Cast: Me - Just turned 31 yesterday actually, official Disney nut
Elizabeth - 32, fiancee, officially turned into a Disney nut
Mom - Trained me to be a Disney nut
Dad - Thinks we're all nuts
Josey - Our Golden Retriever/Border Collie Pluto
Preston - Brother, official Disney nut
Maddox - Brothers son, official Disney nut in training
Dates: November 20th - 27th, 2006
Staying At: Fort Wilderness in the 5th Wheel Camper
So it was that time of year again. Thanksgiving. Turkey. Football. Family. And of course, Disney! It's become an annual family tradition of ours to visit Disney at Thanksgiving time, we used to always go in November, but starting about 4-5 years ago we decided to start going on Thanksgiving. Because of the camper, my mom is able to cook a full Thanksgiving spread, so nothing is missing!
My parents went up early on Monday, Nov 20th, and basically did their own thing for a couple days, including meeting up with some old friends of theirs. Beth and I didn't get up there until Wednesday, so I will be starting my trip report from there.
Wed Nov 22nd:
Beth and I left from our house in Delray Beach, FL (about 2 hours south of Disney) about 12:30 PM. The ride was pretty uneventful, minus the fact that there was TONS of traffic. Our normal 2 hour drive took about 2 hours and 45 minutes this time, but we pulled into Fort Wilderness right around 3 PM. My mom waited for us out front to give us a card to get in (love that they now have the security gate at the check in area of Ft. Wilderness, just like the other resorts, so much easier!). We drove to the campsite, unpacked everything, and took the car back to park it in the parking lot.
Our campsite was located in Jack Rabbit Run, Site 842. It was a GREAT campsite, in fact, it might be our favorite campsite ever. The site was huge, and there is nothing behind you, in fact, it was the most private campsite we had ever had. Last year we had driven by the 800 sites, and had really been impressed, and after staying at them, I can say we are even more impressed. For those of you looking for a great campsite (and also, if you have a pet ), we highly recommend the 800 loops.
After unloading everything, Beth and I started helping out with setting up some of the site that my parents had left for us. Of course, my first task was to put up our Mickey Mouse ear lights.
Just a quick history behind these lights. We first saw someone do this about 8 or 9 years ago in Fort Wilderness. We were driving around in the golf cart, and someone had these Mickey Mouse ear lights hanging up in the trees, and we instantly knew we had to do the same thing. You can see the lights for quite a distance, and kids seem to love it. We made ours out of 3 hula hoops surrounded by white lights. Basically I spent about 15 minutes trying to launch the rope high enough on a branch, but I finally did and there you see the result. Love that Mickey Mouse light!
Beth decorated the golf cart, our typical garland and battery powered light setup. I think next year I'm going to go a bit more crazy with the golf cart, and really spruce it up. Anyways, after a few drinks, snacks, and some conversation...
...we headed out to see some of the other campsites. Oh, did I mention it was cold?
We were going to go to a park that night, but since it was already getting so late, we just decided to wait until the next day.
Thursday, Nov 23rd:
Thanksgiving! My brother (Preston) and his son (Maddox) were showing up today, but got a late start, so we got busy helping my mom cook Thanksgiving dinner in the morning.
After we were done, we decided to go play some mini-golf while we waited! Beth, my mom, dad, and I headed to Fantasia Mini Golf, and decided to do the more "realistic" course, mainly because the other course with all the characters was packed. I also like a bit of a challenge, and was very happy we did the realistic mini golf course. I also caught this great picture of my parents smooching on the 15th hole...lol.
My brother finally showed up at 1:30 PM, he stayed for a while, set a new bike he had just gotten with a bike carrier for his kid, the carrier is in front instead of in back, pretty cool actually. Except Maddox wasn't too fond of it at first...lol.
My brother left to go back to his room at the Wilderness Lodge for a while and catch up on some sleep since they were both tired. My mom, dad, Beth, and I headed up to Crocket's Tavern for some drinks and to watch some football, we were there for about an hour. We then headed back to the campsite to start cooking the turkey! I bought my mom a portable oven roaster last year for Christmas, looks like this sucker came in handy! It could have fit a 14 pound turkey (ours was only about 10 pds I believe), and man it cooked it perfectly!
We all sat around the picnic table eating our Thanskgiving feast, and while it was cold out, we did have a "portable" heater
After Thanksgiving we just relaxed, watched football, and it didn't take long for the sleep to hit us!
