July 4th fun at the Fort trip report

[rm0530]

Hi everyone, it’s time for another trip report! This will be my second trip report. If you’d missed my first and would like to read, you can find it here
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2479767&highlight=anniversary

We just returned home from 5 nights at the Fort. Our travel dates were 6/30-7/5. We stayed in a partial site at #2064. This was my DH and my second trip together to the Fort. This time we brought along his sister and her boyfriend.

Day 1- June 30th:

We woke up at 6:30am, loaded SIL and her things into the car by 7:30, picked up the BF, and were on the interstate by 8am. We followed our trip tradition and made a short detour for breakfast at Chick-fil-a. The GPS quoted us as arriving at 2:19pm. We were finished checking-in and driving to the site at 2:19pm. I was originally against buying a GPS but I’ve slowly become an accepting fan.

We had to borrow the van from DH's parents. My Jeep would not hold two more people and their stuff. As you can tell, we are not light packers.

Oh you know, just cleaning windows in a Walmart parking lot.

I had done online check-in 10 days prior and had DH fax our site request 7 days before we left. We wanted the 1500 loop near a comfort station. We weren’t able to take bikes this time and we wanted to be closer to things. We were placed in 2000 loop right in front of the bathroom and bus stop. We also had the walking path for the comfort station to the right of our site. DH was not happy with the amount of foot traffic and road noise we experienced. In the end, I was happy with our placement. Our site had plenty of room for our setup. I enjoyed being near the bathroom. It was nice to see the buses and know when we could expect the next one to arrive, and it was nice to walk straight from the bus to our site after a long day.

Just a sampling of our things. I can't wait for children and everything they require

Still deciding on placement

Final product

I read this idea on the resort boards on how to organize a value room. I decided to try it and was very pleased with the results. The rest of the group was very impressed. It was nice to have everything in reach and not dig through buckets constantly.

Inside our tent

After setting up, we drove over to Downtown Disney around 6:30pm. Our first stop was Earl of Sandwich. After waiting in line, waiting for a table, and eating, it was time to let the boys build a dino! It was a fun experience to watch them have fun. There’s something about vacation (and Disney) that helps people drop their guard and be silly.

Pre-stuffing

Deciding on names

Final product

Building dinos was hard work so we visited Ghirardelli for a sundae.

After our healthy nourishment, it was time for shopping at World of Disney.

SIL found a Dumbo plush and I found a Pooh plush. We made it back to the site around 10pm, showered, and got much needed sleep for our early morning on day 2.

 

[Born 2 Fish]

Love your report, ,,hope theres more.
Great pics !
Looks like ya'll did a very nice job sett'n everything up and the lighted Mickey head was the perfect touch.
Nice job you guys!

 

[blm2003]

Great report so far, looks like your trip got off to a fun start! Hope to hear more about it soon

 

[ghester]

Loving your trip report

 

[Minnie&Mickey]

So what did they name their dinosaurs???

Loving the trip report! Keep it coming!

 

[rm0530]

Thanks guys I'm about to start working on day 2.

As for dino names, my DH chose Bartholomew (Bart) and BF chose Brock.

 

[DisCamper]

This is the site next to us I can’t believe it

 

[rm0530]

WWLD, right?

 

[rm0530]

Day 2- July 1st:
Our first day in the parks. We were headed to Islands of Adventure. SIL and I have been Harry Potter fans since the books were released back in our middle school days. We thought about going for the opening weekend but I taught a summer class June 7-18 and it would have been too rushed. After reading all the reports from opening day and seeing the pictures of the insane lines, I was quite happy to be teaching.

That morning we set the alarms for 6am. We knew we had to arrive early to avoid crazy crowds. We left the Fort at 7:15 and pulled into Universal’s parking garage at 7:45.

The first glimpse of the castle from the Islands entrance

The Islands weren’t scheduled to open till 9am. At 8:15, we got into the waiting line to enter the Harry Potter area. When people entered the line, workers were passing out tickets we needed to turn in to enter the area.

Our location in line, back in Jurassic Park area. The line was still inching towards the land after we rode Forbidden Journey.

At 9, we were walking into the land. We headed straight for the Forbidden Journey ride and the sign listed a 50 minute wait. After placing our bags into the lockers, we were off! I don’t have any pictures of the queue line or castle because of the locker requirement. I do wish they would have designed more of the line to be inside the castle. We spent about 30 minutes waiting outside in the greenhouse area that was lacking in a sufficient number of fans. I was pleased with Universal’s system for quoting line waits. Each wait time for accurate or even quoted higher than the amount of time we waited. For the FJ ride, we were leaving our lockers at 9:50. After we left the ride, the line had gone up to a 90 minute wait.

