Newbie here!

[Stephanie239]

Hello!! We are going to Ft Wilderness Aug 4-10. Just booked it a couple days ago....yep, we are spontaneous. It will be me, hubby and 3 kiddos. We also just bought our camper about a week ago. We are so excited! We will be driving over from SE Texas. Thanks for all the great info on this board. I'm having alot of fun reading and look forward to sharing our trip.

Stephanie

 

[ftwildernessguy]

You might consider doing a dry run some weekend with the camper at a local campground prior to your FW trip, just to test the waters and work out any bugs.

 

[Stephanie239]

Definitely! We may do that this wkend. If we don't float away first that is. The rain has been awful here! We have lots of great places within an hr or 2 from our home....lake, woods, beach. Thanks for the advice!

 

[AuburnJen92]

You might consider doing a dry run some weekend with the camper at a local campground prior to your FW trip, just to test the waters and work out any bugs.

I totally agree. When we first bought our KIWI like Ftwildernessguy, we did a dry run about two weekends before we went, and we were sure glad we did. We found out we needed a repair and learned some things as well. Very good advice FWG.

 

[camreesmom]

Hello!! We are going to Ft Wilderness Aug 4-10. Just booked it a couple days ago....yep, we are spontaneous. It will be me, hubby and 3 kiddos. We also just bought our camper about a week ago. We are so excited! We will be driving over from SE Texas. Thanks for all the great info on this board. I'm having alot of fun reading and look forward to sharing our trip.

Stephanie

Hey Stephanie, we'll be there around the same time. We're also driving from Texas and we'll leave here on the 4th, get to the World on the 5th. We're staying the 5th-12th. How old are your kids??? I'm not looking forward to the drive!

 

[Stephanie239]

Hey Stephanie, we'll be there around the same time. We're also driving from Texas and we'll leave here on the 4th, get to the World on the 5th. We're staying the 5th-12th. How old are your kids??? I'm not looking forward to the drive!

Oh, I'm not looking forward to the drive either. I have a 13 yr old daughter, 8 yr old daughter, and my son will be 5 this month. We are leaving on the 3rd to arrive on the 4th. What part of Texas are ya in? We are near Beaumont. I can not wait! I've never been to MK.... only been to Epcot for a day and that was 20yrs ago.

Stephanie

 

[camreesmom]

Oh, I'm not looking forward to the drive either. I have a 13 yr old daughter, 8 yr old daughter, and my son will be 5 this month. We are leaving on the 3rd to arrive on the 4th. What part of Texas are ya in? We are near Beaumont. I can not wait! I've never been to MK.... only been to Epcot for a day and that was 20yrs ago.

Stephanie

We're right on the coast, 90 miles south of Houston. So we have an even longer drive than you do! Are you planning on driving straight thru? We'll have our kids plus some extras with us. Twin DS15, DSS 12, DD11, DD8, and DD4. Plus we are taking my mom and my nephew who is 11. So we'll be a loud bunch, I'm sure! I'm the only one who has been and that was back in 1984 with only one day at MK and one day at Epcot. The kids are so excited!

~Julie

 

[ghendricks]

we will be leaving west texas on the 11th to try to make it by the 14th. we are also a newbie, but ours is a year old. we are staying in the 1400 loop somewhere. anyone know how hard the spots are to get into. i have a 31 foor 5er

 

[Escape Artist]

Hey, nobody told me all the Texans were going in August! Seriously, with the new school schedule, I bet a lot more people will be going in late summer. (And yeah, I hate the new law; it messed up my plans.)

Anyways, it's not a bad drive. We went in May/June, had some road construction then but no closures. If you're staying overnight in a hotel anywhere near Gulfport, Mississippi, be sure you have a reservation! According to the guy at our hotel, half their hotel rooms are gone since Katrina, and on busy summer weekends, they get full.

