We plan on staying at the Wilderness Lodge this November. Do you have any tips for things to do at the hotel or within that area?

We are traveling with kids and I expect that it will be to cold to swim. What else is there to do at that hotel?

Go over to Disboards and ask there. They have a whole forum focused on nothing but the different lodges. There is a WEALTH of information over there. More than you could possibly EVER need. www.disboards.com

Have stayed there isolated you have to take a boat everywhere

not a lot to do...pretty though...

prefer Animal Kingdom Lodge for animals

Grand Floridean or Polynesian for kids close to magic kingdom

Yct Club for adults walk to EpCot

www.wdwinfo.com

It may well be warm enough to swim, especially during the middle of the day, but it depends a little on what your definition of "warm enough to swim" is, and is also a matter of some luck.

It is very isolated - I wouldn't want to have to wait for the ferry every time we leave/come back to the hotel. There is a fun restaurant there called the Whispering Canyon Cafe. In typical Disney fashion, it has a "hook" - ask for ketchup and see what happens : ) The food is mediocre (I found the food almost everywhere at Disney to be mediocre at best, but you're not really there for the food) but the atmosphere is fun.

The best food we had at Disney was at Jiko in the Animal Kingdom Lodge.

My husband and I took our DDs, aged 7 and 4 at the time, to DW and loved Wilderness Lodge. Also went in November and swam every night (the pool was heated but it was a shivery walk back to the room). Some other things we did...

...took a hidden Mickeys tour (ask at the front desk)
...ate at the Whispering Canyon Cafe and rode pretend ponies with a waiter and all of the other kids during the middle of our meal
...waited for Old Faithful to erupt (I think it was every 10 minutes?)
...went out to the beachy area one night and saw a boat parade on the water
...decorated the outside of our hotel door with "Mickey heads" that we cut out of Home Depot's Disney Collection paint chips.
...read and drew pictures in the chairs near the big fireplace in the lobby
...at check-in, we put our names on a list to raise the flags on top of the lodge one morning (4 flags, so one for each of us)...my kids lead us and the "ranger" in the Pledge after my husband raised Ol' Glory. Great view and the ranger took our family pic!

As for it being isolated, I thought our options for either taking the bus or taking the ferry were great. The kids especially loved the boat rides over to Magic Kingdom and in November we didn't have any problems getting back and forth to any of the parks

I agree with the poster that suggested the disboards.com forums...they were indispensable for me in planning our first family trip there!

Good luck and enjoy!