Warning to golf cart Drivers (and Dogs)

[Magicbus]

This is what I meant when I made posts to the effect that I do not want to vacation with other people's pets.

Has it been established that you are not a dog person?
Like it or not, dogs are a big part of a lot of peoples lives. Mine for one, as you can see by my sig. He is considered family and is treated as such. If I can't bring Buddy to the Fort, I won't be at the Fort. Love me, love my dog, hate my dog, hate me.
Having said that, all dogs should be under control and should not affect other campers enjoyment of the Fort. My experience is that the most campers are responsible dog owners, but just like keeping kids under control, it's not 100%, and that's life. The Fort, like a lot of WDW is not for everyone, and maybe the Fort is not for you as it's currently setup.

 

[CCIntrigue]

Like it or not, dogs are a big part of a lot of peoples lives. Mine for one, as you can see by my sig. He is considered family and is treated as such. If I can't bring Buddy to the Fort, I won't be at the Fort. Love me, love my dog, hate my dog, hate me.

We feel the same way about Kassie. If she isn't welcome, we aren't either.

 

[2goofycampers]

I love me some puppies.

 

[Disneylitch]

I agree. This is what I meant when I made posts to the effect that I do not want to vacation with other people's pets. Aside from the inevitable dog barking that periodically breaks the relaxing atmosphere of Fort Wilderness, in any place where there will be dogs there are a not insignificant number of dog owners who will push the envelope of the rules. Further, having a dog anywhere near my resort pool is unacceptable to me. I don't want my family & I to be walking around in bathing suits and bare feet having to navigate around various canines, especially those big enough that young owners struggle to keep control of them (as in your experience at FtW). The life guard should have called Disney security and gave those particular dog owners an ultimatum: since you broke the rules and took the dog poolside, you must now keep the dog in a Disney kennel for the rest of your stay or leave. But the bottom line is that outside of kennels, IMHO dogs should not be allowed at Disney resorts or Fort Wilderness (or as I now sometimes refer to it, Fort Canine). Same as I would not want to try to navigate the Magic Kingdom amid hundreds of dogs, cats, ferrets, etc. of various Disney guests.

Well, I guess to start off with, Don't stay at The Fort. That being said, we bring our dogs and they love the fort. We have never had to navigate around dog poop and have found 99.9% of the dog owners to be very compliant. You will always have a few people that don't follow the rules. If you are going to say that dogs shouldn't be allowed because of that, than golf carts shouldn't be allowed either. Or how about the cars that go the wrong way in the loops. Should we not allow them either. There will always be something to complain about. I love The Fort and I think the rules shoud be enforced, but for some reason they aren't. Just remember, we can't pick and choose what rules to be enforced and what rules shouldn't.

 

[DogDawg]

Just back from Christmas at the Fort. Wonderful time. But I have to say the golf cart thing is out of control. We were almost run over by a kid driving a cart (WDW rental) with no lights flying through our loop while we were walking the dogs one night.

I then made it a point to count infractions. 2/3rds of carts I saw had underage drivers, babies driving on laps, booze, passing carts, not pulling over for cars or buses, going wrong way around loops, etc.... it goes on and on.

I'm pretty tolerant and I understand that people make mistakes. That and some infractions aren't harming anyone. But I seriously thought that kid could have hurt us or our dogs.

 

[Gatordad]

I think the only step is to ban guests from the fort, then all the problems will go away..... I say good riddance to the $100 partial sites as well.

 

[bob34787]

for WDW1979, the well behaved children have caused more damage to my property while at the Fort than any dogs I have come across. Personally for what I spent on my RV I could have stayed in any resort on Disney property for the rest on my life, but than I would not have the company on my true friends as dogs are not allowed in the resorts.

 

[fugarwe]

I don't mind dogs so much. We don't have one, but with the begging of the three little princesses, I'm sure it won't be long. Not sure if we'll travel with it though. Now that I think about it, we probably will. I think that because my DW thought we should try to bring the cat when we went to FL the first time. I thought it a bad idea, but we took a test run to LaCrosse with the kids in the RV and went to Chuck-E-Cheez. The cat flunked the test.

I've only ever stayed in pet loops before. The only problem we have had is someone set up an outside fenced in area for their yappy little dogs, and they were morning dogs, and I'm NOT a morning dog. The offending camper was between the walkway to the 500 loop CS and the main road, so there was lots of people walking on both sidewalks for the dogs to bark at.

I rolled over and went back to sleep, but my DW was kept awake. They moved a couple of days after we were there.

