Pregnant and tent camping during Spring Break - a March 2012 TR

[ksl5f123]

Hello campers!

I usually post on the TR boards, but everyone here was so helpful to me in planning this trip, that I wanted to write a TR for you too!

I will still write a regular TR over on that board, so if you want a minute-by-minute, blow-by-blow report hop on over there. (Spring break: Pregnant, tent camping, and still the best day ever - a March 2012 TR) This one will focus more on our experience camping at the Fort for the first time as a family.

First, let me introduce the cast:

me, Karen:

I'm 38 and this was my 14th trip to WDW and 2nd trip to Ft. Wilderness. DH and I stayed in a cabin with my in-laws back in October 2000. The above picture was taken on a trip I took with just my girls in July 2011. On our trip last week, I was 22 weeks pregnant (5 months for those of you who don't do pregnancy math ) I have camped MANY times before, but usually primitive camping. Having electricity and water at my site and clean bathrooms nearby were a novelty for me.

DH:

He is 39 and a Florida native. He has been to WDW more times than he can remember and camped at the Fort several times as a kid.

DD8:

This was her 8th trip to WDW. None of my kids have ever been to the Fort before so everything there was new. She started riding thrill rides for the first time on our June 2010 trip. She loved BTMRR the most and is VERY upset that it was closed for this trip. She has mostly left Disney characters behind for the moment and currently loves Harry Potter (she has read the first 4 books). At home, she is in 3rd grade and does gymnastics, sings in the choir, and plays chess. She is always on the go!

DD6:

This was her 7th trip to WDW. She loves purple and Rapunzel. She still enjoys being a princess. She is completely uninterested in thrill rides despite being tall enough. Her favorite attraction in all of WDW is Carousel of Progress. When asked what she most wants to do at WDW, she answers, “See Rapunzel”. At home, she is in Kindergarten and does gymnastics, ballet, and tap and loves to do art of any sort.

DS3:

This was his 4th trip to WDW. He loves Cars. He is the stereotypical little brother who gets into stuff and makes lots of messes. On our March 2011 trip, he suddenly developed a fear of all of the rides. The only one he liked was Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger spin. When asked what he most wants to do at WDW, he answers, “See Buzz Lightyear and shoot Zurg.” At home, he goes to preschool 2 mornings a week and loves to play with his cars.

MIL:

Because they live in Vero Beach, my MIL and FIL usually accompany us on our trips. The love spending time (and money) with the grandkids.

FIL:

Up next, arrival day!

 

[Christymarie222]

Woo hoo...trip report I'm in...thanks for taking the time to post!! Can't wait to read more!

 

[bama_ed]

Tenting and pregnant?

I'm in. Tell me more.

Bama ED

 

[ksl5f123]

I knew the DIS was messing with me last night when I tried to post this update. It ended up double posted. So, I will just use this space for chapter links:

Chapter 1: Arriving at the Fort
Chapter 2: Setting up camp
Chapter 3: The pool!
Chapter 4: Our first night
Chapter 5: Legoland
Chapter 6: Supper at the Contemporary
Chapter 7: Morning at the Settlement
Chapter 8: Back to the pool!
Chapter 9: Medieval Times
Chapter 10: Magic Kingdom
Chapter 11: Epcot

 

[ksl5f123]

to my readers! Glad to have you along. Now, back to the TR...

We officially left for our trip on Friday March 16. We picked our girls up from school early at 12:30 and hit the road. We drove until 9 PM which put us in Prattville, Alabama #just north of Montgomery#. After a good night's sleep, we continued on to WDW. We arrived at 6:30 PM and decided to just meet MIL and FIL at Downtown Disney.

Thanks to the advice that I received here on the camping board, we decided not to try to set up camp on Saturday night. The general consensus was that we would be too tired from the drive and it might get too dark to get our tent up and organized with an evening arrival. This was EXCELLENT advice!

So, after a quick meal at Wolfgang Puck Express #yummy!#, we checked into a 2-bedroom at Caribe Royal Resort. If you are ever in need of a place to stay with a large group, let me strongly recommend Caribe Royal. The 2 BR sleeps 8 people with a king bed in one room, 2 queens in another and a pull out sofa. The rooms were just gorgeous! We got a great rate with a Mousesavers promotion that came out in January.

