Jump to content

Kaltxi!- A Not So Typical Memorial Day Weekend at the Fort with the TCD Gang


Recommended Posts

  • Replies 122
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Posts

w00t....I was mentioned in a TCD report. I am famous now!

So did yall get your faces painted blue?

I have hesitated clicking on this thread because, based on the title, I thought it was a thread about anti-diarrhea medicine, or maybe a prescription for psoriasis.  "Ask your Doctor is Kaltxi is righ

23 hours ago, DaveInTN said:

I am guessing the chances of her ever going to Buffalo are very low.  Unless she someday marries someone from Buffalo.  Which considering how many people there are in Florida originally from Buffalo is not outside the realm of possibilities.  

As someone who grew up with SOS being solidly in the dinner rotation, I can tell you I vividly remember the salt.  But I also remember sort of enjoying the dish when my Mom made it.  That picture, however, is disgusting.  Who thought that was a good idea??

Well, here's something funny about the TCD gang and Buffalo- last fall, my oldest DD traveled to Buffalo and attended a college fair there on behalf of her then employer, the University of Miami.  She stayed downtown, visited the Anchor Bar, and also made it out to Niagara Falls.  She liked it.  Of course, that was a nice fall day.

And Twin #1 is about to wrap up her time in Gainesville in August.  She still has one more class to finish on-line, and allegedly will graduate in December.  But, in August, she has lined up an apartment to move in to in Orlando with two young ladies she met through her Disney College Program.  One of the girls was born and raised in Buffalo, and her parents still live there.  I happened to meet the parents when the girls were moving stuff into the new apartment, and the dad was a hoot. He was also born and raised in Buffalo, and we had a great time talking football and such. Both of the parents were very nice people.  Given Twin #1's propensity to travel, I think there's an excellent chance that she will go and visit Buffalo with her new roommate at some point.

So, I don't think it's going to take her marrying some Yankee to get there.

Regarding SOS, I never had it before I choked down that stuff in the box I got from the Food Truck.  My dad's experience with it in the Army protected me from it, as it was one of the few things that he asked my mother to never make.

It really was disgusting.  Again, my stomach is turning just remembering it. And I'm still mad about not getting the chocolate bar.

21 hours ago, alexwyattmommy said:

I noticed on the dance party they were going back a 100 years.  Maybe they were aiming for a nostalgic WWII era meal?  They were also saluting the military and there isn't a much more military meal than SOS unless you get MREs. 

That one looks pretty gross.  They are salty but not unbearably so if made right.

There was some weird music being played there at the beach.

The CM's seemed to be the only ones dancing at the dance party.

21 hours ago, Littleolwoman.aka.Kristie said:

Did the girls comment on how crowded the pool was? I would imagine it was really crazy. The food truck meal looks like a big fail. I wonder if anyone complained? Bummer on the chocolate bar although sounds like you wouldn't have enjoyed it anyway. 

Good question.

Yes, they did comment about the pool conditions. They said is was extremely crowded, and that the water was full of chlorine, but still very cloudy.

I still am wondering how the chocolate bar was supposed to fit in with that meal.

21 hours ago, Grumpy and Grandma said:

We actually referred to SOS when it was made with ground beef. Dinner made with chipped beef was affectionally called Creamed f--e sk--s on toast. 

Wow, I'm not sure I could have handled that with ground beef.

I've heard the term "he curses like a sailor," and now I understand it. I can't even figure out what letters are missing from f-e sk-s, and what that is supposed to mean.

I'm not asking you to tell me either.  I'm probably better off not knowing.

4 hours ago, kadancer said:

Besides Eggs Benedict (which I rarely get), SOS is my favorite breakfast.  Yours did not look anything like my Mom's or what I've had in a good diner. 

Your favorite breakfast?

Yikes.

Is it a regional food?  I would never even think about having that for breakfast.

2 hours ago, lightbikes said:

05%2028%2017%20161_zpskzuxs1t5.jpg

    That is beautiful - love the colour and pattern.  

 

 

05%2028%2017%20191_zps4ztwm1gl.jpg

That looks revolting!!!  You are indeed brave to take the hit for us all !

I like the magic band a lot too.  Like I said, I've resisted buying one up to now, but I really liked this one.

Yeah, that creamed beef was revolting.  I need to get this TR to a new page so I don't have to look at that picture any more.

