swimmarz

I was at a different fort during the storm, and the neighbors campsite was destroyed by the high winds

Wow its been a busy month for me, feel like I have not been on the site in a while.

Anyways locals have told me( TCD and I for the get S/N but i believe his name is Travis) i need to check out Ft Desoto and i was able to book a site way back in September for this past week

Kids were off for spring break and its super cheap when compared to the other fort.

we booked site 212 for 3 nights, and total cost with tax was $138, or about the same cost as 1 night at the FORT during the same time!

Fort DeSoto is on Mullet Key, and is very close to St Petersburg Florida, for me it was just about a 2 hour drive and got to go over the sunshine skyway bridge!

Just got there, site 212 time to set up!  Check in time was 1 pm and we got there just before 2.

We had a water front site so this was our view

All set up and heading to the beach, with your nightly fee at this camp ground includes admission to the statepark ( $5/ day)

MK is not dry, you can get beer and wine at be our guest....

epcot in uk at the pub there is a drink called gavins fruit salad- this is a friends pic but its good!


I am more of a craft beer guy, so you'll see me grabbing those more than anything else
 

no Tears involved with sticker removal, he's a tough cookie like his momma.... 
On to the rest of day 2!

So Target trip is where we left off, both boys passed out on the short drive to target to get said electric space heater

Picked up a ceramic oscillating heater for $34 at target, it has 5 temp settings and is about 5100 BTU's, its a good back up plan to have and we used it for most of the night, I did get up at 5 am to but the gas furnace on but thats because the temp outside was nearing the low 40's again and this little heater just could not keep up, strongly considering PUG's and refletix
Back on track, our friends arrived for dinner
Plan was to cook steak tips at the camp site, however rain put that plan on hold so we waited it out
we played a few board games, and the adults did a beer tasting.
around 5:30 its still pouring and the kids are looking bored 

I hop on MDE and make reservations for Trails End, I have never been and neither has anyone else

we get a reservation for 6 pm and make our way down there in the pouring rain...

one of the members of our party has allergies, and i was impressed to see they still had many options even with the allergies for Nuts, Milk, and eggs... they even had a special ice-cream that was a welcome surprise!  

Back to the Camper, and here is where things got a little hectic, staying in the 1400 loop we need to take the yellow bus, as we are waiting a yellow shows up, and after the unload they change to magic kingdom, so we wait 4-5 other busses come and go, and then another yellow, but guess what, it too changed to Magic kingdom and fills up again.... 3-4 more busses come and go and finally a yellow bus shows up, it was the original one that changed to magic kingdom, he made his trip and came back in the time we were waiting and the station to go back.

we get back to the camper, say our goodbyes and then it off to bed for my crazy boys, we have to pack up in the morning and head to Epcot.  I was shocked to see that even in the cold and wet they were still playing the movie and there were people there... crazy i tell ya crazy!

Day 2, February 6th
Woke up at 7:15, man was it cold out, the bunk ends of the pup could use some insulation and I am now looking into PUG's and refletix
I start to get the coffee going and then it hits me, along with forgetting our Annual passes( forgot to mention that earlier) I have forgotten the Keurig!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
so I send the wife and kids to snuggle back in bed and i trek off to the trading post for coffee!

nice view while i waited 10 min for the store to open up

Turkey anyone?!?!?


Ok coffee in the system and off we go after breakfast to animal kingdom!
we walked on to its a bugs life, and then started doing work on our wilderness explores badge, its fun and the kids want those merit badges
my boys are big in to dinosaurs so we had to go to the dig site!

we missed our FP for dinosaur! but i think we were better off that way, as i may be too intense for the kids!
we opted for the triceratops spin, then off to Expedition Everest  while the kids work on another merit badge.

It then started to rain and Yak& yeti was in site, it was 11:45 and i was expecting a long wait, however they participate in the Landry's select club, 5 min wait for a table for 4!
we ate and when we were leaving we saw people who were near us at check in just then getting seated.

over to the Safari ride in the rain, and then back to the camper for a litttle nap before friends came to visit.
But first a stop at target to get an electric heater as a back up as were in for another cold night!
 

1 hour ago, Cortezcapt (Derek) said:

Great trip report so far.

I'm jealous you can just unhitch and push it into place (even more jealous of Carol and her motorized set up). S'more with peanut butter cups sound excellent, I'll have to try that sometime.

