The “Circle of Life” WDW Trip Report – September 10-19, 2009 (Fort Wilderness Cabins) About This Page:

[Jajajuna]

Yay! So I finally started writing this monster of a trip report!

I know it's late, but I have good excuses. Excuses that I will now share with you... prepare yourself, they are good ones.

1. I have PDTSD. Post-Disney-Traumatic-Seperation-Disorder. Meaning, I grieve after a trip to Disney ends. It is too a real disorder--I just made it up!!! So, naturally, I avoid my photos, notes and even these boards for a few weeks. Doing a TR is torture at that time and the end product wouldn't differ much from my Itinerary Spreadsheet. Yawwwwwwwwwwwn.

2. I am a writer so I'm wordy. Even after rereading and editing, my TRs still comes out longer than most. I can't help myself!

3. I have to wait until the mood is right. If I'm feeling irritated , I keep negatively pointing out the bad details but if I'm feeling normal or happy (which, in my defense, is most of the time ) it comes out truer to the real event.

4. I'm a tad lazy.

So here comes the TR, one day at a time!

[Jajajuna]

Preface and background…
Our last trip to the World found me about 5 months pregnant with a surprise baby girl! While Florida heat and pregnancy induced edema kind of clashed a bit over who would get to kill me first, I still had a great time eating for two and exploring “not for expectant mother” options at all the parks with my, then under 42 inches, son.
My agenda for this trip was to make up for lost rides! Baby bump, now called Melanie-June, was out of my abdomen and ready to toddle around the House of Mouse on her own! DS, was way past the 42 inch mark and could do more rides and attractions than prudence should really allow. To put it simply, this trip was longer, faster, busier and funner than any previous trip we’d taken. Get ready to read about this doozy!

People in this TR:
Me: Naomi, 30
DH: Jason, 35
DG-irlfriend: Christina, 30
DM: Cherryl, 58
DF: Johan, 71
DS: Jager, 3
DD: June, 11 months then 1 year!

Accommodations: Disney’s Fort Wilderness Cabins and Campgrounds
Free Dining!
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Planning Stages and Our Special Plans:
Inspired by a spur of the moment rush of excitement, we booked this trip just a few days after Christmas ’08. We had just enjoyed my daughter’s first Christmas and we were feeling slightly better adjusted to our larger family and decided we should plan for our first trip with MJ. I had known for a while that the next time we went to Disney that we would go in September in order to take advantage of a value season, and possibly free dining. I had seen a Travel Channel show called Disney on a Dime and in it they interviewed a family that stayed at the Fort Wilderness Cabins and I decided then that the Cabins would be the next accommodations that we tried. We’d done a Deluxe resort and a Value but never a Moderate or Villas or Cabins. It seemed cozier than what we’d done before and the extended family, while they love Disney with the kids, they do complain about the hectic pace of every moment. I thought the cabins might offer some relief and a sense of independence… one thing a Disney trip often lacks.
Since we were staying in a cabin that could sleep about 6/8 people we just kept adding to our roster! In the end, it ended up being, Me and my family (4 total), my parents (2 of them) and my best friend of 20+ years who was supposed to go to Disney at the same time with her husband before she got divorced. Her decision to go anyway, with people who love her, ended up being a great way to pass that sad milestone. Plus, we totally benefited by having her fun personality around! His loss. J
Also, since we opted for September, we thought we should combine the annual WDW trip with a celebration of MJ’s first birthday! What a great idea that was! Best.Birthday.Ever!
For her birthday, she ended up having a First Birthday, in Costume, MNSSHParty at Cinderella’s Royal Table and the Magic Kingdom! We are going to have a tough time ever topping that!

