CottontailCurl
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2006
- Messages
- 904
How's everyone??!! I found Disboards a couple months ago when a search at Google for something completely unrelated to Disney brought up a trip report from a Dad and his son's cubscout camping trip to Fort Wilderness. We had no plans of going back to the Disney area for a while but the descriptions of my favorite campground had me yearning to return. Two months later, we have reservations to camp in September for my birthday 
, and it all started with simple search (I know a lot of us think it started with a mouse!!).
We have stayed at Fort Wilderness several times since we started going to Disney World and we have been hooked since the first time we passed Mickey's sign at the entrance. I love sleeping under the stars in Mickey Mouse's backyard, I love that his house is a boat ride away, I love how friendly the folks at Fort Wilderness are (I sent them a letter once telling them that they had me at 'howdy'!), we love how clean the comfort stations are (when my daughter was younger she loved how they magically kept spiders out of the restrooms!!). Happiness is sitting near the music of Pioneer Hall and just being.
Our trailer of choice is a 13 foot beauty, OK it's really a tent! Our last camping trip to the World we noticed the kids were getting too big for the tent (9 x 13) so we went back and forth in talks between pop-ups, small travel-trailers and Class C's and finally decided to just upgrade to a bigger tent. What can I say? We like tenting! - well, it took a trip or two to bring my husband around to it, he said he'd had enough of camping in the Army. I try not to be too drill sargentish when I'm waking everyone up at 0dark30 (hey, I let them sleep late once -it was raining and the sound of the rain on the tarp above us was so nice we didn't get up until 8:00!)
I'll end this intro of my family with a story from one of our earlier trips to Fort Wilderness; It was after a full day in the parks, the kids were showered and fast asleep in the tent (they were around 3, 5, 7 and 9), my husband was at the comfort station and I was standing at the side door of our conversion van loading up fanny packs with the next day's snacks. I was deeply absorbed in the equal distribution of pudding, granola bars and trail mix when I heard the rustling of leaves and twigs coming from the area behind and to the side of the tent. It wasn't just the snap of a twig and soft leaf sound, it was the sound of something coming in my direction, slowly but surely. In all my planning to get us to Walt Disney World, my only problem with Fort Wilderness was the possibility of alligators at our campsite and here I stood with the sounds of something slow and lumbering coming toward me. I looked around for a weapon and all I found was a flashlight! I'd blind it to death!! Did I mention it was very dark? We don't use strings of lights, we usually have one small lantern that does the job but this night I was wishing for more. So I jump up onto the running board of the van and get the flashlight at the ready when I realize I haven't given a single thought to the kids who are sound asleep way over there next to the noise (Mother of the Year!!). I realized that the noise was now closer and had moved up to the area in the trees that was near the back of the van, I'm desperate at this point and start making ch ch noises like you do to a cat you want to go away
when it gets a final burst of speed and comes out of the trees right at me! It was an armadillo. And he was cute and slow and lumbering and looking for a snack, I think. It waddled around the campsite and then went back into the woods and I felt a little bit sheepish but a whole lot thankful.
That's Us!! I hope to see you at Fort Wilderness someday.
Angie
, and it all started with simple search (I know a lot of us think it started with a mouse!!).We have stayed at Fort Wilderness several times since we started going to Disney World and we have been hooked since the first time we passed Mickey's sign at the entrance. I love sleeping under the stars in Mickey Mouse's backyard, I love that his house is a boat ride away, I love how friendly the folks at Fort Wilderness are (I sent them a letter once telling them that they had me at 'howdy'!), we love how clean the comfort stations are (when my daughter was younger she loved how they magically kept spiders out of the restrooms!!). Happiness is sitting near the music of Pioneer Hall and just being.
Our trailer of choice is a 13 foot beauty, OK it's really a tent! Our last camping trip to the World we noticed the kids were getting too big for the tent (9 x 13) so we went back and forth in talks between pop-ups, small travel-trailers and Class C's and finally decided to just upgrade to a bigger tent. What can I say? We like tenting! - well, it took a trip or two to bring my husband around to it, he said he'd had enough of camping in the Army. I try not to be too drill sargentish when I'm waking everyone up at 0dark30 (hey, I let them sleep late once -it was raining and the sound of the rain on the tarp above us was so nice we didn't get up until 8:00!)
I'll end this intro of my family with a story from one of our earlier trips to Fort Wilderness; It was after a full day in the parks, the kids were showered and fast asleep in the tent (they were around 3, 5, 7 and 9), my husband was at the comfort station and I was standing at the side door of our conversion van loading up fanny packs with the next day's snacks. I was deeply absorbed in the equal distribution of pudding, granola bars and trail mix when I heard the rustling of leaves and twigs coming from the area behind and to the side of the tent. It wasn't just the snap of a twig and soft leaf sound, it was the sound of something coming in my direction, slowly but surely. In all my planning to get us to Walt Disney World, my only problem with Fort Wilderness was the possibility of alligators at our campsite and here I stood with the sounds of something slow and lumbering coming toward me. I looked around for a weapon and all I found was a flashlight! I'd blind it to death!! Did I mention it was very dark? We don't use strings of lights, we usually have one small lantern that does the job but this night I was wishing for more. So I jump up onto the running board of the van and get the flashlight at the ready when I realize I haven't given a single thought to the kids who are sound asleep way over there next to the noise (Mother of the Year!!). I realized that the noise was now closer and had moved up to the area in the trees that was near the back of the van, I'm desperate at this point and start making ch ch noises like you do to a cat you want to go away
when it gets a final burst of speed and comes out of the trees right at me! It was an armadillo. And he was cute and slow and lumbering and looking for a snack, I think. It waddled around the campsite and then went back into the woods and I felt a little bit sheepish but a whole lot thankful.That's Us!! I hope to see you at Fort Wilderness someday.
Angie
