*8/21 Update* Our Last big extended family vacation we think Aug. 2025

[Becky2005]

Pre-trip report here:
https://www.disboards.com/threads/p...-vacation-we-think-aug-2025-edit-8-6.3948495/
We survived 17 people at Disney although 90% of the time we were split up!
Travel Day 1

We were all traveling from different areas. My daughter and her crew went down a day early as well as my brother. We drove from the Chicagoland area and picked Calhoun, GA as our stopover stop. I wanted to leave around 4 AM CST and ended up leaving closer to 4:30 AM which was what I had figured would happen.

We had one snafu in our trip in that we always use somewhat backroads for the first couple hours of our trip before hopping on the interstate. It usually involves a stop at a McDonald’s that is about 2 hours away but an accident had closed the road, so they veered us the opposite way. We ended up having a detour through cornfields (it’s a running joke that I am always being told to drive in the cornfields by the GPS!) and ended up a completely different way to get to the interstate. Always an experience when you are doing a road trip!

The rest of the drive day 1 was pretty uneventful with just a few snafu’s such as delays and bathrooms that were unexpectedly closed. We ended up eating at Waffle House for lunch instead of dinner as planned and that worked out much better for us. My husband’s goals on this trip were to eat at a Waffle House and go to Buc-cee’s. LOL!

We ended up getting to the hotel around 8:45 – 9:00 pm EST which was a Home2 Suites. We had 4 of us who all wanted our own beds which is why I choose a place that was more spacious. We still had to do some creativity as it was 2 queens & a pull-out couch I thought the hotel was decent and would make this our stopping place again if we drive. I like that it had a mini kitchen with a full sized fridge/freezer so we could put take our drinks out of the cooler and get them cold again for the 2nd day of the drive without having to use a ton of ice, etc…. Probably more than is needed for just an overnight stay in general.

 

[Becky2005]

Travel Day 2/Arrival day

I knew we still had a ways to go but didn’t have a specific time to get up. I was thrilled that the hotel breakfast started at 6:00 AM as I thought it wouldn’t start until 7 being a Sunday. It didn’t matter in the long run as we didn’t really get up and going until closer to 7 anyway but the option was nice.

We were back on the road a little after 8 AM and our first stop was to Buc-cee’s to get gas, have DH check out the store, etc… We knew going into this trip due to my husband’s medical issues things would be slower and his back was starting to hurt him so we didn’t stay long. By 9:00 AM we were on the road again.

We hit so much traffic on the way down not in your normal expected spots like Atlanta but just in general, so many car accidents that slowed things down. I literally put my car in park on I-75 a couple times during the backup which you know is bad being on an interstate and traffic is stopped to the point you can put your car in park waiting for things to move!!!! Our original plan was to get there around dinner time and go to Disney Springs but that didn’t happen.

We did get there a little after 7 pm. We were staying at Ft. Wilderness Cabins and we had a handicap accessible cabin. We were in cabin 2819 which was a good location for going to the Outpost bus stop (you could easily walk it so you didn’t have to take a 2nd bus) but very far from everything else.

We rented a wheelchair (not ecv) from Scooterbug and it was waiting for us at bell services, no problem there. The problem was that I rented the larger sized wheelchair thinking it would be more comfortable for my DH! That was a mistake. It was too large for the ramp onto the busses and also too big to fit on any rides! We are lucky that my husband can walk short distances and could transfer but you would have been screwed if that was not the case. If you need to rent a wheelchair always go with standard unless you have no other choice. We did get it taken care of later in the week but it ended up costing me more and a big hassle. I had originally rented the wheelchair until 11 AM on Saturday but due to the snafu, I had to have it back by 8 AM which you will see later messed even more things up! This was totally on me though, NOT on Scooterbug. I know they get some bad reviews on here but I had no problem with them and would rent again.

We ended up going to Trail’s End for dinner instead of Disney Springs and that is all we did that night. We were on the dining plan, so we also got our mugs that night. We didn’t use them much as being in the cabins does make it more difficult to use.

Being on the dining plan, we used our mugs for dinner but went ahead and grabbed a drink to take back out of the cooler. I had read about doing that but forgot until the cashier told us to do that. It was helpful because this ended up being a very hot week (not unexpected in August).

 

[cassidy57]

I am enjoying you report and can't wait to read more!!

 

[oufpat]

I'm really looking forward to this. I've recently booked rooms for 17 of us for next June. Our ages will be from 75 to 2, so I'm excited to learn any tips from you!!

 

[Becky2005]

Background Information (information I should have previously posted ):

Just a warning that I am long-winded and tend to give lots of details, you have been warned (I also do this from memory so I might also miss things! LOL!).

