Hello, all! We just returned from our 7-day WDW vacation on Saturday. What follows is my play-by-play trip report. I apologize in advance for its verbosity, and its sarcasm and virulent anti-stroller sentiments, but with me doing the writing, that’s just what you get. 
The traveling party consisted of DH and me, our DS (7) and DD (5/6), my Dad (71, hasn’t been to WDW since 2005) and my maternal aunt (68, visiting WDW for the very first time). We stayed in a 2-bedroom villa at Wilderness Lodge on rented points (thanks, David's DVC Rentals!), with the “girls” sharing the master bedroom and the “boys” in the secondary bedroom, which worked out nicely. I don't have permission from Dad or my Aunt to post pictures of them, so I'll be a bit limited in the pictures I can share, but I'll do my best.
I’ll just break this down into one post for each day. Sound okay? Great! (You all are such a sweet and easygoing audience.)
Day 1 (Sunday, May 4):
After a 4:45am wake-up, DH and I gathered the kids up, picked up my Dad and Aunt, and drove to Syracuse Hancock International Airport for a pleasant and uneventful 8:00am direct flight to Orlando on JetBlue. My Dad and my Aunt had each mentioned sleeping on the plane, but as it happened, everyone was just too excited to sleep. As we flew, I double-checked my touring plan cards, which listed a generalized touring plan for each day, along with all of our FP+ reservations and ADRs.
We got off the plane at 10:45am, slapped on our MagicBands, grabbed our carryons (we all pack "carryon only") and headed to the Magical Express center. There was a moment of trepidation as I held my wrist up to a MagicBand reader for the first time, but it turned green after a moment and we were through! (I must say, the MagicBands worked flawlessly for everything we needed them to. The MDE app, not so much – it only worked 50% of the time, and even when it was working, there was little-or-no FP+ availability for headliners, so it was virtually useless for making last-minute changes.)
We arrived at Wilderness Lodge around noon and were checked in by 12:30. Our room wasn’t ready (we didn’t get a “room is ready” text until 4:30pm), so we left our bags with Bell Services, freshened up in the restrooms outside The Roaring Fork, and enjoyed a delicious lunch there. I had the roast beef and bleu cheese sandwich and the famous Magic Cookie bar, which was so deliciously rich that it took 3 “sittings” over the next couple of days to finish it. (My Dad, who generally has digestive issues with restaurant food – allergy to MSG or something – commented that day and repeatedly over the rest of the trip that to his surprise and delight, the food at WDW gave him no trouble at all.)
We took the ferry from Wilderness Lodge to the Magic Kingdom, arriving a little after 2pm, and it was wonderful to see my Aunt’s sweetly awed reaction to everything. It’s a pity that the area around the hub is such an eyesore now with all of the construction walls, but nobody in our party seemed to mind them much, and the rest of Main Street looked beautiful. In the next four hours, we did the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse, Enchanted Tiki Room, Pirates of the Caribbean w/FP+, Big Thunder Mountain w/FP+ (DH and DD did Aladdin’s Magic Carpets w/FP+ instead), Splash Mountain w/FP+ (for the first time in my life, absolutely every effect I know about appeared to be working!), Country Bear Jamboree, the Hall of Presidents and the Haunted Mansion. My aunt turned out to be quite the daredevil, and particularly enjoyed the Splash Mountain drop! Then we enjoyed a delicious dinner at the Liberty Tree Tavern (the mashed potatoes, roast beef, and mac & cheese were everybody’s favorite), and visited it’s a small world, Mickey’s Philharmagic, and the Haunted Mansion again (using a 4th FP+, the only time we bothered to get one) before heading back to Wilderness Lodge around 8:30pm.
This King bed was so huge that after an unsuccessful first night attempting keep air in the twin-sized air mattress we'd brought for my daughter, she joined my aunt and I in it for the remaining 5 nights, and we all had plenty of room!
Once there, we called Bell Services and asked them to deliver our bags, and did a quick exploration of our newly-refurbished villa. Although I did observe a couple of “known issues” (e.g., scratched floors and bubbling/peeling cabinet paint), we were really pleased with our accommodations, which were very comfortable and offered more than adequate amenities and storage space. Once our bags arrived, we discovered that my husband’s backpack was missing. The bellman said he’d go look into it, but apparently he ran into a friend of his along the way and just stood there chatting, which is where my DH and Dad found him when they tried to catch up with him a couple of minutes later. As it happened, DH continued along the walkway toward bell services and found the backpack himself lying in the middle of another sidewalk, where it had apparently fallen off the luggage cart. He brought it back and showed the bellman (who was still standing and talking with his buddy) who didn’t apologize, but simply shrugged and said, “oh, okay, I guess I don’t have to look for it now.” Not exactly the great service we’d expected (and already tipped him for), but not a biggie in the great scheme of things.
