10 nights at the Fort! We had a blast!

[InstaCamper]

Well I will start by saying I am not very good at writing, But I will give it my best shot. I will add to my post as I find time. (Still trying to unpack the mini van. I created a Photo Bucket account and posted some of our Camp pictures. I will also add more photos as time permits. We camped 10 nights at the Fort and 5 nights at Turtle beach Campground. For those of you interested in the pictures you can take a look here-

http://s1103.photobucket.com/albums/g472/smockb/Fort Wilderness 2011/

Well this trip was planned out for over a year, if anything I was over prepared.

I special ordered the tent after a mountain of research and a ton of trials with other tents. More to follow on this later. Our Tent is an Outwell Montana 2011 with an optional front end extension. And yes, some of the pictures of the interior show it has the optional wall to wall carpet.

It is more like a heavy flannel fluffy sheet , but hey it was really nice to walk on.

I also purchased the front end extension. We more or less used this as a covered storage area for our chairs, etc.

The one thing I will think about when I look back on this trip to the fort is, MAN IT WAS HOT!!! Thank God I put the AC in the TENT!!! It made the whole experience so much more pleasurable. Take a look at the temperature pictures before AC and after AC. Some of the days we were there were record breaking temp days according to the news.

The other thing I will remember is the storms / Rain. I think it rained just about every day at some point. Some of the storms drove out our fellow Campers / Tenters in a short time. I really felt bad for some of the people. Several peoples tents filled up with water, Some about blew away. Alot of people just packed up and left. The thing that really surprised us was the amount of people that only stayed for only a day or two. May have been the heat?

I know my family would have been miserable with out the AC, or if our tent leaked. I guess you would say our tent was made for the person who didnt want a popup but wanted a large comfortable space to relax in at the end of the day. It may be over kill for some but it worked perfectly for us. The funny thing is as much as we loved this tent we ended up Buying a pop up from some very nice people in another loop. It was totally unexpected but It was exactly what we were looking for. They are delivering this weekend. You will see us there next year in June, in our 2010 Jayco!

In case you are wondering about the brand of our tent it is an Outwell 2011 Montana Rated best tent for the last 3 years in the UK- It didnt need seam sealed or water proofed and it took some really nasty driving rain and wind.


If anyone is interested I will post the link to ebay in a couple of days. We wont be needing it since we bout the pop-up. We used it for a total of 15 nights. And it was awesome. This tent is Made for the Fort and large families. Dont ask what I paid But if any one on the disney boards is really interested I will make them a really good deal.


Well I will add a few more paragraphs tomorrow. Take care! InstaCamper

 

[tim5055]

Clicky - Like This

 

[rapriebe]

Wow, that's definitely a big tent. Sure looks like a nice setup you had there, plenty of room for everyone. How cool is it that you found a popup to purchase at the Fort. That's great.

 

[2goofycampers]

Now that's a tent. Great pics, can't wait for more.

 

[Lyndria]

Fabulous pics! Awesome tent! Welcome to the world of pop-ups. We sure do love ours!

 

[cruising spud]

I think that your tent is larger than our RV. And, did you also use the shower as a shower, as well as a dressing room? If so, did it work well? And, glad that you found a perfect pop-up. And, at Disney, no less.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[patclairesmom]

Glad you had a great time. We'll be camping for 9 nights so I especially interested to see how your trip went.

 

[mash]

That is an awesome looking tent, especially with the optional flooring and air conditioning installed!

Please tell us more on how you came to buy a pop up during your stay at the Fort. That is awesome! We are on our 2nd pop up and we absolutely love it. We still feel like we are camping but now we have some of the essentials that are necessary for camping in Florida (air conditioning). It make our camping experience very enjoyable and I am amazed that as our children get older they are still loving the camping. You will create so many wonderful memories with your family and new-to-you camper.

Great trip report so far. Don't know why you said that you aren't good at writing. You are doing really well and I am enjoying the report.

 

[bama_ed]

Dude,

What a fabulously long trip. Glad to hear it went well and would love to hear all about it. Lemme get a big ol' bucket of popcorn and then I'll be ready to read the trip report.

Also welcome fellow Jayco popup owner. I have a 2005 12HW model which I love. Would love to hear (and see some pictures of) what you got.

Bama ED

PS - love the picture of the family in the kitchen and the two squirrels in the tree. Are you sure those aren't audioanimatronics? They look so perfect it could have been posed. Did you slip those squirrels a fiver each? ;-)

 

[Rland8228]

I am so excited to see someone else bought this tent, I have begged my husband to buy one from the uk, there tents are amazing but we decided to save our money and got a pretty decent one. But it does look amazing.

 

[thepartyplanner]

Wow! Is that a tent?! Looks like a lot of fun!

 

[bama_ed]

Didja find any railroad tracks? Bama ED

 

[TuckandStuiesMom]

That is one AWESOME tent!

 

[englishteacha]

I think that tent is bigger than my house.

And I thought my Columbia Bugaboo tent was big. Hmmm....

 

[Judique]

Huge Tent!!! Wow!

You could sublet it.

Did you order direct from the UK or is there a local distributor?

How difficult to put it up?

 

[MadFF]

Impressive setup!