We had the free dining promotion with the regular dining plan so I wasn’t trying to get my money’s worth, we were just doing things very casually and not super planned for meals. I tried to keep receipts for everything to give you guys an idea of how much we spent but going through my stuff I see I missed quite a bit. It took me ½ through the trip to figure out how to see your dining plan information on the app, so there is that. I was smart enough to take screenshots so I could go back and figure most of it out. At the end of the day though, I like the dining plan just to make my life easier. If I paid for it, I would have been paying more attention to what we were doing or at least have more things planned. I will do a summary at the end of the trip report for costs (if I don’t, someone please remind me, I tend to forget things. LOL!)

We did not purchase LL of any sort.

We had color coordinated to each park (we tried anyway) but we didn’t have matching shirts.

I had Memory Maker.

This was the first time we were dealing with a wheelchair. My DH has some mobility issues but in general walks in non Disney life sometimes with a cane/sometimes not but there was no way I was letting him do Disney NOT in a wheelchair. It would have been impossible. I know I was trying to research as much as I could for using a wheelchair and there didn’t seem to be a ton so I’m going to give my perspective. My DH isn’t much of a ride person so we didn’t do a whole lot in that respect.

 

[Becky2005]

Magic Kingdom Day – Part 1

Magic Kingdom’s shirt color was blue.

Although we qualified for Early Entry that just wasn’t doable with the group we were going with this time around.

Security did take us a few extra minutes because they had to do a visual inspection for my DH vs. going through the metal detector (he can’t go through those due to a medical device). It truly wasn’t that big of a deal. I would go through the detector and then come back to him. Magic Kingdom was super quick as they had someone right there and there was no wait.

Once we got to Magic Kingdom it was a whole thing with trying to figure everything out. We went to city hall to rent the amplified hearing devices for my husband but they didn’t have that, they only had the ones that did the closed captioning, we went ahead and rented it. Personally, this was a waste for us and we didn’t end up renting it again at any of the parks. I think he only used it once and didn’t really need to. Things ended up being overly loud for my DH which considering he can’t hear well in one ear tells you just how loud it must be at Disney. LOL!

In the meantime, my nephew walked in while we were there so we connected with my sister’s family and then found my brother’s family. My daughter was in line for the mine train at that point.

My niece wanted to get a DAS pass for my great-nephew and instead of doing it ahead of time, they decided then was a good time to do it but we ended up being more in the way for things thanks to the larger wheelchair. It finally all get situated and my daughter met up with us.

We got our castle picture just before 10 AM which was my only must do of the trip. We ended up taking several pictures besides the main group, there were family pictures and then sibling picture. I did not do extra’s with my kids just because.

After this, the day before each park we came up with tentative times to meet up and different locations so it would hopefully be a bit more organized vs. the eh, we get there when we get there that happened this day. It sometimes worked.

Once the pictures were taken we did split up as was expected (there was no way we were going to keep 17 people together – that was just completely unrealistic). Many of us wanted to go to Fantasyland as that is where a lot of things my husband wanted to do was located.

 

[Becky2005]

Magic Kingdom Day – Part 2

The first ride was the Teacups. My brother’s family joined us for this. I don’t do Teacups so I wheeled DH up to the teacup, they offered a transfer device which we used getting on but not so much getting off. Everyone was very nice and helpful to us regarding the wheelchair. The worst part was DH would get impatient and NOT put up the foot rests before attempting to get out of the wheelchair which caused an issue more than once. This is also why he didn’t use the transfer device getting off plus I think they forgot, they remembered when he was ½ to the wheelchair! He got impatient and just started getting out of the teacup into the wheelchair instead of waiting (it would have helped him a bit as it would have given him more stability of something to hold onto).

Next up was It’s a Small World! You have to go down the exit for this and he had the option to transfer into a boat that we could wheel the chair up to a seat or stay in the wheelchair. Once again, this is where the larger wheelchair came to become an issue! It wouldn’t fit through the railing for me to actually wheel him on, so he decided to just walk onto the boat & this is also where I think the foot rests caused a problem as he fell getting onto the boat. UGH! This was not Disney’s fault (and not unusual in daily life so more embarrassing for us than anything else).

However, after he fell, the cast member lifted out the railing (if I had known that was an option, we could have gotten the wheelchair on) and we said he probably should have stayed in the chair but it was too late at that point, he wasn’t going to get back in the wheelchair. Anyway, after a bit and thankfully my niece’s boyfriend was with us on this ride, so he helped out with DH getting him settled. You are allowed 6 people in total on the boat. The ride was uneventful and getting off the boat was fine. LOL!

I will say the heat wasn’t helping anyone’s attitudes during this trip so we were starting to get a bit snippy with each other. After a pit stop and discussion, I believe we decided to eat lunch at this point as I don’t remember any other rides in Fantasyland for DH (plus based on timestamps I’m using to recreate the day. LOL!).

We ended up eating at Pinocchio Haus because we all wanted pizza and that happened to be the easiest choice.

