Trip Report Dec. 17-27th, 2009

[campingpug]

Great TR. It was nice to meet you and family. Now for the hard part a TR of our own.

 

[LuckyinGa]

Great TR. It was nice to meet you and family. Now for the hard part a TR of our own.

It was a pleasure you meeting you as well. This is my first TR and I keep hoping that I'm not boring everyone with miscellaneous info but then I remember how much I enjoy everyone's TR's down to the littlest details so I figure, what the heck.

 

[LuckyinGa]

Friday we headed out to EPCOT, again this was the day it was open late for EMH. I told the family the first thing we do is we head to Soarin for our fast passes! We were lucky and got them for 6:30-7:30 p.m. We then headed to Test Track. There was an hour wait and we decided to try the single rider line. Well guys, 15 minutes and we rode the ride. DH and I even got to ride together because we were with a family that was riding and offered to swap seats. I don’t know why we have never done the single rider lines in the past. The rest of the evening whenever we would come up to a ride DH would say, “let’s do the single rider line" (even if there was only a short wait)! I have a feeling I will never ride a Disney ride with my DH next to me again!

The crowds at EPCOT weren’t bad at all. We got to ride all the rides, we were lucky enough to get seats at the Candlelight Processional with Edward James Olmos and watched the incredible Illuminations show. It’s been several years since we’ve seen this but it was just incredible. I was wondering if they did anything different because it was Christmas Day but the show and fireworks seemed to go on and on. At the end there was so much smoke from the fireworks it was just unbelievable. As we were walking out of EPCOT, knowing our vacation was coming to an end I turned to my husband and I said, this is why millions of people come to WDW. Everything they do they do first class!

Saturday we all slept in, the kids were packing up to head home. Once they left DH and I packed up all of our decorations and got the RV ready to roll in the morning. About 8:00 p.m. we headed over to Animal Kingdom Lodge. We have never been there and we figured we would get dinner there and see the animals. After looking at the menus of the two restaurants at the Lodge, we decided to try the food court. You see, I’m also a very picky eater (I can’t imagine where my DD gets it from). I ended up having the bacon double cheeseburger and my husband had the African stew in a bread bowl (he said it was as good as any Yankee Stew he’s ever had!). My burger wasn’t bad at all. We then decided to get desserts and coffee and sit by the outside firepit they have and enjoy our last night. It was rather cold out but a beautiful clear night and we saw several animals.

Our 2009 Christmas at Disney was a wonderful vacation. Our ressies are already made for next year. My brother had such a wonderful time he’s going to start camping more and wants to join us again next year for a longer time (hmm I don't know if that's a good thing or not!). I saw several new craft projects I want to work on and I hit the stores when I got home for any Disney Christmas decorations on sale.

Several people asked me about my Disboard sign and I directed them here. I told them what a great group of people you all are. Lots of people looked at my t-shirts that I had made thanks to the designs here. Every time I walked into the Meadows I complained about the lack of Fort Wilderness merchandise. There were only two items for sale that said Fort Wilderness, the hitch cover and a blue zip up jacket (that I had bought back in 2007). That really disappoints me.

Thanks again to all of the great hints and advice. I want to wish all of my Disboard friends a very Healthy, Happy & Prosperous New Year and may we all get to the Fort in 2010!!

As a side note:

We did see several underage kids driving the golf carts but we didn’t see any crazy driving. One night we did see a CM stop a cart and told the mother to switch places with the underage child that was driving.

As for the RV detailing. The same company was there every single day, including Christmas Day!! The truck prowls the loops waiting for a customer to approach them. I had to laugh because I can’t count the times they passed us and would look over. Yes, we were big and dirty but we had our appointment for service and washing AFTER we left Disney.

Because we would be hanging around the campsite most of the days, we would see them pressure washing, then using a buffer to clean. The noise was very annoying. I finally had it and went to the office to complain. I spoke with Melissa Hall. Here was our conversation:

JOANNE - Are you aware that an outside rv cleaning vendor is working at the Fort?
MELISSA – Yes we are.
J – Are you aware how annoying the noise of the pressure washers and buffers are to the other campers?
M – Well what time do they start? Is it before 10:00 a.m.?
J – The time they start is not important, it's annoying to the campers.
M- Well as long as they don’t start before 10:00 a.m. they are allowed to be working.
J – I didn’t come to the Fort, paying $120 per nite for a campsite to listen to that racket.
M – Here is my card, when the cleaning company is annoying you please call me and I will ask them to leave.
J – Are you telling me that you allow them to work at the Fort but then you are going to ask them to leave when they are annoying campers?
M – She nodded her head and said yes.

I just shook my head and left. I’ll be firing off a complaint email. Hopefully, the more we complain about this they will finally be forced to do something. I understand Disney must be getting a kickback but it just doesn’t seem fair when people work so hard to pay for their vacations and then have to put up with that annoyance. With all the property they have they need to get into the RV/Camper washing business with it’s own drive-thru detail service area next to the Fort!

 

[blm2003]

Great TR, thanks for sharing! We'll be down for Christmas in 2010 as well, hopefully we can connect while there!

 

[rapriebe]

That was a great trip report. Thanks for sharing. I really liked alot of your pics especially the one with Mickey and Minnie in front of SSE. That was awesome.

Also loved your three cutie pups. We saw alot of Yorkies when we were at the fort and I fell in love with them. I'm thinking my next "child" will be one. We have 2 small girls now . . hm-m-m, maybe they need another sister.

 

[kaguilbeau]

REally enjoyed reading your report.

We used a tent behind our camper earlier in December, but had requested a loop with the sand pad. How did it work using the tents on the concrete? What did they use to secure the corners?

 

[LuckyinGa]

REally enjoyed reading your report.

We used a tent behind our camper earlier in December, but had requested a loop with the sand pad. How did it work using the tents on the concrete? What did they use to secure the corners?

All of the tents were able to run the ropes to the the sides off the concrete and use their stakes. You can see in my first post the picture of the tent with the ropes.