Free Dining at the Wilderness Lodge - Page 4 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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And now, those shots you've been waiting for. I truly can't believe he was able to do this, but here's the proof!
Getting ready for the first one.
All the way up. Notice that the wave size is much smaller. The pool creates a 4 foot wave, followed by a 18inch to 2 foot wave. The instructor told him to catch the 2nd wave to try this the first time.
Don't you think that grin was worth $150??
The big wave! I really liked the black and white effect that you can do with photopass.
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Thanks for the comments folks. You can see why I just had to buy the photopass CD. Their shots were just so much better than mine.
Here's the pictures that went with the first installment of this trip (where we went back over for DS's actual birthday after our long trip). I'm loading them here and in the initial installment for now, but I'll clear them out of this page once I've finished the report.
The best family photo we've had taken in a long time.
You can tell it's threatening rain, and this was when we first entered the park. It's hard to believe that it didn't actually start pouring for 2 1/2 hours after this.
This is where DD was being particularly stubborn about taking off her hoodie.
Sam the photopass photographer got her out of her grumps and into a silly mood.
Back around in the France area we took some really nice shots.
It doesn't look like there's anyone in the park, and it's probably about 6:30 on a week night.
Okay, back to the rest of Friday the 21st of August
The ladies had just finished lunch at Raglan Road. We ducked through the rain down to Planet Hollywood to pick up our "free gift" which was a little keychain.
Inside Planet Hollywoods' shop. I had to take that for DS.
Mom decided to head back to the room, while DD and I finished up a bit of shopping and picked up lunch for DS at Wolfgang Pucks'. DD and I went into the candy store to find out if we could use snack credits for fudge. I have to confess a little secret. My mom, although she looks sweet and innocent, has a vice. She's addicted to fudge! It's the one thing she gets every time we come to Disney. Now she's not on a level with P-Sha's mom. I haven't seen her take any from a young child yet. But she has to get her "fix", and this was no exception.
We picked out 6 squares for her, but since we were using the snack plan, there was no "buy 4 get 2 free" deal. This wasn't a problem because I wasn't sure how we were going to use up all those credits anyway!
From there we went into WPE and got a cheese pizza, carrot cake and fountain soda to take back to DS. As we were waiting, DD noticed that they had opened a Princess Di exhibit in the old Virgin MegaStore. It's a separate fee (I think it was $14) so we passed on this and headed back to the room.
I took a little nap while Mom went down and read in front of the big fireplace. It was still drizzling outside when I got up, but the ladies decided to head out for EPCOT anyway.
Once inside, we headed over to Ellen's Energy Ride (it was indoors and would take up quite a bit of time). We watched the whole pre-show, then loaded up into the vehicles. As we were preparing to head into the dinosaur room, Mom noticed a couple of engineering looking guys over to the side and said "I've never noticed anyone in this room before?" About that time, our ride vehicle came to a sudden stop with the door just partway open to the dinosaurs. A lady behind a control room started making phone calls and telling everyone to please stay seated. Meanwhile the doors to the pre-show area had opened automatically and people were trying to walk in from that direction.
The CM ended up declaring "Ellen is 101"! Which is something I've never personally experienced. They cleared the pre-show area, then had us all walk back out through that entrance. DD said "Mom, be sure you write about that in your trip report!" so here it is. A first for me.
After this we headed over to the Living Seas and walked right onto the clam mobiles, then into a Turtle Talk show. Crush confirmed that he is a GREEN sea turtle which answered a question my Mom had been wondering about since we went to Vero Beach this summer.
From here I think DD and I rode Test Track. I had failed to mention that when we rode this a few days ago, it was down for about 20 minutes while we were in line. There was a couple of young men in the FP line who were showing me their "test track drivers' licenses" that they had gotten earlier. I complimented them on it, and the boy that was the oldest (probably about 10) twitched his finger for me to come closer to him. He said in a very quiet voice "It was $5. Just between you and me, I think that was a bit pricey, don't you?" It was just the most hysterical moment. You could see he had really thought about this but didn't want to spoil it for his brother!
Anyway, after this we caught a quiet ride in Mexico, then picked up a to-go meal from the Norway bakery (Loved the scenery again). We got the combo meal (DD ate the soup while we were there) and an almond pretzel to have the next morning.
We headed back to the room for a somewhat early evening and were in bed by 10. I think this was the evening we were able to see Wishes as we drove back.
Up next, a mass of photopass pictures, and "now what did we leave in the room?"
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Just catching up with several days of your TR! What an awesome present for you DS! And those surfing pictures are awesome. You definitely got some great PP pictures. And that is an old record player -- I have one very similar to it in my garage. It's a Victrola.
Just getting caught up on your TR. Great pics. What an awesome vacation you are having. We were in Epcot on the 21st as well. We had dining reservations at Norway around 6:30 and left the park around 8 I think as it looked like a storm was brewing and Illuminations could be cancelled.
Just missed you! We were at WL 8/24 - 8/29! (POR 8/20-8/23) Was our 2nd time there, on of our fav. resorts. We kept getting rained out with the SeaRaycers too, or lake closed due to lightning in area in the afternoons, we had that coupon for the 30 min free as well. We ended up using it one morning instead of waiting till afternoon!
We were in Cocoa Beach before WDW, and DD's took surf lessons at RonJons, Eric was their instructor! They had some really big waves with the off-shore storms. I don't know how Eric keeps the hat on! The moment I saw the white face in your photo I knew it was him, lol!
Great trip report, love the photos!
