Halloween 2009 at the Fort!

[DisCamper]

I met BigDaddyRog but he probably still thinks I don't exist because I 'poofed' right in front of him. Godd thing MrsGus has a picture of me - proof of my existence.

 

[LORNADUCK]

Todd I KNOW WHO U R.

 

[BigDaddyRog]

GoingToSeeTheMouse did INDEED have an extravagant display rocking on their site.....alot of work was put into that decorating. I met your husband one morning, but it was early and I figured Id probably better not put much effort into dragging you out of the camper just to say hello. But I do wish we could have met!

 

[lauraebeth]

to TCD:

so i have some sad to you, wonderful for me news to report.

you will not be finding me at the fort next time you visit unless it's in the next 2.5 weeks. I was offered a position as Grand Floridian concierge, and I transfer effective nov. 22. I'll come back and visit. this is a fun group. .

oh, and I saw brian tonight and i thought of you. lol

 

[stacktester]

to TCD:

so i have some sad to you, wonderful for me news to report.

you will not be finding me at the fort next time you visit unless it's in the next 2.5 weeks. I was offered a position as Grand Floridian concierge, and I transfer effective nov. 22. I'll come back and visit. this is a fun group. .

oh, and I saw brian tonight and i thought of you. lol

Lonestar said he got to meet you as well last weekend. You're going to miss Thanksgiving at the fort which is the best time of year IMO.

 

[Tri-circle-D]

Hi TCD ~

I spotted a DISser and a couple DISser kids - 4th picture, Nicole (SeaBee) is on the right in the back with the gray shirt and sunglasses, and with her is her oldest daughter, and Ami's (PolynesianPixie) oldest daughter. (Won't mention kids names, not sure how parent's feel about posting TMI).

Karla- Thanks! I knew there had to be a least one Disboarder in there.

how do we join that group i am going up there this weekend and would love to have access to there. ued to go there when i was a kid and think it is something that should have never been taken away

Welcome to the Disboards! Please note the two winky faces next to DisCamper's post. That means that he is pulling your leg. As of the moment, anyone can walk into the old River Country entrance area. You can see the old location of the restaurant which was called Pop's Place. You can see the buildings that housed the lockers and showers. The rest of the old River Country area is fenced off and inaccessible. But, you can look over the fence and through cracks in the fence and see the old pool area, and some of the old slides.

Just what is she taking a picture of???

Good one, Dave!

Yes you can, Todd! POOF!! Gone in the blink of an eye!! Scary, very scary!!

Hi Deb. Thanks for stopping by. I saw on another thread that you are still at the Fort. Lucky! Enjoy your stay!

HEY!!!! WE WERE THERE TOO AT THE END OF THE 300 LOOP in 361! WE WERE PRETTY DECORATED TOO!

Leyla & Jim

Leyla- I saw your set-up. You did a great job this year. I was also expecting to see a French Bulldog in a lobster costume in the pet parade. But . . . nothing! Did you enter your pups in the parade this year? I drove by your site many times, but nobody was ever home. Y'all must have been hitting the parks pretty hard on this trip.

When we went looping a bit late on Saturday night, I did see one of your kids in clown costume acting like a mannequin in front of your crime scene set up. He would stand there until someone came close and then scare them! Great job! Very funny!

I hope you at least excused yourself after you did it!!!

Good one!

to TCD:

so i have some sad to you, wonderful for me news to report.

you will not be finding me at the fort next time you visit unless it's in the next 2.5 weeks. I was offered a position as Grand Floridian concierge, and I transfer effective nov. 22. I'll come back and visit. this is a fun group. .

oh, and I saw brian tonight and i thought of you. lol

Well, good for you! I know that is quite a step up the Disney ladder. Since you are going to be a big-shot concierge now, maybe you could arrange for the Fiends to have a special event over at the GF next Halloween. How about a beer bash on the GF beach? Apple bobbing in the GF pool? I'm sure you could line up something.

Good luck in your new position. I wish you could stay around the Fort, but I understand this is a promotion for you, and you would be crazy not to take it.

Ah, Brian. I can picture him now. Was he chasing a perp on a golf cart? Putting out someone's campfire with his backpack/fire extinguisher? Hitching up someone's extra car to his tow truck? That guy has the best job in the world!

Lonestar said he got to meet you as well last weekend. You're going to miss Thanksgiving at the fort which is the best time of year IMO.

Agreed.

OK, enough chatter.

On with the report . . .

TCD

 

[Tri-circle-D]

Well, we have seen the pet parade.

And the Mummy Wrap-up.

The next official Fort Halloween activity is creepy dodgeball.

First, an update.

This is the pet that one second place in the pet parade:

I guess that is a Yorkie in there.

After the pet parade, we did some looping.

And, we saw these magnificent animals:

I would have liked to see them in the pet parade! These folks walked these two Great Danes right into the 1200 loop, and it looked like that is where they were staying. The 1200 loop is not an official pet loop. But who wants to tell those dogs they have to move?

