Photos from 4/24/09- 900 Loop, Pool, and a few other things . . .

[Tri-circle-D]

The TCD gang made a one day commando visit to WDW on Friday, 4/24/09. Spring break and Easter crowds have subsided, and late April/early May is a great time to visit WDW.

We hit DHS, AK and Epcot, and of course stopped by the Fort for a look-see.

We actually rolled through the Fort twice, once in the early afternoon, and then in the early evening. We enjoyed a great picnic dinner as the sun set over the Fort marina. Some photos of that will be coming up.

All the photos on this thread were taken during these two quick visits.

Workers were going to town on the 900 loop in the early afternoon on Friday.
They have the loop conversion process down to a science. First, all of the wood forms around the sad pads are removed, then any trees that are in the way get the axe, then they do some quick grading, and the forms for the new concrete are put in. As you will see from these photos, they have already made a lot of progress in the few days that the 900 loop has been closed.

TCD

 

[Tri-circle-D]

After snapping a few quick photos in the 900 loop, we headed over to the pool for a look at how things were progressing with the splash zone. We last were at the Fort on 4/4/09, and the pool was still closed at that point. I have already posted some of my photos on the "Something is Happening Near the Pool Thread." These are some additional photos taken on the same day.

One thing that I immediately noticed is the the bike racks, which used to be in front of the entrance, have been moved over to what was the golf cart parking spaces:

I am assuming that this is a temporary placement, as the fenced-in area of the construction project has been expanded to include the area in front of the pool building:

When we were last at the Fort, tentative menus for the Meadow Snack Bar were posted on the bulletin boards around the campground. Some of the items included a tuna sandwich and a southern smothered hot dog. Prices were not posted at that time, and I wasn't sure they were serious about serving tuna at the pool. And, I honestly thought the smothered hot dog was a typo, as it said the hot dog would be smothered with pulled pork, among other things. Well, it turns out that the tentative menu is what we have for now, and it looks kind of permanent inasmuch as these posted menus look more or less permanent:

As I already mentioned when I posted my other photos, the splash zone looks like it still needs a lot of work:

If you look along the left of the splash zone in this photo, you will see metal sleeves sticking up from the ground. I surmise that these will be used for a barrier wall to keep the splash zone separate from the rest of the pool deck. This is the line that was marked by the stakes with pink streamers that we looked at a couple of months ago:

The configuration of these pipes suggests to me that there will be some type of play equipment and/or slides installed here. It doesn't look like a logical layout for plain old water jets and fountains:

Folks seem to be enjoying the new amenities:

My DD snapped these photos of me enjoying the ambiance of the refurbished pool. As you can see, I haven't been real diligent about going to the gym over the winter. My suit is a little snug (and sorry in advance for the crack):

OK- that isn't really me. . .

But if I don't watch it, it will be . . .

I think this type of sight is why they finally started working overtime on getting the pool done.

They couldn't have much more of us camper types over there with the pretty people at WL.

It looks like all of the trash cans at the pool are new or have been re-painted. No Musket Mickeys anywhere to be seen:

Some splash zone pics from another angle:

TCD

 

[2goofycampers]

OK- that isn't really me. . .TCD

I think he's hoping the matching hat will draw your eyes up away from the crack.

 

[Tri-circle-D]

Here are some photos of the mess outside of the pool entrance:

And here's one showing what is going on behind the fence:

You might be wondering- - - if the bikes have taken over the golf cart parking, then where do folks park their golf carts? Where do you think? In the new golf cart parking area by the campfire? Everywhere? If you guessed everywhere, you are right:

In the meantime, there is not one golf cart parked in the new golf cart parking area:

I still do not like the view across the lake looking toward the 600 loop addition:

Heading back to the pool:

Here we are on the back porch of the Meadow Trading Post. There is still a Musket Mickey trash can here, and a sign that says Meadows not Meadow:

TCD

 

[CampingChristy]

Should have known you would beat me to it Tri-circle-D! Hey I know some of those people in the hot tub!! You should have introduced yourself!

Take care!

It looks like I posted some duplicate pics of the splash zone in another thread!

 

[Tigger0624]

Matt said he saw you taking pics of the 900 loop! You should've topped by to say Hi!!!

When we left on Sunday- they had up signs pointing to the Cart Parking area and orange cones everywhere to prevent carts from parking everywhere. They had even moved the bike racks to the front so you had to pull around to par your bike there- seems like they are trying to enforce the cart parking areas a little bit...

Great job as always on the pics/reporting

 

[Tri-circle-D]

Matt said he saw you taking pics of the 900 loop! You should've topped by to say Hi!!!