TCD

Link to post
Share on other sites

Good Lord, that SOS turned my stomach just looking at it!!! I was sitting here and laughing out loud over your description of it and my husband wondered what was so funny, so I showed him your pic and read what you wrote!!! We both groaned and laughed!! Thanks for taking one for the team!!

Love your new magic band! Wish Disney would put teal bands into the rotation for guest to select. I "need" a teal one as teal is the color for ovarian cancer survivors, of which I am!!

Loved all of your fort photos!!

Link to post
Share on other sites
16 hours ago, kadancer said:

Not sure if SOS is a regional breakfast choice, but many diners, especially on the Eastern Shore of Maryland serve it for breakfast.  Perhaps it is our version of sausage gravy.

That is really interesting, as I visited a lot of diners when I lived in NJ, and I sure don't remember SOS ever being offered as a breakfast item.  Maybe I just never noticed.  It for sure is not something I see on breakfast menus in Florida.

16 hours ago, CCIntrigue...aka Gwen said:

What is SOS?  What does it stand for?  It looks like chipped beef gravy to me.

I believe that it's the official US military acronym for chipped beef and gravy served on some type of bread product.  It stands for Sh*t on a Shingle.

13 hours ago, Littleolwoman.aka.Kristie said:

Oh I forgot to mention how awesome your magic band is. I love the color.

I really like the color too.

13 hours ago, Heidi-meetsTCD@TSM said:

Good Lord, that SOS turned my stomach just looking at it!!! I was sitting here and laughing out loud over your description of it and my husband wondered what was so funny, so I showed him your pic and read what you wrote!!! We both groaned and laughed!! Thanks for taking one for the team!!

Love your new magic band! Wish Disney would put teal bands into the rotation for guest to select. I "need" a teal one as teal is the color for ovarian cancer survivors, of which I am!!

Loved all of your fort photos!!

I didn't know that about teal being used by ovarian cancer survivors.  Very cool.  I believe that we will see teal magic bands offered in the resort magic band rotation soon.  That's how it went when they introduced purple magic bands-first they were only used for customized bands that they sold in the gift shops.  Then they let everyone have them.

By the way, I am really glad to hear that your are officially a cancer survivor now!

25 minutes ago, caveat lector said:

You're experience with the Pandora ride is amazing but not surprising. Thanks for sharing the expeience. Not having a Disney trip in the near future, I enjoy these reports even more.

I actually feel a bit guilty that we got to ride the Pandora rides as much as we did.  I am now hearing stories of folks waiting for hours just to ride a banshee once.  Crazy.

TCD

Link to post
Share on other sites

Moving along.

It is still Sunday night, May 28th.

We had hung around the Fort all day.

Our plans for after dinner were to go and watch the fireworks from the beach, and maybe check out the beach bash.

The fireworks crowd was moderate.  Nothing like a 4th of July or New Year's Eve crowd:

05%2028%2017%20193_zpsffjmzbev.jpg

Here's an experiment at lightening that photo with Photobucket:

6edd7beb-faa8-45c5-bee3-708ea5cfdbb3_zps

The kids had watched the fireworks from the beach the night before, and reported that the soundtrack was played, but that they needed to be close to a speaker to hear it.  So, we got us a spot along the woodline, right next to a speaker, and got ready to enjoy the show.

The Fort area music quieted down right on cue, and we got ready for the show.

We heard some static.

Then, nothing.

The fireworks went off.

And we had no sound track at all.

It sounded like someone was trying to twist some wires together or something, but we got nothing.

I noticed that they had lights and speakers set up on tripods along the beach.  Someone had worked on having audio for the fireworks- or maybe it was just for the DJ's.  But, those speakers produced no fireworks soundtrack sounds.  The lights did dim, though.

This was my first time seeing the new fireworks show, Happily Ever After, from the beach.

I didn't know how it would compare to Wishes.

The amount of fireworks was fine.

But, this show has long gaps between the fireworks.  In the park, with the soundtrack, those gaps are fine, because that's when they are showing projections on the castle, or using their new nifty spotlights and lasers.  But, you can't see any of that from the Fort.  And, without the soundtrack, this show is boring.

So, major fail on Fort management here.  Someone goofed up getting the fireworks soundtrack to play on this night where they promoted the fireworks as one of the big parts of the beach bash.