Backside of Hogsmead Village

Still waiting to be allowed into the area

We had wanted to do some shopping but it didn’t work out too well. The shops are designed to be very small. I’ve read that JK Rowling wanted everything built to scale of how they were in the series. That idea doesn’t work for a theme park environment. Each store had a line at least 50 people long waiting to get inside. Once a few people left, the employee working the door would let a few others inside. There was no shade or umbrellas. We decided to come back later in the day and hoped we’d have better luck.

We rode Flight of the Hippogriff (renamed Flying Unicorn) and on the red side of Dragon Challenge (renamed Dueling Dragons) and then went to find some butterbeer. The cart outside had a constant line of 20-30 people (noticing a trend?), so we went into Hog’s Head pub to get our drinks and we got to enjoy the shaded patio behind the restaurant. Butterbeer is amazing but oh-so-sweet. DH and I shared a cup of frozen.

$4.25 with tax

SIL purchased one of the souvenir mugs. Was about $11

After our drink break, we left the HP area to see some other lands. We used the singles line as much as possible. We rode Spiderman, Dudley Do-Right, Popeye, Poseidon’s Fury, and saw Sindbad’s stunt show. We had brought sandwiches for lunch and headed to the car for a break around noon. Both boys took a short nap. We saw the stunt show at 3:30 and went to Poseidon after that. When we left Poseidon, there was a huge storm happening. Me and DH had our rain jackets and SIL and BF had ponchos they purchased at World of Disney the night before. We decided to use the rain to our advantage and go shopping at HP area since the rain surely cleared out the lines. On the way, we had to mush through 2 inches of rain. The Islands needs better drainage. Sure enough the HP area was empty but it was because everyone had run inside the stores to hide from the rain. After this experience of trying to see some of the merchandise, we had had enough Islands of Adventure. We sloshed back to the car at 6pm.

Post Islands picture. Notice the difference in the area of shorts not covered by ponchos. It was cold and uncomfortable weather.

Pumpkin juice. It was very yummy but that bottle was $6.25

I had planned on making tacos that night for dinner but after the early morning, fighting the crowds, and massive rain storm, we were all exhausted. We found a KFC by Sea World and purchased a Fan Feast. We were still soaking wet and ate inside the car rather than go shiver in the A/C. After 14 pieces of chicken and 3 sides of mashed potatoes and gravy, we cleaned up the empty boxes (not even kidding) and drove to Publix to get some items I forgot to pack.

I had wanted to go down to the Fort beach and see the nightastic fireworks but wouldn’t you know, it started to rain AGAIN. I sat in the laundry room for over an hour drying our clothes and towels we had left on the clothes line that morning. We all went to bed at 11pm for our next park day.

 

[Born 2 Fish]

Good stuff ,
Am really enjoying this !

 

[indimom3]

I'm sorry you got rained out at Universal!
I can't imagine what pumpkin juice tastes like.

 

[Tri-circle-D]

rm0530- Great job so far on your second TR! Y'all visit the Fort almost as much as TCD! As a matter of fact, I just got back from a July 2-6th visit. I saw your set-up on the 2000 loop, but did not realize that it was you. I would have liked to have inspected your DH's air conditioning system first hand. Do you know that BigDaddyRog was just a few sites down from you? You certainly couldn't have missed him!

TCD

 

[Lil' Lisa]

Enjoying your report so far!

 

[rm0530]

I'm sorry you got rained out at Universal!
I can't imagine what pumpkin juice tastes like.

It rained the entire trip but the day at the Islands was the worst. Luckily we had good sunlight during set-up.

The pumpkin juice was actually yummy. It was similar to spiced apple cider with a hint of pumpkin pie flavor.

rm0530- Great job so far on your second TR! Y'all visit the Fort almost as much as TCD! As a matter of fact, I just got back from a July 2-6th visit. I saw your set-up on the 2000 loop, but did not realize that it was you. I would have liked to have inspected your DH's air conditioning system first hand. Do you know that BigDaddyRog was just a few sites down from you? You certainly couldn't have missed him!

TCD

We love the Fort! I was glad we could share it with some of our family. DH's parents and SIL and BF are coming with us for our Labor day trip. My parents are coming with us for our Columbus day trip. New Year's Eve is just us though

I actually spotted you 3 times. Twice from our site while you were looping and then once on a boat to WL. Me and SIL were 3 or so benches behind you and the TCD twins.

I did spot Rog's cart going around the loop with a bunch of girls, but never noticed Rog. We didn't venture around the loop since we were right across from the CS and bus.

 

[Tri-circle-D]

I actually spotted you 3 times. Twice from our site while you were looping and then once on a boat to WL. Me and SIL were 3 or so benches behind you and the TCD twins.