Friday, November 24th:
We had originally planned on going to Animal Kingdom this day, but instead decided to go to Epcot. We arrived around 10:00, and the line of cars to get in WAS PACKED!!! I had never seen so many cars waiting to get in. Luckily my brother mentioned to my dad to head to the left, and we pretty much skipped about 10 minutes of waiting in line because of it. After parking, we headed up to buy our seasonal passes. Our passes run out every year right before the Thanksgiving trip, so this is always the time we renew them. Took us about mayb 20-25 minutes of waiting in line to get our passes (to the family with the 3 kids from North Carolina that was in front of us, this is not the information desk. They're not here to answer your questions about where you should be trying to get a room that night :/ ).
Epcot actually wasn't too busy once we got inside, and I went first to Soarin' to get some fastpasses since my brother had never been on it. By the time I got there, the Fastpasses were for 1:30, which wasn't too bad. Preston and I (and his friend Eric) then went on Mission Space (Spinning please), love that ride. My brother, his friend and his family, and my mom then went on the Finding Nemo ride at the Living Seas (from their reaction, even my mom, they all absolutely loved it). Beth, my dad, and I continued on to the World Showcase. Beth was craving for some popcorn (she loves to get popcorn at the parks, don't ask me why), so we picked some up, and then headed to the Rose and Crown (our favorite "chill" spot). We ordered a few drinks, watched all the interesting people, and then my brother and mom showed up.
We had a couple more drinks, then headed to Soarin. Fastpass line went smooth, my brother loved the ride, I still love it, but we both agree we would never wait 90 minutes for it. I waited 90 minutes the first time I saw it, so it was worth it for that, but not for a repeat visit. I noticed the smells (sea salt and pine tree smells) much more then I have in the past, not sure why to be honest.
At some point during the day (I can't remember now), Beth, my mom and I headed to France to try out the latest concotion that had been thought up. I first heard of these on the DisBoards, and I do have to say, they are about 200% better than I ever would have imagined. Suffice to say, this will become another thing we have to do while at Epcot!
I introduce to you, the Grand Marnier Orange Slushy and the Grey Goose Citron Vodka Slushy!
I just cannot tell you how good they were, they blow the Mexico Margaritas out of the water (and we are all huge fans of those).
We left Epcot in the afternoon and headed back to the campsite. We just kind of dilly dallyed around, and then headed off to an early bed.
Saturday, November 25th:
Animal Kingdom Day. My brother had never been on Expedition Everest, so we decided to head to Animal Kingdom. He got there before us and went on the ride, so I never got to see his face, but he seemed to really enjoy it. Maybe next time I'll get a chance to go on with him. We didn't do much in Animal Kingdom to be honest, most of us had pretty much already been here, and we left after going on Primeval Whirl and looking around a bit.
We headed to MGM for Maddox's reservation with the Disney Playhouse gang. It's been a long time since I've seen a character meal, it was neat how they did it. He got to see all of his favorite characters from the Little Einsteins (I think that's their name), and we all got to enjoy a nice buffet. In fact, the food was pretty darn good, and the desers were incredible. For 26 bucks a head, I really don't think you can beat it. After that was done we headed back to the campsite to continue our day.
My dad went back to the camper to rest, and my mom and Beth headed to the Magic Kingdom ( I warned them that the Saturday of Thanksiving week is not the best time to go to the Magic Kingdom). I headed to the Outer Rim (at the Contemporary) to watch the Florida State-Florida game. About 2 hours after I was there, my mom and Beth showed up and said they had to leave it was so incredibly packed. It was like 2 hour waits for everything, and they said the whole park was basically like waiting in line!
It was my birthday celebration so we lived it up, Beth and my mom went and did some shopping while we were there and bought some really nice things. We left there around 7 and headed back to the campsite. After freshening up, we headed to MGM for the Osbourne lights! We had Maddox with us, and he really enjoyed it. I have to say, I was VERY impressed with the Osbourne lights, I'm normally always awed by it, but the fact that they are now synchronized to music, it just was incredible. When the whole place starts flashing on and off, I really have never seen anything like it at Disney. And the snow seemed to be in even more abundance this year, there was tons of it flying everywhere! All in all I give it a hearty two thumbs up! We left after the show and headed back to the campsite for some much needed sleep.
Sunday, November 26th:
This was supposed to be our last day. However, my mom had accidentally not cancelled the extra day on our trip, so our checkout wasn't until Monday the 27th. All in all, it actually worked out a lot better for us since Beth and I didn't have to leave right at 11 AM because of Josey (our dog), and we wouldn't have been able to spend more time at Disney. We decided to try the Magic Kingdom again, and Preston and Maddox met us there around 11:00 AM.
