Ft Wilderness Cabins May 15-22. WE ARE DOING WHAT?

[racefanof88]

WELCOME to my trip report.

Here is the cast of characters-----------

Amanda she is my oldest Disney lover. And her boyfriend Matt.

Tyler my oldest son. Thinks he is too old to still love Disney, but goes back every year.

Dallas my youngest and is just like mom and loves everything Disney.

Dale my dear husband of 22(almost)years. Disney Dad.

Then there is me, Dana. I love any and everything Disney. I especially love planning Disney trips.

Now that the characters have been introduced I will start this trip report. I had been planning this trip for months. I always love planning as it seems to be the best part, well of this trip at least. We stayed at Fort Wilderness Cabins and the trip was planned from May 15-23rd, but I guess you see by the title it was shortened by one day .

 

[racefanof88]

Finally the time is here. Friday May 15th took FOREVER to arrive. I was up at 5am to finish cleaning and get everyone up. We loaded the van and everyone got ready. Now we had to wait for Dale to get home from work.

Dallas waiting.

Not sure why I didn't get pictures of everybody else . I was too excited I guess, I didn't even get pictures of the massive amounts of stuff we took, suitcases, food, medicine bags etc. We had a Dodge Grand Caravan and thank goodness it had stow and go or we would have been in trouble.

Dale got home about 11am and he took a quick shower and we hit the road. Everybody loaded up and buckled up. Niko riding on two pillows tucked between Dale's and my seats. Well, here is where our adventures started. About the time we hit Pensacola, about an hour or a little less after we left, Niko got sick . He decided to throw up in the van so this is our first stop to let Dale clean up Niko's mess. Can you give a dog Dramamine? No I didn't but I wanted to.

So on we drive after WAYYYY too many stops it is about 9:30pm and we still have to get Niko checked into the kennel. One word of advice DO NOT use the kennel at Ft Wilderness, more on that later. So I get us all checked in and we get Niko in his kennel and off we go to the Cabin, or so we thought. The CM that checked us in was from Italy and we could not really understand half of what she said and I am not a map reader......... So we drive around and get a long scenic drive. Not really because remember we are in the "wilderness" and there are no lights here. We finally find the cabin and start unloading the van.


These were in the two front windows waiting for us and to give us a Disney welcome.

This was on the bed in the bedroom.

Sorry so dark on the swans it was just that dark in the cabin even with the lights on.

We were all starving because we had not eaten since about 2pm. Well guess what? You don't get anything to eat at FW after 10pm and by now it was 10:30. We started eating up our snacks and I had to listen to Dale fuss about all that.

Tyler and Dallas eating dinner....

Dale closing the curtains. He doesn't like to have windows open at night and I have to agree with him on that.

So after everyone ate a few snacks it was off to bed to be ready for our first day at Disney. Amanda and I have an ADR for the Garden View Tea at 3:20pm. Or do we?

 

[leamom2princesses]

Hey girl! I'm in!!

 

[racefanof88]

Hey girl! I'm in!!

Hey Leanne, It is good to see y'all made it home safe. Thanks for coming over to the soggy side.........

 

[racefanof88]

This is the trouble maker. Oh and Niko.............

 

[MaryAz]

I'm here too. Fun to meet you-sorry we never got to trade pins!

 

[bouncycat]

found ya!!! Can't wait to read more!!!

 

[tiggerfan6]

I'm in!

 

[wannago2disney]

 

[racefanof88]

I'm here too. Fun to meet you-sorry we never got to trade pins!

Thanks for coming over!!! Glad to see you made it home. I'm sorry we didn't get to meet up again too. The rain was such a party killer.

found ya!!! Can't wait to read more!!!

I have been busy cleaning house and doing laundry up till now. I plan on adding more tonight. I am actually on hold with Disney now changing up my Sept ressies............lol. I want a preferred room and there are none at Pop so I am changing to ASMovies. With the dining plan it is just so much easier to be at the food court area.

I'm in!

Thanks for joining in. I hope I can keep you entertained.

Hey, thanks for coming on board.

