Mem'ries dark the corners of my mind...

[CottontailCurl]

Does anyone have any memories of bad stuff that happened to you or your family at Fort Wilderness? The majority of the not-so-happy memories are the result of negligence on our part. FW CMs even took a bad thing I did and made it better.

3 Bad things that happened to us, worst first;

1) I forgot the tent poles!! Yes, I (read this part with a deep voice and resounding echo) THE LIST MAKER, did not pack the tent poles. How could you forget an important thing like that, you say? Our tent was stored in its original box which included a smaller box with poles and a huge bag that held the tent. The previous halloween I used the larger tent box to make a costume for my son (pez despenser, it was pretty good if I do say so myself). But, when it came time to pack, 'the tent' on my list that used to have everything in one place became 'the tent' only and the poles stayed at home. I can't tell you how upset I was at myself, we had all our equipment spread out on the site, not able to set up and we were faced with (GASP!) the possibility of staying at a hotel on 192. I would rather stay on the ground at Mickey Mouse's back yard than go to a hotel. We went to check out and I was still upset, having to check out on the day you checked in is unnatural, it's inhumane. The CM asked why we were checking out, I told my story, she says that they have tents there and we could use them. I say that the cost of the campsite plus the cost of the tent rental would equal a night at a hotel. She said she hadn't planned on making us rent the tent, she was trying to help us out and they would let us use it for our stay. If you were ever checking in or out of FW and saw a woman lean over the check-in desk at the far right and hug the CM, that was me!! A very lovely older gentleman set the tent up for us, we offered to help him but he said we weren't allowed. Lemons out of lemonade? Glass half full? I don't know, but I do know that I believe in Disney's brand of magic.

2. We were evacuated from FW for Floyd the wonder hurricane in '99.

3. We set up our camping gear differently one trip and the combination of how we set up plus a lot of rain had us get rain in the tent and rain on our wonderful refrigerator/cooler. It still works but it makes an annoying rattling noise. We moved our tent closer to the side instead of right in the middle so the edge of our tent and tarp were in a run off gulley at the side of the site, lesson learned about changing a routine that works. It is also a good thing to use air mattresses in case you do get rain in your tent for some reason; our sleeping bags were unaffected but a family next to us had every one of their sleeping bags get soaking wet.

4. The only bad memory I have (unless those to painful to remember, I simply choose to forget) of something a CM did was at Trail's End Buffet one morning at breakfast. Our server came to take our drink orders, brought them to us and then never came back again. Not even to re-fill my husband's coffee (not to mention any other drink, but no coffee refill with breakfast is uncivilized!!). The server was busy sucking up to a table filled with a group that only had adults aged 60+ at it (there were maybe 10 or so). I'd be forgiving if he were only running around getting their drinks and such, but he was entertaining them. He ran down to the tavern area and did something with a napkin, then brought it back up to their table to show them, they loved it, etc, etc. Our tables were side by side and we even tried to get his attention by holding our hands out in front of him as he went by and calling out, but he kept on keeping on. I only mentioned the ages of the folks at the table because my kids were younger at the time. I don't know if he had preset ideas of tips that come from families with kids, and if that was the case he wouldn't know the irony of that. My husband was a server early on in his life and as a result is a way crazy tipper. Anyway, to say I was PO'd would be putting it mildly and just when I was about to blow a gasket a manager appeared, I told him his server wasn't serving everyone, and could he ask someone to make me a tea to go because I was choking from the 17 Mickey waffles I'd eaten without a drink (not really, I wish I could say I was able to make jokes at that point). I left, while my words were still in the air. He brought the drink personally to our table and talked to my husband about it. Luckily we went back to the breakfast buffet for later trips or we wouldn't have met Ken. We you Ken!!

 

[drafthorsecrazy]

Bad things? Hmm.... that dreaded envelope they place on your windshield then expect you to leave!!!!!

 

[Rhonda]

On our very first FW trip, back in 1983, we had our cooler stolen the first morning, after we went to the parks. Of course, it was still full because it was early in the stay. We reported it, and later that evening a CM came by on a golf cart with our empty cooler! He found it floating down the river behind the campsites!

We've never had anything bad happen since then. And, we still leave our coolers and everything out in our screen tent during the day while we're at the parks.

 

[Colson39]

Well, these are what I can remember:

1) We had a similar experience with waiter service at Trails End Buffet. Our waiter was busy paying attention to one certain table (who they seemed to know personally), and it took us forever to get our food. That's alright, we just had more time to order drinks from the Tavern...lol!

