Specularius
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2009
- Messages
- 45
First a little background about this year. My wife and I decided last year when we bought our new 5th wheel that we wanted to go to Fort Wilderness with the kids. My wife had been several times as a child and had fond memories of the fort. My first trip to Disney was in '95 and I had gone with my wife and her family and we stayed at the Fort then. We started our planning and made reservations for Christmas of 2009 in March of 2009. In doing more research for the upcoming trip, we found out about the Disboards and about the festivities of Halloween. Getting excited we decided to surprise the kids and booked a cabin for Halloween weekend in 2009 (all campsites were booked and we wanted to go very bad!). It was a great weekend and I learned quickly that I needed a golf cart. We got home from Halloween very excited about the Fort and our upcoming Christmas trip. We still had not told our children about the Christmas trip and they were in awe that we had been for Halloween.
I quickly began a search and bought a nice used golf cart. We made our trip for Christmas and had the trip of a lifetime. Lying in bed at the Fort, I made the mistake of saying to my wife, "It wouldn't cost that much more to upgrade our tickets to annual passes, and we could come back in the summer." She jumped on the opportunity and started making plans while we were still at the fort. We wound up returning in May for ten days and for Halloween 2010 for the weekend. We started calling this the O'Neal Year of Disney! In all we spent a total of 29 nights at the Fort since Halloween 2009. It has been a Fantastasmic Year!
Now for the meat of this report. This is my first attempt, and I know that after making four other trips to the Fort that I should be flogged for not reporting earlier, but after meeting TCD in person, I had to give it a shot. We had made our plans for a trip for Thanksgiving way back at Christmas 2009. We had no idea what the school calendar would be so we eared on the safe side and booked our trip to start on the 21st and end on the 28th. When the school calendar did come out we found that the kids would be out of school on the 19th too so we tried to add some days to our trip but was not successful. Not to be dismayed, we loaded up and took off when the kids got home from school on the evening of the 18th. I had read the recommendations on here that Tropical Palms was a nice campground so I made reservations for Friday and Saturday nights.
We have made this trip enough now to know where to stop and what time we would arrive. We have found that a great stopping point is the rest area at Okaloosa, Fl at mile marker 66. It is very quiet and has security all night. We pull in, get in the 5th wheel and sleep till morning. This puts us getting to Orlando around 1:00 pm. We arrive at this time at Tropical Palms to check in. Very nice looking resort campground but things get very tight when trying to maneuver when you have a rig like mine. Most of the regulars should remember that I have the huge Green Peterbilt tow rig. We get to our site and start to set up for the night. My 4 year old son gets down out of the truck, puts his hands on his hips and starts a visual survey of the campground. He looks slowly around to the left, then slowly around to his right. He looks straight at me and his mother, squints his eyes and says:This is NOT Disney World! I want to stay at Disney World! It took several minutes to convince my son that we were in deed going to Disney World, just not that night. I awoke Saturday morning and this was the site that I saw:
I counted a total of 8 ballons that floated over that morning.
We decided to try out that other park in town for Saturday since my 12 year old daughter is a Harry Potter fan. Spent the day there and have to say, there is NO magic at this place. I could not wait to get to the Fort and this day just drove home that point.
Sunday morning and we are finally at the Fort. Since we have such a large tow vehicle, my wife has tried every way she knows to get the front desk at the Fort to understand just how big it is. She was very worried that we would not be able to get into our site and would have to leave. Our routine has become to get our site assignment, drop the golf cart off the truck and go check it out before attempting to park. This morning, there was no assignment yet and we were told to park in the overflow and they would text the site number when it was available. So off to the overflow lot to wait.