We went to go see Pirates of the Carribean since my brother had not seen the new one, as usual, we all loved it. This is my 3rd time riding the new one, and I still am seeing new things (like the wine bottles floating in the water next to the drunk guy with the cat, never noticed that the last two times). The fog that you go through in the beginning seemed even cooler this time, love that new effect.
Maddox was obviously very tired since he was crying a lot, so my brother decided to leave and go home (he was leaving that day anyways). We said our goodbyes, then Beth, my mom, and I headed for turkey legs! Even though we had just had Thanksgiving, my mom loves those turkey legs so much that she just can't go to Disney without having one. They quickly finished one while I enjoyed a Citrus Swirl from the concession store near the Tiki Room.
We then went on the Haunted Mansion and Buzz Lightyear. I found that if you hit the target on the ceiling at the end of the first main room, you get almost 100,000 points right off the bat. Beth was in front of me for most of that first part, and then we looked down and she quickly realized that I must have found the big target...lol. We ate some food, then headed back to the campsite to watch some football.
We watched till the end of the Chicago-Patriots game, then headed to the Wilderness Lodge. Beth had never seen the Lodge in our almost 8 or 9 trips there now together, so I figured it was time to show her. She was absolutely in awe of the place, and all she kept on saying was how I needed to make reservations to stay there. We definitely will probably next year, as long as we go when it's cold. Wilderness Lodge just isn't the same to me when it's hot outside, it loses it ambience, at least in my opinion. We had some drinks at the bar, and some really good appetizers (the pulled pork and coleslaw on tomato flat bread is to die for!!!). We were all feeling really tired by this point, so we headed back for our last night of Disney sleep
Monday November 27th:
Well, really not much to say for this day, we got up at 4:00 AM, were on the road by 5:00 AM, and got home around 7:00 AM. A quick shower and a change of clothes, and we were off to work. I have to say it's quite weird sitting in your office when you realize you were just in Disney World 3 hours ago...lol.
Well, that's my trip report. It's a long one, but I've always loved the trip reports where people mention the little details, so I tried to do the same. Hope you enjoyed it!!!
P.S. One of the funniest moments of the trip was when I came back to the camper, where my dad was watching Maddox. Only he wasn't really watching him, he was in the other room watching TV. And obviously Maddox had found the lollipops and decided one wasn't enough!
Elizabeth - 32, fiancee, officially turned into a Disney nut
Mom - Trained me to be a Disney nut
Dad - Thinks we're all nuts
Josey - Our Golden Retriever/Border Collie Pluto
Preston - Brother, official Disney nut
Maddox - Brothers son, official Disney nut in training
Dates: November 20th - 27th, 2006
Staying At: Fort Wilderness in the 5th Wheel Camper
So it was that time of year again. Thanksgiving. Turkey. Football. Family. And of course, Disney! It's become an annual family tradition of ours to visit Disney at Thanksgiving time, we used to always go in November, but starting about 4-5 years ago we decided to start going on Thanksgiving. Because of the camper, my mom is able to cook a full Thanksgiving spread, so nothing is missing!
My parents went up early on Monday, Nov 20th, and basically did their own thing for a couple days, including meeting up with some old friends of theirs. Beth and I didn't get up there until Wednesday, so I will be starting my trip report from there.
Wed Nov 22nd:
Beth and I left from our house in Delray Beach, FL (about 2 hours south of Disney) about 12:30 PM. The ride was pretty uneventful, minus the fact that there was TONS of traffic. Our normal 2 hour drive took about 2 hours and 45 minutes this time, but we pulled into Fort Wilderness right around 3 PM. My mom waited for us out front to give us a card to get in (love that they now have the security gate at the check in area of Ft. Wilderness, just like the other resorts, so much easier!). We drove to the campsite, unpacked everything, and took the car back to park it in the parking lot.
Our campsite was located in Jack Rabbit Run, Site 842. It was a GREAT campsite, in fact, it might be our favorite campsite ever. The site was huge, and there is nothing behind you, in fact, it was the most private campsite we had ever had. Last year we had driven by the 800 sites, and had really been impressed, and after staying at them, I can say we are even more impressed. For those of you looking for a great campsite (and also, if you have a pet
), we highly recommend the 800 loops.After unloading everything, Beth and I started helping out with setting up some of the site that my parents had left for us. Of course, my first task was to put up our Mickey Mouse ear lights.
Just a quick history behind these lights. We first saw someone do this about 8 or 9 years ago in Fort Wilderness. We were driving around in the golf cart, and someone had these Mickey Mouse ear lights hanging up in the trees, and we instantly knew we had to do the same thing. You can see the lights for quite a distance, and kids seem to love it. We made ours out of 3 hula hoops surrounded by white lights. Basically I spent about 15 minutes trying to launch the rope high enough on a branch, but I finally did and there you see the result. Love that Mickey Mouse light!
