aebeauregard
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2013
We just returned from a quick 4 night stay at Fort Wilderness Cabins. All in all we had a great trip, but mixed in with some bad experiences. We started in cabin 2803 and ended up in 2804. Read below for details.
The Good:
Loved the renovated cabins. They were perfect with a 2 year old...we could put her down and stay up later. Also it was nice to have all the kitchen amenities. My parents slept in the pull out bed and said it was very comfortable.
The weather was great...hot but only rained twice for like 5 minutes on one day. Both times we were in an attraction and just came back to wet walkways.
The crowds were awesome too. No clogged up walkways, hardly any lines at quick service locations...etc. This was our first trip this time of year and I will absolutely consider going again even with the heat.
Loved the kids pool play area at the resort. It was perfect for little kids.
First time on SDMT and loved it.
Loved watching my daughter meet characters. Her favorite was Ariel. Her eyes were just glowing when they met and she kept petting her sparkling tail. She keeps saying "Met Ariel" "Sit Ariel" Hi Ariel". I thought she would be too young for characters but it was her favorite part. We met Buzz, Belle, Ariel, Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Jake, Sofia, Anna, and Elsa.
Hoop Dee Doo was so much fun with our daughter too. She loved waving her napkin in the air and playing the wash board. However it was very empty. Only half the bottom was filled, it didn't affect the show negatively but it surprised me.
Our daughter got her first hair cut at the Barber Shop in Main Street. They did such a great job with our toddler. It was adorable and the pixie dust was a nice touch.
My husband and I got a chance to watch the Star Wars Fireworks show together and it was awesome. We are Star Wars Geeks for sure and it did not disappoint.
We loved seeing our daughters reactions to everything and she was such a trooper. We didn't have any meltdowns or tantrums even with late bedtimes and early wake ups and long travel days. I wish we had more time there!
The Bad:
I love Disney so I feel bad evening writing any bad reports. I think if only one mix up had happened I wouldn't have thought twice about it. Everyone makes some mistakes....it was just more mix ups than I've ever experienced at Disney. I'm not talking slow meal service or a rude cast member or waiting too long for a bus.
I requested a crib when I made the reservations and again during online check in but when we got to our cabin there wasn't one there. It wouldn't have been a huge deal but my daughter really needed a nap and we only had time for her to sleep about 1 hr before we had to go to our first ADR. I called and they sent one but it took almost 30 mins to receive it so my daughter only had about a 20 min nap. It was just frustrating.
I ordered a couple things from Garden Grocers and was told it would likely just be in our cabin waiting....but it wasn't. When I called the front desk about the crib I mentioned this also to see if our stuff was at bell hop and they said they had not received anything. Then I called Garden Grocer and they said they did drop it off and gave me some specific number/letter code for the locations to tell bell services to look. I called back and they said they found it and brought it to us. However Garden Grocer had forgotten our milk, so then I called them back and got that refunded.
The next problem came that evening after we put her to bed around 9pm. Our fire alarm went off....loud high pitch beeping and flashing lights. We called once and while telling them it stopped so we said fine. Well 10 mins later again..flashing, beeping. A lady came, who sent a "ranger", who waited with us for the engineer to come. Once the engineer came he switched the batteries in one alarm and left. Well it went off again. So he came back and switched the batteries in the other detecter and left. Finally all the adults went to bed because we thought it was fixed. Well give it 20 mins and again they went off. We were all exhausted from our travel day and our daughter was somehow sleeping through this but we didn't want to mess around seeing if they could "fix" it again. We were planning to wake up for rope drop and just wanted to sleep. When I called the "front desk" (i'm pretty sure the front desk button on your phone doesn't actually connect to your resort's front desk) they said they would send someone...after 5 times it was getting ridiculous. I went to the front desk to say we really need to figure something else out....we decided to move to the next door cabin around 11:30pm. They were nice to send two men to help us move everything. I felt bad waking up my daughter to move but luckily she fell right back asleep. They also refunded us the first night and gave us 6 extra fast passes. The manager called me to apologize also and then next day another manager called while we were in the park to see if everything was ok. The went into overdrive trying to make up for the first day mishaps. We were all happy with how it got handled in the end.