We had split off from my brother’s family at this point so it was just me, my DH & my 2 boys. DH wanted to do Haunted Mansion and one of my son’s did not. I am not sure what the boys did at that point.

Anyway, we did have them stop the walkway for us (sorry for those that had to have their ride stopped) but it worked out as a few more people came behind us that also needed the walkway stopped so there were about 3 or 4 groups of us that were able to do it at one time. The funniest part on this is my brother was exiting the ride as we were waiting. They had plans to go get lunch I believe at Tony’s or we would have hung out more! They couldn’t remember the name right then & there but texted me later and I believe that is where it was. This was one that having the larger wheelchair didn’t matter, I wheeled him up as close as possible to the doombuggy.

 

[Becky2005]

Magic Kingdom Day – Part 3

We connected back with the boys and it was decided that we would watch The Hall of Presidents and they would go ride Seven Dwarfs mine train. Once we got into the show, I got a text that the coaster was down. This became a theme for us with this particular coaster that will show up later throughout the trip!

As far as the wheelchair that was no big issue at all with the show as we just stayed to the right, he stayed in the wheelchair and I was in a seat next to him.

We met our boys at Gaston’s Tavern and we had some ice cream. DH had a Mickey Bar, I got my Mickey Sandwich, DS 1 got a Strawberry/Lemonade cup, DS got a frozen strawberry popsicle I believe.

This is where I am a bit hazy on the order of things but I believe we did the Carousel of Progress, then the Laugh Floor since they were near each other. Since these were shows, it wasn’t that big of a deal for wheelchairs. They did have us enter in different locations and then we just rolled up into a section specifically for wheelchairs.

Then onto Jungle Cruise and/or Pirates! We did both but I don’t remember which order we did them in!

Jungle Cruise DH could stay in the wheelchair but sure enough I told them we were going to have trouble since it was a larger wheelchair. However, they have courtesy wheelchairs right there and we were able to use one of those for them to put him on the ride with. So that wasn’t too bad.

Pirates you *have* to be able to transfer and get into and out of the boat yourself. We used rows 5 & 6 for the 4 of us and DH had to be in 6 because that is the one that is the widest and closest. He was able to do it but that could be very challenging for those with mobility issues.

We had made reservations for Diamond Horseshoe Review for dinner because DH had requested Liberty Tree Tavern (we ate there a very long time ago when they still had characters!) and knowing it was the same food but the reviews said this would be easier mobility wise we chose here. We were all disappointed in this meal itself. Being on the dining plan they allowed us to get a specialty drink in addition to the drink that comes with the meal (this will come up again later on for me on a bit confused about the dining plan on this).

It is all you can eat but when they brought out the first platter of meat, it had 2 slices of turkey on it, now you would think knowing there were 4 people there would be at least 4 servings of each meat at least. We had to ask for more turkey which then took a bit to come out (basically everything you asked for more of took a bit to come out) but I thought it was so odd that there wasn’t enough for all of us to get at least 1 slice to start with! Plenty of the other meats though. So weird.

I would not recommend this one if you have a choice for somewhere else. It wasn’t horrible just OK and we were all disappointed.

After we were done with dinner, it was time to take DH back to the cabins. He had had enough and unfortunately, he had gotten really sunburned on his arms (we weren’t smart enough to use sunscreen ahead of time) so he used a long sleeve shirt the rest of the trip to try to keep them covered as much as possible (we did use sunscreen on them every day too after that).

 

[Becky2005]

Magic Kingdom Day – Part 4

During dinner, my DD called asking me what the plan was and I had planned to come back to MK after dropping off DH. My DS2 was planning on coming back with me and that worked out because she wanted to ride TRON but her youngest wasn’t tall enough. The plan was I was going to ride TRON with them and my son was going to take the little one on other rides. I am not sure I want to ride TRON but the things we do for family. J

The downside to being at the cabins is transportation takes FOREVER!! I knew that going in and although having the space is nice, this is the one thing I don’t like about Ft. Wilderness.

DS2 and I did get back to MK after what seemed like forever! By the time we got back, TRON had gone down, so we ended up doing Jungle Cruise and Pirates with my daughter’s family.

At that point DS2 basically said he was crashing and was done. L If he hadn’t promised to watch his nephew, he would have stayed back the first time. I probably would have stayed a bit but it was almost 10:00 at that point. The fireworks started as we were walking toward the exit and at first I was oh, we could stay and watch some of it and then my brain kicked in and went oh wait, we have to get to the boat dock before this ends or we are going to be in the mass exodus of people leaving! We watched most of it from the resort boat launch waiting on our boat back to Ft. Wilderness.

We went back to the cabin and crashed! Next up Hollywood Studios! Hollywood Studios color is Red. We decided to meet up near the Tower of Terror at Noon. Let’s see how that works out for us.