While waiting we decide to loop a little. While looping, the text came in and it was site 409 I think. We run over to check it out and this van
was right in the way so that I could not get into the site and the owner was nowhere to be found. (it was parked cross ways right next to the loop drive and I was going to ask them to move so I could park). We make a beeline to the front desk to ask for a site reassignment. We checked the loop and found that site 414 would be perfect for us. While standing in line at the check-in/out desk, a CM named Jason from Korea asked if he could help. We told him our situation and ask if there was any way possible we could get site 414. He disappeared to the back and after several minutes returned and said site 414 was ours, have a great stay.
We get set up and jumped the cart to get to DHS for reservations at 12:45pm at Sci-Fi. We just barely made it but had a great lunch. We looked around about an hour then headed back to the Fort for some jackets and to head over to the Magic Kingdom for the extra magic hours that night. I think that our family has some type of affliction. We have to pack as much Disney into every trip as we possibly can. I call us the Disney Commandos. We were able to ride the favorites, Pirates, haunted Mansion, and Buzz. We had some Dole Whip and then headed back to the Fort. First day and we had been to two parks already.
Monday morning I finish setting up camp and get a chance to walk the loop and see who I will be living next to for the week. I found this famous person that likes cat livers
And this person that may be related to the Disneys, seeing as he is driving the Mickey Mouse 1 truck, funny I thought it would have been a Limo, not a pick-up truck.
Tuesday morning this hot rod was next door. It was very interesting to anyone who is part gear head. It had a total of eight turbo chargers on a small block Chevy engine.
Thanksgiving day while looping I found this neat looking car:
The owner told me it has an International Scout front end and was built in 1970. It started life as a 57 station wagon and was cut in half to make it a two door. It still has the 57 Chevy frame under it. This was a very nice car.
We had supper Thanksgiving night at the Hoop-De-Doo. I was a little disappointed that Six-Bits was not the one I liked, ( I like the same one that Shanman likes) but the show was good and the food was great. My wife and daughter were both disappointed that I was not Davy Crockets angel, I was relieved.
In my last walk around the 400 loop in preparations for leaving, I snapped a picture that is related to one that TCD took at Halloween. Some may remember it as the sewer hose on the Grill picture. Well this item was there all week and I just had to report it. It was at this persons site:
Yes, that is a gas can sitting on the grill.
We had a very enjoyable time and was very sad to be leaving the Fort this time, the last trips we knew we were coming back soon so there was no sadness. This time as we left, we knew we would not be back for a while. We hope to make Halloween next year but our plan is to see some other parts of the US and not be back to do Disney Commando style again until the year of 2013, when we hope to have another Year of Disney.
I quickly began a search and bought a nice used golf cart. We made our trip for Christmas and had the trip of a lifetime. Lying in bed at the Fort, I made the mistake of saying to my wife, "It wouldn't cost that much more to upgrade our tickets to annual passes, and we could come back in the summer." She jumped on the opportunity and started making plans while we were still at the fort. We wound up returning in May for ten days and for Halloween 2010 for the weekend. We started calling this the O'Neal Year of Disney! In all we spent a total of 29 nights at the Fort since Halloween 2009. It has been a Fantastasmic Year!
Now for the meat of this report. This is my first attempt, and I know that after making four other trips to the Fort that I should be flogged for not reporting earlier, but after meeting TCD in person, I had to give it a shot. We had made our plans for a trip for Thanksgiving way back at Christmas 2009. We had no idea what the school calendar would be so we eared on the safe side and booked our trip to start on the 21st and end on the 28th. When the school calendar did come out we found that the kids would be out of school on the 19th too so we tried to add some days to our trip but was not successful. Not to be dismayed, we loaded up and took off when the kids got home from school on the evening of the 18th. I had read the recommendations on here that Tropical Palms was a nice campground so I made reservations for Friday and Saturday nights.
