Roberta

3 hours ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

That's the same rule stated here:

 I watched as the guy in the site across from mine covered every square inch of his site with inflatable decorations and lights that he kept on 24 hours a day.  He was friendly with Fort CM's and one even brought him some extra pine needles so he could cover up all the extension cords.  So much for that lights out at 10 pm rule.

TCD

 

We will be there for Halloween this year. I'm looking forward to seeing all the decorations, but sure hope we don't encounter this. I am not shy, I will ask people to turn off their lights if they are lighting up our site after 10:00 pm. 

I plan to decorate, although in a low key, hopefully tasteful way. I'm already shopping and planning. I don't play well with inflatables. Just as with any campground, I will have our lights off far before 10, especially if there are families with young children camping anywhere near us in tents or pop ups. Having once been the young family in the tent, I will never be the obnoxious camper, with the lights or noise, keeping their children awake. 

At non-Fort campgrounds, I don't even like to use lanterns, and often don't. Not due to neighbors, but just because I like it dark. It's camping. Why light up the site like you're at home? A my perfect campsite, the only light is from the campfire and the stars. 

4 minutes ago, Travisma said:

Well just give your group some snazzy sounding name and thefort will look the other way and might even give you a break while allowing 6 tents and 20 people on 1 site.

We'll put up a little sign that says "Anti-Hunger Games  1." That should work. We seriously over pack food, so it fits. 

4 minutes ago, Travisma said:

On fairly level pavement 2 people should be able to roll it.

Not sure I count as an actual person.  I'm pretty weak. We will try, though. Thanks for all the info. 

I would love nothing more than camping with all my kids and grandchildren. Looking at your trip report right now and being envious. We would need two sites, as there are 14 of us, but would be the "Best Day Ever," just like the shirts say. 

8 minutes ago, Travisma said:

Our Pup is only 8 foot by 8 foot closed, and weighs about 900 pounds, so it's easy to move on pavement or hard packed surfaces. We drop it in the road and push it into place on the pad. They do sell motorized dollies to move trailers, and Harbor Freight sells a dual wheeled dolly that may work on semi solid sand.

Thanks, I'll have to look into that. We do have a Harbor Freight in town now. The dry weight of our pup is 2,450. Not sure if it will move by hand, on pavement, or not. Maybe we will take it into town and give it a shot to see if we need the dolly.  

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

I have a picture somewhere I took a few years ago on the Dog Path along the canal behind the 800 Loop. I posted it on one of TCD's threads I think.  It showed a large group with several sites that had tents all over the place. So many in fact that they had some set up ON the dog path that runs behind the loop. They also had a bag toss game set up in the middle of the path.

They had other tents set up in the woods between the actual sites and the path. It looked like they had cut back some of the bushes/tree branches to make little paths between the tents. They literally had big and small tents everywhere there was a space for one!  LOL

Between the tents and the game everyone using the dog path had to detour off the path and duck under the tree branches next to the canal to get by.

They had one site set up as a dining site with a big shelter and grills and the other sites were all tents. IIRC I'd say they had 25 or 30 tents between 3 or 4 sites.

I almost never call up front, but I did this time to tell them about blocking the dog walk. They said they'd send someone to check it out.

Nothing happened, nothing was moved, and the group was there for a couple more days at least.

 

Outrageous! 

The reason this group uses the Fort for these shenanigans is because they CAN. No state park would put up with this kind of crap. They would have to find a private park willing to, which probably wouldn't be easy either. 

Everything about these sets ups reflect a serious lack of camping etiquette. Blocking the dog walk takes it to a new level of just downright obnoxious, self centered behavior. If the Fort management won't do anything about it, it will just continue to get worse. 

1 hour ago, mouseketab.....Carol said:

Most small pups and small campers have some type of wheel on the tongue and can be turned sideways by hand. I do it often with my little trailer.

Yeah, we have a little wheel on the front, but we live on an all sand property, with no pavement at all. The Fort is the first place we've ever camped with actual pavement. Trying to move the camper on sand is all but impossible because the wheels sink in. You can bet we will be moving our camper around next time we are there. This conversation makes me want to tow it to a parking lot to try it.  

3 hours ago, BigTom said:

The most I have seen was in the 1500 loop, 5 tents and 3 pop up canopies. 

?????? One one site??????  Clearly they had to be off their site. 

In all my years of camping (since birth,) and all the states I've lived in, I have never ... not once ... seen a campground that let people set up things outside the boundaries of their site. I've never even seen anyone try to. This, and not cutting through the sites of others, are like the top rules of camping. It makes me wonder if these people have ever camped anywhere else. 

I've been taking notes on this forum and know what times to avoid. So far, Thanksgiving and President's Day weekend. Any other known "group camping" annual events? 

