Who: Myself (Cindy in Sacramento, CA - 48) and my DH (50)
What: Celebrating our 25th anniversary
Where: Wilderness Lodge - Honeymoon Suite
When: 9/11 - 9/18/05

Wilderness Lodge:
We decided to do it up and stay in the Honeymoon Suite (actually there are more than 1). It is located on the 7th floor - this is the concierge floor. In the elevator you use your room card to go up to 7th floor.

We were worried about going during hurricane season but everything worked out fine for us. No rain at all. We were actually in a bit of a heat wave but we handled that OK. There are plenty of air-conditioned places to cool off in.

I had read that there was no concierge lounge at the Wilderness Lodge - just tables of food set up near the elevators. This has changed - they now have a concierge room for the food and beverages that are put out. The tables and chairs are located outside the room (overlooking the lobby). There are also some sofas and a couple of large screen TVs. The lounge is open most of the day. They put out food 5 times a day and they close the room for 1 hour in-between each. Whenever we would come back to the room, we would grab something to drink (ice tea for me, light beer for him). The staff is very accommodating, if there was no beer out (or room was closed) they would run and get one for him.

There were pros and cons about the Honeymoon suite. Since it's a 'suite' my DH expected that there would be a separate sitting area with a sofa for watching TV. There was no sofa or comfortable chairs but I guess they figure honeymooners won't be into watching TV anyway. The room has a king size bed which is a raised up a little. There is an armoire with a TV (and drawers) in it directly across from the bed. There is a small table and 2 hard-backed chairs. When you 1st walk into the room there is a small hallway with a small chest of drawers that has an ice bucket and glasses on it. Past this on the right there are 2 bathroom sinks in an open area (one of the sinks had the refrigerator directly under it and it stuck out a little, which made the sink too awkward to use). The bathroom contains a large Jacuzzi tub (with shower) surrounded by marble. There is a small window in the marble, and there is a small arrangement of pebbles and candles on the far side. I really enjoyed the Jacuzzi tub and told DH to look into whether we could fit one in our bathroom at home. Directly across from the sink area is a large closet. It contained 2 robes, iron and ironing board, extra blankets and pillows and hangers. There is a small balcony with 2 chairs and a little table. Our view was of the roof and you could hear what sounded like a generator. At first we thought the balcony was a total bust BUT we discovered that you could see the MK fireworks from there so if we were in the room at 9, we would grab a glass of wine from the concierge lounge and watch the fireworks from our balcony. We had turn-down service every day - they turn down the covers, arrange the pillows and leave chocolate mints and a little saying on a card.

They had already confirmed my Seaway tour for me (and I hadn't told them about it). One thing that we did not notice until it was too late - there was a card in our room saying we could participate in the private safari tour at AK (I think it was $45 each). I knew that we could take it if we were concierge at AK Lodge but didn't know we could also do so here. I would have loved to have done that.

The whispering canyon was below us in the lobby and the sound does carry up and echo. We are not late sleepers so it wasn't too bad for us.

Around the World at Epcot - Seaway Tour:
My DH was just going because I had booked it but was complaining that he didn't like having to be somewhere at a specific time because vacations are for relaxing. Well, by the time is was over he said he wants to do this every time we go. We both enjoyed it. I think I paid $136 for us both (with AAA discount). It lasted 2 hours - 1st hour is inside and you learn to ride the segway, 2nd hour is in the world portion of Epcot. There were 10 in our group, but 1 person dropped out as soon as she tried the segway - I think if she would just have given it 5 more minutes she would have been fine. We all looked pretty funny when we first tried it - kind of like bobble-heads with the segway bucking forward and backward a little. I did have an embarrassing moment with my pal mickey. The instructor had us put our things under our chairs before learning to ride the segways and I accidentally pressed his hand. He sounds quite loud when you are in a quiet room.

Rides:
Mission Space kicked my a**. My DH was nervous about this one and wasn't too sure about going on it but went because I wanted to try it. I am one of those people who get motion sickness but I took a motion sickness tablet that morning and I also wore my wrist bands so I ignored the warnings and thought I would be OK. I HATED IT! It was all I could do to get thru the ride. When the ride ended my DH said 'Hey, that was great' and turned to me. There I was clutching the barf bag and saying 'Get me out of here'. I didn't get sick but had to sit down for a while. It kind of messed me up for part of the day but I finally got back to normal. I've decided that simulator rides are just not for me.

