We are DVC members at the Villas of Wilderness Lodge, and it's the only place we've stayed on property. We fell in love with the Wilderness Lodge when we visited it in 1994, and it's still hard to believe that we get to stay there on each trip. I know some day we'll try somewhere else... but it might be awhile.
We had a 1-BR villa on the 4th floor (4540) which faced the road that leads to Fort Wilderness. Not the greatest view, but we didn't spend much time on the balcony.
Flag Families were booked for the trip (flag families get to go to the top of the WL to raise the flags). For the first time, I did the Wonders of the Lodge Tour solo. Stan does the tour; for those of you who don't know Stan, he is one of the true treasures of WDW. The tour is free and very much worth the 45-ish minutes. "Tour" is a bit of a misnomer... you actually stand in 2 different spots.
Stan is funny; he's talking retirement in June or October of this year... but he said the same thing 2 years ago. I'll be stunned and saddened when he leaves.... although no one deserves retirement more (he's 81). We were told that he was working Wednesday through Saturday, but we didn't see him on Saturday when we left.
Mo and I went swimming 3 times during the trip... twice in the main resort pool and once in the Hidden Springs DVC pool. With the temps often in the 70's, I froze
. If 8-year old Faith from Alabama is out there, thanks for relieving me in the pool
; Mo is very shy, but she and Faith had a great time for nearly an hour. The pools don't have many bells and whistles, but they fit in perfectly with the resort theme.
Boat transportation rocked! I didn't realize that the MK route no longer stops at Fort Wilderness. Hoo-ray! We also used the resort (WL-Contemporary-FW) transportation mutliple times, and with one exception we had short waits and always had quick trips.
Bus transportation, at first, seemed horrendous. For the first part of our trip, it seemed that we always "just missed" the bus. Once, we waited 35 minutes for a bus to Epcot from WL... 4 AK busses came and went during that time. After Illuminations, we finished our R&C meal at a slow pace and took a leisurely stroll through Epcot to the bus line... to find a full queue. It was the first post-Illuminations bus!
The second bus came quickly after, so our wait was minimal, but I felt the pain of those who must have been waiting over 30 minutes easily.
Anyway, the second part of our trip seemed much better with busses waiting for us or arriving shortly after we did. In the end, I had to admit that things seemed to even out.
My wife and daughter encountered an armadillo one night on the Villa walkway. Hilarious.
High marks to the WL Cast Members. On our check out day, the bell services guy (Tone) really helped minimalize our waiting.
The only negative is that our room could use some TLC. It's definitely showing its age and could use a good deep cleaning.