When we left on Sunday- they had up signs pointing to the Cart Parking area and orange cones everywhere to prevent carts from parking everywhere. They had even moved the bike racks to the front so you had to pull around to par your bike there- seems like they are trying to enforce the cart parking areas a little bit...

Great job as always on the pics/reporting

I saw Matt, too, as he was driving his pick-up and camper past the 900 loop on Friday afternoon. I was only in the Fort for a quick visit in between park hopping, so no time to socialize. It was hard for me to leave WDW on Friday night, because the weather was perfect! You guys had great weather all weekend!

Interesting to hear about the cart parking by the pool. Another bone-headed decision by Fort management, if you ask me. People have golf carts because they don't want to walk. The bike parking could have been put somewhere else other than the golf cart parking. People are not going to want to park in that dumb maze they put up by the campfire area.

TCD

 

[ynottony99]

Hope you don't mind that I tack this on your thread. I was surprised to see how far away from the camp site 2 of the tents were set up by the Meadows Trading Post. I guess if you are paying $100 + a night, and were told you couldn't set up your tents there might be an issue.

 

[Tri-circle-D]

Tony- You were there Saturday, right? I took a photo of this same situation on Friday. I haven't uploaded that photo yet, but I'll get to it (it is one of my "other things" photos-as advertised in the thread title). I thought this was great! They rent a premium spot to a tent camper, and then the tent camper just sets up his or her tent in that beautiful grass by the lake. In my photo, there are two tents set up behind this site. What a great site to tent camp! But the problem is, where do you draw the line? Two tents, three, four? How far out can they go? The Fort created this problem by making too many premium sites. With the old sites, a tent could be set up on every site (just about). Now with the premium sites, there is often no place for a tent. I saw some folks setting up a tent on the 700 loop between two sites, and almost touching the road. I guess it was the only place it would fit. They should have made a few premium loops for the folks that really wanted them, but instead, they went overboard, I guess hoping for extra revenue. I think it will have the opposite effect. People are going to look elsewhere, or compete for the remaining preferred and full hook up sites. Dumb, dumb, dumb!

TCD

 

[LORNADUCK]

We were there also this weekend. I did see that tent set up when we went thru 600 I was surprised that they didn't tell them to move it. When we went to the Meadow TP I felt like the new sites were almost on the porch.
We parked on the side of the pool on Sat., by Sunday there were cones where we had parked and everything was blocked off, but there were carts parked eveywhere, what a mess they created. We got stopped by security because we had a new cart with us (my DH is selling for the company, we are looking for dealers) but it was only a 2 seater, so my DS & DD were standing on the back, the truck was following us all the way to the marina parking to tell us that they couldn't stand on the back of our cart. We had had this security guard give us a hard time before about our fire pit. We had it approved by management before we opened it, and when we did he came by and told us we couldn't use it. I now have a card of a manager's name that said we could. But this guy can be nasty. Oh well next time we will bring both carts.

 

[BigDaddyRog]

Are you guys trying to say I need to lose more weight???

 

[69RoadRunner]

Would you people get to work on the splash zone. We're going to be there next week!

 

[Tiggntaz]

After snapping a few quick photos in the 900 loop,

I stopped by the 900 before dropping the popup and golf cart off inthe 1500 loop. I thought it was you snapping photos by the side of the raod.

I am assuming that this is a temporary placement, as the fenced-in area of the construction project has been expanded to include the area in front of the pool building:

I think since they made the new cart parking over by the campfire area the bikes might stay there. Also since people were parking carts on the grass along the pool area, cones and signs were put up saying no golf cart parking in the area.

The configuration of these pipes suggests to me that there will be some type of play equipment and/or slides installed here. It doesn't look like a logical layout for plain old water jets and fountains:

I am glade to see that someone agrees with me. It doesn't happen much so........

 

[Tri-circle-D]

We got stopped by security because we had a new cart with us (my DH is selling for the company, we are looking for dealers) but it was only a 2 seater, so my DS & DD were standing on the back, the truck was following us all the way to the marina parking to tell us that they couldn't stand on the back of our cart.

What is remarkable to me about this is that, based on what I have seen, the Fort management does nothing to enforce their own rules governing their rental carts, yet these security types trailed two adults in a private cart?

Maybe letting the kids stand on the back of the cart isn't the best idea, but if it is your cart and your kids, then that is your decision. They have no business telling you what to do when they let people do a lot worse with their own rental carts.

TCD

 

[RvUsa]

What is remarkable to me about this is that, based on what I have seen, the Fort management does nothing to enforce their own rules governing their rental carts, yet these security types trailed two adults in a private cart?

