She's On Top of the World, a September 2018 TR at Copper Creek Villas and Cabins (Completed 12/20)

[GrandCalifornian]

What a great last day!

Allie's dress is so cute! It looked like it was made for her!

It was a great last full day,. but fortunately we had a late flight out the next day, so there was more fun to come. I think that's what's so neat about that dress, it looks homemade, and really cute.

I was on the train when I wrote that comment about kaki gori and didn't realize that autocorrect had taken over.

I've been there done that, many times. There's some Disney terms auto-correct just refuses to accept.

Real Life Update:
We have been super busy the last few weeks since Melissa had her ankle surgery. We're making it through though, and she has the goal of walking normally at Disney in 2019. We had a dinner with Jon and Brandy last week, and think we have our next set of ADRs ready. She also had her first post-op visit to the doctor, and we got to see her enhanced and reinforced ankle joint.


We are hoping there isn't enough metal there to affect trips through Disney metal detectors, but if so her and Brandy can be "wanding buddies" at the security checkpoints.

We are working on writing up our departure day and should have something new posted soon.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

On our departure day, I woke up at 5:30, and got out of bed at 5:45. Melissa had gotten a lot of packing stuff organized the night before, so we were able to finish up pretty easily. I took pictures of the resort and walked all the way to cabin 8001.








I got back to room at 7:10.


Melissa got up and we finished our packing. We were done just after 8:30, and I went to the Mercantile to help Grandpa buy a backpack. I also exchanged Marshall’s fan from the night before.

While I was out the night before Melissa washed the Tie Dye shirts from earlier in the week.

One of the benefits of having the in room laundry is that you can wash the tie dye shirts your kids make.



When Paul got back we all sat down and looked at our expense totals for food. We were super excited to see how much we had saved over buying the dining plan. We were even under what we had budgeted.

We definitely did better than we would have on the plan, and we had some exceptional meals. We were able to do three signature meals and we didn’t feel we changed our dining style yet we were able to add some fun things like pizza in the room.

It was fun sitting around the table one last morning. The kids ran around and enjoyed the cabin some more, with Marshall playing with bubbles.


While we packed, the kids played with the couch cushions and made another fort. They liked this one even more than the two bedroom, since it had an extra chair worth of cushions to use.



Also in the chaos of packing the bathroom door got locked and shut without anybody in it. Fortunately we had our trusty battery changing screwdriver, so I was able to open it up.


Soon it was time to take our packed bags up to resort airline dropoff


I love this perk of staying on site. Check in went really smoothly, all of our boarding passes printed like they were supposed to this year.

Thanks to our portable luggage scale we had all of the bags packed to capacity but not over, and we were able to bring everything we acquired over the 10 days home, including Marshall’s big train.

After that we were pretty much starving so we headed over to Whispering Canyon for breakfast.



This has become a great tradition, we love eating here without an ADR on our checkout day. That way we aren’t rushed, but get a good breakfast when the packing is done. I had a good omelette, and Grandpa Jim got the breakfast platter.

I’m pretty sure I got a waffle which sounds really good right about now.

We enjoyed our last meal together with everyone, but soon it was time to get back to the room to check out. We got down to the room right at 11:00, since we didn’t leave extra time for the walk to the cabin. We grabbed our things and said goodbye to the awesome room.

Allie saw a deer by the water as we waited for bell services to pick up our carry on bags. Then we went back to the lobby to say goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa.


Their flights were earlier than ours so they were on a different schedule. We headed off to Disney Springs to do some shopping.

Before we got on the bus we made some more luggage tags and a dog tag for our new puppy. The metal tags are custom engraved by a machine right in the lobby, and are neat.


Brandy took advantage of the massage chairs while we were making our tags.


We got on a Disney Springs bus at 11:55, which got to the CR at 12:01, and Disney Springs at 12:18 which was pretty good time for the trip.

Once we got there our first stop was the Vera Bradley store. I had convinced myself I needed a duffle like Jon got.


It was cool that they were able to monogram it while we shopped. We finally checked out the Coke store, and I got an arctic coke, which is a 20oz bottle chilled to almost freezing to make it like a slushy. I will be back for more of these.



It was a pretty fun store. There’s more upstairs we didn’t end up seeing but there’s always next year.

Then we checked out the Disney Style store which has a big castle photo backdrop and a Disneyland Skyway bucket. It was cool to see.



We made it all the way to the boat dock by Cirque Du Soli, where we waited for a boat ride back.


We weren't sure what to do for lunch, so Jon checked OpenTable to see if we could get a reservation. Find out what we did in our next update.