This Christmas pig was re-purposed as a Halloween pig on the 1300 loop:

This haunted house was set up on the 1300 loop:

Soon enough, it was time for creepy dodgeball.

Again, I protest that this event was also falsely named.

There really wasn't anything particularly creepy about this dodgeball.

Just that the balls looked like big eyeballs.

Mildly disturbing? Yes. Creepy? No.

I took a few photos so you all could get a good look and judge for yourselves, so here you go:

I would say that is quite enough creepy dodgeball photos, wouldn't you?

So, we will leave it at that.

The next big event will be Ghostly Bingo!

Woo-Hoo!

TCD

 

[campingdawgs]

Good grief, those dogs are huge! They don't need costumes to scare me!

 

[29apr00]

Wow I had no idea there were so many halloween activites! This is a great report.

 

[Tri-circle-D]

Wow I had no idea there were so many halloween activites! This is a great report.

There were scheduled and unscheduled activities all day long. As you can see in the photos, Fort guests don't go to the parks on Halloween!

And now, back to our report in progress.

Next up on the schedule was Ghostly Bingo. Even though I was starting to catch on that these "special" activities were really just the regular activities in disguise, I still had to go check out the Bingo.

Usually, Bingo at the Fort is a good deal. Most of the time, there are only a few families playing, and your chances of winning are pretty good. They usually have a nice selection of prizes. Like board games, Nerf guns, that kind of thing. We last played on our visit in February, and DD won a Nerf gun that she used all weekend to shoot at squirrels and TCD. She didn't hit any squirrels, but she never missed me. That gun mysteriously vanished after that trip, and DD has not asked about it. If you see her, please don't mention it.

Anyhow, we thought maybe there would be some upgraded prizes today, or something different, so we headed down to the pool, where Bingo was supposed to be held on the porch.

But, so many people showed up that they moved Bingo over to the campfire area.

Here's what we saw when we arrived:

These are the prizes that were going to be awarded:

This is the line of people waiting to pay for their Bingo cards:

Another crowd shot:

With that many people, our odds of winning weren't so good. The prizes looked like the normal assortment. None of us are big fans of Bingo, anyway. So, we did not play any Ghostly Bingo.

Also, I didn't see any ghosts.

Here are a couple of carts that were parked in the area:

Later that day, when I visited the Meadow Trading Post, I noticed that they had awarded the prizes for the cast pumpkin decoration contest:

For some reason, I don't have a photo of the winner. It was the Sheriff Woody pumpkin that we saw earlier.

You may have noticed from the list of prize winners that I posted earlier in this report that a cabin was awarded a prize for decorations. From the way the awards sheet was worded, it looks like there was a separate awards category for cabins. Here are a couple of shots of the winning cabin:

Nice, but I would say that it would be pretty easy to take this category. If you are a cabin person and planning on being at the Fort next Halloween, make note.

With all of the activities, and watching some good college football games mixed in, the day flew by. Trick-or-Treating was supposed to begin at 5 pm. It was still sunny and hot at 5 pm, but we went ahead and got our candy table ready.

Here we are, ready for our visitors:

And here are our first visitors, who arrived just after 5. I think this was a group of cub scouts who had walked over the bridge from the group camping area. Good deal for them!:

We actually had quite a few early birds:

This guy's wife made his costume for him. He was really happy about it. I think he might have been drinking, though, because look how blurry his photo turned out:

Make note of the fact that Mr. Potato head has on his angry eyes. The gentleman made sure to point that out to me.

Here I am trying to get a spooky photo of a bat flying past the moon. Sorry, but despite the best of intentions, it didn't come out so good:

Even though we had candy coming out of our ears, Mrs. TCD baked up a batch of spooky brownies for us:

One of the DD's was so happy about the brownies, that she wanted to do something nice for mom. So, she did some of her laundry. See?:

Actually, those undies were from the 700 loop. The last outside site. Where Whipperwhirl's pirate ship is now. I think this might just be some kind of joke, because the lady I saw camping there didn't look quite so big. Here's another shot from there:

We spent the bulk of Halloween night passing out tons of candy to trick-or-treaters. We got reports from some that the folks on 800 had all run out of candy early. That is no wonder, as I hear there were mobs of people over there.

After trick-or-treating, it was time for some Halloween looping. We tried to stay up late, but very few people actually stay up late partying at the Fort. Days at the Fort are so action packed, that everyone is typically wiped-out by before midnight.

We got a free bonus hour to stay up late on Saturday night, as daylight savings time ended that night, but we just couldn't take advantage of it.

We went home on Sunday, November 1st, so I only have a few photos left.

Looks like this report is about to come to a close.

TCD

 

[campingdawgs]

Cute trick-or-treaters. I like the table set up for candy.
I thought the brownies looked finger lickin' good! Good job Mrs. TCD! But, not quite as disgusting as the kitty litter cake my sister made for us this Halloween. It was so realistic, nobody even tried it!