Maybe letting the kids stand on the back of the cart isn't the best idea, but if it is your cart and your kids, then that is your decision. They have no business telling you what to do when they let people do a lot worse with their own rental carts.

TCD

I think this just boils down to economics, they can't yell at renters, or take the cart away, they may loose a buck, and you know they can't do that!!!

Now if they hassle private owners, maybe they will leave their carts at home and rent from Disney and then do what they want!

I still can't believe that they let private carts in... I would think that the money they would loose by making carters mad, would easily be made up in rentals LOL

 

[Tri-circle-D]

When I snapped my first photos of the 900 loop, I noticed that the comfort station was still open, as the 1000 loop is full of campers. So, I decided to see what I could see from the comfort station.

Here are some more photos of the workers in action.

This is a photo of the first outside site on the loop- 901. Quite a few trees have been removed here. Big ones, too. This site looks like one of the only ones on the loop that will not be desirable after the renovation. It is going to be very close to the loop road, and not have much area where there can be any type of bushes or other screening plants:

Here is a shot of the loop entrance:

Here we are on the concrete pad outside of the ice machine at the comfort station, looking at the outside sites that abut the comfort station:

Here we are looking straight out into the loop from in front of the comfort station:

This cypress tree got whacked pretty good:

This is the chainsaw guy:

Here are some of the chainsaw guy's victims:

Here we are in front of the comfort station, looking at the last of the inside sites on the loop. There have been a lot of trees taken out here:

Confucius say walk softly and carry big chain saw:

Another one bites the dust:

Here is a big dumpster, and just beyond it, you can see the big pile of the pressure treated wood that used to border the sand pads on each site:

This is the former sand pad area of site 901 (the first outside site). You can see the stump of a very large pine that was removed near the center of the photo, and also a stump mostly covered with sand at the bottom of the photo:

This is the back side of the next outside site. Not much had to be removed here, as this site was already kind of open:

As we come around the loop to the next outside site, you can see that things are roomier:

Although I hate to see another full hook-up loop become a premium loop, the 900 loop is going to end up being one of the nicer premium loops. The sites are definitely more spaced out here, and there are going to still be a lot of trees on this loop, Chainsaw Man notwithstanding.

TCD

 

[LORNADUCK]

My husband said the same thing, there are young kids all over the place driving there carts. The kicker of the whole thing is, the 2 standing on the back were 23 & 37 yrs old. I wouldn't let a young kid stand on the back, we make my GS who is 4 sit with us on the seat.

 

[Tigger0624]

Seems like there will only be premium and preferred loops pretty soon with the 2 partials thrown in for good measure... pretty soon we wont be able to afford to go as much

 

[stacktester]

I don't understand how cutting trees down makes it premium or even desirable anymore. I loved 900 because of the trees and there was some privacy. Before I went to the fort I pictured a bunch of pads with power poles and rv's parked next to each other. Kinda like the Tropical Palms sites on concrete by the pool. Of course once we got there I was wrong but now my vision may be correct. I hate seeing trees come down to make room for a few yards of concrete.

 

[Tri-circle-D]

I hate to tell you this, but we're not done with the 900 loop photos.

Almost, but not quite.

Here are our friends with their big chipper:

Note that the fellow with the pitch fork is taking precautions against the swine flu, while the supervisor appears to be unconcerned. And, it doesn't look like either of these fellows has bothered with any eye protection. Shoot, what's the worst that could happen? A big, sharp, piece of wood in the eye? Kid stuff!

I'm not sure what these two were working on. Maybe partially cutting through the cable so the reception won't be very good (seems like they have done that on the other loops, so why not?):

This is a shot of the sites on 900 that back up to the 800 loop. These are nice sites, and will continue to be nice after the conversion. There is a lot of space and trees behind each site:

I think this cart is used to pull a trailer with the wood that is used for forms for the new concrete:

It looks like they are already setting out the forms on some of the sites:

OK, that's all the 900 shots I have.

For now.

Remember, we are going to make another visit in the evening?

After all, it is Friday.

I'll bet that the workers will be long gone by 5:01 pm.

And then I can get some more up close and personal shots.

We will see about that.

For now, we head out for a visit to AK.

On the way out, I notice that there are a lot of folks checking in this afternoon. Which is normal, considering that it is a Friday. But, I also see something that I have never seen.

Every single check-in lane is open.

Every one!

I have never seen that before!

Good show Fort management! (I don't say that very often recently).

From here, we head over to AK.

But, we will be back . . .

TCD