All of my fireworks photos are terrible, but I'll share this one, to show what you can and can't see from the beach.  Here, you can see that the higher up fireworks are visible, while the lower ones are blocked by Discovery Island:

05%2028%2017%20204_zps1ezs8fju.jpg

Again, here's a Photobucket modified version of that photo:

7ab86de5-bb6d-4a26-8399-113bfb226811_zps

To make matters worse, during the last long gap between fireworks, the dumb college kids they had running the beach party hit the switch to turn up the lights, and began blasting a Bruno Mars song.  The dummies thought the fireworks were over, and guests were starting to leave, just as the big fireworks finale was blasting.

Total and complete failure.

They couldn't have screwed up the fireworks viewing any more if they had tried.

We decided to head back to the cabin and forego the rest of the poorly planned and executed beach party.

There had been some big talk about a possible monorail crawl that night, but I think everyone had done enough drinking the night before, so we were able to go with Plan B (which is what I wanted to do all along). -- Pandora at night.

For this weekend, they had Extra Magic Hours at Animal Kingdom each night from 11 pm to 1 am.  As resort guests, that meant we could go.  None of us had seen Pandora at night yet, plus we had FP+'s from way earlier in the day that we didn't use.  I thought maybe we could sweet talk some CM into letting us use those.

So, we headed to the Outpost.

And, in trued TCD bus luck fashion, an Animal Kingdom bus arrived shortly thereafter.

Look what's on the marquee:

05%2028%2017%20206_zps0172vvuq.jpg

At the beginning of this report, I shared how none of us knew how to pronounce Kaltxi, and we had heard it pronounced several different ways.

Well, right on cue, the Disney Parks Blog posted a helpful article yesterday that will clear up this debate once and for all:

https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2017/06/infographic-learn-to-speak-navi-for-your-trip-to-pandora-the-world-of-avatar/

Here's an "Infographic" that has a pronunciation guide:

Infographic: Learn to Speak Na’vi For Your Trip To Pandora - The World of Avatar

So that settles things, right?

Or does it?

Not to brag or anything, but I've always thought of myself as a person of at least average intelligence, plus my mom always told me I was a "smart one."  But, how does that pronunciation guide help me?  Is the "a" in "kahl" a long "a" or short "a" .  Is it "call" or "kale" or "cul"  or something else?  And what about the "I" in "T'IH?"  Is that a long I like in "ice," or a short I like in "ick"  So is it "tie" or "tick" (minus the ck), or "tea" or something else?

I'd really like to know.

Have any of you managed to watch the movie all the way through without falling asleep?  I'm thinking they probably say Kaltxi a lot in the movie.  Can anyone help?

Anyway, back to our night visit to AK.

First, it was pretty cool to be heading to AK at 10:30 at night.

At least until we got there.

I didn't know what to expect as far as how they would handle EMH.  This was only the second day of Pandora being open, and they had long lines all day just for folks to get in to Pandora.  Were they doing to chase all of the riff-raff out so us resort guests could enjoy an exclusive experience in Pandora?

Not a chance.

What we found when we got to the Pizzafari area was a team of not so magical CM's telling resort guests to head to the end of the line of resort guests waiting to be let in to Pandora.  It was not yet 11 pm, so they were having resort guests line up and would admit them at 11.  We wanted to see how this would go, so we headed to the end of the line.  And we kept walking, and walking, and walking, all the way across the bridge into Africa, where we finally found the end of the line.  Crazy.

When it hit 11 pm, the line began to move, and kept moving until we reached the Pandora entrance about 10 minutes later.  There, we found a CM who scanned our MB's, or at least pretended to, to confirm that we were resort guests, and we were in.

I have heard guests gush about how Pandora at night is breathtaking, and other such words.

We liked it fine.

But, it was mainly just a lot of fluorescent paint and blacklights.

Nice, but not breathtaking.

And it was really, really crowded.

So, you couldn't really take in the views.

But, we liked it.

We hadn't been in the gift shop here since opening day, as there was a long line in the hot sun just to get in the gift shop yesterday.  So, we decided to give the gift shop a try first.  There was a short line to wait in to get in the store.  It took us about 15 minutes.  But, the sun was down, and it was fine.

The gift shop was crowded.  And people were buying lots of stuff.  Good for Disney.