[Jajajuna]

So, September 10th finally arrived and our trip began…
Day 1:
We decided to leave after work on a Thursday so we wouldn’t miss as much work, but would still have the full benefit of that extra day (Friday). I hate taking time off work to be in transit! The tradeoff however is that we spent bedtimes on a plane and had to deal with tired, fidgety children for a while. By the second flight, they had both conked out (after quite a bit of physical wrangling on my part). They slept on the Magical Express which was good because we waited for almost an hour before the bus would leave. In that time, no one else even boarded it! Did I mention that this was all around 12am-1am?
We arrived at our resort after 1am and they didn’t have our groceries, so I had a small panic attack. No groceries means, no milk or diapers either! When we got to our cabin though, there they all were laying neatly in the kitchen! Awesome! The night concierge just didn’t realize that Garden Grocers had already checked in. ::eyeroll:: Our double stroller from Orlando Stroller rentals was also there waiting for us in our cabin and I picked up our BigLeap GPS from the front desk. Renting is totally the way to go! That stroller deserves its own Trip Report—it was better than hiring a Nanny! J
Needless to say, we threw the kids in bed and went to sleep as fast as we could.

[Jajajuna]

Day 2:
One thing the night concierge managed to do right was to arrange an early morning van for us to get to Animal Kingdom by 7:30am. We told him our plans and he set us up! Wish we could always do that! The van picked us up at our cabin door and drove us directly to the Animal Kingdom gates! It took like 10 minutes total. People were looking at us like, “who provides THIS service?!” J It was nice after such a late night. It was, however, our only such privileged chauffeured trip to a park. Oh well. J

We got to AK before park opening and went in the special entrance for those with Safari Breakfast reservations (like us). We walked quickly to the Tusker House and I even met another blonde South African (like myself), a cast member at the entrance. That was fun. We took a picture (which we didn’t buy) and ran to the food! They brought us this guava, passion fruit punch and we each had about two glasses each—it was so good. We stuffed our hungry faces and quicker than we could have imagined, Safari Donald Duck was at our table! Next came Minnie, Mickey, Goofy then Daisy! The kids were so tired, but this perked them up as well as anything could. My daughter apparently loves Daisy Duck and my son was his regular well-rested self when Goofy came around. So much fun! We were in and out of there in about an hour! That was great considering the fact that we were so tired and wanted to go have some fun before we crashed again.



From there, Jason and Chris went for Fastpasses to Expedition Everest and the rest of us went straight to Kilimanjaro Safari’s and got in line. They caught up with us a few minutes later and we were on the ride in about 15 minutes. Our shortest wait for that ride, ever! My son loved the safari ride this time… he was obsessed with the printed animal guide on the front of our truck. I tried to find one everywhere, but no luck.

We rode Kali River Rapids a few times thanks to rider switch and trolled around Asia and Africa! We did Everest a few times and walked through the Maharaja Jungle Trek. Super fun.

We were all ready to head back sometime in the early afternoon to eat lunch at the cabin and get some sleep before dinner. Most of us slept hard and got up just in time to leave for our 5:40pm Artist Point reservation at the neighboring Wilderness Lodge Resort.

Artist Point was very easy and pleasant to get to from Fort Wilderness. We just took one leisurely boat ride and we were there. The restaurant wasn’t very busy when we got there because we tend to eat a bit early because of the kids. We got a fantastic table overlooking the courtyard and pool area and beyond that, the lake! We were next to a HUGE window overlooking it all and at a corner table near the patio doors so we killed time with the kids while waiting for our food by walking outside on the upper deck and watching people swim with ducks in the amazing pool.



Our food was wonderful. I ordered buffalo and it was tender and just slightly different from a really nice beef steak. I like trying new things, so I felt like I ordered well. Most of us ordered the berry cobbler for dessert and it was life changing. Everyone makes cobbler in Oklahoma, but this was totally unique. This now ties for my #1 favorite dessert at Disney World.

The Wilderness Lodge was gorgeous and reminded us a lot of the Animal Kingdom Lodge. We loved this resort and we came here often because of its proximity and amenities. I think we will try to stay there on a later trip.

After dinner we all piled on to one golf cart and had an amusing ride home (see photo). We got back and the girls enjoyed a relaxing evening reading trash gossip magazines, watching lame TV and making fun of my mom. J The boys and kids crashed early.

[Hugmonster]

Great start looking forward to more.

[B.M.]

Great first day!

[lazanya]

Great first day!

[Colexis Mom]

Great start Naomi!

[Cam22]

Great first two days, Naomi!

[debrabrown]

Great start and not too wordy!

