A Rustic Spooktacular Trip for Two: A Trip Report - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
Hey guys! I'm back sorry for the delay in starting this trip report! I got sick my last day in Disney for the first time ever and was out of it for a week or so after I got back. then the holidays hit and I was traveling alot. Then my silly ole laptop which is a gazillion years old decided to not work for a while but its back up and running now so lets hope it stays this way. So, you ready for a trip report???
For those of you who did or didn't follow along with my PTR let me refresh everyone on this trip!
The Cast:
Myself: Crissy, 37 years old and avid disney fantic. I've been going since 2000 sometimes multiple times in a year and two disney cruises under my belt.
Eric: My DH and he is 39, didn't used to love disney all that much until 2009 when I convinced him of his first week long trip as an adult with me. Since then he's gone back for a week with me every year!
The when? the Where?
This trip was from Saturday the 24 through Saturday the 31st. We were staying in Wildnerness lodge for the first time and five full disney days and two hotel days.
Lets get this trip started shall we??
Day 1 Friday October 23rd, Travel day:
I somehow convinced my husband as I am usually able to do to travel down to Brunswick, GA and stay overnight which is about 5 hours from where we live in SC. My husband was hesitant as he wanted to drive down early Saturday morning but we wouldn't get to the hotel until about 4pm and we really wanted time in this hotel due to how expensive it was and we had never stayed here before.
Friday: I'm always off on friday's so I was able to completely finish packing. We bought some new luggage for our trip to France this year and we wanted to give it a try this trip. Boy I was so impressed with how much we were able to get into these suitcases with room to spare.
I closed the suitcases up and got them ready to put in the car. My husband was able to get off a little earlier than anticipated that day so we made our way out earlier than we thought.
We stopped for gas and a visit to Taco Bell before heading on our way to Brunswick, GA our resting stop for the night.
We made it to Brunswick earlier than we ever do around 6pm. Probably because we left so early this time around. My husband never takes a half day but he had one to waste and it ended up being worth it in the end.
Once checked into our usual hotel in Brunswick, we walked over to dinner at a local eatery. The food was good and once we were done we decided to head back to the hotel to relax before turning in around 1030pm as we had a early wake up that next morning.
Day 2: Check in day!! Part one.
We had a wake up for 730am. We were ready and eating breakfast around 830am at the hotel breakfast. I will say this hotel we always stay at called Best Western plus is super nice for the 90 dollar price tag. We have unlimited internet, the rooms are very nice and updated and the breakfast is really good to be included.
Once we ate we loaded up our overnight bag into the car and stopped for our ritual Starbucks stop before heading down to Disney.
The drive in this day was really nice actually. It was nice and sunny but it was a bit chilly leaving brunswick so we were wearing jackets over our shorts outfits.
It was a three hour drive on down to Orlando which went with no issues. There was a lot of traffic going into Disney that day but we figured due to the food and wine festival and it being a saturday was the reason for so much traffic.
It was so cool going in to our hotel this way as we have never stayed this far into disney property before and never in the MK area.
Making our way in we tried to savor every moment.
We drove into the parking area and it looked really full but we circled back through where the valet starts and behold we got an up front spot which we never moved from the entire trip!!! Duh, there was no way were giving that one up!
We were so excited practically ran into the hotel!!!
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
I am in such a disney mood this weekend. Maybe its because my good friend is there now I dunno but I thought why not keep this thing going? Especially since i have time right now to continue on...
Day 2: Check in Day, The Wilderness Lodge part two....
We arrived around 1230pm at the hotel. It was such a beautiful day and we still had not decided what we were going to do this day but once we checked in we made the plans for the day. I know in my PTR I talked about how we couldn't decide to either do DTD or stay and enjoy the hotel. With such a beautiful day and getting there so early we decided to stay at our hotel and just relax.
They had just started construction at this hotel and if you guys would remember we were worried about our woodsview that we had paid for. We were really worried we would hear a lot of construction, etc. more on that in a sec....
Upon walking into this hotel your eyes go straight up, so many details and so much to take in and the lobby, it smells so good, its like they pipe in this nice fresh, clean smell I dunno but it just smells so good!!!!
I was so excited i wanted Eric to take my pic, like proving to myself that I actually stayed here LOL
Upon walking in we were behind this guy in line, he was hilarious, he was trying to sell us DVC to this resort. He was so nice and kept asking questions about us staying at disney, anyway we thought he was a DVC rep, nope just an average joe who loved this lodge LOL
One thing I like about these Deluxe resorts is the line for waiting is never too long. We waited like 3 minutes and were immediately up for check in. They actually had our room ready and stated to us that the contstruction had not yet start there nor would it affect us during our stay but they offered for us to go ahead and check out the room first to make sure we were okay with it and if not they would move us. So, we bounded up one flight of stairs from the lobby and headed to our room.
We walked in and we were so pleasantly surprised that not only was this room ready but it was such a nice room and the balcolny was beautiful and the view was actually a nice view.
The details that Disney puts into things always amazes my husband and he took a lot of photos to show...
