rtguy007

Just now, Tri-Circle-D said:

Do you want me to mail you one?

I'm sure this season's supply has already been pre-made in the New Jersey factory where they make this kind of stuff.  All you will need to do is blow the dust off of it, and you can enjoy it in all its dry and stale glory.

TCD

Hah. I may take you up on that when I need my fix in a month. We leave tomorrow so will be missing it.

Id try it.

Sorry I didnt get thisnout earlier this week. This is posted at the outpost bus stop. Not sure about the settlement as we have only used the bus back there once this trip and I wasnt payong attention.

Wednesday...time for Epcot. We got up around 8 am and ate breakfast in the camper. It consisted of bacon egg and cheese croissants for the wife and I. The kids had pop tarts and odom sausage biscuits. We grabbed our bag full of water, sunscreen, and headed out.

A walk to the busses and a quick ride to Epcot and we were ready for our first ride. But before we go there, we noticed something over the course of our stay and we saw a few on the way to Epcot. Minnie Vans. They are actually chevy traverses and are painted red with white dots. The kids thought they were cool to see.

So back to Epcot. Up first ws soarin. My daughter loved it last time and this time she loved it more. My son however was screaming bloody murder because he thoight he was really flying. I wont be taking him on it again but Uncle Clint will in November. I bet he changes his tune then. He seems to like whatever Uncle Clint likes.

After soarin we hit our first fastpass...figment. The kids love figment. We rode through and the wife watched them play while I shopped. I was surprised to find the Flower and Garden figment statues were still there. I didnt get one in May because I was going to order one when we got home as well as the Sorcerer Mickey one. When I went to order them the week after we got back they were no longer on the shop disney parks app. I went ahead and bought one and shipped it to the fort (which reminds me I need to pick it up tomorrow).

Next up was Nemo and the aquarium. We spent a good hour looking at all the fish and doing some of the trivia games.

We would have spent more time in there but we had ressies for Chef se France so we headed over to eat. While walking over we noticed it was dead around the world showcase. It was nice not fighting the crowds.

Lunch in France was good. We didnt want to insult the waitress so we pointed to the menu items we wanted. If not we were going to butcher their language up really good. I had the filet, my wife the beef roast, my son had the hamburger, and my daughter had the ham mac and cheese. The food was great. My only issue was the portions were really small for the adults snd huge for the kids. My wife and I also got the chocolate mousse cake which was also excellent.

Now fat and happy, we took off for a stroll around the world showcase to burn some time. We got really luck on tuesday and scored a 3:20 fast pass for frozen so we had about an hour to burn. We ended up going to the cool zone and getting some Inca Cola. This is mine and my sons favorite over there. My daughter likes most of the fruity ones and my wife thought beverly was really good (i think she lost her mind).

With our hour burnt we headed back to ride Frozen. We all enjoyed it. But not as much as we enjoyed the Anna Birthday Cupcake from the Norway bakery. That cupcake was fantastic.

At about 4 we called it a day at Epcot and headed back to the fort. On the way I snagged a FP for my son and I over at MK for Buzz at 7:20. 

After getting into the camper and cooling down for a few my so and I took off to the MK. We got there and rode the peoplemover before buzz. After buzz I was able to snag another FP for pirates since he likes it. The only part that was bad was the walk to the other side of the park. While waiting to get on the boat at pirates I snagged another pirates FP since he wanted to ride it twice. We jumped off then back on again. We got all of those MK rides in over the period of n hour without rushing so I say we did good.

At 8:30 we headed over to see be fireworks. On the way we grabbed some pretzels which I would come to realize was a bad idea later.

Now as some of you may remember, we were here in may for the first night of happily ever after but missed it because we were stuck in liberty tree dealing with some really bad service.  This time we were going to see them. And we did from decent spots over towards the walkway heading to adventureland. There was an older guy that offered to let my sonstand on the block wall and hold on to the railing so he could see the castle.

I now understand that you have to see these in person in front of the castle. So much lost in translation and I dont think the fireworks are consistently fired to appreciate the show from anywhere other than in the park. My son thought tinkerbell was really cool. 

As the crowd thinned down we headed back to big thunder. We got in line with a 20 minute wait but my son started complainjng of a headache so we decided to call it a night. We took it slow and got back to the dock. On the boat I could tell he wasnt feeling good and he layed down in my lap.

At the fort we grabbed the van and headed up to 800. From there we started walking back to 1300. Shortly after the meadows I realized the pretzel was a bad idea. He tossed it up all over the place and he kept apologizing be ause he couldnt hold it in. I felt really bad for him. He never said his tummy hurt. We got back to the site and put him down and I ran back and cleaned up his mess. Once done I grabbed a shower and hit the sack.

Only two short days left on this trip. Man the days go fast when things dont seem to go right.

2 hours ago, LONE-STAR said:

No bacon, really that's crazy.

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

Okay... sorry, late to join.

