Has Anyone Heard how FW did after Charley?

[yoopermom]

We chose to cut our visit short and did a "cut and run" on Thursday, which left me heartbroke, but it was our choice. I had a LONG talk with Doug (the GM, I think) on Weds. p.m. about the pet situation, because our beagle, who was with us, is petrified of storms. He actually called over to the MK kennels with me there, and they confirmed that a CM would stay with all the pets as long as the storm went on. Overflow from that kennel would go to the Epcot kennel. He really allayed many of my worries about how they would take care of the pets. The only reason I didn't stay was that he could not guarantee that we'd be able to get bus service from whatever resort they put us up at to the kennel to walk our dog. I would have been a nervous wreck if I would have had to leave him alone for 24 hrs. or more. I cannot praise the Ft W staff enough for the way they handled the whole situation.

The power outage earlier in the week was scary, in that it was REALLY dark, but they said that there were six loops without electric, and ours was back on within half an hour. I use a breathing machine at night, and, when told this, the CM immediately offered to move us. I declined, since it turned out to be fixed quickly.

I also had two packages "in transit" waiting to be delivered from the parks to Ft W, and CMs handled rerouting both to our home, instead (altho neither has showed up yet, ten days later).

The CMs at Ft W are totally the best, and I'm planning on writing a letter to the higher ups to tell them so.
Terri

 

[DVCDAVE]

My experoemce with packages being sent to your home, is that it takes a good 14 days.

 

[emanuel]

We weren't sure if we wanted to stay or go. We finally opted to stay. Disney did provide for our safety very well.

I thought the FW staff was exceptional. The person that cleaned our room was wonderful. I plan on writing a letter commending her. The poor person at the front gate on Friday (the 13th) was terrific.

The staff at Port Orleans was not so great, except for the upper management. There should have been more staff at the Port Orleans handling the new guests. The longest line I was in was at the Port Orleans. We had 1 person from the front desk tell us that we no longer had a room when we had already extended our reservation. We pointed out that a manager had already told us we could have the room. She replied "that was this morning, our cruise ships are returning and we need the rooms."

I think Disney did a poor job moving us. Maybe I expected too much from them. As I also said, they did provide for our safety which was of course the most important thing. I couldn't believe that we NEVER lost power in Port Orleans.

When did you lose power in FW? I guess we were lucky.

 

[TmnsnMD]

I agree that the staff at Fort Wilderness was great at keeping everyone informed and up to date on what was happening. Port Orleans was ok -- just not like being at the Fort!

I found that the laundry had many washers and dryers that were out of order, the change machine did not work either. I went to the food court register to get $2.00 in quarters and was told “no” go to the front desk (I was annoyed with this and made a comment to my DH that I guess they don’t use cash in the food court anymore -- that was out of line and I’m sorry if anyone heard me say that to him). But, it was a real pain in the neck to have to keep going to guest relations to get more quarters and then have them tell you they only have $3 worth, it takes $4 to wash & dry, maybe more if you are drying jean shorts!!!

We did not have any trouble extending our stay until Mon, matter of fact we received a call Sun asking us to come to guest relations to do exactly that or our key cards would not work after midnight.

We were waiting on packages also -- they at first could not find them (MK to FW then FW to POFQ). I did my own investigation and found them still at FW, they advised they would have them sent to POFQ right away and after that there was no problem.

Hope the shuffle didn’t put to much of a damper on your vacation. We try to role with what happens, but there are times when that just doesn’t happen.

TmnsnMD

 

[yoopermom]

The one thing I forgot to mention was that I found it interesting that at least you got put up in "real" rooms (I assume for the same price?). I was told by a number of CMs that the convention centers were often used for us "camping castaways", so I pictured having to pull all the bedding out of the mh and sleep in the middle of the floor!

So, how long was bus service actually shut down for? Fri noon-Sun a.m.?

And, I agree, that it was ridiculous that you couldn't get quarters. That's what's known as going the extra Disney mile for guests, esp. since the cm should have known the situation you were in.

We would have had to leave on Monday, anyways, so maybe we didn't miss as much as we thought!
Terri

 

[TmnsnMD]

When I called the front desk at FW a CM told me that we “may” end up in conference rooms instead of hotel rooms. But, fortunately, we did get a nice room with beds (haha). There were no additional charges for the rooms - even exchange, but it was like checking in all over again - it was like our information from FW did not transfer over (need address, phone #, would you like charge privileges, blood type ......). For us it wasn’t offal, just not the Fort! We did go out to the trailer and do breakfast one morning and dinner one night - a lot $ cheaper $ , a lot more food, and it tasted just the way we like it!

Bus service -- I’m not sure, but I think it stopped on Fri after the parks closed and I was told some people were told the buses would not start back until 12 noon on Sat, but we were there at
around 9am and everything was running (just slow and crowded).

I hope next time we go to WDW we don’t have to deal with a hurricane - this one was to close for comfort. A security guard told DH that areas around Disney (like 3 stop lights away) were hit hard - but we did not see great damage on Disney property. We did not loose power at all, we did loose the cable a couple of times, but it came right back. We saw trees down and some
flooding - this in minor compared to what the other areas of FL are dealing with.

TmnsnMD

 

[Lizziemom]

We arrived at the Fort on Sat, the day after the hurricane. We were given a room at Port Orleans, Riverside. We had a dog that we dropped off at the kennel. We did not have to pay for the kennel, and we did not keep her there for long.

The parking lot at Riverside and French Qtr looked like a camping rally. Some people were making the best of it and had their chairs out, flowers next to the entry door and the sliders in the RV out. It was actually pretty funny.

After the first afternoon on Sat, we took the dog out of the kennel and put her in the motorhome with the generator running. We were not the only ones. We saw alot of people camping out in their campers in the parking lot. My husband slept in the motorhome with the dog, while my son and I slept in the hotel room.

We spent 2 days at Riverside and then on Mon noon moved to the campground. Disney did a good job of keeping us informed and we knew what was going on.

When we arrived at Fort Wilderness, we did not have to go in or go thru the normal entry. We lined up in the parking lot, and they assigned us campsites via 2 way radio. It was so fast, and efficent. My husband talked with someone sho told him they have practiced this.

We had rented a golf cart for Sat. When we arrived at the rental barn they had 2 windows open. One was for returning guset that were displaced, and one for guests that had their original reservation for the 14, 15 or 16. Again very efficient, and preplanning was obvoious.

Eventhough we only spent 4 nights instead of 6 at the Fort, we had a wonderful time and were impressed by the efficiency of checking into both Riverside and the Fort.

Can't wait to go back.

Lizzie

 

[tci1212]

We just got back from 6 days in FW. We checked in on Sunday and of course it was closed so they put us up in Saratoga Springs Resort. My sister and I had 2 cabins reserved so when we were put in Saratoga Springs they gave us 2 ,1 bedroom Villas. My sons wanted to stay there the rest of the trip! The staff at Fw was very nice and we were given a letter in our rooms at Saratoga stating we could come back on Monday after 12:00 pm.
We waited until 5:00 pm and they gave us cabins in the 2600 loop. We also had a FW pin and Chocolate candy with a Thank you card. I do have pictures of some of the fallen trees in the campground if I can figure out how to post them I will. All in all we had a great vacation, the weather was very Hot!

 

[mja451]

We left Aug. 4 after a two week stay in the 2700 loop. I hope you can figure out how to post the pictures. Nobody has posted any of FW as of yet. I saw some of WL. Most of the damage seemed to be trees down. But since the best part of FW for us is the trees and "outdoorsy" flavor it would be interesting to see how many came down.