We had a really nice refrigerator combo with a dresser and we set up our coffee shop there and was happy to have a place for all our water we brought.
This headboard well...see for yourself but it was just beautiful!
Now, we have stayed at AKL and we adore it there. This place is very similar just done a little differently and this could be why we loved it so. I dunno. If we did have DVC it would be AKL for sure!
I loved the table and chairs it was really nice place to set up our food that we had brought.
The balcony like I said was just so nice and calming. We ended up setting out here everyday for coffee while watching people dash for the buses LOL
As you can see our view was of the DVC quiet pool but shielded by woods. They had a tarp up already that was at the bottom and blended in so it was no biggie...
We quickly decided that yes this would work for us. We loved the room and location. We actually thought it was a long and winding walk down the hall to this room but we found a short cut out two side doors to get to the buses, the trails and the beach and it ended up being a prime location honestly!
We were getting so hungry so we decided to go ahead and tell the front desk we wanted to keep our room and then unload our luggage. That was super simple and easy and quickly we were unpacked and heading down to check out the pool and lunch area.
A side inner door lead us straight out to the pool area and we took several pics before getting lunch.
We loved the grounds and we were not really affected by the start of construction. It did obstruct the beach view but you could still go around and look at the beach. We wandered around quickly learning the pathways and the best path to take since it is such a big resort.
More pics...
I sent the last pic to my travel planner, amanda letting her know I was at home and in love! So, once we explored around the hotel we decided to try out the counter service food for lunch.
First of all it was about 2pm, there was NO ONE in there really. Honestly we walked right up and ordered our lunch with no issues. I got a flatbread pizza and Eric got a sandwich. That flatbread pizza was enough for us both to share for lunch. We didn't realize how big it would be. We also got two beers. This was our first trip in 6 years paying OOP for our food so this meal total was 30. Two entrees and two beers. Yep, it sure hurt at first paying but we had plenty saved and we honestly wondered if it would save us pounds and not feeling like we HAD to eat it all.
While we were eating, Eric decided that we should try for Artist Point tonight for a dinner since we had the money and it wouldn't be hard to do. We luckily had not planned for this but did plan in clothes so i quickly looked to see what they had and they did have a 7pm dinner. So we booked that and was settled in for plans for the night.
Once done with our lunches we took our beers and walked around the pool area and then landed at the pool bar to watch football.
I ordered a Kona lager here which I love and Eric ordered one as well. We spent about 2 hours or more here just hanging out watching football. Several people stopped by and talked to us, just in and out.
Once we were done we decided to walk around some more just to find our way.
The pool was packed BTW and it was gorgeous. I was actually suprised at the number of people at the pool considering it was saturday and in the middle of the day. But, my guess was others had the same idea as we had.
We talked to one guy for a few minutes, he was about our age and he asked us if we were going to the MNSSHP. Of course we said yes and he asked where he could get tickets, I cracked up later at how my husband said "Dude, you aren't getting in, we have had these tickets forever." the guy was convinced he would get in and when he called of course they were sold out. He was so upset but Eric told him "Dude we've had these tickets since May." LOL
Once we done talking with him, we decided to go over to the beach again and then find the trails for tomorrow. We had plans to walk the trails the next day. Once done there, we headed back up to the room to fully unpack, shower and get ready for our dinner.
Once dressed and ready it was early so we decided to head on down and try to get a drink at the bar.
We checked in at 645 for our 7pm reservation and was told there was a mess up with their systems so they were delayed in seating everyone. We ended up being seated about 30 minutes later. It was a bit frustrating because my husband finally had to check on the reservation and they were like, oh yeah we are seating you now. We wondered if we hadn't checked would they have seated us then even when it was like 720pm. Not sure.
I honestly was glad we waited because they gave us an awesome table right next to the window for two and it had a beautiful view of the pool area.
Our waiter was great and I ordered a Pinot Noir and so did eric and he quickly brought them out.
Eric ordered some kind of steak tips on mashed potatoes. He said it was really good.
Sorry thinking back I think it was filet medalions.
Anyway I ordered the portabello Mushroom bisque and a salad.
My soup was worth every single penny along with my salad.
The bread here is great too with the salted butter!!! Yummy!
Our dinner was over around 9pm or so. Once done we decided to stroll out to the beach to see the Water Parade, boy we made it just in time and I ran for it LOL
We loved every cheesy minute of it!!! We heard and saw it several times as we could hear and see part of it from our balcolny BTW.
Once done we just walked around...
Once done outside we went to sit by the fire in the lobby for awhile. It was very relaxing and very nice.
Then we walked to the top of the center to look down and see how scary it was LOL
We ended up back in our room around 10 or so. We wound down for the night making plans for Sunday and quickly were asleep by 11pm.
Up next: Day Three, More of what the Wilderness lodge has to offer and DTD, and MNSSHP.
About This Page: 
So, you ready for a trip report??? 
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
<--- Disney Fantasy 2016!
PassPorter Guide Author
Us 
Linear Mode