Whew... that's a lot!  What a busy few days.  Yay for the warranty!  So happy for you there.  Our truck made that "fun" shop visit last year when we were at The Fort; our trip was not free   

Ohana's!!  Really?!  We're scheduled to go back in October.  The Stitch thing, I think we're okay with that but no bacon?!!  Seriously!  Hmm... wonder if you can ask them to bring you some.  We're a bacon family 

Tell me about it. We love our bacon as well. We almost had the trails end waiter bring us a whole tray of it. We were bummed out for sure. The kids still love the parade and the characters. We like the atmosphere. If they cut much more we probably wont be going back. We can eat at trails end cheaper and have more of a variety.

Ohana was similar but only for Stitch. Stitch now only is outside the restaurant and signs autographs there. The other 3 characters still sign inside but I think that is going to stop soon. We were surprised the photopass people were not at Ohana this trip like they have been on previous trips.

38 minutes ago, LONE-STAR said:

You should go get it $25 for you $25 for the wife and $20 per kid, your there $90 nachos. And a life time of memories. I still remember the kitchen sink we got 15 years ago.

Oh there will be a kitchen sink tomorrow. We got ressies at 11:05

All loops are open. They were packed until yesterday morning and now it is dead everywhere. It is nice and quiet for sure.

I was wondering what those reserved tables were for. Now I know.

Hope the person going to the hospital is ok. Dont like hearing of people on vacation that have something like thatvhappen to them.

Glad your having luck with the wifi in 200. Up in 1300 it seems worse than last time but that could be because we are a little further away from the antenna than we were before. 1300 has also been experiencing lower than normal water pressure at night but it seems to come back after the nightly shower rush.

We didnt get to loop any last night. Is the 100/200/300 loop as dead as 700/800/900/1000/1100? I think there may be 10 campers total between all of those loops from what we could see on our way back last night.

Ahh tuesday....another day of waiting for a call. We got up and rolling around 7:30. We had a reservation for Ohana for brrakfast. We started to head out and then remembered....no truck. Driving was out of thr question so now we had to play transportation hop. We got to the boat dock at 8 an of course the only boat running at that point was for the contemporary and that line was almost to the end of the dock. I wasnt to worried since our reservation wasnt until 9:30. However the kids got antsy standing there for 30 minutes as the line died down and the MK boat started running. We ended up using the MK boat nd hopped on the resort monorail to get to the poly. So far the morning was looking bright for the 007 clan.

Since things had been going not so good this trip we were starting to finally unwind and relax some at this point. But that didnt last for long. Upon entering the poly and checking in, we found out tht stitch no longer comes to the table and you must stand in line to get a picture and meet him. He also doesnt do the parade anymore. I suspect that they had issues and had to make the change. Then the food came and we found out that they are no longer serving bacon and it is now ham in its place. None of us were happy. We dod get our stitch juice and that helped to balance the mood. We actually had about 3 gallons of stitch juice between all of us and our waiter brought us large to go cups of it as well. We will call that a win.

After breakfast we stopped in the gift shops and looked around. Didnt see much so we moved on. We hopped the monorail over to the GF and did some hidden mickey hunting and looked through more gift shops. While in one of the shops my son leaned against a door and set of the alarm. Talk about embarrasing. To make it worse the security guard didnt have the right key to shut it off and they had to call in someone else. After 5 minutes of the alarm sounding it finally was silenced.

After the poly it was time to into the MK. Since we had been fighting on and off rain showers we had not been able to ride most of the stuff we wanted to. We headed in to ride one thing that my daughter wanted to ride. The train. Now I have not been on the train in years but I really enjoyed slowing down and just kicking back. So much so that we almost went around a second time but didnt because more rain was on its way.

Before we left though I had to check oit something for my moms christmas present. A few years ago she didnt buy a tinkerbell dooney purse and she had kicked herself in the but for not getting it. She was this years half marathon one online and she was upset it wasnt in the park when we came down in may. I swung into the store on main street and picked up both the purse and wallet since they had a few left. Hopefully she likes it. After spending to much money we left and went back to the camper for a nap and awaited the phone call from the dealer.

We got back around 1 and hit the sack. At 2:30 they called and said it was ready. I gave them the address of the fort and they sent a shuttle over. At 2:45 I was sitting at the outpost waiting for them to arrive. I should have taken my time as they didnt show up to get me until almost 4. Then after a quick 15 minute drive I was at the dealer to get the truck. After a nice chat with the service advisor I had my keys and a bill for $0. The nee water pump, serpentine belt, and a system coolant flush and refill was all covered by my powertrain warranty. Got really lucky there. After I found where it was on the lot I was back rolling down the road to the fort.

While I was out picking up the truck the wife and kids were going to hit the pool. Unfortunately that didnt happen because the storm was about ready to hit so they headed back to the camper. They decided to head over and just take showers and get ready for a quick trip to HS. Well I show back up shortly after 5 and there they were sitting on the picnic table. Apparently my wife locked them all out of the camper and they were waiting for me to arrive. Once I got them in and we ate a sandwich, then we were off for my wife, son, and I to ride rock n roller coaster. My daughter was not tall enough so we used rider swap and my son rode twice. Score for him. After that we went back to the fort, stuck in a movie, and fell asleep. Life was mostly good on tuesday. Things were looking up.