 

[DaisyDuck001]

Maybe I missed it somewhere... what does your trip report title refer to? I mean, the part about being on top of the world?

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Maybe I missed it somewhere... what does your trip report title refer to? I mean, the part about being on top of the world?

It was a reference to the Top of The World Lounge, which Allison ironically never made it to, but the feeling was there anyway.

 

[DaisyDuck001]

It was a reference to the Top of The World Lounge, which Allison ironically never made it to, but the feeling was there anyway.

Oh, I'd imagined that you were the flag family on the roof of the Wilderness Lodge, and that was like being on top of the world.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Oh, I'd imagined that you were the flag family on the roof of the Wilderness Lodge, and that was like being on top of the world.

Ahh yeah, that would have been neat. We never had the opportunity to be the flag family when they were doing it, and now we’ve heard they don’t do it anymore. Oh well, the rest of the family doesn’t like getting up that early anyway.

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

She also had her first post-op visit to the doctor, and we got to see her enhanced and reinforced ankle joint.

She is now the bionic woman!

We are hoping there isn't enough metal there to affect trips through Disney metal detectors, but if so her and Brandy can be "wanding buddies" at the security checkpoints.

My husband has pins in his back from back surgery, and he is able to go through the new scanners. I don't know what determines if you can or not. But here's hoping for not too bad of airport security scans.

While we packed, the kids played with the couch cushions and made another fort. They liked this one even more than the two bedroom, since it had an extra chair worth of cushions to use.

I love that the kids treated the cabin like it was home. Sounds like you spent a decent amount of time in the cabin.

 

[Jenny Sanders]

Great last morning in Disney!

 

[GrandCalifornian]

She is now the bionic woman!

My husband has pins in his back from back surgery, and he is able to go through the new scanners. I don't know what determines if you can or not. But here's hoping for not too bad of airport security scans.

Yeah, we don't think there will be enough metal there to set anything off, but if so it will just add a little time to our park entrance time. It's good to hear they your husband doesn't have any issues with the scanners and his pins.

I love that the kids treated the cabin like it was home. Sounds like you spent a decent amount of time in the cabin.

They really did, and it had a very homey feel. It really felt more like we were staying at somebody's house than in a hotel room. We did pick up the fort and put everything back to save time for the mousekeepers.

Great last morning in Disney!

It was, at least as good as any last morning at Disney can be. Knowing that we're coming back sure helps with the last day depression.

 

[SweetSerenity]

I could just look at your photos all day of WL and the cabins.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

I could just look at your photos all day of WL and the cabins.

Thanks, so could we. We love WL!!! Just 268 days to go till next year's trip.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

When we left off, Jon decided to check on a lunch reservation, and on Open Table was able to get one for Boathouse at 1:30.

We loved our dinner here and couldn’t think of a better way to round out the trip.

We hopped on the boat and took it to the middle stop, just a short walk from our dining destination.



It was neat to spontaneously make a return trip. This time we shared burgers and wedge salads, and both were great. We weren’t allowed to bring the stroller in this time, but it was fine since Marshall was fully awake and enjoyed his kids meal and especially the paper Amphicar container it came in.



He was obsessed with that car. We also got him an Amphicar rubber ducky which he still loves.

It was a little pricey, but he still loves it and it joins him in most of his baths.
As we ate we could see the clouds building, and it started to sprinkle as we left. Melissa, Jon, and Brandy took Marshall to the Vera Bradley store to pick up her bag, and Allie and I ran over to World of Disney. She got a charm necklace and picked out a castle charm and an orange bird for it.

Paul also was looking to exchange his grey monorail for a green one.

I checked, but they didn’t have green so grey it is. We met back in front of the Vera store and got to the bus stop at 3:00.


The bus came at 3:07 and got to WL at 3:30

We still had time to kill so we went to the arcade. We played a couple rounds of air hockey and the kids played some different games too.





We played at the arcade till about 4, then headed to the lobby. I went and got our last mug refills and the kids watched cartoons on the TV in the corner. At about 4:30 I picked up our bags from bell services, and we distributed our stuff for the flight home.




We hung out for a bit in the lobby and collected our bags from bell services. We repacked our carryons and utilized my new duffel, see we really did NEED it.



Going home this time was different. I didn’t get the kick in the gut vacation is over feeling. It’s so nice to know that we’ll for sure be coming back.


We went outside at 5, and the bus showed up right on time at 5:10.



While we were waiting we saw Adarsh, our DVC sales guy. We thanked him and told him about our wonderful stay, then headed to the bus.


We were the last stop before the airport, and we got there nice and quickly.