You'll still see storm damage from Katrina & Rita, lots of tarps on roofs and twisted woods areas. On the way home, we stayed on 10 to loop south by New Orleans, and the amount of abandoned housing still there astounds me. I couldn't talk DH into driving our trailer off the freeway to get real beignets in New Orleans (the ones at WDW Port Orleans just didn't do it for me), but I felt good about leaving some $$$ in Gulfport.

Wishin ya low gas prices and DVD's the kids all like!

Have a great trip!!!

Sue in Cypress (NW Houston)
...on the road again next Saturday to Savannah, GA, with the Girl Scouts...

 

[camreesmom]

Hey, nobody told me all the Texans were going in August! Seriously, with the new school schedule, I bet a lot more people will be going in late summer. (And yeah, I hate the new law; it messed up my plans.)

Anyways, it's not a bad drive. We went in May/June, had some road construction then but no closures. If you're staying overnight in a hotel anywhere near Gulfport, Mississippi, be sure you have a reservation! According to the guy at our hotel, half their hotel rooms are gone since Katrina, and on busy summer weekends, they get full.

You'll still see storm damage from Katrina & Rita, lots of tarps on roofs and twisted woods areas. On the way home, we stayed on 10 to loop south by New Orleans, and the amount of abandoned housing still there astounds me. I couldn't talk DH into driving our trailer off the freeway to get real beignets in New Orleans (the ones at WDW Port Orleans just didn't do it for me), but I felt good about leaving some $$$ in Gulfport.

Wishin ya low gas prices and DVD's the kids all like!

Have a great trip!!!

Sue in Cypress (NW Houston)
...on the road again next Saturday to Savannah, GA, with the Girl Scouts...

Hi Sue, guess there will be alot of Texans on the road in August. We are definitely keeping our fingers crossed for low gas prices. We wouldn't be getting to go at all if it weren't for the late school start. We'll be complaining early next June though when the kids are still in school. Can't have it all!

Julie

 

[kc5grw]

We went the second week of June. I had originally planned August because of the later school start, but come to find out the football season didn't change and my oldest daughter being in band... Well the summer band schedule didn't change from the previous year as I had hoped. Oh well, we still had a blast, even if I blew out 2 tires and had my awning fold up under the rain.

Mike

 

[Millermouseketeers]

Hello fellow Disney Texans! We will be at the fort 8/5-15 with our new pop-up! We live in McKinney outside of Dallas. We drive straight through to avoid hotel costs. We leave at 4 a.m. and then sleep at the rest area by Lake City for a few hours. We also would not be able to go if not for the late school start. Our kids are, DD's 14 & 11, DS 9. Cannot wait!

 

[kc5grw]

We drove straight through in Dec 2003, leaving Mesquite at 7am. I had planned on stopping at Lake City on that trip but was still feeling pretty good behind the wheel. Ended up pulling into the Fort at 4:30am. Of course our site was ready yet, but it was ready by about 11am. We just parked in overflow and slept while waiting.

 

[Stephanie239]

Hey, nobody told me all the Texans were going in August! Seriously, with the new school schedule, I bet a lot more people will be going in late summer. (And yeah, I hate the new law; it messed up my plans.)

Anyways, it's not a bad drive. We went in May/June, had some road construction then but no closures. If you're staying overnight in a hotel anywhere near Gulfport, Mississippi, be sure you have a reservation! According to the guy at our hotel, half their hotel rooms are gone since Katrina, and on busy summer weekends, they get full.

You'll still see storm damage from Katrina & Rita, lots of tarps on roofs and twisted woods areas. On the way home, we stayed on 10 to loop south by New Orleans, and the amount of abandoned housing still there astounds me. I couldn't talk DH into driving our trailer off the freeway to get real beignets in New Orleans (the ones at WDW Port Orleans just didn't do it for me), but I felt good about leaving some $$$ in Gulfport.

Wishin ya low gas prices and DVD's the kids all like!

Have a great trip!!!

Sue in Cypress (NW Houston)
...on the road again next Saturday to Savannah, GA, with the Girl Scouts...

