Thomas Damploather

The cast:
Me (Gail) 34 yo wife to
Greg (aka DH) 36 yo dad to
Wesley (aka DS) 4.5 year old - this is his 4th trip to WDW.

Pre-trip info: We live in Maryland and are DVC owners. We bought annual passes in November (and had a great trip at the Wilderness Lodge Villas!) and the thought was to try to get 3 trips out of these passes and then take a big break. Since my in laws live in "The Villages" - a retirement community in Florida, and Greg's sister was pregnant (and due the end of February), we figured a mid-March trip would be perfect timing. I tried to get us into Bay Lake Towers, but it wasn't available, so we took our 2nd choice - The Wilderness Lodge. We flew down to Orlando bright and early on St Patrick's Day. Greg's parents picked us up at the airport and we went to his sister's home to meet Wesley's newest cousin. So, that was Saturday. Sunday we rested and then Monday we were going to... DISNEY WORLD!!!

We were up bright an early and off to *pause* (wait for it) Wald Disney World!!! It was about an hour drive from The Villages to Disney. We got to the Wilderness Lodge and our room was not ready. I had done online check in, so it only took a short time to give our luggage to bell services and get our paperwork. We headed over to the boat dock and over to the Magic Kingdom.



Wesley was *just* tall enough to ride Space Mountain, so we grabbed some Fast Passes and then hopped on board!






After Space, we toured tomorrowland and then had lunch at Casey's Corner. Nothing like a good ol' hot dog from Main Street!

I had made a 1:10 reservation with The Pirate's League, so we headed over for his transformation.



Wesley picked the Captain Jack Sparrow make up and I went ahead and splurged on the costume for him. We don't really do the souvenir thing, so I was OK with it. We waited for his name to be called and then went inside where he changed into his costume. He rolled the dice and was given his pirate name - Thomas Damploather. The transformation from sweet 4 year old to scurvy sea dog began and Wesley - errr... Thomas - was very patient for the whole make up application.






When the transformation was complete, he was given his sash and magical pirate sword. The sword had been forged with pixie dust and should it ever hit someone, it will magically disappear from Wesley's hand and reappear in his parent's hands where it should remain for the rest of the day. Wesley/Thomas took the oath and then it was off to the Secret Room.



After the Secret Room, was time to pay and Wesley very proudly handed over his little ziploc bag of cash/change he had been earning over the months leading up to the experience. We are trying to teach Wesley that we go to work and save our money so we can do fun things like Disney World and we felt this was an important lesson to teach him. The ladies at the cash registers thought Wesley was SO adorable paying his bill!!! Of course he was a little short, so we picked up the difference. He had a little change left over, so they gave him a little black satchel to keep his treasure in. It was all so cute!!!

We rode some more rides, Pirate of the Caribbean was first of course!




The poor kid was SO tired - we had had so much fun the days before we arrived and an early start this morning, so he was TUCKERED out!



We were getting anxious to get into our room (I was hoping Wesley would nap - yeah right!), so we went back to the Wilderness Lodge. Had a beautiful 1 bedroom villa - room 3540 - that was close enough to the elevator, but far enough it was quiet.

For dinner we went to the Whispering Canyon Cafe (at the Wilderness Lodge), where our little Pirate took the lead in the pony race...





I wasn't really planning on writing a full trip report, so I didn't write things down - Hence, the details are kind of lacking. I remember I had the bacon/cheddar/popcorn soup and it was yummy. We might have gone swimming, but I do remember it was a low key evening.