After DH’s triumphal return with his backpack, we finished unpacking and turned in for the night.
The traveling party consisted of DH and me, our DS (7) and DD (5/6), my Dad (71, hasn’t been to WDW since 2005) and my maternal aunt (68, visiting WDW for the very first time). We stayed in a 2-bedroom villa at Wilderness Lodge on rented points (thanks, David's DVC Rentals!), with the “girls” sharing the master bedroom and the “boys” in the secondary bedroom, which worked out nicely. I don't have permission from Dad or my Aunt to post pictures of them, so I'll be a bit limited in the pictures I can share, but I'll do my best.I’ll just break this down into one post for each day. Sound okay? Great! (You all are such a sweet and easygoing audience.)
Day 1 (Sunday, May 4):
After a 4:45am wake-up, DH and I gathered the kids up, picked up my Dad and Aunt, and drove to Syracuse Hancock International Airport for a pleasant and uneventful 8:00am direct flight to Orlando on JetBlue. My Dad and my Aunt had each mentioned sleeping on the plane, but as it happened, everyone was just too excited to sleep. As we flew, I double-checked my touring plan cards, which listed a generalized touring plan for each day, along with all of our FP+ reservations and ADRs.
We got off the plane at 10:45am, slapped on our MagicBands, grabbed our carryons (we all pack "carryon only") and headed to the Magical Express center. There was a moment of trepidation as I held my wrist up to a MagicBand reader for the first time, but it turned green after a moment and we were through! (I must say, the MagicBands worked flawlessly for everything we needed them to. The MDE app, not so much – it only worked 50% of the time, and even when it was working, there was little-or-no FP+ availability for headliners, so it was virtually useless for making last-minute changes.)
We arrived at Wilderness Lodge around noon and were checked in by 12:30. Our room wasn’t ready (we didn’t get a “room is ready” text until 4:30pm), so we left our bags with Bell Services, freshened up in the restrooms outside The Roaring Fork, and enjoyed a delicious lunch there. I had the roast beef and bleu cheese sandwich and the famous Magic Cookie bar, which was so deliciously rich that it took 3 “sittings” over the next couple of days to finish it. (My Dad, who generally has digestive issues with restaurant food – allergy to MSG or something – commented that day and repeatedly over the rest of the trip that to his surprise and delight, the food at WDW gave him no trouble at all.)
We took the ferry from Wilderness Lodge to the Magic Kingdom, arriving a little after 2pm, and it was wonderful to see my Aunt’s sweetly awed reaction to everything. It’s a pity that the area around the hub is such an eyesore now with all of the construction walls, but nobody in our party seemed to mind them much, and the rest of Main Street looked beautiful. In the next four hours, we did the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse, Enchanted Tiki Room, Pirates of the Caribbean w/FP+, Big Thunder Mountain w/FP+ (DH and DD did Aladdin’s Magic Carpets w/FP+ instead), Splash Mountain w/FP+ (for the first time in my life, absolutely every effect I know about appeared to be working!), Country Bear Jamboree, the Hall of Presidents and the Haunted Mansion. My aunt turned out to be quite the daredevil, and particularly enjoyed the Splash Mountain drop! Then we enjoyed a delicious dinner at the Liberty Tree Tavern (the mashed potatoes, roast beef, and mac & cheese were everybody’s favorite), and visited it’s a small world, Mickey’s Philharmagic, and the Haunted Mansion again (using a 4th FP+, the only time we bothered to get one) before heading back to Wilderness Lodge around 8:30pm.
This King bed was so huge that after an unsuccessful first night attempting keep air in the twin-sized air mattress we'd brought for my daughter, she joined my aunt and I in it for the remaining 5 nights, and we all had plenty of room!
Once there, we called Bell Services and asked them to deliver our bags, and did a quick exploration of our newly-refurbished villa. Although I did observe a couple of “known issues” (e.g., scratched floors and bubbling/peeling cabinet paint), we were really pleased with our accommodations, which were very comfortable and offered more than adequate amenities and storage space. Once our bags arrived, we discovered that my husband’s backpack was missing. The bellman said he’d go look into it, but apparently he ran into a friend of his along the way and just stood there chatting, which is where my DH and Dad found him when they tried to catch up with him a couple of minutes later. As it happened, DH continued along the walkway toward bell services and found the backpack himself lying in the middle of another sidewalk, where it had apparently fallen off the luggage cart. He brought it back and showed the bellman (who was still standing and talking with his buddy) who didn’t apologize, but simply shrugged and said, “oh, okay, I guess I don’t have to look for it now.” Not exactly the great service we’d expected (and already tipped him for), but not a biggie in the great scheme of things.
After DH’s triumphal return with his backpack, we finished unpacking and turned in for the night.
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