We DID however, really enjoy when people were walking their dogs. My girls love dogs, so every time we saw someone with a dog we asked if we could pet it, and met some very nice people and dogs that way. I'm hoping to upgrade into the 300 or 500 loop again this year for those reasons.

Now don't get me wrong, I really dislike bad pet owners, but you really can't blame the dog. That's like blaming the golf cart for the actions of the SG.

 

[BradyBz12]

According to a reliable Disney source, WDW currently has on property...

34 Resorts = 28,000+ rooms + 3,187 DVC

Total NONdog WDW accommodations = 31,187+

Total Campsites (note: not all pet sites) = 799

Even assuming that pets were allowed on 600 sites...

Less than 0.02% of all WDW accommodations allow dogs

That's good news for some disgruntled folks as it means that
99.98% of all WDW "rooms" are DOG FREE!!

According to the US Census site there are currently 310,547,147 people in the U.S.

According to a survey by the HSUS (Humane Society of the US) as of 12/09, in the US there were...

77.5 million dogs
39% of US households contained at least one dog (and that number increases every year)

So 39% of the population shares their home with a dog
and yet
TWO ONE HUNDRETHS OF ONE PERCENT
of all WDW accommodations allow dogs.


I would love to stay at the Grand Floridian, but my dog is not allowed to stay there with me so I choose not to. That leaves me with some percentage of the 799 campsites at ONE resort to choose from depending on my camping equipment and preference.

Lucky for me, that one resort is actually one of my very favorites!

Someone who wishes to "not vacation near other people's pets" has their choice of more than 31,187 accommodations on WDW property



Who do you think is getting the short end of the stick?!?!
(pun totally intended)


Did someone say stick??

 

[2goofycampers]

According to AllEars accommodations statistics (relatively up to date), WDW currently has...

23 Resorts = 24,331 rooms + DVC
FW Cabins = 409

Total NONdog WDW accommodations = 24,740 (excl. DVC)

Total Campsites (note: not all pet sites) = 799

Even assuming that pets were allowed on all sites...

Less than 0.03% of all WDW accommodations allow dogs

Add in DVC and that number might as well be zero

That's good news for some disgruntled folks as it means that
99.97% of all WDW "rooms" are DOG FREE!!

According to the US Census site there are currently 310,547,147 people in the U.S.

According to a survey by the HSUS (Humane Society of the US) as of 12/09, in the US there were...

77.5 million dogs
39% of US households contained at least one dog (and that number increased every year)

So 39% of the population shares their home with a dog
and yet not even
A FRACTION OF ONE PERCENT
of all WDW accommodations allow dogs.


I would love to stay at the Grand Floridian, but my dog is not allowed to stay there with me so I choose not to. That leaves me with some percentage of the 799 campsites at ONE resort to choose from depending on my camping equipment and preference.

Lucky for me, that one resort is actually one of my very favorites!

Someone who wishes to "not vacation near other people's pets" has their choice of 24,740 accommodations on WDW property + DVC!



Who do you think is getting the short end of the stick?!?!
(pun totally intended)

 

[Magicbus]

And it's even worse for our furry Fiends. According to the WDW internal source, the number of resorts and accomodations are higher than what Allears is reporting, and increasing.
Based on Monique's research, why hasn't Disney have pet friendly rooms? Tile instead of carpeting, separate dog walking areas, built in cages in rooms, resort dog walkers, etc?

 

[BradyBz12]

And it's even worse for our furry Fiends. According to the WDW internal source, the number of resorts and accomodations are higher than what Allears is reporting, and increasing

Oh I can definitely believe that! And like I said, I didn't even bother to look up all the DVC - heck Saratoga Springs alone is a small city!

I'd be willing to wager a kungaloosh that the REAL percentage of "dog friendly accommodations" at WDW is closer to .0005%

why hasn't Disney have pet friendly rooms? Tile instead of carpeting, separate dog walking areas, built in cages in rooms, resort dog walkers, etc?

Beats the bijinkies out of me! Lord knows with the amount of money the US population spends on their pets every year (hello... we have no less than 6-8 Petco/Petsmart stores within 15 minutes of our house) Disney could make a killing.

Talk about an untapped market! Just think of the theming possibilities...

Pools that are giant goldfish bowls.

Giant bone-shaped playsets for the kids.

Blizzard Beach II - brought to you by Blizzard!

Sandboxes that are... ok, maybe not.

Presumably one reason for closing the WDW kennels is that they weren't profitable enough (isn't that the reason for pretty much everything?), but pet-friendly resorts is a whole other kettle of fish.