Can't wait to keep reading along!

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

you have no idea, once you do that kind of s'more you cant ever go back to just plain old chocolate....

With the sun setting and the tempature dropping it was time to head back to the fort, last time we were here it rained so we never got to do the campfire sing-a- long and movie.
we ate dinner at the site and then walked over to make s'mores and partake in the activities planned.

one thing that shocked me coming from the other Disney resorts was the marshmallows and roasting sticks were not free like they are at the wilderness lodge, this was a non issue for me as i bring my own and have kid friendly roasting sticks that have no sharp point on the end

so we made our S'mores, I use Peanut-butter cups as well I am a Peanut-butter cup addict!
My oldest and my wife

and my Youngest meeting chip


Right before i stole the thunder for the knock knock joke by yelling moo 


After that we watched about 1 hour of the movie the incredibles before it was too cold to be out with the boys, back to the camper turn the heater on, turn the mattress heaters on and tuck in for the night, the low is in the 40's!!!!!
 

some were, most had gloves and some also had earmuffs 

The weather here in Florida has been unusual, this is our "dry season" and while we normally get 1-2 inches of rain, this year we have had over 18 for just the month of January.

I had booked our stay 6 months ago, and the forecast was ever changing in the last week leading up to the trip on 2/5/2016.

It was our second time at the fort, and our first time towing with the new F150

I was able to get the Trailer brake controller installed with 2 days to spare, and had it programmed by the dealership, I was also able to get at least 600 miles on it before i towed the pop up

My Oldest is in Pre-K and I told him if he had a good week at school we would skip Friday and head to the fort, and so we were on the road at 9:30am

The drive was uneventful, we live south of the fort, and the wind was blowing 20-25MPH out of the north, so we had a headwind the entire way that limited my truck to just 15 mpg, by comparison the xterra made the same trip 1 month earlier with no wind and got 15 mpg.

We arrived at the fort around 12:30, our site was ready and the boys were excited to be here, off to site 1424


I got to the site, and the spot across the street had a suburban parked cross-ways at the very front of the site, with 2 tires on the road by an inch or so, I tried for 5-10 min to manuver the truck and trailer and had no luck, some people that were walking by asked if i needed help, as it was really tight with no room to swing the front end of the truck, I declined as plan B was going into effect.  I un-hitched the trailer, and did it by hand.  My boys now think I am super strong...
we took our time setting up as it was windy and had everything good to go in just under about 40 min.

It was time to head to the park and meet some old friends, a college teammate of mine was in the park, with her 2 kids already, and her mom was in 1409 for the weekend.

The boys had fun hulla hooping, we hit up dumbo, peter pan, and mine train before heading back to camp for dinner/ movie

to me I cant put a cost to the memories that i made as a kid growing up at the fort.
I know my mom and dad worked OT, or second jobs to make it work and for that I am grateful.

That being said, I have made it, camping at the fort, a priority for my kids.

I am a Disney fan like most others, and it came to the realization that staying at a Disney property was going to be expensive, but the benefits about the transportation/ planning out weigh staying anywhere else( unless were there for 1 night)

back in 2014 we spent 27 nights in Disney hotels, and that set me back just over $6,000 for just the sleeping portion, that didn't include food/ drinks , add in tickets/ food and drink and I am sure It was over $10,000
The decision was made to skip 2015 and save money, I used that money to purchase our first pop up, something i never had as a kid growing up, I was in class C's at a young age and then transitioned to a trailer as we camped less and less.  
we have now camped at the fort 2 times for a total of 7 days and were only in 2 months in to using it, my kids faces light up when they see dad backing the truck up to the garage to hook up the camper, and for that I can not put a price on it.   
on our most recent trip, this just melted my heart...

he was so excited to be back at the mouse house.
so to answer the question, at what point does the fort become not worth it, Id have to say it will be at the point you stop making memories....

mom and dad told me you can always make more money, but you cant always make more memories

6 minutes ago, swimmarz said:

 

green pedestal
who knows were all guessing here

they have installed these pedestals, that can easily house more equipment and switching items to run multiple poles
 

3 hours ago, keith_h said:

I doubt they are running these off of an Ethernet as they would have to install one. Most likely they are running off of the cable network which has the ability to provide phantom power or these are acting as wireless bridges (i.e. entirely wireless network) and getting their power the traditional way from the campground power system. 

