WDW Day 1....Part 2...

So you may have noticed that my WDW Day 1 post didn't actually cover all that happened that day, so here is the second part.

Story so far...we have made it from the UK to Orlando...we have checked in at Coronado Springs Resort only to be told we have been upgraded to the Wilderness Lodge...

The staff at Coronado Springs were lovely, especially Devon & Toni who helped organise a taxi to take us and our luggage to the Wilderness Lodge and who stayed with us until we were safely on our way.

The taxi ride gave us all chance to breathe and reaffirm that what we thought was happening was actually happening.  Even the kids knew this was a big deal.

In the taxi from Coronado Springs to Wilderness Lodge - still in a state of shock!

We drove up to the Wilderness Lodge, under the sign that spans the driveway, past the 'Welcome Home' sign and everything felt just right.  We were greeted as we got out of the taxi by yet another happy, friendly cast member who checked our name on his 'i-pad' and then escorted us through to the check-in desk.  He seemed genuinely thrilled by our story and spoke to us about his wife who had worked at Coronado Springs but how Wilderness Lodge was so much better!

The fantastic service continued with the lady at check-in who sorted everything for us in a blink of an eye, and also commented 'oh you've got an upgrade to a courtyard room'. What? Another upgrade? What's a courtyard room?  Everything was happening so fast!

Checking in, still pinching ourselves!

But despite all the excitement we couldn't fail to be blown away by the awesome lobby at the Wilderness Lodge.  Now Simon and I had been here once before, way back in 2008 when we had lunch at the Whispering Canyon Cafe as part of the 'Backstage Magic' tour, but this was the kids first time here.  They were a little taken aback to say the least!

We then headed off to our fifth floor courtyard room...well how lovely was our room!!  We had the traditional towels in the shape of a tri-circle Mickey on one of the beds, a beautifully decorated room, stunning bathroom/vanity area and to top it all we had our own balcony that looked out over the stunning courtyard.  We were all once again speechless...but very, very happy.

View from the balcony of our courtyard room

Now we had had plans of perhaps visiting Downtown Disney for some food but as we had been awake for over 18 hours and were now really quite hungry we decided to stay at our new resort and find out just what was on offer.  So we headed downstairs and paid our first visit to 'Roaring Forks', the counter service eatery at the resort, and had a mix of salads, BBQ pork sandwiches, cookies and massive cup cakes.

Tired but hungry

Full of food we had a little walk around the resort to get our bearings and then it was off to bed in search of much needed sleep ready to refuel us for our first proper full day in WDW :)

But when we got to our room there was another surprise in store for us...some music...which Simon and I instantly recognised as the Electrical Water Pageant.  I went out onto our balcony and looked to my right and sure enough I could see out onto Bay Lake and catch sight of most of the pageant.  The water pageant was on our list of 'must do's' for this trip as it had been a fair few years since we had last seen it so it was amazing to see it on our first night and know that we would be able to see it as many nights as we liked.

A perfect ending to an amazing first day :)