Beth decorated the golf cart, our typical garland and battery powered light setup. I think next year I'm going to go a bit more crazy with the golf cart, and really spruce it up. Anyways, after a few drinks, snacks, and some conversation...
...we headed out to see some of the other campsites. Oh, did I mention it was cold?
We were going to go to a park that night, but since it was already getting so late, we just decided to wait until the next day.
Thursday, Nov 23rd:
Thanksgiving! My brother (Preston) and his son (Maddox) were showing up today, but got a late start, so we got busy helping my mom cook Thanksgiving dinner in the morning.
After we were done, we decided to go play some mini-golf while we waited! Beth, my mom, dad, and I headed to Fantasia Mini Golf, and decided to do the more "realistic" course, mainly because the other course with all the characters was packed. I also like a bit of a challenge, and was very happy we did the realistic mini golf course. I also caught this great picture of my parents smooching on the 15th hole...lol.
My brother finally showed up at 1:30 PM, he stayed for a while, set a new bike he had just gotten with a bike carrier for his kid, the carrier is in front instead of in back, pretty cool actually. Except Maddox wasn't too fond of it at first...lol.
My brother left to go back to his room at the Wilderness Lodge for a while and catch up on some sleep since they were both tired. My mom, dad, Beth, and I headed up to Crocket's Tavern for some drinks and to watch some football, we were there for about an hour. We then headed back to the campsite to start cooking the turkey! I bought my mom a portable oven roaster last year for Christmas, looks like this sucker came in handy! It could have fit a 14 pound turkey (ours was only about 10 pds I believe), and man it cooked it perfectly!
We all sat around the picnic table eating our Thanskgiving feast, and while it was cold out, we did have a "portable" heater
After Thanksgiving we just relaxed, watched football, and it didn't take long for the sleep to hit us!
Friday, November 24th:
We had originally planned on going to Animal Kingdom this day, but instead decided to go to Epcot. We arrived around 10:00, and the line of cars to get in WAS PACKED!!! I had never seen so many cars waiting to get in. Luckily my brother mentioned to my dad to head to the left, and we pretty much skipped about 10 minutes of waiting in line because of it. After parking, we headed up to buy our seasonal passes. Our passes run out every year right before the Thanksgiving trip, so this is always the time we renew them. Took us about mayb 20-25 minutes of waiting in line to get our passes (to the family with the 3 kids from North Carolina that was in front of us, this is not the information desk. They're not here to answer your questions about where you should be trying to get a room that night :/ ).
Epcot actually wasn't too busy once we got inside, and I went first to Soarin' to get some fastpasses since my brother had never been on it. By the time I got there, the Fastpasses were for 1:30, which wasn't too bad. Preston and I (and his friend Eric) then went on Mission Space (Spinning please), love that ride. My brother, his friend and his family, and my mom then went on the Finding Nemo ride at the Living Seas (from their reaction, even my mom, they all absolutely loved it). Beth, my dad, and I continued on to the World Showcase. Beth was craving for some popcorn (she loves to get popcorn at the parks, don't ask me why), so we picked some up, and then headed to the Rose and Crown (our favorite "chill" spot). We ordered a few drinks, watched all the interesting people, and then my brother and mom showed up.
We had a couple more drinks, then headed to Soarin. Fastpass line went smooth, my brother loved the ride, I still love it, but we both agree we would never wait 90 minutes for it. I waited 90 minutes the first time I saw it, so it was worth it for that, but not for a repeat visit. I noticed the smells (sea salt and pine tree smells) much more then I have in the past, not sure why to be honest.
At some point during the day (I can't remember now), Beth, my mom and I headed to France to try out the latest concotion that had been thought up. I first heard of these on the DisBoards, and I do have to say, they are about 200% better than I ever would have imagined. Suffice to say, this will become another thing we have to do while at Epcot!
I introduce to you, the Grand Marnier Orange Slushy and the Grey Goose Citron Vodka Slushy!
I just cannot tell you how good they were, they blow the Mexico Margaritas out of the water (and we are all huge fans of those).
We left Epcot in the afternoon and headed back to the campsite. We just kind of dilly dallyed around, and then headed off to an early bed.
