[ssn]

Hey all just returned from 3 nights at WL and 4 night Disney Wonder Cruise!

Before I start my report, let me give some background. DH and I have been married 11 years and since our WDW honeymoon we've visited just about every 2 years. We love our WDW trips and now our 5 yr old DD loves them just as much. This past New Years Eve we got together with neighbors of ours who have 2 DD's 3 and 4 year old. We got to talking about WDW and the DCL Cruise - we then realized how much fun it would be to travel together. We decided a 4 night cruise would be so fun for the girls. We settled on the end of Oct for our trip to beat Hurricane season. DH and I decided that we couldn't be that close to Orlando and not visit the parks so we tacked a 3 night stay at Wilderness Lodge to the start of our trip. So...after almost a year of planning this trip, the week of our trip had finally arrived, along with predictions of THE STRONGEST HURRICANE IN HISTORY!!!

Oh my God...this could not be happening. We were due to leave on Thurs night the 20th and the cruise was leaving Sun the 23rd! I was sick to my stomach all week and glued to the Weather Channel. This was not the excitement I was hoping for. Earlier in the week the predictions were for Wilma to hit Florida Sunday morning. My neighbors were due to fly in Sun morning for the cruise. What should we do? Do we cancel the trip? I called Disney and they said they don't cancel cruises they just reroute. Their offer was if you were to reschedule your trip if would cost $85/person and you need to pay the difference if the rates are different now than from when you booked.

I was in such turmoil. I was so nervous about being in Florida during a hurricane or even worse being in the ocean during a hurricane!!! Neighbors, parents, teachers and even my TRAVEL AGENT advised us to cancel (even though it meant losing $3000). As of Thurs afternoon (flight was leaving at 6:45pm) I couldn't bring myself to pack. I was not looking forward to this trip and that was just depressing me!! Then at about 2:30 (after carefully watching the predictions and feeling comfortable that the storm wasn't due to hit FL's west coast until Mon morning) I decided, I'M GOING!!! Packed so fast, DD and I picked up DH from work and made it to the airport 15 minutes b/f plane was due to leave!!!

Not the way I wanted to start the trip....but we had a great flight with Southwest, picked up our car and went to WL. Loved the resort. So new, clean looking. We were upgraded from Woods view to Courtyard View. Nice room - 2 queen beds. Our room was actually on the same level as the lobby, but not close to the lobby. The location was great, didn't take too long to get to the pool (went through back door) and easy access to Roaring Forks. We liked Roaring Forks so much better that Capt Cooks at the Poly were we stayed 2 years ago. Had Chicken Caesar Salad at RF one day and it was really good and fresh. Really love the theming of this hotel and the rooms, but the transportation was not good. It took so long to get everywhere.

By the way, the place looked really full and noone mentioned 1 word about a hurricane coming. In CT that's all anyone talked about, but in FL it was business as usual. I did feel better seeing other people checking in!

I'll write day 2 tomorrow and let you know how much we loved MNSSHP Fri night!!!

[jk8]

I'm on the edge of my seat!
I would love to stay at WL some day.
Can't wait for the rest.

[bumble]

Sounds like a wild start to your trip! Can't wait to hear more:)

[missy H]

A great start, I am glad that you decided to go! Can't wait for the rest!

[MissDisney]

WL sounds so great!!! I am guessing that the cruise went fine, since you are typing up a TR in good health! I would be scared too...

[queensmama]

Talk about being on edge...............I can only image what you were feeling was to much to put into words.

[lovemysons]

Great start! I can't imagine how you must have felt knowing that hurricane was on its way! Can't wait to read more.

[disneymom]

I cant wait to hear all about your cruise! We are going on our first Disney cruise this December! Keep it coming!

[ssn]

Day 2 - Friday the 21st

Had ADR for Ohana for Lilo and Stitch breakfast. Got on the boat to CR and took the monorail to the Poly. Sounds easy enough right? It took us about 45 minutes to get there!!! Needless to say we were 15 minutes late for our ADR. I was pretty nervous since it was a madhouse in the Ohana lobby area when we arrived. CM was so nice, no problem and we were sat in 15 minutes. Our server was also very nice and she explained that breakfast could take 1 hour while waiting for the characters to make their way around. DD loves Lilo. She had a Lilo bday party this summer and she's dressing up as her for Halloween. So meeting Lilo and Stitch at this breakfast was great!! I'm so glad they changed to these characters, IMHO it fits with the Poly theme perfectly! The server brought us a basket with a variety of breads, all good - especially some gooey cinammon roll! Main course was family style, eggs, Mickey waffles, bacon, sausage. Besides L&S, Mickey and Pluto also came by. Near the end of breakfast CMs were passing out maracas to the kids and all the kids made a conga line with Mickey and paraded around the restaurant to the L&S song "Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride". That was alot of fun DD really got into it. We really liked this breakfast since we didn't feel at all rushed, they actually encouraged you to enjoy and take your time (very unlike CRT!!)