 

[racefanof88]

Sleeping arrangements got a little rearranged from what I had planned. Originally it was planned for Dale and I to have the bed in the bedroom with Amanda and Dallas on the bunk beds, and Tyler and Matt in the living room on the Murphy bed. Well, it turned out to be Tyler in the bed, Amanda on the top bunk, Matt on the bottom bunk and Dallas sleeping either with Tyler, with Dale or on the couch. So you see who was scrambling to find somewhere to sleep, yep ME . I slept on the couch more that on the bed, it was about the same as far as room and comfort.The Murphy bed was horrible .

Dallas sitting on the torture bed.............

And yes the bottoms of his feet are black from walking on the floor in the cabin . This was before we even went to Walmart.

So Dale, Dallas and I were up early. Dale had to go to the kennel to give them Niko's papers since the guard let us in on Friday night. He paid his fee of $126 and came on back to the cabin. Now, if you remember I said when we checked in we had a CM from Italy and she was really hard to understand. Well, she had charged me $40 for Niko and I explained to her that he was going to be in the kennel but she didn't seem to understand for some reason. Dale found out that we shouldn't have been charged $40, as that is what you are charged if you are staying at a campsite, so we went to the front desk and they promptly refunded it . We headed to Walmart on Turkey Lake Road and bought groceries, it was funny because Dale wanted to buy some beer for later in the day when we got back to the cabin, we found out a law in Orlando, no alcohol sold before 9am . It was Saturday, I know we can't buy it here before 12 on Sunday but Saturday? So anyway back to the cabin. I bought breakfast foods so everyone ate something and off to the park we went.

I wanted to upgrade Dale, Dallas and my tickets to APs before we went into the park to get the total price paid, well, turns out you can't do that at the ticket window if you are staying on property. To really throw a wrench into the works I had the discount cards for 10% off. We had to go to Guest Relations to have that done. So we went into the park and at this point we split up so Amanda, Matt and Tyler didn't have to wait around with us. We upgraded to APs, and with the wonder of Disney Magic we ended up saving a whole $5.00!!! Yes, with the adding and subtracting and re-adding and blah blah blah it turned out to be a whole fiver. I had figured $147 but who am I to question Disney? I also bought the Tables In Wonderland Card and it really isn't worth the trouble either. I paid $75 for the card and you get a 20% discount on food and adult beverages, BUT the kicker is they add 18% tip on the non discounted total so you only save 2%. Well, ya live and ya learn.

Now off the meet up with "The Big Kids" as Dallas calls them. We make our way down main street and see one photopass photog and we had to line up to get a picture, and they are awful. On our way to meet the big kids we see this.

This is Woody waving to Dallas. He saw Dallas' birthday button.

Then the Mad Hatter.

We find Amanda, Tyler and Matt after they rode BTM and SM. Now what to do? Amanda and I have Tea to do. Sooooooooooo more coming later.

 

[wlwilliams9]

I made it over and I'm looking forward to more!!

 

[Leleluvsdis]

I made it over!!!

I'm sorry to hear about your stay in the cabins, that is where we were thinking about staying on our next trip.

Can't wait to hear more!

 

[bertegirl]

So I made it. Hmm...maybe 2 adjoining rooms for us next time or the Poly with the extra little bed. The cabins aren't what I was expecting. Can't wait to read more about your trip!

 

[racefanof88]

I made it over and I'm looking forward to more!!

Thanks for coming over. I am trying to condense some of the information. I always have way too much to say..........

I made it over!!!

I'm sorry to hear about your stay in the cabins, that is where we were thinking about staying on our next trip.

Can't wait to hear more!

Thanks for swimming over.......... That is what I felt like the whole time we were at Disney.

Mousekeeping was OK, but just OK. I don't know when the last time the floors were mopped but it really surprised me that Dallas' feet would be so dirty after just about 30 minutes. It just didn't have the same Disney magic. I am not a real outdoorsy type person and it was like that.