Just a side note on our original 2803 cabin....in addition to having the fire alarm issue we also noticed the outlets in the bathroom didn't work. Also two lamps were missing bulbs. It was just very undisney...I would normally not care much about those things but once we were woken up after the fire alarm went off the 5th I was getting a little cranky and noticing every little problem.
The next bad is kinda my fault I guess. When they gave us the extra fast passes they said we just couldn't use them for things like "Wishes, or Parade Viewing....things with a limited space capacity....but all attractions or shows were fair game. We had no problem with these our first day at Magic Kingdom, so I decided to adjust our Epcot plans a bit. I didn't like our original FP time the new Frozen ride, I decided to pick up a FP for Soarin instead and was going to use the extra bonus FP for Frozen. Apparently Frozen is also excluded though....so we ended up not getting to go on it at all. After we got denied in the fastpass line the worker at Frozen showed me in the app how I can see a list of what I could use the FP for. I just wish the hotel lady who gave us the extra passes would have shown me or told me there is an actual list. It was just a bummer.
We never got our Magical Express paperwork on the door, I don't know if it was because we moved cabins that first day or what. I did call them about 2 months before our trip and set everything up. I ended up having to call Magical Express while in Hollywood Studios the night before we left because our flight was leaving early. The bus was picking us up at 5:20am. I then called Fort Wilderness to set up to have a van help us move all our luggage to the Magical Express stop. When we got back that night from Hollywood Studios I stopped at the front desk again to get our Magical Express papers printed and double check we were all set for a 5:00 AM van pick up. Jump forward to 5:00am there was no van...I called once they were 4 mins late and they said they will leave now. Well the front desk lady was the one who picked us up...she said they must have wrote it down on the wrong date last night.
I have never had to make so many calls to straighten things out while on a trip. I had everything lined up before we went so it was frustrating to still have to deal with everything throughout the trip.
Even with the mix ups it was a great trip! The good outweighs the bad and we are planning to return again. It's so sad it is over though, it's always hard to come home.
The Good:
Loved the renovated cabins. They were perfect with a 2 year old...we could put her down and stay up later. Also it was nice to have all the kitchen amenities. My parents slept in the pull out bed and said it was very comfortable.
The weather was great...hot but only rained twice for like 5 minutes on one day. Both times we were in an attraction and just came back to wet walkways.
The crowds were awesome too. No clogged up walkways, hardly any lines at quick service locations...etc. This was our first trip this time of year and I will absolutely consider going again even with the heat.
Loved the kids pool play area at the resort. It was perfect for little kids.
First time on SDMT and loved it.
Loved watching my daughter meet characters. Her favorite was Ariel. Her eyes were just glowing when they met and she kept petting her sparkling tail. She keeps saying "Met Ariel" "Sit Ariel" Hi Ariel". I thought she would be too young for characters but it was her favorite part. We met Buzz, Belle, Ariel, Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Jake, Sofia, Anna, and Elsa.
Hoop Dee Doo was so much fun with our daughter too. She loved waving her napkin in the air and playing the wash board. However it was very empty. Only half the bottom was filled, it didn't affect the show negatively but it surprised me.
Our daughter got her first hair cut at the Barber Shop in Main Street. They did such a great job with our toddler. It was adorable and the pixie dust was a nice touch.
My husband and I got a chance to watch the Star Wars Fireworks show together and it was awesome. We are Star Wars Geeks for sure and it did not disappoint.
We loved seeing our daughters reactions to everything and she was such a trooper. We didn't have any meltdowns or tantrums even with late bedtimes and early wake ups and long travel days. I wish we had more time there!
The Bad:
I love Disney so I feel bad evening writing any bad reports. I think if only one mix up had happened I wouldn't have thought twice about it. Everyone makes some mistakes....it was just more mix ups than I've ever experienced at Disney. I'm not talking slow meal service or a rude cast member or waiting too long for a bus.