We have made this trip enough now to know where to stop and what time we would arrive. We have found that a great stopping point is the rest area at Okaloosa, Fl at mile marker 66. It is very quiet and has security all night. We pull in, get in the 5th wheel and sleep till morning. This puts us getting to Orlando around 1:00 pm. We arrive at this time at Tropical Palms to check in. Very nice looking resort campground but things get very tight when trying to maneuver when you have a rig like mine. Most of the regulars should remember that I have the huge Green Peterbilt tow rig. We get to our site and start to set up for the night. My 4 year old son gets down out of the truck, puts his hands on his hips and starts a visual survey of the campground. He looks slowly around to the left, then slowly around to his right. He looks straight at me and his mother, squints his eyes and says:This is NOT Disney World! I want to stay at Disney World! It took several minutes to convince my son that we were in deed going to Disney World, just not that night. I awoke Saturday morning and this was the site that I saw:
I counted a total of 8 ballons that floated over that morning.
We decided to try out that other park in town for Saturday since my 12 year old daughter is a Harry Potter fan. Spent the day there and have to say, there is NO magic at this place. I could not wait to get to the Fort and this day just drove home that point.
Sunday morning and we are finally at the Fort. Since we have such a large tow vehicle, my wife has tried every way she knows to get the front desk at the Fort to understand just how big it is. She was very worried that we would not be able to get into our site and would have to leave. Our routine has become to get our site assignment, drop the golf cart off the truck and go check it out before attempting to park. This morning, there was no assignment yet and we were told to park in the overflow and they would text the site number when it was available. So off to the overflow lot to wait.
While waiting we decide to loop a little. While looping, the text came in and it was site 409 I think. We run over to check it out and this van
was right in the way so that I could not get into the site and the owner was nowhere to be found. (it was parked cross ways right next to the loop drive and I was going to ask them to move so I could park). We make a beeline to the front desk to ask for a site reassignment. We checked the loop and found that site 414 would be perfect for us. While standing in line at the check-in/out desk, a CM named Jason from Korea asked if he could help. We told him our situation and ask if there was any way possible we could get site 414. He disappeared to the back and after several minutes returned and said site 414 was ours, have a great stay.
We get set up and jumped the cart to get to DHS for reservations at 12:45pm at Sci-Fi. We just barely made it but had a great lunch. We looked around about an hour then headed back to the Fort for some jackets and to head over to the Magic Kingdom for the extra magic hours that night. I think that our family has some type of affliction. We have to pack as much Disney into every trip as we possibly can. I call us the Disney Commandos. We were able to ride the favorites, Pirates, haunted Mansion, and Buzz. We had some Dole Whip and then headed back to the Fort. First day and we had been to two parks already.
Monday morning I finish setting up camp and get a chance to walk the loop and see who I will be living next to for the week. I found this famous person that likes cat livers
And this person that may be related to the Disneys, seeing as he is driving the Mickey Mouse 1 truck, funny I thought it would have been a Limo, not a pick-up truck.
Tuesday morning this hot rod was next door. It was very interesting to anyone who is part gear head. It had a total of eight turbo chargers on a small block Chevy engine.
Thanksgiving day while looping I found this neat looking car:
The owner told me it has an International Scout front end and was built in 1970. It started life as a 57 station wagon and was cut in half to make it a two door. It still has the 57 Chevy frame under it. This was a very nice car.
We had supper Thanksgiving night at the Hoop-De-Doo. I was a little disappointed that Six-Bits was not the one I liked, ( I like the same one that Shanman likes) but the show was good and the food was great. My wife and daughter were both disappointed that I was not Davy Crockets angel, I was relieved.
In my last walk around the 400 loop in preparations for leaving, I snapped a picture that is related to one that TCD took at Halloween. Some may remember it as the sewer hose on the Grill picture. Well this item was there all week and I just had to report it. It was at this persons site:
Yes, that is a gas can sitting on the grill.
We had a very enjoyable time and was very sad to be leaving the Fort this time, the last trips we knew we were coming back soon so there was no sadness. This time as we left, we knew we would not be back for a while. We hope to make Halloween next year but our plan is to see some other parts of the US and not be back to do Disney Commando style again until the year of 2013, when we hope to have another Year of Disney.
J/
