Roberta

I do honestly believe she was born to be a part of our family. She came to us in a round about way, but she was meant to be here. We have all bonded completely, and I can't imagine life without her. We all love her dearly and she shows her love back to us. 

She is a Disney girl for sure. She has a Baymax stuffed doll that she sleeps with. She could easily tear it limb for limb, but doesn't. She carries it gently and keeps it on the couch during the day. We found out that she loves balls! She found a tennis ball outside and was so excited. Now she gets to play fetch a few times a day. She loves it best when we play as a group with two other dogs, even though one of our other dogs, Blaze, gets the ball every time. Blaze is super fast and agile, while Joan is just a puppy who doesn't know what to do with all her size yet. 

All the dogs get individual time playing, while the rest are inside, but Joan prefers multi-dog play and will go to the door and cry for us to let them out. So we do. 

Totally anxious and looking forward to our first session tomorrow. The trainer is going to work with Joan, and our entire family. I will take some photos to share. 

Not even 9 months old yet! Will continue to grow until 2 years of age. 

Starts obedience training with private trainer and our entire family, on Thursday evening.

Four weeks of that and then she will graduate to service dog training. It may move faster as
she is a super smart dog and doesn't need a million repetitions of things.  

She is a genuinely beautiful girl, who is laying here with her head on my lap. 

She will be a service dog for my disabled oldest son. She has been a clearly a much loved and well cared for dog, and will continue to be, just by our family now instead. 

She is a genuinely beautiful girl, who is laying here with her head on my lap. 

She will be a service dog for my disabled oldest son. She has been a clearly a much loved and well cared for dog, and will continue to be, just by our family now instead. 

I am praying hard that everything will work out. 

Joan is so very beautiful that I literally cried when I saw her. The hardest part will be letting her be our son's service dog and not my special girl. I've had a sweet spot for German Shepherds and Great Danes since I was a little girl. 

Interestingly, of all the dogs (and cats) that we have ever had, we have never intentionally set out to acquire them. They just sort of find their way to us, where they live until ripe old ages. The entrance to our property is a what I call a Realtor's nightmare. As you drive through the little wooded areas, the first thing you see, on the right, is a clearing with one of our dogs' grave, complete with standing tombstone and a photo of him laser etched on it.

We have two cats as well, although I couldn't tell you for sure where either came from. One we brought when we moved from WV, but she just randomly moved in with us there. The other has done the same since we lived here. I think we have that "sucker" gene that animals can sniff out.  

Thank you! 

This makes me feel infinitely better. I'm sure your right, I just needed someone to tell me. I needed to hear it from the regulars. 
 
Thank you so much for the offer. I will fax in my request and explain about my son. You are so very kind, as is everyone here. 

I don't want to be obnoxious by quoting every post on here, but every single response has touched my heart and made me feel more confident. I am so glad the Fort has not turned into a luxury RV park, but still a family place. I know I will feel more comfortable when I get there. 

Everything about our world is just changed, since my son was disabled. We would have not thought twice about transportation prior. Now we have a scooter, and I feel kind of bad making everyone wait while it gets off an on the buses. That is another reason we are not renting a golf cart, because there is no way to carry a scooter on it to get to the boat or the bus depot. 
Our Pop-up is older, but it's attractive and in good shape. We are regular campers and love staying in it. But, obviously, the Fort offers some new challenges. My anxiety level, in general, is fairly high so I tend to invent scary scenarios to stress myself out over. Overall, our family is much more comfortable in our Pop-up than a hotel, so I'm praying our Fort visit goes smoothly. I'm so relieved to hear it's not an issue to rent sites other than 1500 and 2000. Life would be much easier without having to haul grey water. Next visit we will do that. Our camper does have a bathroom to avoid leaving it at night. That was a #1 priority this time around, as our old one didn't have one. Our son gets disoriented enough during the day, we couldn't have him leaving at night. 

We did have a couple of problems with staying in a room. One night, we went down to the food court and our son locked us out and fell asleep. Because of his brain injuries, he is very, very difficult to wake up. The only thing that can wake him is a voice. No amount of noise will do. We did quite a bit of banging on the door and window, up until the point where we had to stop due to possibly disturbing others. Thankfully, we were in a corner room. 

We could see our son sound asleep, through the curtains. When I called, they said since our bands were registering red, he has the privacy lock on and at first said we were SOL. It was freezing out ... that cold Friday night the first week of December ... so I persisted in wanting to speak with someone else. They sent mousekeeping up, couldn't get in. Eventually security got the door open, but the bar was across. I had to stick my face in that few inches and yell our son's name quite a few times to get him up. People with brain injuries don't join reality for a bit after being physically awake, so he wandered around the room for a bit in confusion. 

He did finally come unlock the door and fell right back to sleep. All in all it was not the worst thing that could have happened, but a bit embarrassing. I did explain that he had a TBI and didn't realize he was locking us out. The CMs were all very nice about it. A couple of times, he left things on rides that we had to go back and recover them. And once, he abandoned his scooter when he got mobbed in near the castle in MK. He was playing SOMK and we were over in Frontierland. He was at a portal that was too close to the castle when a show started.