Sunday morning, we went to Mass at the Shrine #we are a Catholic family# and then were at Macaroni Grill on 535 basically when they opened the doors. We had lunch and made a quick run to Walmart for some last minute supplies #like a toothbrush for DS3 that was somehow forgotten #. By 1:15 PM, we were here:

Soon after, we were here:

And then finally we were here:

For those who have never stayed at the Fort before, let me briefly explain the check-in procedure. First, you speak with the guard at the gate. He makes sure you have a reservation, checks your ID, and then sends you into the check-in area. Because it was busy when we arrived, there was another CM directing people into the check-in LANES. I expected to park and go inside to check in like you do at all other resorts – not at the Fort! You stay right in your car/truck/van/RV!

We were directed to the right-most lane which put us right next to the beautiful butterfly garden that is here at the outpost.

Aside from the fact that you stay in your vehicle, check-in is just like any other Disney resort – although with this method I really see no advantage to doing online check-in. We hadn't made any sort of request for loop or location – we just took the luck of the draw. We were assigned spot 2056.

It was a nice level spot, sloping downward only slightly in the back. We had great afternoon shade as you can see in the above picture which was taken at about 2:15 PM. We were about 4 spots down and across the street from the comfort station which I found to be an ideal distance. We were close, but not so close that we were bothered by people walking there. Directly behind the comfort station was the bus stop for the internal bus #purple route# for our loop which was appropriately named Spanish Moss circle.

The sites all have a picnic table and grill.

There were also plenty of mature trees for hanging a line to dry some towels.

Up next, setting up camp!

 

[gillenkl]

Great report so far!

 

[Disneypeach]

I'm in
cute family! enjoying your TR!

 

[ksl5f123]

When we last left off, it was 2:15 PM and we had just arrived at our campsite. Now it was time to set up camp! I have seen lots of questions on this board about what to bring tent camping, what fits, etc. So, I am going to give a pretty detailed description of what we brought, what we needed, and what we didn't.

Let's start with the tent. We had a new Coleman 9 person instant tent. We got this for Christmas because we had “outgrown” our old tent. We practiced setting it up in our backyard before we went so we knew what to do. As you could see in my previous post, the right side of our site had afternoon shade so we chose to put the tent on that side and toward the back. We brought 2 tarps – one for under the tent (which we used) and another for over the tent if there was really bad rain (which never came out of the minivan). Since we had practiced, we had our tent up and ready to be staked in under 5 minutes.

Let me describe the ground a little bit. I had read that it was a “sand” pad. Not exactly. It is actually clay (you can see some of the red clay in our arrival picture) covered with a sand/ground up seashell mixture. The clay is HARD. Do not think this will be like staking your tent for beach camping. Good metal stakes (which we had) were a must as was a good rubber mallet for driving them. Also, because of the sand/seashell mixture you will need something outside of your tent where you can take off your shoes or that grit will be everywhere. This was the one thing that we somehow left at home (despite it being on the packing list). We improvised and used the rubber floor mats out of MIL and FIL's minivan (the mats in our minivan are carpet). This worked fine, but you NEED something.

Once our tent was up, DH went to set up the canopy and screen while I started organizing inside the tent. In the tent, we had two queen size air mattresses – one for me and one for DH and DS3.
Here is DH and DS3's bed:

Next to their bed is our big blue suitcase that contained DH, DS3, and my clothes.

In this next one, you can see DH's bed and DD8's bed. The girls slept on pool floats that we picked up at Walmart an hour earlier. These were cheap and worked fine although they were a little noisy when the girls moved around at night.

Also in between them you can see a 3 drawer storage unit. This contained all of the girls clothes and was wonderful. It was so much easier for them to open a drawer and pull out what they needed than to unzip suitcases. In the future, we will bring these for everyone! It was frustrating to have to move our suitcase into the middle, open it up, get out what we needed, zip it back up, and stand it back up every time we needed something.