I mean dog.

er... cat.

Ferret???


ETA: Oh and the second there is a job posting for "dog walker" with WDW I'm am quitting my day job and heading south!!!

 

[kampfirekim]

Our dogs are dead, but we may have another one day...

and if we do he/she will surely come along.

We have NEVER had a problem with people's pets. A few annoyances, maybe, but all in all never a reason to get upset or report anyone. We did have an issue once with a lady parking her GC on our site to go to the CS, but as Carol said, that is a problem with people...not pets.

 

[DisCamper]

And it's even worse for our furry Fiends. According to the WDW internal source, the number of resorts and accomodations are higher than what Allears is reporting, and increasing.
Based on Monique's research, why hasn't Disney have pet friendly rooms? Tile instead of carpeting, separate dog walking areas, built in cages in rooms, resort dog walkers, etc?

MagicBus: times may be changing. I had a Great friend that staying in FWL villas. On one of their walks ran across new poop bags dispensers. They asked about it because they have pets. They were told there is a test program for deluxe hotels to allow pets in the resorts of FWL and Boardwalk will start to allow pets in 2011

 

[SCtigercock]

MagicBus: times may be changing. I had a Great friend that staying in FWL villas. On one of their walks ran across new poop bags dispensers. They asked about it because they have pets. They were told there is a test program for deluxe hotels to allow pets in the resorts of FWL and Boardwalk will start to allow pets in 2011

And will these areas get dog parks? If not, guess where the only one to share is? Parking?

 

[DisCamper]

If it happens pets can stay in deluxe hotels. Time will tell about a Dog park. It only took about 10 years for the Fort to build a dog park after letting pets stay on camp site

 

[BradyBz12]

I'd bet you're more likely to see shuttle service from the deluxe resorts to Best Friends before you see any new dog parks.

Can I drive? Please, please, can I?

 

[NJRRK]

MagicBus: times may be changing. I had a Great friend that staying in FWL villas. On one of their walks ran across new poop bags dispensers. They asked about it because they have pets. They were told there is a test program for deluxe hotels to allow pets in the resorts of FWL and Boardwalk will start to allow pets in 2011

Not to be rude I WILL NOT stay in any hotel that allows dogs.

1 - Because DS and I are very allergic.
2 - Even if there is a rule about no dogs left alone in the room, invariably some inconsiderate guest will leave their dog alone in the room and said dog will bark and whine all day. More than likely in the room next to mine.

They are my reasons, the first being most important. I think that the dog would feel more at ease in a familiar environment. That's why my brother hires a dog sitter.

 

[DisCamper]

Not to be rude I WILL NOT stay in any hotel that allows dogs.

1 - Because DS and I are very allergic.
2 - Even if there is a rule about no dogs left alone in the room, invariably some inconsiderate guest will leave their dog alone in the room and said dog will bark and whine all day. More than likely in the room next to mine.

They are my reasons, the first being most important. I think that the dog would feel more at ease in a familiar environment. That's why my brother hires a dog sitter.

I will tell you this you are going to find more and higher end hotels letting pet. It’s a sign of the times and a money maker for the hotel. Almost weekly there are more hotels jumping on the pet friendly bandwagon. So good luck in your adventures. If you don’t have a RV it may be time to get one.

 

[BradyBz12]

Not to be rude I WILL NOT stay in any hotel that allows dogs.

...I think that the dog would feel more at ease in a familiar environment. That's why my brother hires a dog sitter.

I actually don't disagree with your reasons, and I do think there should still be the option of people not wanting to be in the "pet friendly" areas to be able to be separate from them.

Just because *I* love my dogs and love spending time with them, I really don't expect the rest of the world to feel the same way. And that's AOK!

However on that last point...
That's a generalization you really can't make. Dogs are individuals and each one is different. Doing rescue for almost 10 years and seeing hundreds of different dogs from all kinds of backgrounds (some bad, but many good), I know that what each dog wants/needs is different.

I'm sure your brother's dogs are perfectly content staying home with their pet sitter.

I have friends who have a wonderful person that actually comes and stays at their house with their dog when they go away.

I also know people who have access to excellent kennels that their dogs very much enjoy.

MY dogs would much prefer to be with us then left with anyone else - even family. And certainly as opposed to a kennel with strange people, dogs, etc.

Well ok.... *2* of my dogs prefer that (and truly would be traumatized by the alternatives)

The other one... I could pack a bag and stick her on the highway with her paw out and she'd be pleased as punch to go with whomever picked her up first.