OK, breakfast over - we walked to TTC and took the monorail to Epcot. DD is now tall enough for Test Track so we went right over to ride it. The standby line was about 50 min, but she really wanted to ride it so we waited. DH ran over to Soarin' to get Fast Passes while we waited. DH came back with FP for 3:00. Oh well, went on TT, DD was pretty scared for the inside parts -she doesn't care for the dark! But she loved the high speed of the outside parts!! We headed over to the Land to see what the standby line for Soarin was. By the way, it was so humid out!! It looked like it could rain, but it didn't all afternoon. I really wanted to do Soarin so I went in alone hoping maybe there was a single riders line (there wasn't), the wait was really long. Just when you thought you were almost there all the Fast Passers would show up!! The line really moved slow!! But then it was SOOOOOO worth it!! What an awesome ride. I really loved it, it was just amazing!! I came out and DD was making cookies at Jr. Chef's - real Nestle Tollhouse cookies!! She had a ball, they made Chef's hats for the kids to wear too!

By now DD was getting tired and we had MNSSHP to go to at night, so I decided to take her back to the hotel to cool off and relax. DH was going to stay and use FP for Soarin and he wanted to head to World Showcase and sample some of the foods for lunch. On the way out DD wanted to do the "ride in the ball". We walked right on - then back to our journey back to WL. Took monorail to TTC, monorail to MK, boat to WL. Probably should've just taken the bus, but with the stroller the other way seemed better.

Had a quick lunch at Roaring Forks - quite good for counter service. Went back to the room to rest b/f party. Instead of resting I tuned into the Weather Channel and watched the reports on the hurricane. At this point I'm still freaking out about the cruise and secretly hoping they'd cancel it. I would much rather be in Orlando and hang out at the WL during the hurricane. All the predicitions showed the hurricane bascially going off the east coast around Port Canaveral (where the ship leaves from) and the "predicition cone" showed it over the Northern Bahamas. When I called the Cruise Line phone # the recording said the predicitions don't show Wilma going to the Bahamas, so the cruise is going on as scheduled! Oh boy, I am really trying to just relax and enjoy the WDW part of our trip, but that hurricane is in the back of my mind!

We get ready in our Halloween costumes. DD is Lilo, DH is a nerd and I am a 50's sock hop girl in a poodle skirt. We decide (don't know why) to take the boat to MK. This trip really took long, when we stopped at FW, we waited for a good 10 minutes to make sure noone else was coming!! Noone was even on the dock. We had ADR at LTT for 5:15 - didn't get to the park entrance till 5:20. (Do you see a pattern here - I am typically so on top of getting to places on time, I am just not on top of my game this trip!!!) Just as we go throught the turnstiles it starts to pour!!! We quickly throw our ponchos on, but it was raining so hard that by the time we get to LTT we are just soaked. We have no problem again being late and are seated pretty quickly. We are pretty cold and wet, but glad to be there. We've never been to LTT and we really liked it. In the theme of MNSSHP, the colonial characters were in Halloween attire too. It was really cute. Dinner was family style, turkey, ham,flank steak, stuffing, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese and green beans. It was all very good. We'll definately come back here again.

Looking around the restaurant I notice that hardly any of the adults are dressed up. There were a few, especially the woman that was dressed as a pink flamingo!!! I was beginning to feel a little silly for being in costume.

We finish dinner and head out - it stopped raining. Yay!!! The skys were actually looking like they were clearing up. We had our trick-or-treat bags, but no map. Make sure you get a special MNSSHP map when you walk into the park. It shows were all the treat stops are!! We wander around towards main street and I see people lining up with the photographers with the castle in the background. I assume that this is the "free" picture that's part of the party. We get our picture taken and then are told "This isn't the free picture, if that's what you want you have to go to the Hall of Presidents or Tomorrowland" (can't remember where). We head to tomorrowland and pick up candy at the Goofy Candy spots and see a sign for a Stitch Dance Party. We go in and had a blast. It wasn't too crowded Stitch was on stage dressed as Elvis and there was a DJ. They did the hand-jive, macarena, hula hoops and the twist with the kids. It was really a great time. Goofy and Chip and Dale showed up in their costumes and danced with the kids too. After the dance party DD noticed we weren't too far from Fantasyland so we went towards Dumbo. There was no line! In fact I didn't see lines anywhere!!! We walked right onto Dumbo, while getting on I noticed a bit of commotion. It was Snow White and ALL the 7 Dwarfs!!! I was so excited. As soon as Dumbo was over I grabbed DD's hand and said let's go get our picture taken with SW and the Dwarfs. She said no, I want to go on the rides!! Didn't she realize what a rare photo-op this was??!!! Oh well, she was kinda right, let's take advantage while there aren't any lines. We walked right onto IASW 3 times (DD's favorite ride) Peter Pan, Carousel, Teacups then over to Space Mountain, Indy cars, magic carpets. There was another dance party at Ariel's Grotto, but we didn't stop. There was a treat path b/w Toontown and Tomorrowland with an Alice in Wonderland theme. Very cute. Caught Hallo-wishes while walking but DD was afraid of the announcing voice thinking it was the villians, so we didn't really stop. Sat down for the 10:00 parade. That was really good. We typically don't take the time to sit and watch the parades so that was alot of fun. I just covered DD's eyes during the villain part! It was now pretty late so we headed back to the hotel with our full treat bags!!