Soarin is great - we've done it at California Adventure too. My DH always laughs at me on this one. I like to use the seatbelt loop that they have for the little kids - it just makes me feel more secure. What can I say, I'm afraid of heights.

I forget the name of it - it's the car show from Disney Paris. My DH says 'we've seen a million of these types of shows, it's just going to be the same old thing'. Well.... he was surprised at how much he enjoyed it.

This was a good week to go -we practically walked onto the rides most of the time. By Thursday things got slightly most crowded, Friday a little more, Saturday a lot more. Even so.. the ride we waited the longest for was 40 minutes.

Wishes:
We could see the MK fireworks from our balcony but I wanted to go to the park so we could experience it with the music. MK was packed the evening we went (maybe it's always packed, I don't know) and my DH was questioned whether it was going to be worth it. It definitely was. It is a great fireworks show and we both enjoyed it very much.

Pal Mickey:
I decided I just had to have a pal mickey and there were lots of other grown-ups carrying one. I enjoyed having him - he tells you lots of things - when the wait is short for a ride, when the parade is going start, different little facts about something you are passing (this was especially nice at AK where he tells you about the animals, I think we would have missed some of them), and corny jokes. When you are back in your room he seems like he is loud but when you are in the park he is hard to hear unless you hold him close to your ear. I liked wearing him on a lanyard and then holding him on my shoulder between my DH and me whenever he was speaking. I left him on the entire week and his batteries never ran out. I did have a problem with him going off a lot during shows. Most of the time it doesn't really matter - you can feel him shaking but most shows are loud enough to drown out his laughing. There was only one time he went off during a quiet moment.

Food:
For breakfast we alternated between the free breakfast at the concierge lounge and going to the Whispering Canyon. If I remember correctly - the lounge had 2 kinds of cereal, whole fruit (I think apples, oranges, bananas), cut-up pieces of melon, croissants, blueberry muffins, chocolate muffins, either apple or cherry strudel, coffee, tea, orange juice, milk, chocolate milk and a espresso machine that had about a dozen choices on it. When we went to the Whispering Canyon we always had a 'normal' waiter or waitress. It was fun to watch the antics of some of the others. There was always someone who asked for ketchup and gets every bottle in the place. It's cute when they have the kids ride around with the wooden horses. They also liked to pick on people using their cell phones - one man was on his cell phone and the waitress yelled 'Everyone hush up - he's trying to call in sick'. They made a lot of jokes about how little money they make working for disney too.

For most of our lunches and dinner, we just ate counter service. I only had 1 really bad meal during the week - I got a horrible hamburger back at the hotel at the Roaring Forks counter service place. At the parks, nothing really stands out except maybe for the hot dogs at Caseys - they are really large and pretty good. We did go to the Wolfgang Puck Cafe in West Side and I enjoyed that. Before dinner they brought out a bread basket with 2 kinds of foccacia bread and mixed olive oil and balsamic vinegar in a small bowl for dipping. It was so good, I would have been fine just eating that for dinner. Funny thing is I thought it was the best foccacia I had ever had and my DH turns to me and says 'This stuff is awful'. Our tastes are just so different.

I had the best drink I've ever had at the pool bar (I think it's called Trout Pass Bar) back at the hotel. It was called a Lodge Cream. It had vanilla ice cream, mandarin orange something, peach schnapps and I don't know what else. DELICIOUS!

Transportation:
We did not rent a car. My DH thinks one of the best parts of a WDW vacation is not having to drive for the whole vacation.

We had a limo pick us up at the airport. That was nice - he was there waiting for us. We relaxed in the back of the air conditioned limo and didn't have to stop at any other resorts on the way. We could get spoiled by this.

The rest of the time, we used the Disney transportation. Most of the time it was fine. Sometimes we hit it just right and it was pulling up just when we got to the bus stop, other times we just had to wait. All trips involve a stop at another resort. We really only had 1 'bad' experience. There should be a bus every 20 minutes and we had waited over 30. We found out why when the bus got there - he was the slowest driver we ever saw - I though we would never get to our destination with him. Some of the bus drivers like to chat and will give out little Disney tidbits, others don't want to talk with the passengers.

Pins:
I told myself that I was not interested in the pins. Well, I got one at the Segway tour. I had the certificate to get one with my pal mickey. Everywhere you go there are pins, pins, pins and they are so cute. Before I knew it I bought a couple for myself, and 1 for each of the kids at home. Oh no, I think I've starting collecting them!