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The Year In Review: DIT Takes Disney Love To A New Level In 2017


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Happy New Year!! It's hard to believe 2017 is over, and 2018 is here.  For a variety of reasons, 2017 was a bit of a tough year around the DIT ranch.  I got off-line to focus on more important th

Yes, I'm still alive. A little bird told me that Dave was embarrassing himself by doing a TR, so I needed to read how he crashed and burned..........this time. I sure hope he didn't run into Melvin th

Trip #5 - Fall Break at Dollywood Our kids typically get 3 days off in October for fall break, which makes for a 5 day weekend.  Not long enough to head to the Fort unless we pulled them out of s

16 minutes ago, keith_h said:

You have to admit it was a lot easier to find what you were looking for without all of the advertisements and other modern clutter. 

 

Probably why Sheldon Cooper still keeps his Mortal Enemy List on a 5.25 inch floppy drive.....   :lol:

 

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1 hour ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

Sorry about the Bills. 

Maybe you can root for Tennessee to beat New England?

TCD

I emailed Lou yesterday and told him that, after 15 years living in Nashville, I finally have a reason to root for the Titans.  I'll be ready to forgive them for the Music City Miracle debacle if they can only end the Titans reign and restore order to the galaxy.  However, we all know how that is going to go.  

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Trip Number Two:  Spring Break at The Fort

Ok, enough with the wedding and Commodore 64 distractions.  The wedding was a 2016 event, and this is a 2017 report.  So, moving along....

When we left off, our first trip of 2017 had concluded.  That was in mid-February, and was only INC and me.  But we only had a month to get through until our family Spring Break trip....and this one was to the Fort!!!

It's been several years since we've stepped foot in a Disney park, but for our Spring Break trip I did buy park tickets.  Only....they were water park tickets.  We still aren't ready to go back to the theme parks.  But we'd never done Disney water parks, and a water park annual pass is fairly reasonable.  

I don't have a full photographic record of this trip....as I have previously stated, I had no intention of doing a trip report, so I just took pics here and there.  Accordingly, this section of the report will be a bit sketchy but I'll post what I can.

We left home on Friday afternoon and made it to our overnight spot just south of Dothan in time for dinner and some sleep.  That got us to the Fort on Saturday in the afternoon.  We got settled into the site and enjoyed our evening.  On Sunday, we headed to our first water park....which was Blizzard Beach.  No pics from this day, so I won't say anything about it because I do have pics from other water park days I can share.  I'll just say we enjoyed BB, but having visited Splashin Safari at Holiday World in Indiana, BB was underwhelming.  Great theming, just so-so rides and attractions.  

On Monday is where my first pics of this trip pick up.  We spent the morning hanging around the campsite to relax and do some laundry.  Izzy, as is her custom, was up early.  And she was hungry for some biscuits and gravy, so she headed over to Trails End and got herself some takeout.

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We were all set up in 530...which was one of the sites I requested when I faxed my request in that last week.  

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This is one of the sites that backs up to the canal.  

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How do I remember that we did laundry that day?  This pic was my clue.  

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We also took Elena of Avalor to the playground....which we do pretty much every day at the Fort.  

I raced her down the slide.  

We also got in some pool time that afternoon.  I recall the weather was beautiful.

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Do you see that food truck sitting there in the field by the pool?  I was pretty stoked about one thing on their menu that I wanted to try....the roast beef on kimmelwick roll.  I posted back at the time about it, and about my disappointment in it.  So I won't rehash that here.  If you want to read my review of the sandwich, you can find it here:  http://www.fortfiends.net/topic/18327-fort-wilderness-food-truck/?do=findComment&comment=503050

That evening, we went to the campfire program and movie....primarily because I wanted to check out the food truck, and everyone wanted Mickey ice cream bars!!

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My advice on this is....if you want Mickey bars, get them from the Trading Post.  The ones on the food truck are soft.  So you need to eat them quickly or they'll fall off the stick and/or melt.  

I'll leave it here for now.  Coming up....we go out for breakfast.  Any guesses where?  And INC and I go on a date!  Oh, and we'll eventually get to some water park pictures.  Stay tuned....

 

 

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22 hours ago, mouseketab.....Carol said:

Fun!! I have yet to try the Food truck

I think the consensus is that you should try the burger.  Do not go for the roast beef.  

22 hours ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

The DIT gang at the Fort for Spring Break. Nice.

Since Roaring Fork was still closed then, I'll guess that you went to Geyser Point for breakfast. 