MNSSHP was SOOO worth the cost of the tickets. There were alot of extra characters around, tons of candy, dance parties and no lines for the rides!!!

[Princessbaby]

It sounds like a blast!! Can't wait to read the rest!

[disneymom]

I would have been nervous about the hurricane too. I think it was ok to be off your game. Keep it coming! Great TR. Hopefully someday I will be able to go to Mickeys Halloween party! Did you see fireworks?

[lovemysons]

As much as I love the WL, those boats always seem to be hit or miss.

The Halloween party sounded fantastic! It sounds like you guys had a great time!

[queensmama]

Originally Posted by ssn

Looking around the restaurant I notice that hardly any of the adults are dressed up. There were a few, especially the woman that was dressed as a pink flamingo!!! I was beginning to feel a little silly for being in costume.

I noticed the lack of costumes also, but I looked at it like this.............I love halloween and I love to dress up, so nanna a booboo, I am having a blast without you. I was asked to ride on the Boo to You parade, but I declined because they would not let DD come on with me said she was to small. The night was all about her. And on my way out a CM stopped me and told me that he had noticed me 4 times that night. And he commented on my great costume. How many of those in plain clothes got noticed.......Oh and Rowdy noticed me while he was helping Capt Hook!
Dressing up does have it's advantages.
Anyway great report keep it coming.

[tinkerbell]

everything sounds so magical so far!! and do not worry that you were dressed up ..it proves you have the heart of a child and that is why you love WDW :) I think it is awesome that you dressed up and if I were there I would have too!!! I would be the fat tinkerbell *grin* great TR so far ..cant wait for the rest

[ssn]

Ok, I need to keep going with this report while its still fresh in my mind...

Forgot to add from day 2 at MNSSHP, while I was gloriously walking on Space Mountain - no wait - and finally completely enjoying myself, my cell phone rings (I had it turned on since DCL asked for cell #'s in case there were any changes regarding the cruise). It's my mom back home in Connecticut. She's really nervous since she just was watching the news and she is really worried about us being in FL and going on the cruise. According to what she just saw the hurricane was to go through central FL. I think she wanted me to say that we were going to hop on the next plane home! Great...back to reality, thanks Mom!!!


Any hoo...Day 3 Sat Oct 22nd

Had 9:45 breakfast ADR at CRT. DD was really excited to eat in the Castle since I was never able to get ressies on past 2 trips. DH and I had eaten lunch here b/f but never the Cindy breakfast. We were seated in about 20 minutes. Fairy Godmother was in lobby posing for pictures. Almost as soon as we were seated - butts barely on the chair - our breads and oj were in front of us and waiter was asking if we wanted the granola or egg/bacon dish. I asked for water for me and apple juice for DD. Food showed up in about 2 minutes - no drinks. Asked again, waiter seemed very bothered by this. All of a sudden the princesses appeared in different corners of the room - stopping at tables. It was Cinderella, Aurora, Wendy and Alice. Within no time they all made their way by our table. It was all very quick. I definately felt rushed. I had ordered the granola and yogurt. It was very good and a welcome change - but not $25 or so dollars worth. I couldn't believe we just spent over $60 on breakfast!!!! I know its magical to be at the castle, but we had much better character interaction and food at the 1900 Park Faire meal at the GF last year. At that meal (can't remember if it was breakfast or dinner) Cindy, Prince Charming, Susie, Perla and Fairy Godmother spent a great deal of time roaming around the room and stopping at each table. Definately recommend this over CRT. We also did Storybook Break. at Norway last year and that also was much better than CRT.