Saturday, November 25th:
Animal Kingdom Day. My brother had never been on Expedition Everest, so we decided to head to Animal Kingdom. He got there before us and went on the ride, so I never got to see his face, but he seemed to really enjoy it. Maybe next time I'll get a chance to go on with him. We didn't do much in Animal Kingdom to be honest, most of us had pretty much already been here, and we left after going on Primeval Whirl and looking around a bit.
We headed to MGM for Maddox's reservation with the Disney Playhouse gang. It's been a long time since I've seen a character meal, it was neat how they did it. He got to see all of his favorite characters from the Little Einsteins (I think that's their name), and we all got to enjoy a nice buffet. In fact, the food was pretty darn good, and the desers were incredible. For 26 bucks a head, I really don't think you can beat it. After that was done we headed back to the campsite to continue our day.
My dad went back to the camper to rest, and my mom and Beth headed to the Magic Kingdom ( I warned them that the Saturday of Thanksiving week is not the best time to go to the Magic Kingdom). I headed to the Outer Rim (at the Contemporary) to watch the Florida State-Florida game. About 2 hours after I was there, my mom and Beth showed up and said they had to leave it was so incredibly packed. It was like 2 hour waits for everything, and they said the whole park was basically like waiting in line!
It was my birthday celebration so we lived it up, Beth and my mom went and did some shopping while we were there and bought some really nice things. We left there around 7 and headed back to the campsite. After freshening up, we headed to MGM for the Osbourne lights! We had Maddox with us, and he really enjoyed it. I have to say, I was VERY impressed with the Osbourne lights, I'm normally always awed by it, but the fact that they are now synchronized to music, it just was incredible. When the whole place starts flashing on and off, I really have never seen anything like it at Disney. And the snow seemed to be in even more abundance this year, there was tons of it flying everywhere! All in all I give it a hearty two thumbs up! We left after the show and headed back to the campsite for some much needed sleep.
Sunday, November 26th:
This was supposed to be our last day. However, my mom had accidentally not cancelled the extra day on our trip, so our checkout wasn't until Monday the 27th. All in all, it actually worked out a lot better for us since Beth and I didn't have to leave right at 11 AM because of Josey (our dog), and we wouldn't have been able to spend more time at Disney. We decided to try the Magic Kingdom again, and Preston and Maddox met us there around 11:00 AM.
We went to go see Pirates of the Carribean since my brother had not seen the new one, as usual, we all loved it. This is my 3rd time riding the new one, and I still am seeing new things (like the wine bottles floating in the water next to the drunk guy with the cat, never noticed that the last two times). The fog that you go through in the beginning seemed even cooler this time, love that new effect.
Maddox was obviously very tired since he was crying a lot, so my brother decided to leave and go home (he was leaving that day anyways). We said our goodbyes, then Beth, my mom, and I headed for turkey legs! Even though we had just had Thanksgiving, my mom loves those turkey legs so much that she just can't go to Disney without having one. They quickly finished one while I enjoyed a Citrus Swirl from the concession store near the Tiki Room.
We then went on the Haunted Mansion and Buzz Lightyear. I found that if you hit the target on the ceiling at the end of the first main room, you get almost 100,000 points right off the bat. Beth was in front of me for most of that first part, and then we looked down and she quickly realized that I must have found the big target...lol. We ate some food, then headed back to the campsite to watch some football.
We watched till the end of the Chicago-Patriots game, then headed to the Wilderness Lodge. Beth had never seen the Lodge in our almost 8 or 9 trips there now together, so I figured it was time to show her. She was absolutely in awe of the place, and all she kept on saying was how I needed to make reservations to stay there. We definitely will probably next year, as long as we go when it's cold. Wilderness Lodge just isn't the same to me when it's hot outside, it loses it ambience, at least in my opinion. We had some drinks at the bar, and some really good appetizers (the pulled pork and coleslaw on tomato flat bread is to die for!!!). We were all feeling really tired by this point, so we headed back for our last night of Disney sleep
Monday November 27th:
Well, really not much to say for this day, we got up at 4:00 AM, were on the road by 5:00 AM, and got home around 7:00 AM. A quick shower and a change of clothes, and we were off to work. I have to say it's quite weird sitting in your office when you realize you were just in Disney World 3 hours ago...lol.
Well, that's my trip report. It's a long one, but I've always loved the trip reports where people mention the little details, so I tried to do the same. Hope you enjoyed it!!!
P.S. One of the funniest moments of the trip was when I came back to the camper, where my dad was watching Maddox. Only he wasn't really watching him, he was in the other room watching TV. And obviously Maddox had found the lollipops and decided one wasn't enough!
It looks like you guys had a really good time! I'd love to go for Thanksgiving sometime! (we were there during your first November trip this year!)
