rtguy007

I stick with Jason. Best TA ever.

Ok it's been a few very busy days. We got to stop in and see Gwen and David. It's been a few years since we have seen anyone from the forum and it was nice to see them. Was glad to see Gwen doing much better than she was a few years ago when she was in some pain when she was here.

We have not been able to ride the bikes much. My oldest nephew was here the past week so we spent a lot of time running around so that he could get as much done before he had to fly home to get back to school. He is in a private school and there is little to no tolerance for him to miss any days.

This trip I have created a personality called Capt Ryan. I have been out doing scavenger hunts after we found a facebook group for them. I have been hiding the fort wilderness medallions they sell at the trading post. So far it has been a blast. These people are crazy competitive when someone post something that they hid.

I was able to get the propane lines fixed. Glad I was able to because it has been cold a few nights and the furnace came in handy. We have a small electric heater but I prefer to not use it if I don't have to.

For those who remember my crappy luck, I did have something else break on this trip. One of the kids was standing by the door bouncing up and down being antsy to get out to the park. The bouncing cracked the subfloor in front of our door and now I have a soft spot in the floor. It didn't break all of the way through but it is soft now. Called our dealer and they are going to get it in to look at it in mid January. Will be calling the insurance company when I get home to start a claim. Hopefully they will cover it since there is no signs of water damage.

So to the parks, we have noticed that they are packed and lines are long. This is our first trip without fast passes so we are experiencing things we normally wouldn't....like standby lines. Normally we would hit our fast passes and maybe one or two rides that are short waits. The kids have been complaining about waiting but it is good for them to learn patience when it comes to standing in lines. The nice thing is at least the lines move vs before with fast passes when they seemed to never move.

Good juju for us in the parks. We were able to grab a virtual pass for Remy's and we were the first ones on that morning. It's a cool ride but not something I think I would wait in a long line for. We also were lucky enough to rope drop HS and walked on to Rise of the Resistance. My son really wanted to get on it and I was glad we rope dropped it. After the early morning entry the line grew to over 3 hours. Adding to that we did single rider multiple times on Smugglers Run and we're able to get on it within 10 minutes each time we rode it.

Over at the MK it was different and we rode very few things. We spent more time introducing the kids to the Joffreys mission to smores latte. I think we had 3 or 4 of them each between the two times we have been in there.

Overall we have done very few rides but a LOT of eating. So far the highlight was our trip today into Epcot for Space 220. I was lucky to grab a reservation the first day I could. The experience was awesome and my flat iron steak was great. Prices were high for the portions but I guess you pay some extra for the experience.

Our biggest thing we have done this trip is shop. We have spent a ton of money on oddball stuff we normally would have never looked at. We were able to get a lot of our Christmas shopping done which was a good thing. I am stoked about my Helly Hansen coat I picked up at Norway. Plowing snow in Ohio sucks and this coat will make that job much more enjoyable.

Of some of the things I have purchased, I picked up the 2021 Passholder Magicbands. We bought our Platinum Plus passes 3 years ago and never got to activate them. We did this trip and man it's crazy how much they have increased in price. I know a lot of people are complaining about the cost of APs now which is why I thought it was in poor taste that Disney used Scrooge McDuck on the 2021 Passholder bands.

We discovered how bad the wifi has gotten at the Fort. Lot of people using it to stream anything they can. Kids have had a hard time checking their schoolwork so we ran out to TMobile and picked up a 5G hotspot. It was even struggling until we force set it to 4G and everything has been working great since then.

I have not taken a lot of pictures yet but will get some before we leave and post them when I get home. I have some pics of our Christmas decorations but they are nothing compared to 1211s. They moved in yesterday and setup the Storm Trooper army today. It's cool that they are almost directly across from us so we get to see them daily.

Last thing for my updates for now. We invested in a projection screen and projector. This was our first time using it. We watched the Rocketeer the other night and was surprised how many folks stopped to figure out what we were watching. I know it didn't get great reviews but I thought it was a good flick. We have plans to watch Treasure Planet one night this week. The kids really like it.

Thats all of the updates for now. Will post more here in a few days.

2 hours ago, Travisma said:

So being the first to check in, I’m guessing you got a free stay and lifetime APs?

I wish. Got nothing but bragging rights.

It's been 3 years since we were last at the Fort. 3....long....years. A lot has clearly changed.

Going to run a trip report for those who may still be around lurking on the forum. It looks like it has been pretty slow for a while. Hope this place isn't dying off.

