Granny
Yeah, I'm a guy
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2001
PatrickDog said:With the recent good news re: Corinne's new job, DVC Jen's new ride, and the pics from Horselover, I've taken to thinking about how special a place this Groupie thread has become for so many of us. In turn, that got me reflecting on all the wonderful memories from my years not only on this forum, but at Disney in general and the Lodge in particular. Naturally, that brings me to a topic of discussion which could be fun. I know many have mentioned over the years what their initial experiences at the Lodge were (and we might have done something similar before, though I'm too addle-brained to recall at this moment), so I thought perhaps it would be a proper theme to explore further: what is your first memory of the Lodge?
Great idea, Sleepy!
My first memory of the Lodge is of our first family trip (DDs were 9 and 7 years old) to WDW in the summer of 1998. We had reservations at Wilderness Lodge since we were not able to book until five weeks in advance and it was the only thing available. We flew to Orlando and our flight was delayed several hours. We had booked a Mears coach for the trip from the airport to Wilderness Lodge, but it was so late that they were balking at getting us a ride. Finally I was able to get a manager to agree to have someone drive us to Wilderness Lodge, and we arrived there after 1:00 in the morning.
So my first memory of Wilderness Lodge is pulling up to the front entrance and getting my sleepy family out of the vehicle. We walked through those double doors and whoooosh! It was like being transported to another world! That lobby made such a great impression, and our tiredness and crabbiness melted away. Keep in mind that there was nobody in the lobby at that time of night, so the music was very easy to hear. Then from over by the front desk, we hear a voice calling "You must be the Tom Family (okay they used my last name)". My wife and children thought that was very magical. At that point, I was just glad they hadn't given away our room!
We made our way up to our room, which had bunk beds per our request. It was perfect, and my girls who were surprised with the bunk beds were just loving it! The theming of the room had carried over from the lobby and we immediately made an emotional connection to Wilderness Lodge that is still going strong today. The following 10 days were very hot but very magical as we had a wonderful family trip. We were hooked!
We had no interest in DVC until they built at Wilderness Lodge, and have been happy members since 2001.