From Wilderness Lodge on Tuesday, we took the boat from Bay Lake over to Seven Seas Lagoon to the Contemporary Resort, a towering A-frame high-rise building and the closest resort to Magic Kingdom. Bay Lake which is a natural lake that connects to Seven Seas Lagoon (made by Disney) via a water bridge so as you pass over the bridge via the boat you can see the cars on the road going under the bridge. Pretty neat!

This lakeside Resort is the only hotel in Walt Disney World  Resort to have the Walt Disney World Monorail System pass through the main concourse. This is probably our least favorite resort, primarily because of its contemporary theme – to us it just isn’t as warm and cozy as the other resorts.

It was one of two resorts (the Polynesian being the other) that existed when Disney World first opened in 1971.  Between 2005 and 2009 the resort went through major renovations to bring the decor up-to-date. We were told by one of the cast members on one of the boats that the rooms were built as modular pre-constructed “shoe boxes” and lifted into place by a crane.  The resort has 14 floors (there is no 13th floor in any of Disney’s resorts) and a restaurant, the California Grill, on the 15th floor.  We ate there several years ago – the food was excellent.  And what is even better is you can go out on the balcony and can catch a beautiful view of the fireworks at Magic Kingdom.

We spent some time here sitting on one of the outside balconies watching the monorails go back and forth with  Cinderella’s castle and Space Mountain as the backdrop. I’m not usually afraid of heights but walking along the interior corridors along the balconies spooked me – sure is a long way down if you fall!

Several years ago, Bay Lake Tower was added as a separate building (building on the right in the photo) as part of Disney Vacation properties.

When we returned to Fort Wilderness, we sat outside for a bit and noticed a hawk (believe it was a Red Shouldered Hawk) sitting on a tree branch close by. After several minutes, a brave little squirrel jumped over onto the next branch.  Doesn’t he know that hawks like to eat small critters? We thought surely the little guy was going to be lunch but the hawk just studied him for a few minutes. As the squirrel inched closer to the hawk, the hawk finally called a couple of “kee-aahs” and flew off (perhaps he was intimidated).  The squirrel merrily continued on with whatever he was doing and lived for another day!

And more photos….