Disney's Wilderness Lodge
Disney's Wilderness Lodge is a deluxe resort hotel at Walt Disney World in Bay Lake, Florida, themed to the great lodges of America's western national parks. It opened on May 28, 1994, on a wooded site on the shore of Bay Lake, a short boat ride from the Magic Kingdom but screened from it by forest. Although counted among the Magic Kingdom area resorts, it is not on the monorail loop; its seclusion is deliberate.
History
A lodge-style hotel on or near the site had appeared in Walt Disney World planning since the 1970s under names including Cypress Point Lodge, and the idea was revived after Michael Eisner became chief executive in 1984 and pursued a programme of distinctive, architect-led resort hotels that also produced Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa.
The commission went to architect Peter H. Dominick Jr. of Denver's Urban Design Group, an outdoorsman who modelled the building chiefly on the Old Faithful Inn at Yellowstone National Park, with further reference to the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park. Dominick later designed Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge and Disney's Grand Californian Hotel in California in related rustic styles.
Imagineers supplied the lodge with a detailed fictional history, set out for guests in a commemorative newspaper, the Silver Creek Star. In that backstory, a nineteenth-century explorer, Colonel Ezekiel Moreland, discovered the valley of Silver Creek Springs, a settlement and railroad followed, and the grand lodge rose in the early twentieth century to receive visitors to the national parks.
Design
The main building rises eight storeys around a lobby built from lodgepole pine brought from standing dead forests in Oregon and Montana. Two carved totem poles about 55 feet (17 m) tall flank the space, and its stone fireplace reaches 82 feet (25 m), its strata coloured and layered to reproduce the geology of the Grand Canyon, complete with embedded fossil-like details. Display cases around the lobby hold Native American artefacts, beadwork and artwork.
From the lobby, a spring rises indoors and flows out of the building as Silver Creek, running over rocks and through the grounds to a pool area and on toward Bay Lake. Beside the creek stands Fire Rock Geyser, a constructed geyser that erupts hourly, throwing water roughly 120 feet (37 m) into the air; its name comes from the Moreland backstory, in which the geyser's behaviour was tied to a local legend.
Dining
Artist Point, the resort's signature restaurant, opened with the hotel serving Pacific Northwest dishes; in 2018 it was converted to Story Book Dining at Artist Point, a character meal themed to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Whispering Canyon Cafe, on the lobby floor, serves skillets of barbecue-style food in a deliberately boisterous atmosphere. Roaring Fork provides quick-service meals, and Geyser Point Bar & Grill, opened in 2017 on the lakeshore, offers open-air dining between the pool and Bay Lake.
Expansion
Two Disney Vacation Club developments share the grounds. The Villas at Wilderness Lodge opened on November 15, 2000, in a separate building evoking the railroad workers' settlements of the backstory; they were renamed Boulder Ridge Villas in 2016. Copper Creek Villas & Cabins followed on July 17, 2017, converting the hotel's south wing to villas and adding waterfront cabins with screened porches and hot tubs along the Bay Lake shore. The Carolwood Pacific Room, in the Boulder Ridge building, displays memorabilia of Walt Disney's backyard railroad and of the Fort Wilderness Railroad.
Transport
Boats cross Bay Lake to the Magic Kingdom, Disney's Contemporary Resort and Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground; buses serve all other destinations, including the other theme parks and Disney Springs.