I requested a crib when I made the reservations and again during online check in but when we got to our cabin there wasn't one there. It wouldn't have been a huge deal but my daughter really needed a nap and we only had time for her to sleep about 1 hr before we had to go to our first ADR. I called and they sent one but it took almost 30 mins to receive it so my daughter only had about a 20 min nap. It was just frustrating.
I ordered a couple things from Garden Grocers and was told it would likely just be in our cabin waiting....but it wasn't. When I called the front desk about the crib I mentioned this also to see if our stuff was at bell hop and they said they had not received anything. Then I called Garden Grocer and they said they did drop it off and gave me some specific number/letter code for the locations to tell bell services to look. I called back and they said they found it and brought it to us. However Garden Grocer had forgotten our milk, so then I called them back and got that refunded.
The next problem came that evening after we put her to bed around 9pm. Our fire alarm went off....loud high pitch beeping and flashing lights. We called once and while telling them it stopped so we said fine. Well 10 mins later again..flashing, beeping. A lady came, who sent a "ranger", who waited with us for the engineer to come. Once the engineer came he switched the batteries in one alarm and left. Well it went off again. So he came back and switched the batteries in the other detecter and left. Finally all the adults went to bed because we thought it was fixed. Well give it 20 mins and again they went off. We were all exhausted from our travel day and our daughter was somehow sleeping through this but we didn't want to mess around seeing if they could "fix" it again. We were planning to wake up for rope drop and just wanted to sleep. When I called the "front desk" (i'm pretty sure the front desk button on your phone doesn't actually connect to your resort's front desk) they said they would send someone...after 5 times it was getting ridiculous. I went to the front desk to say we really need to figure something else out....we decided to move to the next door cabin around 11:30pm. They were nice to send two men to help us move everything. I felt bad waking up my daughter to move but luckily she fell right back asleep. They also refunded us the first night and gave us 6 extra fast passes. The manager called me to apologize also and then next day another manager called while we were in the park to see if everything was ok. The went into overdrive trying to make up for the first day mishaps. We were all happy with how it got handled in the end.
Just a side note on our original 2803 cabin....in addition to having the fire alarm issue we also noticed the outlets in the bathroom didn't work. Also two lamps were missing bulbs. It was just very undisney...I would normally not care much about those things but once we were woken up after the fire alarm went off the 5th I was getting a little cranky and noticing every little problem.
The next bad is kinda my fault I guess. When they gave us the extra fast passes they said we just couldn't use them for things like "Wishes, or Parade Viewing....things with a limited space capacity....but all attractions or shows were fair game. We had no problem with these our first day at Magic Kingdom, so I decided to adjust our Epcot plans a bit. I didn't like our original FP time the new Frozen ride, I decided to pick up a FP for Soarin instead and was going to use the extra bonus FP for Frozen. Apparently Frozen is also excluded though....so we ended up not getting to go on it at all. After we got denied in the fastpass line the worker at Frozen showed me in the app how I can see a list of what I could use the FP for. I just wish the hotel lady who gave us the extra passes would have shown me or told me there is an actual list. It was just a bummer.
We never got our Magical Express paperwork on the door, I don't know if it was because we moved cabins that first day or what. I did call them about 2 months before our trip and set everything up. I ended up having to call Magical Express while in Hollywood Studios the night before we left because our flight was leaving early. The bus was picking us up at 5:20am. I then called Fort Wilderness to set up to have a van help us move all our luggage to the Magical Express stop. When we got back that night from Hollywood Studios I stopped at the front desk again to get our Magical Express papers printed and double check we were all set for a 5:00 AM van pick up. Jump forward to 5:00am there was no van...I called once they were 4 mins late and they said they will leave now. Well the front desk lady was the one who picked us up...she said they must have wrote it down on the wrong date last night.
I have never had to make so many calls to straighten things out while on a trip. I had everything lined up before we went so it was frustrating to still have to deal with everything throughout the trip.
Even with the mix ups it was a great trip! The good outweighs the bad and we are planning to return again. It's so sad it is over though, it's always hard to come home.
Your daughter seemed to adjust really well though! Mine would've never gone to sleep after that ordeal at that age 
