Wilderness Lodge

We spent a few nights at Wilderness Lodge this week.

Day one was Monday, January 17th. Our room was not ready when we arrived so we let bell services take our luggage. We decided to breakfast at Whispering Canyon before heading over to Epcot. I had not made a reservation and was told the wait would be around 75 minutes but I had just looked at my phone and had seen an available reservation in about 20 minutes. So, why talking with the hostess, I made the reservation and we were seated in about 20 minutes.

Following breakfast, we hopped on the Epcot bus. We headed over to The Land. The line for Living with the Land looked really long but moved right along. We did the Awesome Planet film and then headed over to the Living Seas where we wandered through the aquarium and had a very pleasant and cute visit with Crush at Turtle Talk. By now, it was time for our lunch reservation at Coral Reef. We were quickly seated and had a very good lunch. After lunch, we walked around World Showcase stopping in to see Canada Far and Wide which we had never viewed before. We also ordered beer/wine in United Kingdom and watched the crowds walk by. We had heard about the long waits for the Figment popcorn bucket and lines were evident on this day though clearly not as long as the first day they were available. We saw many people with three - even four - of the buckets draped over their bodies while they were walking around. By time, we finished our walk, our room was ready so we hopped a bus back to Wilderness Lodge. We got settled in, had snacks for dinner and visited Territory Lounge. While wandering through the gift shop, I found a new cookbook "Delicious Disney Recipes & Stories from the Most Magical Place on Earth". I really like this book!

Day two found us heading to the Magic Kingdom. We took a bus there and then grabbed the monorail to The Grand Floridian. It was rather cold this morning so we decided to have breakfast in the quick serve there. After breakfast, another monorail ride brought us back to the Magic Kingdom. It is clearly a very busy day here!! Still, the line for Pirates was very manageable so we hopped on that. We also visited the Tiki Room and Hall of Presidents. We took a cruise on the Riverboat and saw Philharmagic - this was the first time we had seen the Coco insert. It also appears the film was cleaned up quite a lot which made viewing much more pleasurable. We were tired of the crowds so hopped the monorail to the Contemporary and picked up a bus to Disney Springs. There I was able to find the "A Visit to Walk Disney World" retro game and bought that. We opted on Chef Art Smith's for our late lunch and only needed to wait about 10 minutes for a table. After lunch, we stopped by Jock Lindsey's Hangar Bar - it had been a long time since we were in here. We enjoyed our return visit! This evening, there was a rocket launch which was delayed from 7 pm to 9 pm. We were able to get a great look from the walkway by the lake outside the Geyser Point Grill.

Day three brought us to Animal Kingdom. It was another very chilly start to the day so we opted to pop into Rainforest Cafe for some breakfast. During our time here, we got a refresher on how Tough it is to be a Bug, found the Na'vi Shaman of Songs on the Na'vi River, took a safari and wandered through the Discovery Island Trails and Gorilla Falls. We also had a quick lunch of mac n cheese from Eight Spoon Cafe. I think what they served used to be better than it is now. We had a chacuterie plate at Territory Lounge this evening.

On the fourth day, we packed up our belongings, loaded our car and headed for home.