On top of the storage unit, you can see a white plastic basket that contained everything that the girls and I would ever need to bring to the comfort station (soap, shampoo, toothbrushes, hairdryer, etc). This is actually a basket that came with some swim toys we bought last year, but it was perfect for this purpose. Finally, you will notice we had a rug on the floor. I saw this in a TR last year and I have to say that stepping onto a rug in the morning rather than the tent floor made a HUGE difference in the hominess of the tent.

In the next picture, I have turned around and you can see my bed on the left and DD5's on the right.

Now I have backed up a little so you can see the “room dividers” and the bottom of our lantern hung at the peak of the tent.

One final shot showing where we put the hamper between the girls' beds

One more quick note about the inside of our tent. It may look in these pictures like things are up against the walls of the tent (and they may have been for the purpose of pictures), but they certainly didn't stay that way! Anything touching the walls of the tent would have been doomed to water running down in the mornings and soaking it. Eww!

Here is the outside of the tent showing our Mickey string lights. These were awesome for finding our site at night and were LED lights so they never got hot and we could leave them on all of the time.

While I got the tent all ready, DH was working on the screen house. He got the canopy up easily, but we had never put a screen on it before and that didn't go well. You would think that with 5 engineering degrees between DH, FIL, and me we could have hung a simple screen – OK, that was actually probably the problem – WAY too much over-thinking it. We eventually got it up, but not as perfectly as we would have liked.

We moved the picnic table onto the main pad since we wanted it inside the screen house. We covered it with a table cloth and secured the tablecloth on with some clips. We also had a small folding table that we put in the screen house. It held our crockpot, griddle, and toaster. In addition to these three appliances, we had brought with us a small propane cook stove – it never came out of its box. The griddle handled everything that I could have needed a cook stove to do. All of our paper supplies and non-perishable food was stored in plastic bins under the table. I took the following picture later in the week when it looked a little messy, but you get the idea.

Here is our space showing both the tent and the screen house.

Now, you may be wondering where did MIL and FIL sleep? Well, I don't have a picture of this, but I really wish I did. They backed their minivan in next to ours (there was plenty of room on the asphalt for both), laid down the back row of seats, took out the middle row, and put in an air mattress. Yep, they slept in their minivan.

As soon as everything was set up, I got out a bag of potatoes, rubbed them with some oil, wrapped them in foil, and dropped them in the crockpot. Viola! Supper was cooking!

The total amount of time from arrival at our site to “let's go put on our swimsuits” was exactly 2 hours. I consider that pretty good for completely unpacking our minivan and being ready to go.

Up next, the pool!

 

[loveysbydesign]

Loving this report...sleeping in the minivan doesn't sound too bad!

 

[lovesdumbo]

Loving your camping report!!!

Great set up. Love the drawers for the girls.

Your link to your "regular" trip report is linking to this camping report not your other one.

 

[ksl5f123]

Woo hoo...trip report I'm in...thanks for taking the time to post!! Can't wait to read more!

Thanks for coming along to read!

Tenting and pregnant?

I'm in. Tell me more.

Bama ED

Yeah, I am either really brave or really stupid - the jury is still out.

Great report so far!

Thank you! Glad to have you here!

I'm in
cute family! enjoying your TR!

Thank you! I think they are cute too, but I am a little biased.

Loving this report...sleeping in the minivan doesn't sound too bad!

Thanks! They actually left one or two of the windows open and used painter's tape to put up some screening. I may have identified our site by my Mickey lights, but my kids found it by looking for the minivan with the blue tape on the windows.

Loving your camping report!!!

Great set up. Love the drawers for the girls.

Your link to your "regular" trip report is linking to this camping report not your other one.

Thanks! The drawers worked perfectly. I am definately doing that for everyone next time. Thanks for the tip on the link. I think I fixed it now.

 

[ksl5f123]

When we last left off, we had just finished setting up camp. It was 4:15 PM, supper was cooking and we were heading to the pool. We originally walked over to the bus stop. After studying the bus routes, we realized it would take us 2 buses just to get to the pool. So, we decided to try to walk. We mapped out a route that had us cut through Creekside Meadows (the scout/group camping area), across the little bridge, around the 900 loop and then across the street to the Meadow trading post and then around the back to the pool.