TCD

Good guess...but wrong.  We have a bit of a tradition to uphold, which I'll reveal in the next post.

21 hours ago, Avatab.... Steve said:

 

"....Ok, enough with the wedding and Commodore 64 distractions..."

 

I'm blaming Lou and his C64 for my attempted thread hijack....uhhh I mean HIS attempted hijack... yeah, that's it....

 

 

I'm ok with blaming Lou.  

13 hours ago, LONE-STAR said:

We were at the Fort last year for spring break but I am sure it was different dates.

We were there the week of March 20, I think.  

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Still following along. I have not been to a Disney waterpark. In fact, I have been to one small local waterpark and that is the extent of my waterpark experience.

I think breakfast involved Tonga Toast.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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You know... we've never done take-out at TE.  Pizza.  We've done the pizza.

Where do you stay, south of Dothan?  You can't overnight park at the Cracker Barrel in Dothan, but I know you can at the Sam's Club.  Also... the Camping World (yuck company, but nice people here), used to have overnight parking WITH electric... but when we stopped a couple of weeks ago on our way back from Panama City Beach (I needed antifreeze) they had sale units parked in those spots :( 

Our kiddos were bummed this past trip (November) as they only got to swim to once.  Glad y'all got some pool time!!

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12 hours ago, LONE-STAR said:

We were there the week before that.

Close.

11 hours ago, Momof6....aka Marty said:

Still following along. I have not been to a Disney waterpark. In fact, I have been to one small local waterpark and that is the extent of my waterpark experience.

I think breakfast involved Tonga Toast.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hmm, you may be on to something....

2 hours ago, twiceblessed....nacole said:

You know... we've never done take-out at TE.  Pizza.  We've done the pizza.

Where do you stay, south of Dothan?  You can't overnight park at the Cracker Barrel in Dothan, but I know you can at the Sam's Club.  Also... the Camping World (yuck company, but nice people here), used to have overnight parking WITH electric... but when we stopped a couple of weeks ago on our way back from Panama City Beach (I needed antifreeze) they had sale units parked in those spots :( 

Our kiddos were bummed this past trip (November) as they only got to swim to once.  Glad y'all got some pool time!!

http://www.cherryblossomrv.com/

It used to be called Pecan Point.  

2 minutes ago, Seals said:

This would make a great ad for Mickey ice cream bars.

yes, and now I'm hungry for a Mickey bar again...

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3 hours ago, twiceblessed....nacole said:

You know... we've never done take-out at TE.  Pizza.  We've done the pizza.

Where do you stay, south of Dothan?  You can't overnight park at the Cracker Barrel in Dothan, but I know you can at the Sam's Club.  Also... the Camping World (yuck company, but nice people here), used to have overnight parking WITH electric... but when we stopped a couple of weeks ago on our way back from Panama City Beach (I needed antifreeze) they had sale units parked in those spots :( 

Our kiddos were bummed this past trip (November) as they only got to swim to once.  Glad y'all got some pool time!!

Nacole, the pizza is the worst thing there! You can't beat the GAG deal, well not at Disney anyway. Z was bummed about the lack of swimming too.

 

Dave, I'm going to guess you're going to..... Trails End? I'm not sure. Looks like a pretty day though! 

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Ok, let's move along.  

In my last update, I mentioned we would be going out to breakfast.  TCD guessed that we would go to Geyser Point.  That's actually a really good idea, but is not where we dined that day.  Kelly guessed TE, which is also a good guess but not correct.  Marty guessed it had something to do with Tonga Toast....:bell_winner-bf:  Yes...one of our traditions that we try to do on most trips is breakfast at Kona Cafe.  So let's head to the Poly, shall we?

We took the resort boat over the Contemporary, and hopped on the monorail from there.

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Do those two look like twins, or what??

And here I am with my two littlest ones...

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And let's not forget my oldest DD.

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Some goofing around...

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We arrived at our destination, and had some time to kill so we explored the lobby a bit.  

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Before too long, it was time for our ADR and we were seated.  The first thing I ordered was the french press pot of Kona coffee.  

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I had always wanted to try this and today would finally be the day.  I do love me some coffee, as does INC.  The one thing that has dissuaded me from ordering it on previous trips is that I like to know I have bottomless refills of my coffee.  But, we had already had our fill of coffee at the campsite that morning, so I really didn't need much more.  