The TSA lines were long, showing a 20-25 minute wait but it was closer to 45. Two of our bags were flagged for inspection. One was due to some AA batteries and the other was due to post it notes that Melissa had bought as a souvenir.

It felt like it took forever to get through security. Luckily Marshall was sleeping or it would have felt twice as long.

I’m glad that we arrived so early. We still had plenty of time to grab dinner before our flight. The Chinese food place had a short line, and I really liked the food. It was similar to Panda Express but had a bit more variety, and had Coke.


the food was really good for airport Chinese.


Brandy and Jon had burritos that they enjoyed too. Sometimes it is hard to begin the transition away from Disney food, but this was ok. Our flight was on time, but we didn't get to pre-board with Marshall. We also had to gate check one of our carry-ons because it was expanded, even though it would have fit. It was fine though, better on the way home than on the way to DIsney, since we were going to be stopping at baggage claim anyway.

At least our flight was on time, it's the first time we've ever flown out of Orlando on time. Marshall was a pain in the butt on the plane but we all survived and made it to LAX without problems even though there was talk of diverting the flight for a passenger with a medical issue.



It was one of our more strange flights though. The majority of the plane was filled with former convicts returning from a rehabilitation convention in Orlando. I didn’t know there was such a thing but you can’t make this stuff up.


really...

Once we landed and they all pushed their way off the plane (I don’t know, perhaps they had a fear of confinement) we made our way down to luggage claim and retrieved our bags. Our nicest one showed up missing a wheel, continuing our streak of some sort of luggage damage each year.



Luckily we were able to find a replacement wheel on Ebay and it's back to good as new.

For $20 it is ready to see what adventures await next year.

We walked to the truck which was right where Brandy had parked it near the terminal. This was our first time driving to LAX and getting to park so close made it nice.

The drive home was really unexciting which was nice. We had an amazing trip and ALL of us are excited to make a return trip next September.

It was an awesome trip, and we enjoyed coming home on Saturday so that we had an extra day to relax before returning to work. Marshall still got up at 4am though, so it was an early Sunday morning for us guys while the girls slept in.

Thanks for following along, and we’ll be back with a summary / wrap up post before long to close this one out as we look forward to next year.

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

the other was due to post it notes that Melissa had bought as a souvenir.

Man those post its can be dangerous!!!!!

That is one tired gal!

It was one of our more strange flights though. The majority of the plane was filled with former convicts returning from a rehabilitation convention in Orlando. I didn’t know there was such a thing but you can’t make this stuff up.

Whaat?!? How did you find that out? Intresting.

Thanks for sharing your trip! I enjoyed reading all about it.

 

[Lesley Wake]

We also had to gate check one of our carry-ons because it was expanded, even though it would have fit. It was fine though, better on the way home than on the way to DIsney, since we were going to be stopping at baggage claim anyway.

I ended up doing this both ways on my most recent trip. But I called up Disney before and got an extra bag tag sent over which I attached on the way to Orlando! That way I just had my backpack to deal with at MCO and didn't have to stop at baggage claim!

 

[thumper*]

It was a great way to be a little lazy on vacation.

Ha I wouldn't consider making breakfast as lazy.

volcano roll

Love me a good Volcano roll

Fortunately we had our trusty battery changing screwdriver,

Wow you guys pack everything.

Brandy took advantage of the massage chairs

Love these, last week I took my mom for lazer eye surgery and they had these chairs in each of the waiting rooms...this was the first time I wish a medical procedure would have taken longer...I was really enjoying that wait.

I enjoyed your TR and can't wait to read next years. Thanks for taking the time to write it up. Melissa I hope that your ankle heels well and that you won't require another surgery to remove any of the hardware. Also want to let you know that I'm excited to try the cinnamon roll recipe at Christmas, I've already bought all of the ingredients.

 

[Jenny Sanders]

Great trip! Thanks for sharing!

 

[rdkeim]

Really enjoyed your TR! You seem like a pretty laid back group which is important when you're a group of 6 or 8. The cabin at WL looks amazing! We've stayed at several of the resorts but WL is still my favorite. I'll watch for your re-cap.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Man those post its can be dangerous!!!!!

Oh yes, obvious contraband...

That is one tired gal!

She had experienced a full 10 days of fun, and was done...

Whaat?!? How did you find that out? Intresting.

They actually had group T-Shirts on and were loudly discussing their experience. It finally made sense once we figured it out.

Thanks for sharing your trip! I enjoyed reading all about it.

Thank you for joining in and sharing your input too.