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

Great tent!!
We just dug out our Coleman Forest Castle after 16 years! Only had a few mouse holes in the floor that we sealed up today. If that doesn't work we might be on the hunt for a new tent and the Outwell might be the one. DH was impressed with it!
We also bought our first RV yesterday so we have that too but with 4 kids having an additional tent would rock!
Thanks for sharing!

 

[suzicute20]

What a big tent! And air conditioning to boot! Wow. Nice pics.

 

[InstaCamper]

Well we are finally unpacked. We put the tent up in our back yard and swept it out. then folded it up nice and neat. When we were at the campsite it was close to 100 so we were not interested in making it perfect. I will try and answer a few questions.

1. Hi Bama Ed- Yes It took some time and the weeds were alot higher than in your picture but my son and I did find the Railroad tracks. we had allot of fun looking- While we were out wondering we actually ran across a nest of baby armadillos. The Little Buggers were very cute.

2. We bought a camper- Well one of the things i enjoyed the most was patrolling around the different loops in the golf cart. Sever loops with the very large RV's had signs listing them for sale. I stopped and talked to several nice people and actually got a nice tour of one. On one of the nights we were cruising around we happened across a Popup that had a forsale sign on the side of it. It was rather Late so I cruised over about 10, but no one was home. I left them a note and the owner popped over about 11 in the eve. We struck up a nice conversation and came up with a price we both agreed on. Ends up he bought it last year and really wanted an RV. It worked out well for both of us.

As a side note while we were cruising around the loops (about 10-11pm or so)
we came across a loop (i cant remember the loop number now) but the frogs were screaming) It was nuts how loud they were-

We ended up in the 2000 loop and we loved it. I think it is all what you get used to. The sites were big and spacious- to us it seemed very private.


For every one who asks if you need a golf cart- our answer is yes- Do it, Don’t hesitate. Kenny was very nice and we enjoyed his cart. I can point out that the difference between the one we got from Kenny and Disney’s- Disney’s carts top extends over the back seat- covering the passengers. The other thing that was different is that Disney’s carts have the charger built in to the back of the cart. Kenny’s was an external charger - it would fit under the back seat but Kenny asked us to leave it in our tent while we were at the parks. So it doesn’t get stolen. All in All I would not hesitate to rent from Kenny.

I will make a brief comment on the AC in my tent- we would not have lasted 1 day or night with out it. It was Hot! It was humid and this made it an experience we all enjoyed. It made it nice to come back to a cool resting place at night- it made it something to look foreword to. The Ac was 6500 btu. Several people asked about the extra thick cord I used, it was a 10 ga 50' cord. I bought a 30 amp adpt and used it for the AC & Mini fridge only. We never had any power issues. The cord never got warm at all. I purchased the cord from Harbor Freight 35.00 bucks. We also had a small fan and a small tv in the tent. Our tent also had a way to run an extension cord up the side to hang an electric light.


Another Item I wanted to comment on was the Bugs at camp- We must have been lucky. The entire 10 nights we never use an ounce of bug spray. My Son seemed to think the bugs were eaten by the all the mini Lizards we had around camp- He thought they were super cool. He was not able to catch one no matter how hard he tried, or how many traps he set. The closest he came was cornering one in the men’s comfort station late one night. We did however go through about 5 cans of 50spf suntan lotion.

Comfort stations- I wont beat around the bush- they were a GOD send. Super clean super nice- I never had to wait for a shower. From site 2031 we were about 2 min walk. Our schedule may have been a little off. We like sleeping in- we usually hit the bed about midnight and slept till 9:30. I usually hit the shower before i went to bed and when i woke up. It was so humid it just was a good way to cool down.


Ok, Someone asked me what our beds were. We used the double high air mattresses from Wal-Mart- I think they were Serta- We put the least exp mattress pads on top and the least exp sheets i could find. I swear I slept better than in a Hampton Inn. we plan on reusing in our popup!


The Parks- We did MK and Epcot ( To my wife and two kids son = 12, Daughter = 15 we loved MK. Epcot was ok. It didn’t help my wife got Sick on the Mission Space Ride. WE road Dozens of Rides and that one really got to her. Not sure if it was the closed space or the pressure feeling but she was miserable the rest of the day. My two favorite rides at Mk were Space mountain - we road it 4-5 times, And I just loved the people mover- Hey I am old- I found it very relaxing. I think I road it 3 times

I will comment on the Food and our day trips next- I am sorry I don’t have a flare for writing - I am more of an informational type of writer-

 

[bama_ed]

Well we are finally unpacked. We put the tent up in our back yard and swept it out. then folded it up nice and neat. When we were at the campsite it was close to 100 so we were not interested in making it perfect. I will try and answer a few questions.

1. Hi Bama Ed- Yes It took some time and the weeds were alot higher than in your picture but my son and I did find the Railroad tracks. we had allot of fun looking- While we were out wondering we actually ran across a nest of baby armadillos. The Little Buggers were very cute.

Not surprised. I warned you about that in my PM to you on 4/21. It's always easier to go tramping around in the backwoods of the Fort when the vines/bushes/weeds/grass isn't as "vibrant". Did a "golden" spike follow you home?

Want to hear about your Jayco popup when you are ready to spill the beans about it. Year/make/model/features/etc.

Bama ED