After breakfast we decided to go to the attractions that were new to DD. She's now 42 inches so she was very excited to go on Splash and BTMR. Only about a 10 min wait for Splash so we got FP for BTMR and went to Splash. DD was a bit scared during the inside tunnel parts and she didn't really follow along with the story, but she loved the drops, especially the last one. Of course I got a face full of water - again. Never fails!! We watched BTMR a little and she started to get nervous and decided she'd rather go on Goofy's Barnstormer. We took the train to Toontown Fair and while on the train she got a closer look at BTMR and decided that she wouldn't be scared to go on it later. Went to Toontown - rode Goofy 2 times. Tried to get her to go to pose with the characters, but she wasn't really interested - been there done that I guess!

Did Cindy's carousel, IASW, teacups and Pooh's Playful Spot (very cute). It was time for our BTMR FP so we went on over and DD loved it. It was really fun. Then we decided to take the rafts over to Tom Sawyers island. In all my trips to MK I've never done this. It was really fun for us. Except the fact that it was so HOT! My God it felt like it did when we were there in July a few years back. After being on the island for a good hour (DD insisted on going up and down each and every path b/f leaving) we realized we were all hot and pretty dehydrated. We had a 5:15 ADR at CP (our favorite Disney restaurant) and it was 2:00, but we really needed refueling. We decided on a hot dog at Casey's. We've never had these b/f, but so many of you have raved about them, so we had to try. Oh my, best hot dog I ever tasted!!!!!
After lunch we realized DD was getting pretty crabby due to the fact that we kept her up til midnight the night before and she doesn't do too well in the heat. We really didn't want to miss our CP dinner, but she was really getting miserable and I was anxious to get back to the room to see what the latest on the Weather Channel was since we were going on the cruise the next day. I went to CP to see if I could change ADR to 7:00 - CM said 1st avail was 9pm. I unhappily just cancelled our 5:15 and we headed back to WL.

Wilma seemed to be moving along as predicted and according to DCL recorded message, the Wonder would be leaving Port Canaveral at 5:00 on Sun. as planned. Oh the knots in my stomach!!! so, I am now just trusting this cruise line and hoping that they are making the right decision. I decided to pack and DD and DH went swimming. I called and was able to make an ADR at Whispering Canyon for 6:30. Around 5:00 it started to rain and then pour! This lasted about 1 hour. I was so glad that we had decided to change our CP ADR and was glad we were instead dry at the hotel!

Went to WC for dinner. DD loved making log houses out of Lincoln Logs in the waiting area. Sat down for dinner and DH and I order the skillet. I really loved this food, so good. The pulled pork was to die for!!! DD did the pony races and received a pony express certificate for participating. She had a great time. Other tables were doing the ketchup thing and there were a few bdays and anniversaries celebrated where we all sang. Our waiter wasn't one of the boisturous ones, but we had fun anyways.

When we finished dinner it was 8:00 and I realized MK was open til 10pm. I looked on the map and Wishes was at 9:00 so I said let's go!! Not wanting to take the boat to MK we decided the bus would have to be quicker! We waited at the bus stop for our MK bus. FW bus was pulling away, then Epcot bus, then MGM bus, then DTD bus then another MGM bus then (after 1/2 hour) MK bus - yahhhh. There was a man in a wheelchair waiting to get on, so the driver opened the handicapped door and lowered the ramp. Somehow the ramp got stuck and he couldn't retract it. After 20 minutes of fiddling with it, he had to radio for help!!! It's now 8:50, we walked back into WL to get on the boat!!! Waited for a few minutes, boat showed up and then had to go to FW. While at FW Wishes started behind us. When we got to MK wishes had ended and now we barely had a 1/2 hour at the park. UGH!!! We were dodging the entire park while trying to walk in - everyone was leaving since the fireworks were over. We then realized WOW this is a great time to be here. No lines!!! DD and I walked onto IASW while DH walked on PoC and then I wanted to do Philharmagic so DH took DD on Goofy. This ended up being really great. At 10pm we walked throught the castle and saw Spectromagic rounding the corner. We stood on the pathway going down from the castle and watched the whole parade. It was really awesome, DD loved the Ariel float. When the parade was about over DD said "can I go to sleep now?" I felt so bad, DH picked her up and she just collapsed on his shoulder. We went back to WL for our last night's sleep there. I am so torn about the WL. I loved the hotel itself. Our mousekeeper, Sally was great! One day we returned back to the room to find Fifi (DD's stuffed pink poodle) sitting on the edge of the bed watching TV with the flicker in her paw! It was so funny. We also had a ghost towel animal hanging from a light fixture and a mouse towel animal with a red bow!!! But... I was really bothered by the slow transportation!!! We had much better bus service at POFQ last year relying only on the buses.

Oh, and for the record not one person was talking about the hurricane here!!! And there were hurricane watches posted for the Orlando area for Monday. I went to sleep pretty nervous about getting on the boat the next day, but at the same time I was starting to look forward to it!!

More tomorrow...