Walking with 3 kids who had to comment on every squirrel and play with a few sticks, it took us between 10 and 15 minutes each time – not too bad.

I started off staying with MIL and DS3 in the little kids play area.

My little guy loved this space! He must have gone down the slides 100 times!

As you can see, he pretty much had the run of the place when we first arrived. That lasted for about 30 minutes. During that time, DH and FIL took the girls over to the big pool. After about 30 minutes, they came back and informed us that Disney had cleared the pool for “unexpected maintenance”. Ewww.

DD6 is still under the 48” height limit for this little play area. So, she joined DS3 playing here. There were some other kids that came over from the big pool who really didn't make that cutoff. DD8 was one of them and I didn't let her “play”. I did however give her a job. In this picture, you can see a steering wheel.

It controlled whether the water came out the side like it is doing in that picture or down like a waterfall over the stairs. Well, DS3 HATES having water fall on his head. However, lots of the other kids playing over there liked it. So, I put DD8 in charge of changing the water direction so her brother would be happy.

It probably took another 30 minutes for the pool to re-open. As soon as it did, my girls went straight back to the big pool. A couple of minutes later, some CMs came over and “strongly encouraged” all of the big kids to get out of this play area.

After a few more minutes playing here, we all went over to the big pool for a little while.

Jumping in to daddy:

DD6 showing that she remembers how to back float:

I have noticed that there seems to be some variation in the depth of the pools from resort to resort. The pool at the Fort seems to be one somewhere in the middle with a depth of 3ft 9in. The disadvantage of this was that DD6 could not stand like she could at some other resorts that have 3ft 2 in deep pools. Although she back floats pretty well, she really can't swim. So, we really had to have one adult with her and one with DS3 at all times.

After swimming for a couple of hours, it was time to head back to camp and hang up the towels.

While DH got all of the kids changed, I put some broccoli and vegetarian chili on the griddle. My DH is a vegetarian so I have to be creative in cooking. When that came off, MIL put some bacon on for the omnivores among us. By this point, everyone was hungry. We set up a baked potato bar with butter, broccoli, chili, shredded cheddar cheese, and MIL's bacon. I made enough potatoes for everyone to have two. Although not everyone ate two, let's just say there weren't any leftovers! For dessert, we had some Oreos.

We used all disposable plates and cups so the only dishes I had to wash were the griddle and the crockpot. As soon as all of the potatoes were out of the crockpot, I put some water in there and let it heat up. I then used that water to wash the griddle, crockpot, and tables. When I was done, DH took the wash water and dumped it at the comfort station.

My original plan allowed for all types of adventures this evening: the campfire, the water pageant, Wishes from the Contemporary or the Poly beach. What did we do? We went to bed! By the time we finished eating and did the dishes, it was 8:30 PM! The kids enjoyed getting out their flashlights for the short walk to the comfort station. We brushed teeth, used the potty, and came back to change into jammies. The kids were in bed by 9 PM and MIL and FIL soon followed. I had a project to finish up, so I moved a camp chair into the screen house along with the lantern.

By 10 PM, we were all in bed.

Up next, how was our first night?

 

[LHARPSTER]

Thanks for sharing your trip! I love it so far...Makes me want it to be September already!!!

Cant wait to check back later!!

 

[pinkxray]

Your trip looks great so far

When I was growing up we went camping at least a few times each summer in Vermont. Seeing the pictures of your tent and screenhouse brought back so many great childhood memories I haven't been camping since I was 13. DH refuses to go, but I might have to bring it up again. I really want Caitlin to have the memories I did.

The pool looks great, dinner sounds yummy and you are right next to MK.

 

[mauicat]

great report!!! where did you get your Mickey outside lights?

 

[-Soleil-]

Loving your trip report, subbing to follow along the ride!

 

[bigblock396]

Neat TR. I'm really going to put some of your packing/tent setup tips to use. You got alot of stuff in a small space and kept it liveable. Thank you for posting all these great tips. Waiting for more . . . .

 

[ksl5f123]

Wow! So many new readers! I am very happy to have you along!

Thanks for sharing your trip! I love it so far...Makes me want it to be September already!!!