So I made it. Hmm...maybe 2 adjoining rooms for us next time or the Poly with the extra little bed. The cabins aren't what I was expecting. Can't wait to read more about your trip!

Thanks for finding me!! We liked the two rooms at ASMusic last year better. More room and TWO bathrooms, yes I will go more into the one bathroom dilemma in my report.

 

[racefanof88]

We finally meet up with Amanda, Tyler and Matt and decide to all stick together and ride some rides.

Picture of Dale and Dallas on the walkway behind the Castle going to meet the big kids.

I love the Castle. This is the only blue sky we saw all week.

We hit IASW, HM, SW, we watched Philharmagic, and then used our fast passes for Pooh.

Dallas waiting for Philharmagic.

So after all this it is about 1:30 and everyone is getting hungry. Amanda and I have the Tea at 3:20 but we are sooooooooooooo hungry. We decided to cancel the tea and go eat with everyone else. Everybody wanted pizza and Disney just does not have good pizza . Yeah I said it. So we left and went to CiCi's so everybody could get the kind of pizza they wanted. After lunch we went back to the Cabin and took naps.

We were all up and ready to go to the EMH at MK by 7pm. Of course we have to make a stop at the kennel and take care of Niko and feed him. He wasn't doing too good at FW Kennel . He wouldn't eat and had some GI problems .

Heading to the TTC.

Dallas wanted to ride the ferry.

Waiting for the ferry

Drinking a frozen coffee from the stand near the ferry, very yummy. I had 2 of these this trip.

I took several of these shots.

I wanted to get a picture of the Castle lit up, but for some reason some of my pictures were blurry.

We get to MK and of course nobody wants to ride the rides Dallas wants so we split up and Dallas an I head to Tomorrowland while, Dale, Tyler, Amanda and Matt head to Frontierland.

Dallas and I do the Laugh Floor, we loved it, then we rode Buzz, and Stitch, we get a call from Dale wanting to know where we are so we could meet back up. Dallas and I waited FOREVER for them to reach us. They were actually caught by the parade. So, by now we are getting hungry again, but "the big kids" do not want to eat so Dale, Dallas and I head to Cosmic Rays and share a couple of burgers and fries. I hope this doesn't sound bad, but Disney really needs to make sure the CMs they have working for them understand English better and speak it clear. Dale had to tell the lady 3 times what we wanted and she still got it wrong . The order was for 2 combo meals with 3 diet cokes. We ended up with 2 diet cokes and 2 combo meals and a large fry. Dale never said a large fry . We checked the ticket and she had charged us for what we got. OH well, we ate what we wanted and threw the rest away.

The EMH were just as crowded as any regular time. No one ever asked to see my KTTW so I guess EMH are for anybody staying on property or not. Anyway, by now it is 11pm and everyone is tired. We called Amanda and asked if they were ready to go and we all met up at Tony's. Dallas and I wanted to see some of Spetromagic as we were riding rides during the first parade so we watched some of it.

We got back to the Cabin and of course now Amanda, Tyler and Matt are hungry so they eat a sandwich. We all got showers and were in bed, well I got the couch, by 12:30.

Dale, Dallas, Tyler and I have Chef Mickey's at 10:50 Sunday. Or so we thought.....................

 

[bouncycat]

Uh oh, don't like that "or so we thought" part!!! OOOOOO!!!!! I'm anxiously waiting on the next installment!!! WOW

 

[bertegirl]

We had the same encounter with AK and EMH. They asked as we got on the dino ride for your key card, but still let those without them go on anyway. The lady in front said they had been going to all of them that week and this was the 1st time someone even checked and they were staying off property.

 

[wlwilliams9]

Sounds like a great day despite the changes. It's funny how you plan and plan for months for this trip and then the plans are thrown out the window so easily!

I can't believe you weren't asked to see your ID more. I don't think there was a ride we went on where they didn't ask for our ID. I have to say that I like the wrist bands much better though!

 

[MaryAz]

Glad you and Dallas got to go and do the things you wanted while "the big kids" did their thing. The cabin looks rustic-not sure it would be my style either. Sorry about the tea.