I ended up doing this both ways on my most recent trip. But I called up Disney before and got an extra bag tag sent over which I attached on the way to Orlando! That way I just had my backpack to deal with at MCO and didn't have to stop at baggage claim!

Nice, that made the best of it. Way to plan ahead.

Ha I wouldn't consider making breakfast as lazy.

Yeah, we were actually concerned about the effort, but it was actually nice.

Love me a good Volcano roll

Hmmm Hmmmm

Wow you guys pack everything.

You never know what you're gonna need. It has actually come in handy a lot, usually for changing batteries in toys and fans.

Love these, last week I took my mom for lazer eye surgery and they had these chairs in each of the waiting rooms...this was the first time I wish a medical procedure would have taken longer...I was really enjoying that wait.

That's great, whatever makes the wait better.

I enjoyed your TR and can't wait to read next years. Thanks for taking the time to write it up. Melissa I hope that your ankle heels well and that you won't require another surgery to remove any of the hardware. Also want to let you know that I'm excited to try the cinnamon roll recipe at Christmas, I've already bought all of the ingredients.

Yay! We are going to make them too, and this year Paul will have to do more of it, but he's up to the task.

Great trip! Thanks for sharing!

We're glad that you enjoyed it. Thanks for joining in.

Really enjoyed your TR! You seem like a pretty laid back group which is important when you're a group of 6 or 8. The cabin at WL looks amazing! We've stayed at several of the resorts but WL is still my favorite. I'll watch for your re-cap.

Thanks for joining in. The cabin was amazing, and it was great to share it with the whole group. The re-cap is finally ready, so you won't have to wait any longer...

 

[GrandCalifornian]

We figured with all the new things for us this trip we would do a wrap up / summary post to go over the highlights and summarize what we thought about the great trip.

First of all, the biggest new thing this time was staying in DVC accommodations instead of traditional a Disney hotel room. We thought it might be a bit less special being in a villa, but we definitely didn't feel this way once we were there. Part of this was being in the same building we love at WL, but overall there was no downside for us being in DVC rooms. That's good because we're committed to DVC at this point.


The only downside I expected was a lack of daily housekeeping but I honestly didn't miss it as much as I thought I would, we had plenty of towels and they came almost daily to remove trash from the kitchen so it wasn't really a negative at all.

Speaking of the daily visits, it wasn't a problem for us at all having the daily room checks. Usually we were gone during them, but when we were there the CM was polite and helpful, asking if we needed anything.

Getting to stay in a cabin was amazing, and definitely fulfilled a bucket list item for us. It was the nicest "hotel room" we've ever stayed in or likely ever will. It felt way more like being at someone's house, and had the incredible views of Bay Lake we had hoped for.



It very much felt like a "cabin at the lake" vs being in the middle of the biggest tourist attraction of the world. It was incredibly beautiful and I fell in love with the architecture.



With that being said, our true favorite accommodation was the two bedroom villa.



For our group, the layout worked better having two separate bedroom areas with bathrooms and a common room in the middle. We can't say enough how much we loved this room.

Please take our criticisms of the cabin with a grain of salt. We feel incredibly lucky to have been able to stay in one and I would for sure stay in one again but here goes...

A huge factor that we just can't overlook is cost. It was less than half the cost per night to have the two bedroom vs the cabin.

It is incredibly expensive for what it is. The walk to even our close cabin seemed far from the main building when it was raining or it was hot, which in September it is either hot or raining.

I have always said that one of my favorite things about WL is that everything is under one roof, and with the cabins that isn't the case.


The walk was beautiful, but did get old after a few days, and would be more of an issue on a longer stay or with a more secluded cabin


The hot tub in the cabin was amazing, we really enjoyed using it the couple times we did. I can't imagine using it a ton if we spent a whole trip in the cabin, the clean up with wet towlls and wet floors after is a lot of work.


Ahh yes, it was actually a bit of an issue telling the kids that they couldn't get in it because we didn't have the time to clean up from swimming when we had other plans.


There were other minor things that were slightly annoying about the cabin, the shower door in the "guest bathroom" was beginning to come off the wall, it meant that the door didn't close all the way and I'm slightly concerned about the heavy glass door breaking at some point, hopefully when no one is in the shower.


The second bathroom layout was odd with completely separate toilet and shower rooms, and the sagging door issue in the shower. It was a huge shower though, and like the two bedroom had the choice of using an overhead rain shower.

The overhead shower there was so high though it was awkward and didn't seem as nice as the two bedroom.

Also the big fridge isn't as big as it at first appears, I felt like it was smaller than the one in the two bedroom, or it's at least the same size. It just looks bigger because the front of the door extends beyond the top of the actual fridge itself. Not a huge deal for us because we didn't need a ton of refrigerator space for our last three days.