Cant wait to check back later!!

September sounds like a great time to go! I'm trying to post regularly so I don't forget everything.

Your trip looks great so far

When I was growing up we went camping at least a few times each summer in Vermont. Seeing the pictures of your tent and screenhouse brought back so many great childhood memories I haven't been camping since I was 13. DH refuses to go, but I might have to bring it up again. I really want Caitlin to have the memories I did.

The pool looks great, dinner sounds yummy and you are right next to MK.

Camping in Vermont sounds lovely! It bet it is prettier that camping in Ohio like I did growing up. I really enjoy camping and luckily DH does too. He was already trying to plan another camping trip for this summer while we were at the Fort - um, yeah, by summer I will be 8 months pg - not going to happen!

I was really happy with the pool and I love all of the little kid areas they have been adding. I could just sit in a chair and watch DS3 play there whereas in the big pool I have to be in physical contact at all times.

great report!!! where did you get your Mickey outside lights?

The Mickey lights came from ebay. I looked everywhere for some in a store and was really concerned about how long I was going to be able to leave them on since they were touching the tent fabric. I was thrilled that they were LED and we could leave them on all the time.

Loving your trip report, subbing to follow along the ride!

Hi! Glad you are here!

Neat TR. I'm really going to put some of your packing/tent setup tips to use. You got alot of stuff in a small space and kept it liveable. Thank you for posting all these great tips. Waiting for more . . . .

Oh good! I was really hoping that was going to help someone! I looked at a lot of campsite pictures here on the DIS trying to decide what we really needed and how to make it work. I needed to "pay it forward".

 

[ksl5f123]

When we last left off, it was 10 PM on Sunday, March 18 and we were all in bed. It took me a little while to fall asleep. I did bring some earplugs which I used every night, but two spots down from us there was some sort of reunion. On that site, there was only a screen room. I assume they all had campsites nearby and were using that one for their evening gathering. Let's just say at least one gentleman had a very loud voice as they were reminiscing.

Eventually, I fell asleep, but by midnight, I was awake – and COLD. The official weather report says that the low this night was 62 degrees. I don't buy it! I grew up in a house where my mom kept the heat on 65 during the day and turned it down to 62 at night (in Ohio where it does get cold). I know what 62 feels like – and this was colder.

Now, I will say that I made two mistakes this night. One, I went to bed with hair still wet from the pool. This is always a bad idea. I always feel colder when my hair is wet. The problem is it is also really thick so it takes 24 hours to air dry or 45 minutes with a hairdryer. Two, I didn't close all of the windows of the tent before going to bed. So, at midnight I closed the window over DD8, but I couldn't reach the one over DH and DS3.

I went back to bed and tried to snuggle deeper into the sleeping bag. It didn't work. At 2:15 AM, I was awake again. This time, I woke DH up and made him close that window. That helped and I was able to go back to sleep until DD8 woke me up at 4 AM needing to go to the bathroom. I reluctantly rolled out of bed and walked her down to the comfort station. When we returned, I tried unsuccessfully to get back to sleep until we needed to get up at 6:30 AM.

Luckily, my kids are extremely sound sleepers and none of them woke up cold at all. They get this from DH who also had no problems. However, MIL did comment in the morning that she had also been cold.

By 6:45 AM, we were all up and moving around. We all got dressed and headed for our first park day. Where do you think we were going? Well, not where you might expect, so I'll just tell you – we were off to Legoland! Having Legoland tickets was actually the motivation for this trip, so we were very excited.

For breakfast, we had some blueberry muffins and chocolate chip muffins I made at home before we left. We added some fruit and juice and it was a pretty good breakfast. By about 7:45 AM, breakfast was finished, the table was wiped down (no dishes to do), and we were ready to get in the car. We headed off to Legoland arriving at about 8:30 for an advertised 9 AM opening time.

Up next, Legoland!

 

[lovesdumbo]

Sorry to hear about your sleepless night. DH & I used to tent camp when we were first married. We started out with a small 4 person backpacking tent then upgraded to a nice much bigger 6 person eureka tent. I FROZE the first time in that new tent. It didn't hold our body heat as well and breathed so much better than our old tent.