This bust was in the gift shop, and it wasn't here for the previews:

05%2028%2017%20209_zps1e8hfwma.jpg

05%2028%2017%20211_zpscevgbplg.jpg

I think this is the same bust that we saw at the D23 convention in Anaheim back in 2015.  It was kind of cool to see it had finally made it to what we then were calling Avatarland.

We had heard that they had new merchandise in the gift shop that wasn't there for the previews, but except for the dated stuff that they had in the other AK gift shops too, we didn't see anything new here.

We did spend a few minutes watching a guy get his photo taken for the custom Na'vi souvenir figures, and that seemed like a big scam- because the face of the figure looked nothing like the guy who was sitting there for the photo.  But, there was a line of guests waiting for their chance to throw their money away on this item.  So, more power to Disney.

Next, we decided to try our luck with using our long expired FP+'s to ride Flight of Passage.  We figured that maybe they were being lenient on FP return times since the park had been so crowded, but we were hours late.  We all agreed that we would let Twin #1 do the talking, since she has worked attractions in both WDW and Disneyland, and she knows how to speak the CM language.  So, we hung back at the entrance and let her sweet talk the CM.  She talked to the guy guarding the FP scanners a long time, and she never waved us to come up there.  We figured she had struck out, and that we'd have to find something else to do.  Twin #1 walked back to us and told us to come with her and she would explain what happened.

So, feeling rejected, we walked away from the FP+ entrance with our heads hung in defeat.

But, there's more to the story.

When we were away from the FP+ entrance, Twin #1 explained that the CM told her that there was no possible way that he could let us use our FP+'s late, even though he wanted to, as it would cause a riot if any other guests saw him let us scan our MB's.  They were not being lenient on the return times, plus they were not going to let anyone use FP+ during the EMH.  Twin #1 did not argue with the guy. Instead, she chatted him up and asked him how he liked working there, and where he had worked before, and how long he had been with the company, and stuff that CM's always talk to each other about.  In the course of that conversation, it came out that this guy was the former roommate of a good friend of Twin #1's, and they had many mutual friends. During that conversation, the guy slipped Twin #1 a Rider Switch pass for FOP, and told her to take it and go away for a while, and come back when any witnesses to their conversation would be gone.

So there you go.

It is good to be TCD.

We hung around for about 15 minutes and enjoyed all of the fluorescent paint, and then headed back to FOP, cashed in that Rider Switch pass, and headed on in.

This is all you see of the cave from the FP return line.  It looks cool at night:

05%2028%2017%20217_zpsjver2rfq.jpg

All of the signs in the queue are interesting to read:

05%2028%2017%20218_zpsnp6e8rsr.jpg

05%2028%2017%20219_zpsvcwcv8go.jpg

05%2028%2017%20220_zpsutmdyz9b.jpg

So, we rode FOP again.

And we all still really liked it.

There was no way we could try for one more ride.

They had cut-off the line sometime before midnight.

So, we just walked around and looked at the nighttime stuff, and then headed for the Fort bus.

After and uneventful ride back to the Fort, that was it for Sunday.

TCD

Link to post
Share on other sites

It's seems unfathomable that the soundtrack would not work for the fireworks - it's not like playing it is something new, the system has been in place for a long time.  That's like having a CD player that only plays one disc.

I have seen the entire Avatar movie, but clearly the language made no impression on me because I can't decipher the pronunciation graphic either.  

Link to post
Share on other sites

I hate you had a bad experience with the chipped beef in toast. I actually posted about it in my fb last memorial day.

 

"Memorial day is a day to honor our fallen military. I guess even though my Daddy was one of the fortunate who came home, he has been on my mind. Ed and I decided yesterday that we wanted "Chipped Beef on Toast'" I never eat this that I don't remember the story Mama and Daddy told us many times. When they married in 1952, Mama was 17 and had grown up with a mother who was not really a good cook, so she was determined to teach herself. Daddy was working graveyard shift so she tried to make him a good breakfast when he got off work. She found a recipe for chipped beef on toast and went to work on it. She was very proud as she put the plate in front of Daddy. She said he started mumbling, "$h1t on a shingle" under his breath. She immediately started crying because she had no idea that he had eaten it in the mess hall a million times before. Of course it did not stop him from eating it and I grew up having this as a favorite comfort food. I can't imagine the conditions some of our military have eaten this same meal and I am grateful for their sacrifice that allows me to enjoy this meal as a luxury and enjoy the memories it brings."