Thanks for the comments. Sue, did your son enjoy the experience at Cocoa? It's definitely a little cheaper over there, but it seemed like the situation was more controllable at TL. I think DS is going to want to do a follow up lesson over at Cocoa this next summer, so I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Cam, that's funny that you have one like it. Maybe you can make some money by selling it to Irish Pubs?
This was the day I had to go to my Master's class. I had packed up almost everything the night before and loaded up the van. I left one rolling suitcase for the final things, and told Mom to just throw away whatever was left in the fridge.
My alarm went off at 5:45, and it was REALLY hard to get out of bed. It was much harder than the previous morning, even though I had gotten a couple more hours of sleep. But I drug myself out of bed and got ready. I ended up camping in the bathroom this morning rather than going out to the alcove for my quiet time. I didn't have enough time to really relax, so I just ate half of the sandwich left over from the night before, had my coffee and devotions, slapped on some makeup and was down in my van by 6:25.
I stopped by the Hess station and filled up my tank and headed out for class. It's about a 75 minute drive north and west of Disney. There's a cut-off road, but I wasn't positive I remembered it, so I decided to take the direct route (I-4 over to Lakeland,then North to Dade City). On the way back, I did take the cut off, which comes out by Champion's Gate. I finished class about 11, but hit really bad rain storms on the way. I called Mom and found out that she and DD were in Animal Kingdom so I met them there.
I stopped on the way in for a photopass shot.
I think the ladies had watched Nemo that morning, and maybe seen Flights of Wonder. They were originally planning on playing Mini-Golf with our package coupon. They were going to take the bus to Blizzard Beach and walk across the parking lot, but DD decided she really didn't want to play. It was hot and sticky that day, so we just let that coupon expire.
We met up for lunch at Yak N Yeti counter service. I called DS who was in EPCOT and told him he HAD to eat lunch. That was when DS mentioned "Oh by the way, DD left her pillow at the lodge." I asked him why he didn't take it and he made some snarky comment. I figured I'd just let it go, but DD said that she had left a fairly nice stuffed animal tucked in the pillow as well, so I called mousekeeping to see if they had found it. Well, I tried to call mousekeeping. They actually connected me to Lost & Found, which was closed. And then the front desk, which sent me back to lost & found. After several calls, I did get through to Mousekeeping, and they said they'd leave it at the desk if they found it.
The ladies split a lo-mein meal and some sort of beef meal. DD had the mango pie for dessert which she said was really tasty. Mom & I split a frozen lemonade which really hit the spot.
The beef meal
The lo mein, which was huge! We only ate about 1/3 of it.
Desserts. I love the frozen lemonade cups, and had been trying to get one all week. Needless to say, none of that went to waste!
We sat at one of the overlooks behind the Tea stand, and this boat was down below us.
We stopped for a few photopass shots on the way out.
The Simba shots
Is DD a ham, or what?
As an aside, DD wore this "rat hat" the last few days of our trip. A friend of hers gave it to her for her birthday. I think DD sold at least 3 of these hats during the trip. Whenever someone asked where she got it, she'd whip off the hat and show the label on the back. She said "They'll custom make whatever animal you want."
Mom's Simba Shot.
When I sent her the link to the photopass site, she called me up and said "What's that yellow thing in my arms?" I guess that explains why she was looking at the camera instead of Simba!
After the pictures, we got in the van and drove over to the Studios. Mom wanted to watch Beauty and the Beast, so that's what we did. I really do miss Four for a Dollar. They were such a neat pre-show, and just one of those little touches that makes Disney different.
On our way out, we saw "Darla Nesmond" or whatever her name is. She was just too funny! She had a gentleman help her up onto her platform, and was telling his wife that the picture was good for blackmail. Then she sat down and chatted with this little boy in the Tigger hat.
He was very interested in showing her his water bottle.
We walked on down to EPCOT (the boat line was really long, and it's just faster for us to walk), and into the IG entrance. We stopped by Japan and watched the storyteller. As we were there, she pulled DD into the story. Unfortunately, the pictures are on my mom's camera, so I'll have to add them later.
We met up with DS and headed to 9 Dragons for our last meal of the trip. This was DS's specific birthday request because he really likes this restaurant.
I had saved our last 3 TS credits for here, because DS usually wants something different. We got: Fried Rice (DD), Honey chicken (DS), and Shrimp and Steak (Mom and me). We had lots of leftovers, and we took some of them home with us.
Again, the pictures were on Mom's camera, but trust me it looked good.
For dessert we had coconut pudding, ginger cake, and ginger ice cream (DD). The ice cream was the same stuff they had at Food & Wine festival, and DD loved it. The coconut pudding was a dark chocolate base, and wasn't something I'd try again. We had the cake once we came home, and it was good too.
After finishing up, and realizing that DS still hadn't used that CS for lunch, we headed back to Norway for more "to-go" food. This time we skipped the soup since it was going home with us, and got a roast beef sandwich, a cloudberry horn, and a sprite for the road.
The skies were really threatening, and we hopped a boat to go back to the Studios to pick up the van. The boat was definitely moving slow, so we all got off at Boardwalk and I left the family there while I walked back to get the van. I left everything with them so I didn't have to go through bag check, and when I pulled up to the Boardwalk, the guard was really reluctant to let me in since I didn't have any ID. But he finally let me through.
With the family in tow, we stopped back by Wilderness Lodge to pick up the final suitcase ... and YES! They had DD's pillow and animal behind the counter. We were home by about 8, in time for a good nights rest!
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