He called me and said he was stuck and getting freaked out. He can walk, he just has two titanium rods in one leg and pinned up opposite ankle, so Disney walking leaves him in too much pain at the pressure points. I told him to get off the scooter, take the key and just try to push out of the crowd. We headed that way and met him and got his scooter when things cleared out. He carries extra anxiety meds (and I carry a second set in case he loses it) so he took some and the rest of the day was good. 

In February, we will picking up show and parade schedules so he knows when to avoid certain places. 

This was likely more information than everyone was interested in hearing. Just trying to explain a bit why I am so nervous and anxious. I know that once we get there and set up, my anxiety will melt away. Disney has been my happy place since Dec. 1971, my first visit. And camping is our family's favorite activity. 

If anyone has any suggestions about transportation, please post them. I'm sure there are plenty of others at the Fort with scooters or wheelchairs. How do you handle that if you rent a golf cart? Maybe if the carts had a tow hitch. 





 

I am praying hard that everything will work out. 

Joan is so very beautiful that I literally cried when I saw her. The hardest part will be letting her be our son's service dog and not my special girl. I've had a sweet spot for German Shepherds and Great Danes since I was a little girl. 

Interestingly, of all the dogs (and cats) that we have ever had, we have never intentionally set out to acquire them. They just sort of find their way to us, where they live until ripe old ages. The entrance to our property is a what I call a Realtor's nightmare. As you drive through the little wooded areas, the first thing you see, on the right, is a clearing with one of our dogs' grave, complete with standing tombstone and a photo of him laser etched on it.

We have two cats as well, although I couldn't tell you for sure where either came from. One we brought when we moved from WV, but she just randomly moved in with us there. The other has done the same since we lived here. I think we have that "sucker" gene that animals can sniff out.  

I am praying hard that everything will work out. 

Joan is so very beautiful that I literally cried when I saw her. The hardest part will be letting her be our son's service dog and not my special girl. I've had a sweet spot for German Shepherds and Great Danes since I was a little girl. 

Interestingly, of all the dogs (and cats) that we have ever had, we have never intentionally set out to acquire them. They just sort of find their way to us, where they live until ripe old ages. The entrance to our property is a what I call a Realtor's nightmare. As you drive through the little wooded areas, the first thing you see, on the right, is a clearing with one of our dogs' grave, complete with standing tombstone and a photo of him laser etched on it.

We have two cats as well, although I couldn't tell you for sure where either came from. One we brought when we moved from WV, but she just randomly moved in with us there. The other has done the same since we lived here. I think we have that "sucker" gene that animals can sniff out.  

I'll be packing down a bunch when we go in February. 

This is truly a sad state of affairs. What parent would not notice their child taking a hula hoop? They cannot exactly fit in one's pocket. 

And breaking them? It takes blatant abuse to break a hula hoop. And the one thrown in a tree looks like an adult did it. It's just too high for a kid to have thrown. Absolutely pathetic that any adult would do such a thing. I hate to think it may have been a parent with a child watching. What a way to teach disrespect for property. 

 

I feel your pain Roberta...  I was trying to download some pictures from MDE website on Saturday and it kept telling me that the password and/or username was incorrect...  Just to make sure that I hadn't been hacked, I tried to login through the iPhone app with the same credentials and had no problems...

Yup, their website just sucks!!!

It's the alligator pee. That's why most of us have wells. 

I wish they would do this at Pop Century. I'm sure it won't be as cheap as Little Caesars, but still nice to grab on the way back to the room. Guess we will have to bring the toaster oven in December, and stock some pizzas in our fridge.  

I live in Lake City and we have some very nice state parks just a few miles off 75. 

Stephen Foster (not to be confused with the one in GA) is usually easy to get reservations at and has quite a few nice, big pull through sites so you don't have to unhook. It's 3 miles off 75. 

O'leno State Park is a bit more difficult to get reservations. Once again, just off 75. They don't have any pull through sites, and the Dogwood Loop is a bit tight. Magnolia Loop is much bigger for larger RVs and level. 

Paynes Prairie is in Gainesville, also just a few miles off 75. I've only camped there once, so can't remember the loop names or if there are pull through sites. 

All of our state parks will take reservations up to 11 months in advance. Late arrivals are not a problem, just call and get the gate code. 

Even for an overnight, I would rather stay at any of these than the "field" RV parks. Cheaper, nicer, and more safe - in my opinion. 

Got it!   

I am hear-by wiping my brain clean of any of the silliness I have read over there. Don't plan on going back for more. I'm home here. 

Thanks for clearing that trailer info up for me. I felt so horrible for the woman it was told to. She never came back, so hopefully she called Disney and got the truth. 

Not Fort related, but back in 2002 we decided we wanted to extend our stay at Port Orleans. 

When I went to the desk to ask about it, the girl let it slip that there was a family that was supposed to move into our room the next day as it was an adjoining room with other family. The cast member then got embarrassed and try to take it back, but, of course I already knew we would be messing up someone's vacation. She booked us for the extra nights but wouldn't let us move rooms. I literally begged to be let to move to another room. It just wasn't a big deal at all for us. 

A supervisor got involved, I was upset at potentially messing up a family's reservations, but no amount of begging made them budge. They insisted we stay in our existing room. It got to the point where I felt like I was making a scene, so I finally gave in. They assured me they would take care of the other family. Here it is, 14 years later, and I still feel bad about this. I prayed they gave the other family an upgrade.