 

I usually rinse half of the dried beef to cut the saltiness, especially if using salted butter.

 

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
On 6/16/2017 at 0:59 PM, kadancer said:

It's seems unfathomable that the soundtrack would not work for the fireworks - it's not like playing it is something new, the system has been in place for a long time.  That's like having a CD player that only plays one disc.

I have seen the entire Avatar movie, but clearly the language made no impression on me because I can't decipher the pronunciation graphic either.  

I've also seen the movie a couple of times and seen bits of it here and there on cable many times. And I agree with you I can't remember any of the pronunciation.

The movie itself is basically a re-make of "Dances with Wolves" with the same heavy-handed messages, but like "The Day After Tomorrow" and "2012" (two of my guilty pleasure movies) the special effects are the highlight of the movie and what make it sort-of worth watching.....

I also can't believe the speakers at the Fort weren't working on that night. In fact it always seems hit or miss that they work. I guess with the super low prices we pay for a site they just can't afford to fix them....... :lol:

I was a Navy brat so we had SOS quite often, but in our case it was for Dinner and it was made with Ground Beef. I always loved it that way and it was never too salty.  I have also had the chipped beef version and it always seems too salty..... go figure.

Here's the kind we had growing up on the Navy Base:

http://www.food.com/recipe/sausage-or-beef-s-o-s-stuff-on-a-shingle-152508

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
On ‎6‎/‎16‎/‎2017 at 10:06 AM, Tri-Circle-D said:

 

By the way, I am really glad to hear that your are officially a cancer survivor now!

TCD

Thanks so much!!! It is a good feeling!!! It will be six years in July that I was diagnosed.It will be six years in August that we took a two week trip to Disney to help pass the time between the surgery when I was diagnosed and another major surgery at the end of August. It was on that trip six years ago, that my boys and I were in line for Toy Story Midway Mania, that I did a double take when I thought I saw the famous TCD behind us in line!!! I was able to confirm it was TCD when I spotted the equally famous twin #1 and twin #2!!! Hard to believe that was six years ago!!!!

Way to go twin #1 on chatting up the CM and getting the whole family on Flight of Passage!!!

Truly, you guys need to hire yourselves out as tour guides!!!

Bad show by the Fort for not having the music piped in for the fireworks show!!!!!!

Link to post
Share on other sites
On ‎6‎/‎16‎/‎2017 at 11:53 AM, Specularius said:

I see that we both have the same opinion of the lighting effects. To be TCD is great. You should sell guided trips to Disney. You could make a living for sure.

That's funny that we both thought the same thing about Pandora at night.

So, our opinions must be correct.

On ‎6‎/‎16‎/‎2017 at 0:53 PM, caveat lector said:

Thanks for the info graphic on how to speak the avatar greeting.  Sadly, like you, I know even less now about speaking avatar before having studied the info graphic. I really need to actually watch the movie.

You actually do not need to watch the movie.

I bought a copy of it so the TCD girls could watch it.  I've watched it when it's been on TV, and they cut out a lot to make room for commercials.  The un-cut version is very slow paced.  No one has been able to watch it all the way through in one sitting.

On ‎6‎/‎16‎/‎2017 at 0:59 PM, kadancer said:

It's seems unfathomable that the soundtrack would not work for the fireworks - it's not like playing it is something new, the system has been in place for a long time.  That's like having a CD player that only plays one disc.

I have seen the entire Avatar movie, but clearly the language made no impression on me because I can't decipher the pronunciation graphic either.  

If it seems unfathomable to you, then you need to get to the Fort more. Sadly, substandard service and amenities along with poor management are kind of the expectation now.

It's interesting that you didn't learn any Na'vi words from the movie.  Neither did I.  It doesn't make sense to me that anyone needs to know any Na'vi words in the new land- as there are no Na'vi around for any of us to speak to.

On ‎6‎/‎16‎/‎2017 at 8:40 PM, PureTcrazy...rita said:

I hate you had a bad experience with the chipped beef in toast. I actually posted about it in my fb last memorial day.