Night 1...or I should say the day we arrived unplanned. We ended up getting to the Fort on the 18th which was a day earlier than planned. I had this idea for 3 years that I would be first to check-in on the 50th anniversary of the Forts opening but somehow we wound up getting in a day early. Due to some oddities our 1 night reservations got really messed up and somehow my name wound up on my sisters reservation in addition to mine. The funny part was that I was the primary on both reservations somehow according to the front desk but when we checked the app it all looked normal with me on mine and her on hers. This led to a very odd series of events that allowed me to still be the first to check in and get into our site.

Midnight rolls around on the 19th and I have my app open doing the online check in. At 12:09am I got my verification email that I had checked in and a few seconds later got the text notification that my site was ready. Now this may sound odd because we all know you can't check-in and get your site before the desk opens at 6am and here I was with my site shortly after midnight.

So how this worked out, we have 2 week reservations in a premium site that Jason helped us book in advance. Since we got here early we needed a place to stay and we were able to get into a premium meadows site for the night and we figured that we would have to move in the morning to our premium sites. I was all ready to get up at 4am and go sit in the outpost until they opened so I could be first in line. However I didn't have to do that. When we checked in we were put into our premium sites but they never checked us in and linked our 2 reservations together. So at midnight on the 19th I was able to do our online check in and the sites were automatically assigned to be the ones we were already in. Not only was I the first to check in, but also first to get onto our site on the 50th anniversary of the Fort due to a technicality in how our reservations were setup.

So on the 19th I started setting up our Christmas decorations. This was our first time doing site decorations and so far it's been a blast. I will grab some photos and post them later but I think the decorations turned out great for being the first time I ever did them.

After getting the decorations up I went into the camper to get things settled in. Low and behold I found a problem with the camper that caused me to lose a bit of my day at the Fort. I planned on it being cold at nights based off of the weather forecast I saw before we left home. I did a full check of the propane system. Everything was good at home and when we got here somehow a pin sized hole made it's way into one of my propane lines. It was an easy fix but it did take some time away from our vacation to fix the lines.

More to come as we progress through our trip.....

A while back I asked if anyone had an old Fort Wilderness pennant that they would want to part with. While I didn't have any luck here I was able to snag one after a very long and exhaustive search. Now one may ask why I wanted a pennant from the 70s but I had my reasons. I am doing a redesign of my den since I am pretty much working from home for the foreseeable future.

We built and moved into our new house in 2015. Since then the den has been the go to crap catcher room and it was a mess. After banishing the wife and kids from the tables we had setup for them to do their work, I redesigned my den. And redesign I did. While I am not ready to post pictures of the entire room, I am ready to share one of my most prized possessions.

After some crafting work with a shadowbox, here is my daily reminder of the Fort....

For those wondering, I was able to locate both the pennant and an unopened bolo tie of musket mickey that was used as part of the cast costumes around the Fort. While those displayed nicely the crown jewel is the red Fort Wilderness sign. I was lucky enough to find it in an online sale of items that were removed from service at Disney. This particular red sign was used on the bus directional billboard at Hollywood Studios right outside of the gate. I snagged it as soon as it hit the sale listing.

Needless to say I am very happy with the turnout. Now to find my railroad spike that I was gifted from TCD a few years back. It's in another part of my collection and I need to add to this display. At that point it will be complete.

8 hours ago, BradyBzLyn...Mo said:

Agreed!!  We used to love it when EMH went until 1-2am.  We even stayed for a 3am once.

Same here. Those 2am days were awesome. 

Well this is gonna get interesting. Wonder if they will be keeping the shorter hours as well. Kind of a bummer but I get it. Granted the MVMCP was already limited in crowd sizes, I bet they did this as a cost savings measure with everything that has happened this year.

42 minutes ago, DinDavie said:

Thanks for your report.  I'll be their on August 12 for 5 days and again in the middle of October.  I've heard from others that the pool is not crowded.  That was going to be a deal breaker for us if that was closed.  I understand that the Trails End is still closed but they have take out chicken.  I hope your TT gets straightened out.  I know how frustrating those mechanical problems can be.

 

Both pools have been packed while we were here. Trails End is still closed but PJs takeout was open and is pretty good.

45 minutes ago, disneylitch......Debbie said:

We have reservations for November and are hoping to change them to Thanksgiving.  Hopefully, we will be able to visit, but that all depends on the state of covid-19.  Our daughter, maybe son in law, and three grandkids will be coming with us.  We just want to make sure it's safe.

