We're back from our mid-November stay at WL and I though I'd post some info about it.
We were never advised by Disney that the pool would be closed, but we learned about it through this forum and another. So I called Disney's Guest Services to express my displeasure at the closure, but mroe than that, about not being told about it. We were offered to be moved to another (specific resort and room type) Deluxe resort at no extra cost, or >$50 per night to stay at WL. We chose to stay at WL, and we are glad we did.
Our room was woods view. Although we had asked for an upper room floor in the north wing (where we have stayed before), we were initially assigned a ground floor room in the south wing, overlooking the Villas building. because I do not like ground floor rooms at any hotel for security reasons, we asked if there were non-ground floor rooms available. we were switched to a second floor room in the same wing.
Initially we were disappointed by the room location, but we came to love it. enough that in future stays at WL that is where we will ask to be assigned.
The room was hand for accessing everything -- buses, Roaring Forks, lobby, Mercantile. I had a
scooter for the first time, and it was easy to navigate to the room, and I enjoyed not having to do elevators (I got enough of them at Beach Club at the end of our WDW visit)
Whether using the scooter or walking, the location worked well for us, the view of the trees with a bit of buildings through them was fine, and we were generally happy.
One thing we did not like, and I will be writing a complaint to Disney about, is the location of the smoking area not too far outside the doors that go towards the buses. It is way too close to the building. The smoke comes into the building and the whole inside hallway there, often all the way up to the Conceirge desk, is smoky most of the time. This is a problem when one is allergic/sensitive to such smoke.
The construction was interesting. During our actual stay at WL the fences were all still up. But we returned after our cruise during our Beach club stay to see the Christmas decorations (they went up nearly at the end of our BC stay, the end of the trip -- we were not pleased with them going up so late this year; BC's were not even up at ALL during our stay, going up the 25th).
During the decorations visit, the fences were mostly down and it was fascinating to watch the work still being done. For example, a log structure being built.
The scaffolding up against the bear face rooms wall had a type of netting or mesh cover on the outside of it, the whole height of the scaffolding, which bascially covered that side of the building.
The decorations were great and we took lots of pictures
Very glad we made the visit back to see them. Wish they had been up when we were actually staying there.
-SW