"Memorial day is a day to honor our fallen military. I guess even though my Daddy was one of the fortunate who came home, he has been on my mind. Ed and I decided yesterday that we wanted "Chipped Beef on Toast'" I never eat this that I don't remember the story Mama and Daddy told us many times. When they married in 1952, Mama was 17 and had grown up with a mother who was not really a good cook, so she was determined to teach herself. Daddy was working graveyard shift so she tried to make him a good breakfast when he got off work. She found a recipe for chipped beef on toast and went to work on it. She was very proud as she put the plate in front of Daddy. She said he started mumbling, "$h1t on a shingle" under his breath. She immediately started crying because she had no idea that he had eaten it in the mess hall a million times before. Of course it did not stop him from eating it and I grew up having this as a favorite comfort food. I can't imagine the conditions some of our military have eaten this same meal and I am grateful for their sacrifice that allows me to enjoy this meal as a luxury and enjoy the memories it brings."

I usually rinse half of the dried beef to cut the saltiness, especially if using salted butter.

That is an awesome story, Rita!

Thank you so much for sharing it. 

On ‎6‎/‎17‎/‎2017 at 3:05 PM, Avatab.... Steve said:

I've also seen the movie a couple of times and seen bits of it here and there on cable many times. And I agree with you I can't remember any of the pronunciation.

The movie itself is basically a re-make of "Dances with Wolves" with the same heavy-handed messages, but like "The Day After Tomorrow" and "2012" (two of my guilty pleasure movies) the special effects are the highlight of the movie and what make it sort-of worth watching.....

I also can't believe the speakers at the Fort weren't working on that night. In fact it always seems hit or miss that they work. I guess with the super low prices we pay for a site they just can't afford to fix them....... :lol:

I was a Navy brat so we had SOS quite often, but in our case it was for Dinner and it was made with Ground Beef. I always loved it that way and it was never too salty.  I have also had the chipped beef version and it always seems too salty..... go figure.

Here's the kind we had growing up on the Navy Base:

http://www.food.com/recipe/sausage-or-beef-s-o-s-stuff-on-a-shingle-152508

 

I never stopped to think that chipped beef with gravy is the same thing as the sausage gravy that folks put on biscuits all over the place in Florida. 

I've never even heard of it being made with ground beef, but I imagine I would like it, since I like sausage gravy.

On ‎6‎/‎17‎/‎2017 at 4:50 PM, Travisma said:

I can believe the speakers weren't working.  Last beach bash for the 4th of July they didn't work.  Seems like when there is a beach party thereis no soundtrack for the fireworks.  Patching, soundboard issue?

Interesting.

That supports my theory that they anticipated broadcasting the fireworks soundtrack from the speakers they set up for the dance party, and somebody goofed with the set-up.

That's what you get when you leave stuff like this to the college interns instead of having someone who knows what they're doing set it up. But paying a pro would cost too much money, and we are only filthy campers, so forget that.  Most people probably didn't even realize there was supposed to be a soundtrack.  After all, the college kids they had running the show didn't know when the end of the fireworks show was, and they were having a blast dancing with each other to that Bruno Mars song that they had blasting for the finale' of the fireworks show.

14 hours ago, Heidi-meetsTCD@TSM said:

Thanks so much!!! It is a good feeling!!! It will be six years in July that I was diagnosed.It will be six years in August that we took a two week trip to Disney to help pass the time between the surgery when I was diagnosed and another major surgery at the end of August. It was on that trip six years ago, that my boys and I were in line for Toy Story Midway Mania, that I did a double take when I thought I saw the famous TCD behind us in line!!! I was able to confirm it was TCD when I spotted the equally famous twin #1 and twin #2!!! Hard to believe that was six years ago!!!!

Way to go twin #1 on chatting up the CM and getting the whole family on Flight of Passage!!!

Truly, you guys need to hire yourselves out as tour guides!!!

Bad show by the Fort for not having the music piped in for the fireworks show!!!!!!

Six years?

Amazing.

It hardly seems possible.

I am really glad that things went well for you and your family, and I hope they continue to do so.

TCD

Link to post
Share on other sites

Moving along . .  .

We are now up to Monday morning, May 29th.

Memorial Day.

Despite it being a holiday weekend, it was a calm morning at the Fort.