My thoughts on the Kona french press?  It was very good....but in reality, I am just as happy with the regular coffee at Kona.  I have a french press at home and will make some on occasion on the weekend.  They do make good coffee.  But you pay a premium at a place like Kona for something that I am just as happy having the regular stuff.  So not sure I'll order it again.  Glad I tried it though.   

It certainly was drank.  (is that grammatically correct?  I don't think it is.)

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For our breakfast choices....several of the ladies did order the Tonga Toast. 

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Anna Banana got some French toast.  I'm not sure she was very pleased with it at this moment...LOL.

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Stella had her favorite....Mickey waffles!

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I asked if they could prepare a veggie scramble for me, which they were happy to do.  It was delicious.  

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After breakfast, we headed back to the Fort.  IIRC, some of the kids went off to Typhoon Lagoon.  INC and I hung back and had a relaxing day.  We had a date night planned that evening!!  And we had some BIG plans for that.  

We started by heading over to the Lodge, and we enjoyed a drink at Geyser Point. 

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We may have shared an order of those waffle fries, too.

We walked around the grounds of the Lodge, and were sure to stop by our favorite spot to get a picture with the Silver Creek Falls sign.  

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And to think that I can take a picture of myself with that sign any time I want now.  :bananas:

We then headed to the Poly again...this time as we wanted to check out a place we hadn't yet been to.... Trader Sam's!!

We were very fortunate to walk right in and get a table.  

We started by sharing an Uh-OA.  

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Uh-OA. Uh-OA.  Uh-OA OA OA!!!

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That place is a lot of fun.  

Two shots of rum!!

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I think I may have posted this on the Where in the World thread back at the time....you could spend all evening just looking at the decor in this place.

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Of course, we had to order some pot stickers.

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And maybe another drink.

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After selling a kidney to pay the bill, we walked the path to the GF and explored the resort a bit, before leaving that resort to go make our dinner reservation.  I'll leave that for the next update.    

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You've got some great pics there!!  Love the ones, on the monorail ^_^

Thanks.  I've actually looked at that CG for a stopover before.   Easy access and quiet?  We typically don't pay, to just sleep, but on those trips when it's hot (we don't have a generator), it's a must.

 

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1 hour ago, GaDawgFan.....Kelly said:

Nacole, the pizza is the worst thing there! You can't beat the GAG deal, well not at Disney anyway. Z was bummed about the lack of swimming too.

It's not great... but we actually don't hate it.  If the GAG came with the rotisserie chicken, we'd try it.  I'm just not a huge fan of their (any really) friend chicken.    Still sorry that we'll miss the Christmas display.  Maybe we'll have to drive down, just for dinner and the show :P

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51 minutes ago, GaDawgFan.....Kelly said:

Tonga toast.... yum! 

Love me some Trader Sam's. It doesn't look like it was very busy when you went. I can't figure out the crowd pattern there. Sometimes it's slammed, others not, and the times of the day for those seems random. 

Yeah, it's weird.  I wasn't sure what to expect with the crowds situation at TS.  You're right...it wasn't that busy that day.  We were there early, like around 5pm or so, but I don't think that's a reliable time to go.  We wanted to let our kids experience it so we went back in November to do that and it was SLAMMED at opening at 4pm.  

36 minutes ago, twiceblessed....nacole said:

You've got some great pics there!!  Love the ones, on the monorail ^_^

Thanks.  I've actually looked at that CG for a stopover before.   Easy access and quiet?  We typically don't pay, to just sleep, but on those trips when it's hot (we don't have a generator), it's a must.

 

Easy, yes.  Quiet?  Well, the overnight spots are right up by the road.  But if you are stopping for the electric so you can run your A/C, you won't hear the road.  i wouldn't want to be in a tent, popup or hybrid though without the air running to drown out the traffic noise.  

33 minutes ago, twiceblessed....nacole said:

It's not great... but we actually don't hate it.  If the GAG came with the rotisserie chicken, we'd try it.  I'm just not a huge fan of their (any really) friend chicken.    Still sorry that we'll miss the Christmas display.  Maybe we'll have to drive down, just for dinner and the show :P

You just gave me a great idea for another take out meal.  For those that don't want fried chicken, how about they sell the same meal but with ribs instead of chicken??  They could call it the Ribby Up and Go!  Although, RAG doesn't sound very appealing....

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9 minutes ago, DaveInTN said:

 You just gave me a great idea for another take out meal.  For those that don't want fried chicken, how about they sell the same meal but with ribs instead of chicken??  They could call it the Ribby Up and Go!  Although, RAG doesn't sound very appealing....

:lol:

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