On 2/27/2017 at 2:13 PM, Travisma said:

We had a PUP, a tent like yours, a screen room, and a little dome tent on our site and didn't get any grief about it.

But we did have the PUP turned sideways on the concrete pad which blocked anyone from seeing the sand pad looking straight back.

Just print off a couple of the pictures TCD posted and if they give you any crap show them to them!  

 

 

How did you move the PUP at that angle? Do you have a hand dolly, or are they just light enough to move around on a solid surface? We have one, but never tried. We live on sand and it's tough to move much by hand. 

I'm a chronic rule follower, but there doesn't seem to be any real rules about number of tents. I would never spread out past our site, or have an illegal fire pit (Hello, Chip & Dale have one! What's wrong with people? lol) But I would like to have a PUP and two medium sized tents on our site, facing each other with our RV mat as our "courtyard." 

Welcome, and I'm sure you will love the fort! 

I second the "take a fan" advice. 

Looking forward to it! If it wasn't for you, I would only have two nights. So glad I contacted you. And I think you will get us our last night (or first) as well! Thank you and looking forward to meeting! 

Me, me, me!!! As you know, Jason.   Just scored the whole week, only need one more day, that I trust Jason will get us. Even if not, we can drive down Monday morning, so we are officially IN!

I'm so excited. It will be our first ever Halloween at Disney, and of course the Fort is THE place to be on Halloween. 

Now I just need to look up rules for costumes at Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, as we plan to reserve for one of those now. Obviously, only innocent costumes, but not sure grown ups are even allowed to dress up. I'm a rookie - but incredibly stoked! 

On 2/24/2017 at 7:36 AM, twiceblessed....nacole said:

From our site, it was about a 10 minute drive.

I suppose it does take about this long to get out of the park. 
 

I think I need to turn our property into a traveler's oasis. We are off 75, but live about 10 miles from either close exit. 

Lake City, FL - parking at the Walmart is safer than parking at the Cracker Barrel, despite the looks of both. It you get totally stuck for a place, hit me up. I have 8 acres out here in the boonies, 10 miles from town. 

Do you homeschool, by chance? 

We are going on March 13th and it's $25 for adults, and I forget how much for homeschooled kids. They have those days every two or three months. 

Unfortunately, it's only for one day, but you can pretty much cover Legoland in a day. 

What time did it used to be? We got there about noonish and they had our site ready. 

I just wish the check out time wasn't so early. Around 1:00 pm is much more reasonable, especially if they are going to keep 3:00 check in. 

This is our very favorite campground - other than the Fort, of course. 

We have 5 or 6 standing reservations at any given time, in the river loop. We like the wooded better than the beach sites. I should mention that it's difficult to get reservations here at all, which is why we make a lot of them. Sometimes we cancel, but worth it to have them in standing just in case. If you do this, PLEASE cancel so others may use the sites, even though you don't get back much money. 

The downtown area is just a few minutes drive from the park. Love going there as well. Take the boat tour, it's super interesting and fun. You get as close to the Naval base as allowed, and get some great looks at Cumberland Island. We got close enough to take pictures of mama and baby wild horses. 

In warmer months, they have candlelight tours of the fort and they great spooky fun! 

This thread inspired me to shoot Jason an email about a week I'm trying to get. He did manage to get me half of it last night. Just have to wait it out for the other half. Hoping it comes through, but it's a very hard week to get at the Fort. 

18 hours ago, TN22.....Brady said:

Up until this last trip, I would have agreed there are no bad sites. However our site request from now on will state "anything, but the 600 loop". Big Bear loop is our favorite near the comfort station. We usually just request a range of sites that we prefer.

Is there a trip report corresponding the the Loop 600 hate?   If not, what was wrong with it? Just curious. 

9 minutes ago, Travisma said:

WDW Disney Recycle, Reuse and Regift on FB

Thank you. Just sent a request. 

On 2/3/2016 at 3:50 PM, Avatab.... Steve said:

I HATE the BLT. Prime example of all that is wrong with the current version of Disney.  IMHO it looks like someone tacked an old Holiday Inn onto the side of the Contemporary.....

It has nothing in common with the architecture of the Contemporary, it has no unique appeal, styling, or attributes.

It reflects laziness, greed and a lack of imagination of the people in charge.

 

I am a BLT hater too. It completely ruined everything about the Contemporary. 

We had taken our last trip as northerners in 2002. After moving to FL, we starting getting annual passes somewhere around 2010. I had no kept up with Disney online and had no clue it was going to be there. Because we stayed at the Contemporary most years of my childhood, it holds special memories for me, and I always get some photos of it on every trip. 

Imagine my shock when, on our first trip as Floridians, there was BLT! My first thought was WTH is THAT?!?!  It was disappointing as I felt like it took away from the look of the entire area. I give it the stink eye every time I see it. 
 