Some time in the night, they had moved the Food Truck out of the Settlement, and moved the cones to block a bunch of the golf cart parking:

05%2028%2017%20221_zpsfdhykem5.jpg

05%2028%2017%20222_zpst6nojurz.jpg

The Moonshine trailer was still where it had been.  I'm not sure why they even had this here, because they didn't use the trailer for anything.  I guess it was just to promote the $14 watered down drinks:

05%2028%2017%20223_zpslgfi7iht.jpg

Since it wasn't busy around the Fort, I took the Kenny Cart over to the Fort test track to see how fast it actually went.  Not bad.  I think it could have gone faster too:

05%2028%2017%20225_zpshrhqnmcn.jpg

It was nice looking over and seeing the pool empty.  It sure wouldn't be in a few hours:

05%2028%2017%20226_zpszh8herf6.jpg

I think I took this photo just to show what a beautiful morning it was, but I'm not sure exactly what this photo is supposed to show:

05%2028%2017%20227_zpsvohtvuq6.jpg

I do remember why I took these photos, though:

05%2028%2017%20228_zpsacpdvacq.jpg

05%2028%2017%20230_zpsrgg8ybs3.jpg

It's hard to believe, but 9 years ago, in April, 2008, I posted this photo of  that same area:

FortWildernessSpringBreak08113_zpsxlmeue

And then it was just a few weeks after that, in May of 2008, that I posted this photo:

Dcgamez035_zpsuxthccka.jpg

That was back in the days where the idiots who were then in charge decided that it would be a good idea to deforest the Fort.   So, they chopped down and dragged out all of the understory of the forests that the men who built the Fort deliberately and painstakingly preserved.  As you can see from that last photo above, when they were initially done with the deforestation, you could clearly see the 1500/1600 loop comfort station from the road.

But, now, new stuff has grown back to hide the building again.

So, what did all of that clearing accomplish?

In fairness, a lot of stuff has not grown back.  So, the South Florida Salsa Dancing Club can still put up 8 or 9 tents in or around one partial level campsite, and even have room to park a half dozen cars, and set up their sound system.

What do I know?

Getting back on point.

You have to be impressed that I was able to find those two 9 year old photos to support my rant.

You won't find content like that on any other message board.

Speaking of plant life, we need some plant life appreciation photos.

Here's one- it's a flowering Bay Tree that is along the road near the backside of the 1300 loop:

05%2028%2017%20231_zpsfhydms0h.jpg

A lot of people packed up and left the Fort on Monday, but we didn't.  We decided that we'd stay Monday night too, and enjoy the Fort as it gradually emptied out.

Here's a guy heading out at 8:24 am.  That poor guy must have been up pretty early to get all of that packed up and on the road:

05%2028%2017%20232_zps8dfwdzlv.jpg

Now, here's some plant life that's really worth talking about- the gardenia bushes at the Four-Way stop were in bloom for this trip.  There had been a few blooms when we were here for Easter in April, but the bushes were loaded now:

05%2028%2017%20233_zpscp1ajesl.jpg

05%2028%2017%20234_zpsc3ymdv0g.jpg

05%2028%2017%20235_zps2pd4makz.jpg

05%2028%2017%20236_zpsjz1og1si.jpg

I visited those bushes every time I was out looping on this trip.  And, we always slowed down and took a deep breath through the nose whenever we were heading to or from the Outpost.

Absolutely magnificent!

Monday morning ended up being a little busy, because Mrs. TCD and our oldest DD took off for home.

That just left the twins, one of their friends, and me at the Fort.  With my camper and the cabin.  And nobody was planning to use the sofa bed in the cabin.

Since everything was nice and dry, I decided that I'd pack up the camper, and sleep in the cabin that night.

But first, we made another trip to Pandora.

Yes, we had FP+'s again.

The plan was to use those, and then try the mobile ordering at the Pandora quick serve for lunch.

It all went well.

Until it didn't.

They were having some problems with some of the theaters in the Flight of Passage attraction.

We were loaded into a pre-show room, watched the first pre-show video, which we were already getting a big tired of, and then waited to move to the next pre-show room.  But, instead, a CM came in and told us that we would need to leave the room the way we came in, and that she would need to load us into another pre-show room.  So, we moved out of that room, waited for a few minutes, and then were loaded into another room.  We asked if we could skip that pre-show room and go right on to the second one, but the CM said no, and so we watched that video that we already have grown to dislike again.