2) We were assigned a site that was not very condusive to slide outs. We were able to position the camper to allow the slide outs to expand, but we barely had any room on the other side to extend the canopy. Fortunately, the site was gorgeous and very private. You could sit outside the front door, and only the swamp area and a very large Cypress tree were visible, couldn't see another single site at all. Luckily it didn't rain much that weekend either!

3) Some cousins of mine were visiting from Colorado, and they had with them two of their kids, around the ages of 8 or 9. I took them on a trip on the golf cart, and at one point one of them decided it would be a smart idea to jump off the back of the cart, hang onto the side, and try to run with it. By the time I realized what he was doing, he was already face first in the pavement. He really wasn't even hurt all that bad, but I felt so bad having to bring my cousins kid to him with a bloody face. I think I spent more time apologizing than he did caring...lol!

4) When they shut down River County. That was terrible!!!!

 

[Colson39]

On our very first FW trip, back in 1983, we had our cooler stolen the first morning, after we went to the parks. Of course, it was still full because it was early in the stay. We reported it, and later that evening a CM came by on a golf cart with our empty cooler! He found it floating down the river behind the campsites!

We've never had anything bad happen since then. And, we still leave our coolers and everything out in our screen tent during the day while we're at the parks.

Ugh, that's horrible, especially on your first trip Maybe someone thought a cooler was better than a canoe?

I have to admit though, the fact that they actually found the cooler, wow

 

[proudmomof4]

Well, where do I start?

July 2003.....tent camping.......1st day there, we set up 2 tents and a screen house, we were really proud of our setup, then, at 9:00 PM a freak storm came through and the rain was just pouring buckets, we all ran for our tents (2 big boys in one tent and me, DH and 2 little boys in other tent). The rain was coming down so hard it was dripping thru the roof, the sides and coming up from the floor, then the lightning struck a tree right outside our tent. We decided to get the kids into safer quarters and my DH told me to take the kids and run while he tried to get our sleeping gear out, by the time I got the 4 kids into the car and went back to help DH, the tent (old cabin tent) was collapsing from the weight of the water, I ran back and forth with pillows, blankets, etc. On the last trip back, I saw the tent was down and my husband was trapped inside crawling around because he couldn't find the door, I helped him out and we sat at the CS with all the other rained out tent campers. When the rain finally let up at about 12:00 am, we went up to the outpost to get directions to Walmart so we could buy a new tent, and even the whole parking lot was flooded with water up to our knees. I had to stay up that whole night drying our sleeping stuff in the laundry room. That was our last trip tent camping.........we now have a pop-up.

On the same trip we discovered that my youngest son is severely allergic to mosquito bites, we all got a rash from the water at Typhoon Lagoon and my youngest was attacked by a swarm of wasps who had built a nest under the bleachers of the campfire program, he was stung many times in the legs and chest.

 

[breick]

Fred, our croaking frog (motion sensor), was stolen from in front of our campsite! Little kids always came by to hear him croak...

 

[Tinkerbellchick820]

well,last year was our first time ever going to disney world, and first i just wanna say that im completly addicited to the place! LoL! but anywho, im a freak when it comes to bugs and stuff, well, down in FL, i guess they have these little brown lizards ALL over the place....well, at night time, when we would be coming back from the parks, we would go to the bath houses and change into our pjs. well, i would go and be freaked out b/c all the lizards would be ALL OVER the womens bathroom door, so i would make my best friend (a guy) go into the guys room and make sure they would all the clear and then i would go in there and change......practically every night..yup. the lizards wouldnt be on the boys door....it sucked...other than that, we constantly smelt fish oders..yuck, and we would have an armidillo come right up on our campsite! freaky, but we would be sleeping and b/c my family wanted to sleep in a tent, we could feel the armidillo rub up against our arms and hands....yikes! but i made it through and it was ok...im just not much of a outdoors person...u guys have horrible stories and mine seems like nothing. but if u knew me, it was MAJOR!!!! LOL!

 

[Smooshdog]

We once had some tent problems thanks to a horrible rainstorm. It caused a huge puddle on the top of the tent which lead to our poles breaking.

Then at River Country my brother couldn't find the rest of us, so he left and went back to the campsite. My parents got really worried about him and told the lifeguards, who then screamed "BODY SEARCH!!!" That lead to my mother becoming extremly upset thinking one of her five children was dead. Fortunately, my brother was just at the campsite but for about an hour at River Country things seemed really bad.

Oh and one time on a boat from MK back to FW the boat was overloaded with people and we were sitting in the back. The back started to sink leading to my brother (the one who was lost at RC...but now several years older) jumps and screams, "WE'RE GOING DOWN!!!" Everyone had to run to the front of the boat and thankfully the boat did not sink in the middle of bay lake because that would have been a long swim after a long day at MK. That happens to be a great memory, it was really funny.