So this year we have decided that we want to try out Disney resorts that we have never been to before! The second resort stay this year was at Wilderness Lodge (WL). WL is a truly stunning resort modeled after turn of the 20th century lodges in the Northwest National Parks. To me it looks very similar to the building located at the Old Faithful Geyser in Yellowstone. In fact, WL has their own version of Old Faithful, called Fire Rock Geyser, that goes off every hour on the hour from early morning until 10 pm. Our kids love it and would run to our balcony when they heard the distinct whistle the geyser makes! 
Like most, if not all, of the Deluxe Resorts WL had an impressive lobby. The second we stepped foot in the front door we truly felt like we left Florida and landed in Montana. The dark wood logs, large stone fireplace and rustic feel of the lobby made me feel like I was ready to step out into the chilly weather of the northwest...not the 90 degree Florida weather! One thing I found a little odd about the lobby is the very open restaurant on the left side of the lobby. Whispering Canyon Cafe looks and sounds like fun, but just not for us. The waiters were all yelling and banging things(fun!) and all of the guests looked like they were having a blast but the part I didn't like was that all of the people walking around the lobby were staring at what was going on in the restaurant...basically staring at everyone eating (kinda odd to me!). Another thing I found odd was the fairly steep ramp that led you down to the elevators to our room. Going down wasn't the problem, going up on the other hand..well I could see that being a problem for many people. Thankfully for us we had an umbrella type stoller, but I couldn't imagine trying to push a heavy, filled stoller with kid in tow up that hill to the lobby!
The entire time we were at WL all we heard out of our children's mouths was "Is it time for the pool?", "Can we go in the pool now?", pool, pool, pool! The pool area is gorgeous! There are 2 pools (the regular pool and a kiddie pool) and 2 hot tubs. The regular pool has a water slide and was about 3 and a half feet deep at the low end (thankfully!!). My boys are at the age where they want to be free in the pool, but still want to be able to feel the concrete under their toes, so they loved the freedom they had in the low end. My daughter on the other hand loved the kiddie pool. The kiddie pool was about 6 inches deep and perfect for the little ones. One thing I didn't like about the pool area is that anyone coming off of the boat then going into the hotel itself had to walk right through the pool area. It seemed like an endless parade of people coming off of those boats! Other than that the pool area was gorgeous and relaxing!
The rooms themselves are okay, not what I would really expect for the $300+ price tag but decent. I didn't find anything great about these rooms, they were just your ordinary hotel room. Like the rest of the resort the rooms are definitely themed well. The rooms were filled with wood logs, silhouettes of animals on the lights and the wilderness looking bedspreads. We stayed in a courtyard view, bunkbed room. Our view was great! We were on the 4th floor and overlooked the pool area and the rooms across the courtyard. My children were so excited to see the bunkbeds, even if they fought over who got the top bunk each day!
One of my favorite features about this resort was the transportation options. Although there isn't a monorail stop at WL it is fairly easy to get to the monorail. We loved taking the boat over to the Contemporary and checking out that resort or jumping on the monorail. There are 2 different boats, one goes to the Magic Kingdom and the other goes to the Contemporary and The Campgrounds at Ft. Wilderness. Then there's always the Disney buses...and those are an adventure all of their own!
After visiting both Animal Kingdom Lodge and Wilderness Lodge in the past few months I would have to say our family definitely prefers Animal Kingdom Lodge! We feel like we've "been there, done that" with the WL and didn't find anything that actually made us want to come back to WL. AKL on the other hand had us not wanting to leave! I think with everything in life there were advantages and disadvantages and after staying at both resorts we've definitely experienced both! Next stop (I hope!) on our tour of the Disney Resorts will be the Polynesian Resort! Stay tuned for that review...but in the meantime we have many more non-Disney adventures planned!
Disney's Wilderness Lodge
Animal Kingdom Lodge
One of our most recent trips was to Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge (AKL). Since we live about 2 hours away from Disney World we visit it almost every other month. Thanks to my hubby we are a camping family and usually stay at Ft. Wilderness Campground, but we decided to stray! Since we have 3 animal loving children we have always wanted to take them to AKL. We stayed for 1 night on the concierge level, and absolutely fell in love! For those fellow Floridians out there Disney does offer some awesome discounts for hotels in off-peak season and also for the parks. Since we went during the off season we were able to save 32% and they decided to be nice and include the concierge benefits for a mere $12!! Who could resist concierge for that price??!! It was worth every penny! 
The Hotel -
First let me say this hotel is massive! The setup of the hotel seems to make sense, since afterall most people are there to see the animals. I have read some complaints that the walk to the rooms is rather long, but once you see the views you will see why. Step out to your balcony and see the many species of animals roaming about freely on one of the savannahs. We stayed in a room overlooking the Arusha Savannah and could see zebras, giraffes, red hogs, anklote cattle, wildebeast, eland and tons of different birds. The views are amazing!!
Things to do - 
Since we didn't leave AKL while we were there we took advantage of the many planned activities they have planned daily. They have things like cookie decorating, medallion imprinting, African stories, animal encounters, viewing the savannah with night vision(my kids still talk about how neat this was!), poolside games, arts & crafts and basically a little bit of everything you can imagine! A nice sized arcade is located by the pool with enough games to satisfy and child (or adult!!)
If planned activities aren't your thing and you'd rather soak up the Florida sun, then there's plenty of space to do that as well! The pool at AKL is huge! I've never seen a pool as big as this one. There are hundreds of chairs and lounge chairs hanging out poolside. There is also a poolside bar where you can load up on snacks and any drink you have a craving for. One thing I liked were the towel stations located on most sides of the pool. Forget about lugging towels around the hotel, they had plenty waiting to be used
Concierge - Kilimanjaro Club -
The special concierge lounge had drinks and food from 6:00am to 10:00pm everyday. We only went for 1 night so we took advantage of this perk! We only had to buy drinks 1 time while we were there because we just couldn't see the point of running upstairs (it's on the 6th floor) while at dinner. For our family though if we had to pay the normal $130 a night I do not think it would have been worth it. Another benefit of staying concierge is a special safari that is only offered to those guests. The Wanyama Safari is an upclose encounter with the animals at AKL followed by dinner at Jiko. It can be a little pricey but I'm sure it's very worth it. The safari and dinner should last about 3 hours. 
This is only a small snippet of the greatness that is Animal Kingdom Lodge. We are so happy we decided to stay at AKL and we will definitely be back in the future! If anyone has specific questions please feel free to comment and I will try my hardest to help you!
Where I've Been
According to Where I've Been, I've been to 6% of the world so far! I hope to take you all on my family's journey as we continue to travel and explore this amazing planet we all live on!