On 2/2/2016 at 11:51 AM, Tri-Circle-D said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, the irony! 

I'm not a fan of tearing up the shoreline either. I videotaped the whole atrocity, from the boat, a couple weeks ago. It's a shocking sight. I hope it looks better when they're done, but IMO, nothing will look better than the trees that were there.

I'm honestly not much on change, in general, especially when it involves development.

Disney has enough resorts. I really wish they would quit. It makes me wonder where they will stop. When EMH are completely useless? When every single day of the year has level 10 crowds and sees closings at all the parks?

 

10 hours ago, Travisma said:

As usual, people don't follow directions and the admin is usually pulling her? hair out.

You are supposed to go to the site, look at dates and whats available and at what resort.  The current user is supposed to leave the item at bell services when they leave with the next persons name.

They have people just leaving the items in the rooms, or giving them to some one that PMs them.

At least I know I my brain wasn't making it up.  

But, seriously, OMG @ people that don't know how to follow directions. That kind of crap drives me out of my mind. I feel bad for the admin. I'd be kicking people out of the group left and right. What is the name of the group? I would like to join out of morbid curiosity. I live very close to WDW, so wouldn't ever need to do this, but would be very interested in seeing this in action. 

 

8 hours ago, h2odivers...Ray said:

Yes. They do separate perishable foods from dry foods.   They will store the food in fridges for you. We always try to have the delivery arrive once we get there. They will deliver to your room at the offsite hotels.  Onsite resorts we meet them in the lobby.   I gladly pay a little bit extra to have our food delivered. Just to avoid spending a couple of hours going to and shopping while I'm on vacation. 

That's how I would feel about it as well. Not to mention to cost of renting a car or taking Uber, just the time investment alone would make it well worth it. 

I requested to be near a comfort station and still have a quiet, private site.  Yes, contradicting requests, but they managed to give me exactly what I asked for. Disney Magic. 

I totally agree about the nervous energy at the resort hotels. I have anxiety issues anyway, but Disney usually causes me to use much more meds than usual. 

At the Fort, I actually used less. I always believed it was the parks that caused me anxiety, but that is not the case. 

Yeah, I'm sure Disney knows how much people love the Fort. It's harder to get into than the resorts, and some times of year, costs more than the values, at the tent sites. The other sites always cost more. Since it stays full and in demand, I doubt it's getting any cheaper. 

16 hours ago, GaDawgFan.....Kelly said:

Glad you had such a good time!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thank you! Can't wait to go again. 

I would classify it as our best Disney vacation ever.  Disney is always fun, but usually has an element of stress. I'm not really sure what causes me the stress, but apparently it's the hotels, but it was completely absent this time. I felt completely comfortable and in my element. I felt no sense of rushing to do anything. 

Staying in hotels makes me feel like we need to get out early so Mousekeeping can get in. I also don't want to leave any clothes or personal items laying around, so basically clean before they come in. In our camper, I could totally chill about everything. I loved being able to cook breakfast at leisure, and have a meal at home when we got home from the parks.

I thought I would miss having a campfire, but never did. We are the reverse of rope drop people. We get to the parks whenever we get there, and stay until closing. If one park closes, we will hop to another one with a later closing time or EMH. So the fire pit was not needed at the Fort. 

I never realized that receiving packages was ever free, at any of the resorts. I always assumed they charged a small handling fee. 

On other forums, I have seen people ship large tents, chairs, air mattresses, and even dorm refrigerators to the Fort. I was amazed at the amount of huge items being shipped there. I have a feeling it's stuff like this that inspired the fee. 

I also remember reading - many years ago, and not sure if it was here or elsewhere - of people having stuff shipped to the Fort and then leaving it all there for others to use, who also left it there, and the equipment was used off an on all the time by a lot of different families. Not sure how that would work, but I am positive it was happening. Would involve much work for Fort employees, especially if the users didn't pack everything up clean and properly and deliver to the storage, wherever that may be. 

I'm curious about grocery delivery. Do they separate the frozen, perishable, and dry goods? If lots of people do the delivery, I can imagine it takes a fair amount of effort, on the part of the resorts, to receive, store, and have pick-up available for all that stuff. I would gladly pay $5 over park food prices for groceries, if I were in the position of not being able to drive to get them. 

I censored my post to remove the actual site number. 

 

3 hours ago, DramaMama .......... Janet said:

I know some have painted pink flamingos, but we found a company that makes them in lots of colors (supposedly for sports fans to match their favorite team.)  Our "team" is Fort Fiends!   I made little coonskin hats for them.  Great until it rained.  Then they looked a bit like the Beatles.  I will try to find a pic.

So adorable! I would love to see pics!