutes down in the hot tub. I wish that I could ever get a photo of the view of the Lodge from the hot tub to turn out, but night shots have never been my specialty, so you’ll have to trust me when I say it’s amazingly beautiful. Plus, I think there’s something about viewing it from the hot tub after a long, exciting day that makes the view even better, and that’s something that just can’t be captured on film.
I still had plenty of energy, so I decided to throw on my sweat pants and an old t-shirt (Yay for being super comfy!) and go out and do some resort exploring and photo taking. This is when I realized that I forgot to bring a purse with me on my trip! So, times like now when I was just going to wander around and really only needed my camera and notebook, I had to either carry them in my backpack, or just carry them. Luckily, tomorrow is Epcot day, so I should be able to find a cute purse somewhere in the World Showcase!
The Lodge is beautiful all year, and I love the Christmas decorations! Here are a few photos from my wandering around:
The walkway to the busses:
Pal Mickey was in the gift shop’s window display- Here he is for anyone who hasn’t seen him!
I also noticed that the WL has new teepee lights since I was last there! The smaller lights used to look a lot like the huge ones in the lobby (see above), but now they’re polka-dot!
If you’re not too exhausted at the end of the day, I highly recommend taking some time to just explore your resort. I already know that the sofa by the 4th floor fireplace is my favorite spot inside the lodge, but wandering around tonight, I found a few other really nice places to hang out, and a water fountain where I could refill my water bottles for free instead of spending $2 on new water every time! Of course, true to Disney style, despite all of my wanderings, there’s still a lot of the Lodge I’m yet to see!
And so my first real day in WDW came to a close. The first day here is always SO exhausting- it feels like a week! By 11:30pm, I was ready to drop! I actually spent several minutes sitting in my favorite spot on the 4th floor, just trying to get up enough energy to walk back to my room (I’m pretty sure at least a minute of that time was even spent debating just sleeping there on the sofa.), and thinking that it’s hard for life to get any better than this. I’d love to have someone to share it with, but I’m learning that I really enjoy my own company, too.
Coming up tomorrow: Hidden Treasures of the World Showcase Tour!