Wow! Three TCD sightings on one trip! That must be some kind of record.

I am sorry that we did not meet. Next time, say hello!

TCD

 

[3girlsfun]

Loving the reports, and longing to go to Harry Potter! I can't wait to experience that! It looks great, and I must say, I am a huge HP fan, and I would have waded through the rain too!

Looking forward to the rest of the report!

 

[rm0530]

Day 3- July 2nd:
Our second park day at Universal Studios. Our original plan was Magic Kingdom on this day for 12-3am EMH. We had a dessert party booked also. Two weeks before we left, they changed the calendar and moved the EMH to Saturday night. SIL and BF wanted to change our MK day because they were only buying a 1 day pass and wanted the most for their money. I hated to miss the dessert party. I hope they extend it past summer nightastic and we can book it for another trip this year.

Looking back, I’m not sure why we went there other than we hadn’t been since 2006. I took 505 pictures on this trip. 8 of them were at Universal Studios. That probably says it all. But I don’t want to neglect you guys so here we go.

It was much harder for us to get moving today. I think the traveling, the early morning on the day before, and the drenching we received caught up to us. I was always the first one up and made enough noise to bother the rest of my group to get moving (or so they say). I woke up at 7:30, got ready, and started getting dinner together to put into the crock pot. After everyone got ready, we drove out at 9:15. We were in no hurry to get to Universal today; I knew all the crowds would be over at Islands.

We rode Simpsons, MIB, Mummy, Disaster, and DH rode Rip Ride Rockit. Wow, after writing that down, Universal really doesn’t have much.

I think my favorite part of the day was my watermelon Icee. We ate lunch at Richter’s Burger Co. I wasn’t impressed. I think the biggest problem I have with Universal is the non-immersive environment. While waiting in line for MIB, they had Naughty by Nature playing on the speakers and during lunch, we heard Santana. I don’t feel like I’ve escaped real life the same way I feel at Disney. By 3pm, we had had enough Universal and were ready for something Disney.

What sort of Disney did we go experience? Fantasia Gardens Mini-golf!

We had not used any of the Disney courses before but the 50% discount for passholders and up to 3 guests helped get us there. Disney has two mini golf courses on property. Each course has two different sides to choose from. We decided on the Gardens course.

Each hole marker had tips to help you score the lowest amount of strokes. I wondered how many people actually read these.

Tower of Terror

Me, SIL, and BF all tied for 1st place. DH said he wasn’t trying and that’s why he came in last.

Around 5pm, we headed back to the Fort for our dinner. We made pulled pork sandwiches and brought our Sonny’s sweet BBQ sauce from our house. We buy big jugs of this stuff at Sam’s club. It’s that amazing.

No undies here!

I was kind enough to allow DH to clean up dinner since I prepared it while he was asleep that morning. The boys wanted to lay down and rest so SIL and I changed into our bathing suits and caught a bus to the Meadows. I didn’t have a chance to explore this area in May and I really enjoyed our walking tour.

The water was almost too warm to be refreshing

 

[rm0530]

Day 3 continued:

We played in the pool (guess which two 20-somethings used the slide multiple times) and dried off/changed at 7:15. The boys were supposed to meet us at the campfire at 7:30.

We arrived early and look what was happening! Free!

When the boys arrived at the campfire area, they came with bad news. Our A/C unit had died. Their best guess was due to all the rain and it had become waterlogged. We hadn’t covered it perfectly and the constant rain was hating on us. So the next three nights we only had 1 tiny fan (you can see it back in day 1 on top of the fridge) to help us from passing out. The most annoying part of this entire ordeal? The A/C turned on and worked just fine when we were back at home and unloading things. Luckily we won’t have to buy a replacement for our next camping trip and we learned our lesson about proper rain coverage.

We made smores and roasted marshmallows, stayed for the singing, met a chipmunk, and then headed out before the movie to catch a bus to the beach. I had three favorite things from this trip. The first was the campfire and sing along. I will cover the other two favorite things later in the report.

When we got to the beach, we grabbed seats on the far left of the first row. While waiting for the EWP and fireworks, I was able to pass on information about River Country, Discovery Island, and the brain eating amoebas. The EWP was pretty but DH wasn’t too impressed.

We didn’t hear any sound during the fireworks. Is there a special area in the marina where the music can be heard? Not having music put a damper on the overall experience.

We hopped on a bus back to the 2000 loop after the fireworks and went straight to sleep for our early morning on Saturday.

 

[Minnie&Mickey]

Thanks guys I'm about to start working on day 2.

As for dino names, my DH chose Bartholomew (Bart) and BF chose Brock.

Great names!

 

[anolefan]

Awesome report.

I love the AC and the pulled pork looks yummmm!!