 

I feel pretty safe. They have done well with the health mandates. The masks are not to bad to deal with once you get used to them. Honestly I feel safer here at the Fort than I do in Columbus Ohio.

Also forgot to mention, the pop gallery at Disney Springs has been boarded up. Looks like a donut shop is going in there. Never could figure out why that shop was there. Didn't make a lot of sense. It was way hidden back there beside Splitsville and AMC.

1 hour ago, ImDownWithDisney said:

So what did they change the music type to? I'm not liking the sound of this lol 

It's still bluegrass type music but the track is new. I have a copy of the old track that I was playing while riding around.

Also just noticed that the old track is still playing on the busses. Not sure of there will be plans to change the track on the busses but I suspect there will be.

Well it's been a while and I am sure many of the people I knew on here are no longer around. It's been a few years since we have been able to hit the fort. For those that remember, we had to replace the roof on our TT last year delaying our Thanksgiving 2019 trip. We got the TT back from repairs after 8 months being in the shop due to a few companies fighting over who was paying for what on the repairs.

Well this past week we were supposed to run down to Elkmont on the Smokies and fate would have it that my slide out rubber roof was damaged from something so now I have to get it back into the shop to replace that. With that trip delayed, we decided to visit my aunt in Indiana for a few days since we had the time off already. You know it's family and safer than being out elsewhere. Well we were on our way home and my mom and I decided to cash in my Chase Disney Visa points and get a cabin for a few days.

We checked in Wednesday afternoon this past week and we will be leaving Monday morning. We were going to head home tomorrow but with Isaias on the way we decided it was safer to stay an extra night vs drive back to Ohio in the stormy mess.

Now for the past 2 years I have been holding on to our non activated annual passes. Our intention was to come down and check things out prior to bringing the wife and kids down at Thanksgiving this year, assuming we have the camper back from repairs by then. With that said, we decided to buy 2 day tickets and hold on to those APs as we didn't want to activate them if the place was a mess from either construction, Covid impacts, or both.

We spent our 2 days in Epcot and MK. While I was pleasantly surprised by how dead it was everywhere, I was equally surprised with how torn up the front of Epcot is. It's pretty disappointing considering it has been torn up for quiet some time. Since the kids were not with us and the park being dead, we were able to spend a decent amount of time meandering around the world showcase. With many of the shops closed and some of the restaurants shut down, I couldn't see bringing the kids in. They enjoy some of the unique things that pop up and many of those were not happening. Even a very lonely Alice was spotted waving at cast members where she was hidden. We were the only non cast members back there with her. Overall though it was a great escape from Ohio and the 4 months we have been stuck in the house homeschooling the kids while working full time from home. Our dinner at garden grill was good but the spinning restaurant made us slightly dizzy and we have no idea why considering you can't hardly tell it is moving.

Prior to heading into Epcot we had breakfast at Whispering Canyon. While the food was ok, our service was not great..most of that due to our waitress not really checking in on us. All of the other tables were being well tended to. It appeared our waitress was just slow and neglecting her tables.

Anyway, moving on to our day in the MK. We got up and had breakfast over at Chef Mickey's. Everything was great here. It took some getting used to the lack of a buffet and over 50% less tables. Disney did a great job with the reopening for breakfast and I suspect this will probably be the normal once everything starts to open back up. By normal I mean buffets turning into family style restaurants. We feel that it helps Disney regulate the amount of food that gets tossed when someone doesn't eat everything they pickup from the buffet. Cost savings for them while having a better way to track the quantity of food that's needed on hand. The nice thing is that they dropped the price of breakfast to $25 per adult.

After lunch we headed into MK. Just like Epcot the park was very empty. I was able to ride Space Mountain, Buzz, Big Thunder, and Buzz 2 more times in less than 2 hours. I noticed posted wait times are about 50% higher than the amount of time it takes to get in line to getting on the ride. So out 15 minute waits were realistically 7 minutes and our 10 minutes were about 6. I had a long wait time of 35 minutes for big thunder but was sitting on the train in 10 minutes. I think the line spacing is causing them issues with tracking wait times. Since they are not ha ding out the tracking cards to random people, it makes it even harder to track.

We had dinner at liberty tree and the food and service was fantastic. We always like liberty tree but it is a heavy meal to be walking around in the parks.