It wasn't a total loss, though, because I got this sweet photo of Dr. Ogden:

Dr.%20Ogden_zpsxsmq96wt.jpg

After enduring two of the first pre-show room experiences, we were moved into the second room.

Just as that video ended, and we were about to move into the room with the ride vehicles, a CM came up to Twin #1 and asked her how many were in her party.  She told the CM, and the CM told her that we all needed to come with him.  We wondered what that was about.  He told us that the ride vehicle that Twin #1 had been assigned was not operable, and we could ride without her, or we could all exit, and get a new anytime FP+ to replace this ride, plus a bonus FP+ for the inconvenience.  We said we would choose door #2.

We thought that we could go out the way we came in, and not have to walk through the entire queue, but the CM then walked us through the vehicle room, and we saw that there was caution tape on the vehicle Twin #1 was going to ride, and we exited through there to find the CM who was going to hook us up with the new FP+'s.  It was there we learned that we would have to exit the entire building, and walk back around to the entrance and start again. Ugh.

But we did get two more FOP FP+'s assigned to our MDE accounts, and they were good for anytime the rest of the day.

We headed out, and walked down a long hallway we hadn't seen before:

hallway_zpspefgys7o.jpg

And we saw something cool in the hallway that we hadn't seen before:

hand%20prints_zpshzs943zl.jpg

Twin #1 got this right away.

Those are the handprints of Joe Rohde, James Cameron, and Jon Landau.

Pretty cool little detail.

Apparently, each theater has a separate exit, so that's why we hadn't seen this before.

Since we had anytime FP+'s now, we went to lunch.  We used the mobile ordering, and this time it worked flawlessly.  I really like it.

After lunch, it was two more back-to-back banshee rides.

We had to hold the record for the most banshee rides on opening weekend.

And then it was back to the Fort.

The kids hung out in the cabin.

And I cleaned and packed up the camper.

That took me a while.

The kids had headed to the MK in the late afternoon, and I told them I would meet them there for fireworks.

I took the secret bus from the Settlement, and had a bus completely to myself.  Like a VIP.  It would have been a quicker ride had this dumb CM in his golf cart been courteous and pulled over for the bus on the road between the Fort and the Lodge:

05%2028%2017%20237_zpslkokniuu.jpg

I didn't see the old railcar by the entrance to the new DVC project, but I could see some kind of shelter that they have built in there.  I think it's a recreation shelter for the DVC members:

05%2028%2017%20239_zpsghvnqqtd.jpg

I made it to the MK with a bit of time to spare, and found the girls in the Hub Grass.  We had a good spot for the fireworks, and of course we could hear the audio.  You really need to be in the park to enjoy this new show.

Check out these smiley face fireworks:

fireworks.4_zpsupbu1j1i.jpg

This show also uses lasers and spotlights, which you can't see from the beach at the Fort:

fireworks.5_zpsbw5bnjhq.jpg

fireworks.6_zpssod76fhs.jpg

We hung around the MK for a while after the fireworks, and then headed back to the Fort.

I got to sleep on the sofa bed.

It's very comfortable.

We noticed that the hall closet in the cabin was unlocked, and I got a photo of the cabin's birth certificate:

05%2028%2017%20242_zps8vwkn8es.jpg

The cabin will be 20 years old this year!

As far as I can tell, Liberty Homes in Ocala is out of business.

Too bad, I'd like to own one of these cabins, but not a 20 year old one.

That's it for Monday.

Sorry, I guess we spent a lot of time in Pandora, and then me packing up, so there weren't a lot of photos.

And I only have my photos from Tuesday morning left to share.

TCD

Link to post
Share on other sites
43 minutes ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

Here's a guy heading out at 8:24 am.  That poor guy must have been up pretty early to get all of that packed up and on the road:

05%2028%2017%20232_zps8dfwdzlv.jpg

 

When we pull out of the Fort it's usually around 6am.  But I have everything packed, loaded and ready to roll in the morning, so I get up, brew coffee, unplug the electric and we are on the road.    

Link to post
Share on other sites

I would love a class A if for nothing else than being able to let the kids sleep as we pull out early.

Sure wish there was an app that allowed you to share not only the beautiful foliage at the Fort but also the smells. 

Sounds like you all had a great trip and wonderful time celebrating the girls birthday. 

Would you recommend the grass area for watching the fireworks now?

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...



×
×
  • Create New...