I agree that the fridge didn't seem a whole lot bigger. There was a lot more kitchen space, and a way bigger living room, but I don't think I would want to be a person that had to sleep in the living room if the cabin was at its capacity of 8 people. It was nice with 6 sleeping, because we still had the common areas available for whoever woke up early or stayed up late. (Which for both was usually me.)

There was another minor thing in the second bedroom of the cabin, there are these nice drawers under the window seat. One of them becomes completely inaccessable when the pull down bed is down. It just felt like a lot of storage to give up.



I did enjoy and appreciate the extra items they provided in the cabin beyond the usual shampoo and lotion. They gave special lotions and shaving kits, similar to what is given to Club Level guests, which was a noticeable step up from the regular DVC room.

I am loving the foot lotion they included right now.

It is perfect for your leg with the broken ankle, I'm glad that we brought it home.

Overall, if the cost of the cabin were the same as the two bedroom, we would still want to spend time in the two bedroom. Since it is not, we feel the two bedroom works better for us.

Beyond the accommodations we tried three new restaurants this trip and loved them all. Boathouse, LeCellier, and Jiko were all new Signature restaurants for us, since we were making the most out of not being on the dining plan.

Boathouse was the dark horse of those three and really ended up being our favorite. It's just our kind of restaurant.



Of these, Boathouse was my favorite and the biggest surprise, since I wasn't really looking forward to it an didn't know what to expect. It was so great that we went twice, and plan to go again next year. It had enough variety to have something for everyone, and was fancy without being pretentious.


The others were nice too and we'll likely be back sometime, but I definitely agree that Boathouse was the surprise hit.


I know we talked about it a little before but I am really surprised and pleased about how we fared with not being on the plan both financially and emotionally...lol

Yes! This was a huge change for us, especially with me being worried about meal prices. We did a great job of just letting it go and still ordering what we wanted, without worrying about cost.

We did save some money by sharing a dish at LeCellier and not always getting dessert, but it never felt like we were cutting corners.

That's something we could even do more of next trip, sharing big entrees, especially at lunch. Thats if there's something we can agree on ordering.

We were also able to be little more spontaneous with our dining choices. While we stuck to all of our ADRs, we were able to add in some Table Service meals when we otherwise would have had a quick service meal instead. It was nice not worrying about

It was nice not worrying about wasting a table service credit on a lower cost meal which often wasn't much more out of pocket than a quick service meal would have been.

We often still wanted to try multiple items by sharing both, which works great. Overall we saved a few hundred dollars over why the dining plan would have cost us, and we got to have four signature meals that we wouldn't have had the credits for. That also includes paying for all of Marshall's food, which we would have had to pay for anyway with the plan since he wasn't three yet.

And we definitely had to buy the boy food, when Allie was that age she didn't eat much but at two Marshall eats more than she does at nine. Speaking of the little man he just turned 3! Can you believe it?

Yeah he is growing so fast, and often eats his sister's leftovers. It is crazy now that he is as old as Allie was when we started our frequent WDW trips. It will be great to watch him grow on each trip like Allie has.

On another dining related note, for me the best meal of the trip was Teppan Edo. The food was exceptional (ahh the fillet) and as always the experience was great. It is a must do for next year.



I really enjoyed Teppan Edo too, the scallops were divine and I loved the sushi. I also really liked doing pizza in the cabin, I don't know why it just felt so homey.


The pizza was nice, and is something we wouldn't have done on the dining plan.

I would have a harder time picking a least favorite meal, which shows that we picked an awesome set of restaurants. We wouldn't change much, except there's new things we still want to try.

You are right, I don't have a least favorite meal this time. Maybe just those pulled pork grits that morning, they were ok but not something I'd order again. But again that wasn't really a meal.

Yeah, that's about it. Go us!

I also am happy with the amount of unscheduled / down time we had during this trip. One of our most common regrets after a trip is that we didn't get to hang out at the resort as much as we would have wanted, and this time we did that. Our open day at the cabin worked perfectly, so we'll probably try that again next year, even without the cabin.



yay!

We already have our next trip planned for September of 2019 and we are really looking forward to it. I should be back to normal by then.

We thank you for following along and hope you all have a very magical holiday and that you all made the nice list. I'm not so sure I did, we'll know in just under a week!

Thank you all for following along and making your comments and contributions. We're definitely looking forward to 2019!

 

[DaisyDuck001]

Thanks for sharing your experiences and photos. I really enjoyed reading your trip report, and I look forward to your future ones!