[Jajajuna]

Day 3:

We had very early breakfast ressies for Kona Café this morning, but decided to cancel in favor of a bit more sleep. We will make up for that on the next trip. Instead we headed out a bit later than scheduled to arrive about 30 minutes after the Magic Kingdom opened. We decided to ditch the touring plans for the day since everyone was just excited to be in the Mecca of Disney. We opted instead for a “getting acquainted with Disney morning” instead. You can do that when you go for 10 days!

Right as we walked through the right tunnel we saw people start to line up to see Pinocchio! Jager just got that movie over the summer and he was so excited! We got a picture straight away. So, as I had suspected would happen, we got stuck in on Main Street for quite some time. It proved a good idea to go ahead and get that out of our system. We bought candy, ear hats, Tigger hats, had breakfast and coffee, pseudo shopped and gaulked at the amazing Disney figurines and other artwork. I’ve never thought to budget for an art purchase. Being Disney Freakos, perhaps we will in the future.



We had so much fun watching Jager freak out at Goofy’s Candy Co. He couldn’t believe his eyes! We told him to pick out the absolute biggest sucker in the entire store for himself. I think he thought we were messing with him. J When he came back with a medium sized sucker, we shook our heads and a candy lady CM got involved in the hunt. She led him around the sucker stand and showed him the real show stopper! That thing was literally bigger than his head. The look on his face is what you really pay for, not that overpriced hunk of colored sugar. He was in Jager heaven and he even felt there was enough to share! J



MJ got a Nemo shaped, orange sugar coated marshmallow on a stick! She would NOT let go of that thing until it was completely eaten. She did share though... just not with me.


Finally we made our way through the drizzle to Tomorrowland and went to see Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor. Jager laughed a lot which was new and MJ and I were even chosen as the “cute” image to put on the jumbo screen. We had on matching shirts and she was stuffed into her sling underneath my rain poncho to keep dry. We probably looked kind of funny, but to Monsters… that must mean cute.


After that Jager and Jason did Stitches Great Escape which was more of a Great Mistake. He hated it! My bad. I would have warned them had I known that’s where they were headed. Jager felt better after he got to ride Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin twice, Tomorrowland Speedway and talked to a talking trash can.
We all kind of split off to do our own thing and headed back to the resort after lunch at Casey’s Corner! Yummy fries by the way!
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After our break, we headed to Epcot for ADRs at San Angel Inn. We arrived early enough to enjoy the Mexico Pavillion and watch the glass blower making ornaments. Although we had ADRs, we had to wait a while for our table. While we waited, we took turns riding El Gran Fiesta Tour and that passed the time well. We were seated (and I have to be honest here) in what is probably the least desirable spot in the entire restaurant—in the corner, next to the bathrooms where you can barely even see the volcano! I had those ADR’s for exactly 90 days, so you can imagine I was a bit upset. By that point we were starving so we tried order, but no one came to wait on us for about 15 minutes. Once we finally got our food, we were all pretty disappointed. It was ho hum and not as exotic as I was hoping. Long story short, we really disliked this dining experience and are not likely to ever return there. Everyone has their least favorite dining experience… this is ours. We did the ride a few more times while we continued to wait for everything and had fun in the shopping area of Mexico.
After dinner, we toured Norway and rode Maelstrom (my first time to ride it) and shopped a bit while we waited for the fireworks to start. Once they did, we realized we were VERY close to the action! While we enjoyed the show, the noise really startled Jager and he was crying to leave. I took him to Kringla’s outdoor patio and we watched to rest from their… must less noisy. Funny, it didn’t bother the baby at all. I think he was “traumatized” after Stitch’s Great Mistake. LOL!

We left slowly after that for some rest.

[Cam22]

Great morning at MK! We've gotten stuck at Town Square and Main Street as Stefanie moved from one character line to another, but is magical to watch it through your kid's eyes. So sorry you had the bad experience at San Angel Inn and Illuminations scared Jager! Great update!

[B.M.]

Sounds like a great day!
Sorry your meal at SanAngel was not so good

[Colexis Mom]

Great update! Sorry about your dining experience!

[debrabrown]

Sorry about the fireworks scare for your little guy and dinner not being what you hoped.