 

[Whipperwhirl]

I had a brief chat with Whipperwhirl. She and her family were having a great time. She is a true artist, and her duct tape creation was amazing!

TCD

No Way

I made a TCD TR - You just made my day. It was nice meeting you as well - Hope to see everyone again next year - Whip

 

[tlenzendorf]

We are planning on going 10/21-10/30 2011 and you have totally convinced me to go back to the Fort with all those awesome pictures!
Our trip next year without the kiddos will be fun staying at CSR, too, I'm sure! I sure wish we lived closer to the MouseHouse and not the CheeseHaus

 

[lauraebeth]

so...thanksgiving @ the fort. when and where. my roomie and i are master chef's and would love to share in giving thanks

 

[RvUsa]

TCD, I didn't get a chance to tell you what an honor it was to finally meet you! I wish we could have spent more than just a couple seconds talking. It was like meeting Fort Royalty!!! I was so honored! It seems like the rest of the trip I was stuck with a bunch of the Fort Jesters!!!

 

[Tri-circle-D]

Cute trick-or-treaters. I like the table set up for candy.
I thought the brownies looked finger lickin' good! Good job Mrs. TCD! But, not quite as disgusting as the kitty litter cake my sister made for us this Halloween. It was so realistic, nobody even tried it!

Kitty Litter Cake? No thank you!!!

No Way

I made a TCD TR - You just made my day. It was nice meeting you as well - Hope to see everyone again next year - Whip

Whip/Elaine- I do hope that you can make it back to the Fort next year! I think if you throw a couple of lights and maybe something Disney into your decorations, you will be a shoe-in for the site decorating contest! I forgot to mention that I also enjoyed meeting your Mom. If I recall correctly, she had never been to WDW before, and she was loving it! I hope that you enjoyed the rest of your trip. I will check on your pirate ship for you!

We are planning on going 10/21-10/30 2011 and you have totally convinced me to go back to the Fort with all those awesome pictures!
Our trip next year without the kiddos will be fun staying at CSR, too, I'm sure! I sure wish we lived closer to the MouseHouse and not the CheeseHaus

Great! My only suggestion is that you change your dates a little so you will be there for Halloween itself. The days leading up to the 31st are fun, but the fun expands exponentially once the big day arrives!

so...thanksgiving @ the fort. when and where. my roomie and i are master chef's and would love to share in giving thanks

My plans for Thanksgiving are still up in the air, but there is an thread about Thanksgiving at the Fort going on here: The Official Thanksgiving at the Fort 2009 Thread

TCD, I didn't get a chance to tell you what an honor it was to finally meet you! I wish we could have spent more than just a couple seconds talking. It was like meeting Fort Royalty!!! I was so honored! It seems like the rest of the trip I was stuck with a bunch of the Fort Jesters!!!

John- The honor was mine, really. If I had to say one bad thing about having a gathering at the Fort, it is that there is too much to do. Between visiting parks, spending time with family, checking out activities on different loops, etc, it is hard, if not impossible, to just sit and visit. We can be sure of this: you will be back at the Fort some day, and so will I. As they say, we shall meet again. Until then, we have the Disboards.

TCD

 

[Tri-circle-D]

This is it.

The last of my photos.

And, I am kind of scraping the barrel just to post these.

In case you're counting, this report contains just over 300 photos (there are 303 to be exact). And, I would say at least 50% of them are of golf carts.

First, I will share our photopass pics from MNSSHP. They have special photopass pictures at MNSSHP. I am not sure how many different special photos there are, but here are the ones we got:

Here is a random site decoration photo that I didn't already post. I think these folks were right next to BDR. Whipperwhirl- if you made a couple of Mickey Mouse duct tape pumpkins next year and add them to your creation, you will win the site decorating contest:

I only have a couple of photos from Sunday morning, November 1st, as I spent all morning packing up.

But, we did go looping on the golf cart one last time before we had to return it. As we were looping the 300 loop, this camper pulled out in front of us on his way out of the Fort:

So, why does this guy have a Department of Homeland Security tag on an A-liner? And what official business was he conducting at the Fort?

And with that, I'm finished with another one.

Halloween 2009 was great!

I hope to see you all again for Halloween 2010!

TCD

 

[Donna]

Great report, as usual, TCD!! That license plate really has me wondering what the heck is going on. I don't know if it bothers me or makes me feel better!
So, when is the next trip, lol.

 

[clkelley]

Great trip report!!!

About the tag. Some MWR offices do have campers they rent out to eligible members. Maybe that was it, and they throw on whatever tags they have????

It was a wonderful week for us!!! Wish it was longer and wish we could have spent more time with folks too!!!

 

[2goofycampers]

This is it.

The last of my photos.


And with that, I'm finished with another one.


TCD

Aww, it's like having to leave The Fort all over again.


Great report as usual.