Resort
hopping again today! And not always to a Disney product.
Today we
stepped out of the coach and took an hour long walk around our neighbor across
the street, the Wyndham Cypress Palms
Resort. The names of resort, hotel, and home development tracts can be
interesting anywhere. Like the Meadows we saw the other day… in the middle
of a crowd of shopping strip malls. Or River
View, about three miles from any sight of the river.
Wyndham Cypress Palms is a bit like that. It’s a lovely resort, certainly as well
landscaped as any Marriott property built in tight land use constraints and
without a golf course of its own. And
there are lots of palm and palmetto trees. But they are everywhere in
Florida. It’s the cypress that’s a bit
scanty.
Oh, its
here, along with its obligatory ‘knees’, but its dying everywhere. Cypress likes a particularly tannic, dark,
swamp water. It doesn’t seem to go for
the citified lagoon liquid the Wyndham folk are trying to grow it in.
We next
drove into WDW for a wonderful couple of hours walking the grounds of the Coronado Resort. A room at the Animal Kingdom Resort starts at about $350.00, and the style of
that place bespeaks the price. Just as
the $100.00 starting price at the All
Star Resorts does its offerings. 
The Coronado’s rooms start at $250 and while
the resort is nice, of course, it is a step or two down in service from the Animal Kingdom. A food court along with
a mid price Mexican restaurant (the theme is Mexico, or New Spain, or New
Mexico, Disney doesn’t let its show get too politicized.
The walk
around the lake takes in the varied niche themes of the different living
areas. All of the Disney World resorts
of later years seem to. Here there are
the Casitas, the Ranchos, and the Cabanas, and probably one I’ve
forgotten. Each section of the Coronado is architecturally different but
administratively the same.
The pool and
play area is called THE DIG and it
offers a touch of Chitchen Itza, and the Mayan ruins of Central America. A Disney
touch, so combining a little education with a lot of fun.
And fun is
what the side by side HUGE Art of Animation
and POP Century resorts offer just
north of the ESPN Wide World of Sports center.
Mona and I aren’t into sports enough to visit that place but it is HUGE
and there are multiple championships and tournaments going on often. There are groups of cheerleaders,
footballers, soccer players, etc in all of the Disney lower cost resorts this
week.
We first
went into the Art of Animation. It’s different building centers each feature animation in huge comical 3-d sculptings from
several recent key Disney movies. We spent most of our time in the centerpiece,
NEMO.
This is a fun
place that leaves you feeling like you actually live in the ocean with the
little fella. And the landscaping does
an especially wonderful job making that feel even more real. Good job Disney Imagineers!
POP Century highlights the popular culture, by
decade, of the US from the 1950’s through the 1990’s. Sadly, no 1940’s. No Glen Miller. But I think they’d fill at least one or two
buildings with oldies like me who may not have lived in the forties, but love
them well. There sure are enough of us
down here now!
The lobby
has a most interesting collection of trivial but interesting artifacts from
each decade and you register in the decade you have reserved your room in.
The pool, as
most of the pools we’ve seen here, was available for us to at least lay by,
read by, sleep by in the warm afternoon sun.
No room ID required! And we’ve ‘heard’ that you really won’t be chased
out on a less than full day if you change into your suit in the outdoor shower
rooms. But I did see them checking wrist
band ID’s for any child activity both of these past two days.
The sun is
setting and its almost time to head home.
But with one stop.
The Gaylord Palms Resort Hotel and
Convention Center is on our way home and huge, but then there are many huge
hotels in this area. The parking here is
$18.00 for any length of time so we pulled up into the lobby entrance and asked
if we could park for 10 minutes to take some pics. The valet took our keys, and no tip, and
said, “You’ve got 10-15”. And he knew it would be hard to make it on time.
The center
of the main hotel building is an atrium that holds several restaurants and a
reduced size castle wall designed after the Castillo
San Marco in St. Augustine. 
Another block of a 10 story high greenhouse
structures holds more restaurants and shops and both of these buildings are filled
with a near Longwood Gardens quality display of tropical, and now Christmas,
plants.
We made the
15 minute bell, to our valet’s delighted laughter, and made it home before
dark.
This FREE
Disney experience is fascinating, and relaxing.
And good exercise. We’re walking
between 3-4 hours a day at a slow but even pace.
That’s good
for old fogies like us!
-Ken
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