40 minutes ago, Cortezcapt (Derek) said:

I cant really tell from the picture but is that the light that is always on back there or a new one?

It is a new light from what I remember. The normal orange hue light was over there as well but hidden by the trees when I was able to snap that pic. This particular one is a really bight white and as you can see on the lake puts a large reflection on it.

I do have one other pic that you can see both lights theough the trees but the image provider I was using is having upload issues. Will post it when I can.

And now with picture

Looks like whatever they are doing, they are doing it at night. That light is right by that construction equipment

2 hours ago, h2odivers...Ray said:

Very interesting!!!

i don't want to venture a guess as to what is going on there.  But I'm not surprised something is going on.   That is some valuable real estate. 

Maybe they are making way for Mickeys Backyard Massage Parlor and Whore House. 

26 minutes ago, caveat lector said:

007 is first on the scene!!!!!

Thats rare being from ohio

Here you go. No idea what it is.

I can 100% confirm something is going on. We just passed again on the boat and there is some crane or ligh lift piece of construction equipment back there. I will try and grab a picture when we get back over to the MK here shortly.

9 hours ago, LONE-STAR said:

What year is your Ram I can't remember ?

Its a 2015 2500 and just turned over 60k when we pulled into the fort.

Welcome back to the third day of what seems to be turning out to be the worst vacation I have taken. Well other than the one I dont really want to talk about.

So first thing monday morning I woke up at 7. If you remember I didnt get to sleep until 2:30am so you could imagine I was cranky. I took a quick trip to the bath house to get cleaned up and going for the day. At 7:30 I was on the phone with the dealership about the truck.

Talking to the dealership seemed to go well. A wuick discussion with the service writer had my nerves calmed and I felt better about the situation. He said that he woukd get it on a lift and call me back in a few hours. Since we didnt know exactly at this point what was going on, we decided to cancel our morning trip to HS and just stick around the campground.

While we waited for a call, my wife did some laundry, the kids watched some tv, and I tried to get some extra sleep. Around noon I got up and we had not heard from the dealer. At this point we decided to cancel the afternoon trip to blizzard beach and head over to disney springs for lunch and to hit a few stores.

On a side note, I love that Disney is putting out  new DuckTales shows. It was a great show when I was a kid and now the kids are excited about it. They watched the first episode while I was getting extra sleep. They said it was awesome.

Anywho, lunch was at Planet Hollywood. We ate here back in May and the kids wanted to go back. Hopeful that the food and service was going to be better we took the chance and walked in. Long story short, the service was still crappy and the food was just as before.....lacking in flavor. The burgers were just grease patties and my wifes salad looked ok but it is hard to screw up a salad. The only thing that was really good was the fries.

After leaving we headed down to the co op to look around. We stopped along the way and saw the 30k darth vader in arribas bros. Took a wuick stroll through world of disney then the lego store. The kids wanted to get their one toy from the lego store so my son got a small star wars kit and my daughter got a small moana kit. They were happy. Last stop was the under armour store. I needed to pickup a few things with a gift card I found 2 days before we left. Forgot my wife got me a $100 gift card for xmas  while we were in house transition 2 years ago.

At this point it was almost 3 and still no call from the dealer. I went ahead and buzzed them to try and get some info on what was going on. To my surprise, there was no answer at all. Not in sales, parts, or service. I was starting to wonder if I got the crappy dealer of the two that I was offered. I left a message on the service line expecting a call back.....it never came.

We hopped the bus back to the fort and decided to go for a bike ride. While getting the bikes ready I realized it was around 5. I decided to call the dealer again and finally got someone on the phone. They told me that they did get the truck on a lift and the water pump threw its bearing out and it was cracked off the front of the block. The serpentine belt was also toast due to the truck continuing to run after it came off the water pump. Said they had to order in both parts and it would be ready Tuesday.

With that news we took off for about an hour bike ride around the loops. One thing I underestimated was the humidity on this ride. We were all sweating bad and smelled like pigs by the time we were done. Of course we were pretty much ran down for the day and I was still not fully recovered from the lack of sleep. We decided to turn in for the night at this point. We all got baths and were in bed by 9:30. We had a surprise for the kids the next morning so there was no wind down movie tonight.

Stay turned for tuesdays update tomorrow. Same disney time, same disney channel.

SOLD!!!! I would buy one

I am gonna try this around a few places this week. Wish they still had the 10 gallon hat at WL.

Also the guy that got on discovery island a few months back that we talked about also got into river country about the same time. Here is the youtube video and you can see where the pool was filled in.

What was back there looked like a really small crane from a distance. Have not had time to run back and investigate. Hopefully by the end of tonight.

Its hard to tell but it appears there is some type of construction equipment in River Country. I dont recall exactly what it looked like before but I dont see much of the rock walls back there anymore. I saw this from the boat to the MK and it was hard to get a clear image of it. They may be working on leveling what is/was left back there.

If I can I will take the bike back there to see if I can see anything through the fence. I could also be suffering from heat exhaustion as well so that could be it as well.