Well, I guess Aug. is Texas Time!! I'm a transplant Texan....orig. from Louisiana. We've been here 4 yrs now. We were hit very hard by Hurricane Rita here in Bridge City, TX. Hubby wants to stop overnight somewhere, but I don't know where yet. It would be great to meet up with some ya'll...have some meet & greet cocktails or something!

 

[camreesmom]

We plan on stopping somewhere to spend the night on the way too but haven't decided where yet. We are hoping to make it all the way to Florida the first day though.

Stephanie, a cocktail (or two) is definitely going to be in order after spending all that time on the road!!! We have a 27ft. TT so cozy is the word for the week. I'll have to think of some way to mark the trailer so you'll know it's us.

 

[kc5grw]

On our June trip this year we stopped at the Chattahoochee KOA. I had planned on getting there around 10pm (we left Dallas at 7am), but lost a bunch of time due to a couple of blowouts. We ended up arriving there at 1am Dallas time(you cross into Eastern Time just before you get there so it was actually 2am. We ended up moving out about 8am and got to the Fort around 1pm which is what I had wanted to do.

The east side of Pensacola is pretty easy to do. We stopped at a there on the way back. It was probably around 8am when we left. We stopped and toured the USS Alabama which killed 2-3hours. Encountered some extremely heavy rains through most of LA which killed some more time, but still managed to make it back to Dallas about 1am.

 

[djblu883]

Hey, nobody told me all the Texans were going in August! Seriously, with the new school schedule, I bet a lot more people will be going in late summer. (And yeah, I hate the new law; it messed up my plans.)

Anyways, it's not a bad drive. We went in May/June, had some road construction then but no closures. If you're staying overnight in a hotel anywhere near Gulfport, Mississippi, be sure you have a reservation! According to the guy at our hotel, half their hotel rooms are gone since Katrina, and on busy summer weekends, they get full.

You'll still see storm damage from Katrina & Rita, lots of tarps on roofs and twisted woods areas. On the way home, we stayed on 10 to loop south by New Orleans, and the amount of abandoned housing still there astounds me. I couldn't talk DH into driving our trailer off the freeway to get real beignets in New Orleans (the ones at WDW Port Orleans just didn't do it for me), but I felt good about leaving some $$$ in Gulfport.

Wishin ya low gas prices and DVD's the kids all like!

Have a great trip!!!

Sue in Cypress (NW Houston)
...on the road again next Saturday to Savannah, GA, with the Girl Scouts...

Hey ya missed a pretty good campgound right outside of Gulfport!! I'm staying at one in Ocean Springs (exit 57) called Journey's end. I'm working on the coast and staying in my TT while I'm down here because rents and housing are so expensive and hard to find since Katrina!!! Lots of construction still needs to be done..seems they have worried more about getting the Casinoes up more than anything...affordable housing seems to be a thing of the past down here...sad so many are forced to stay in their FEMA trailers because thier homes were damaged or destroyed and JOBS were lost...you always hear about New Orleans but the Ms. Gulf Coast got hit really hard too....maybe worse because it was spread so far along the coast...Glad you had a good time!

 

[Escape Artist]

Well, I guess Aug. is Texas Time!! ...

Sounds like it's time for a barbeque!

Sue in Texas
...only been here a year now, and trying to fit in...

 

[Escape Artist]

Hey ya missed a pretty good campgound right outside of Gulfport!! I'm staying at one in Ocean Springs (exit 57) called Journey's end...

Thanks for the tip, we may use it on another trip. We decided to keep driving further than we planned on the way home. We just made a quick stop at a hotel in MS for a few hours, so it didn't seem worth putting up our popup. We were trying to get home to our dogs before the kennel closed!

I hear you about the Casinoes. It just seems wrong to focus on building those when so many homes are still a mess, but hopefully they bring in jobs and $$$. We kept thinking about the people who probably stayed in that hotel room DURING Katrina, yikes! We'll happily stay around Gulfport again, the people there were great!

Sue in Texas