Today we spent all day going bankrupt at Disney Springs (gotta build those Chase Disney Visa points back up). We picked up things for the kids and some Legos for a guy I work with that is obsessed with them. I was also lucky enough to score some cool artwork at Art of Disney. Got a Beauty and the Beast ballroom scene signed by Paige O'Hara and Robby Benson (the voices of Belle and Beast).

For those who like to shop, we have noticed that not only was the selection for items down in the parks, it was also down at Disney Springs and the Fort. It almost felt like Disney was struggling to get some form of inventory and they just put things on shelves go fill them. As an example, we found Polynesian Christmas ornaments at Disney Springs and Flower and Garden Pandora charms in the MK.

Tonight I spent about 1.5 hours riding around the loops on my bike at the Fort. You heard it here first, I was the crazy bastard riding around with my bike lit up like a Christmas tree blaring the Electric Light Parade music. I even had a few sites in 200 that came out from their chairs by their campers just to hear the music. Many of them started singing it and dancing. Brought back some memories of when it was still in the MK. The next time I am down I will be enhancing the bike version of the Electric Light Parade. When my kids and wife are here we will all be sporting the lights along with my moms scooter so that it will look like a real parade while we are looping.

And speaking of music, if you have not been to the fort in a while like me, the old bluegrass music has changed. While the old is still played at the moment in the settlement, it has been changed in the outpost and the meadows trading post. I asked the guy in the outpost when it changed and he said he wasnt sure as he had tuned it out a while ago. I am guessing as part of the BS with Reflections that the Fort was going to see some theme modifications/updates. This was probably one of them.

As for the Tri Circle D ranch, they didn't do a bad job with the new barn. While it still has the rustic outside feel, it's not the same as the old barn. I was glad to see that the bike path is still there and I hope they don't change anything with it. You can't go past the end of the barn and head towards the lodge (felony signs posted) but it looks like it's been left in touched after the sign.

The mess on clementines beach is still there and all around the fort you can tell they have neglected things. As an example, the grass has not been mowed in a while and it's pretty obvious. Instead they were pressure washing the wooden fences which seemed odd considering that would take much more time than mowing.

Many of the loops are also closed (with signs posted stating their closed). From our exploring 700, 1500, 1600, 1700, 1800, and 1900 are closed. We didn't make it over to 2000 but I suspect it is opened. 800 and 900 had 2 or 3 campers in the loop total while 100, 200, 300, and 2100 is almost full. I figured they would have spread out the campers more with Covid going around but they seem to have packed them into those 4 loops.

Overall things have been about what we expected so not really upset. For just my mom and I being here it's been nice. Not sure if we will bring the kids down at Thanksgiving or Christmas yet. We have reservations for both but there is a lot shut down and I don't want them to be disapointed. Time will tell as we get closer. Really hoping that things turn around soon and it starts to get back to normal.

Please dear lord tell me this is true. I didn't like what we saw when this all started. Would love to see this project cancelled. If they are concerned about the timeshare market maybe they will change their mind and put more campsites back in there. They have a lot of landscaping that would need to be completed.

Keep an eye out. My reservation is getting rescheduled tonight. I have the first 2 weeks of december in a premium. Hopefully you can grab it once it is release back to the pool.

Its insane what they get away with charging. I renewed our APs this year but I think our years there are going to be few and far between if they keep up with these rates.

Agreed there should be some up by then. We will have some up during that week but we wont be going crazy like other campers.

Well that didnt take long. I dont think we will ever get on them. My mom is in an ecv so that limits us some. That and we really have no reason to get on them u less we are resort hopping.

I feel bad for all of those stuck in there for so long. What if you had to use the restroom. That wouldnt end well.

Wonder how hot that water would be in there. Couldnt imagine they found a way to keep it cool.

6 hours ago, Campingdad said:

Super frustrating trying to plan vacations with the kiddos. Doggone it.

It is. A lot of Ohios state park campgrounds removed walk in sites this year. Many of the campgrounds here are very hard to get into. I have had better luck at booking the Fort vs Mohican State Park. Its crazy.

If that is the new barn I am glad they kept with the theme of the fort.

I plan on checking in at the Fort November 19, 2021. Counting down the days to snag my reservation through Jason.

I am with Jason...TAKE MY MONEY!!!

We drove through there a few years back. Your not too far of a drive to Williamsburg if you want to get some history tours in.

One of my favorites. Wish it was back in Florida where it belongs. We need a nightime parade.

Thanks for the info guys. Still crossing my fingers for a miracle cancellation.