just a thought, those green boxes they installed earlier could be the switch/ POE injector, 1 green box supports 4-8 poles? then you only worry about connecting power/ cable to the green box vs every pole
who knows were all guessing here

24 minutes ago, Katman1356...Jason said:

That would depend on the power requirements. If the draw is to high for the wires in the Ethernet cable it will either burn out or cause signal degradation. 

the specs that i am aware of indicate a max of 25-30 watts, now that may not sound like a lot, but as a reference my Apple Airport Extreme only uses 7 watts of power, 
I looked up what could be what they are using at the fort and found it could be a repackaged WND930 Outdoor Dual Band Wireless-N, and that spec for power consumption is 15.2 watts and thats still well under the limit of what POE can do.

I am no expert, but there is a technology called power over Ethernet
the Cable used to connected the access point to the net work can also provide power to the unit, this would reduce the wiring going up the pole and reduces the install time, should be just 1 connection, 2 straps, run the conduit and move on

On 2/5/2016 at 10:43 AM, djsamuel said:

You may want to avoid 236, which is near the comfort station but also right next to the basketball court.  On the other hand, you may find that a positive, so that's up to you.  201 is right next to the comfort station.

234 is next to 236 and has same issue with basketball court due to how its angled , had to ask a few girls to stop playing at 10:30 pm as they were not that good and kept missing, if it was nothing but net it would have been a non issue, but that metal back board sounds like a "gong" every time they missed.

Grumpy beat me but here is the 1400 loop behind 1424, were packing up

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Odd.

 

Do the Hotels have to pay Disney to participate in EMH?

 

If so, maybe Hilton wasn't getting enough people that cared about that perk to offset the cost?

My BIL's mom works at the new hilton up there( the old buena vista palace )

they took it over a few months ago and are renovating it.

Having stayed at most of the Hilton's up there due to this connection i did ask the question as to why 

and it comes down to terms of the contract.

IE it was up and Disney did not want to renew it/ and threw out a number hilton was not willing to pay

In fact as far as i know out of all the the down town Disney hotels the Hilton was the only one to have the EMH benefit

http://www.downtowndisneyhotels.com/hotels/hilton/

they even advertise it on the hotel group website.

That Hilton opened up in 1983, so were 32-33 years in to its existence, seems like an odd contract term, however if the contract was for say 30 years and started in 1985 to drive business to this hotel once the newness wore off it makes sense

No I have not revealed it yet. I will tell you this, we named it THE BEAST. 

I have yet to name my new truck...lets see its got 2 turbos, 2 wheel drive....I could call it deuce 

did i miss the post on the new TV?!?!?!?!

My wife was with me when we were doing all of the looking so she understands the need to get additional work done. 

 

I'm getting to the point I need to schedule an appointment with Line-X folks to get a bed liner sprayed in. I've only ever had inserts before so this will be my first time with a spray on so it will be interesting to see how it holds up over the next 10-15 years.

do you have an air compressor?

if so Id do Raptor liner, its DIY and gets the same result at 1/4 the price

set the pressure at 40-60 psi and mask the truck off, use the painters tape and those clear sheets/ drop cloths to cover the cab/ bed sides and such, scuff and spray, reapply in 1 -2 hours and your good to go

Ill do mine in a month or so when its not so wet and cold here as it cures better in the heat

That's not accurate. Goodyear Marathons and Maxxis m8008 tires can be taken up to 75moh based on air pressure increases and if your mm have additional weight carrying capacity. I believe that there are other ST tires that are rated at 75mph but the brands are eluding me right now.

I have westlake super S/T 185/80/R13 ST on my pup, they are load rated for 1710lbs and speed rated for 95MPH!

never will i ever go faster than 65 on them.

I want to get 15's on the pup, but i think the max i can fit will be 14's

there's a good lil calc that i have played with to see what i can fit

https://www.tacomaworld.com/tirecalc

I most likely will go with a 205/75/R14 and will need new rims to accommodate the larger tire

Per the calc they will be 1.45 inches taller and .79 wider than what i currently have on there

if my thinking is correct I divide those by 2 when measuring for clearance in my wheel well  as we go from the hub up 

so.725 taller into the well than the current tire, and .245 wider 

my wife has a hard time understanding how one can buy a new expensive truck, and then continue to buy stuff for it....
I just ordered the Tonneau Cover and was considering doing a spray in bed-liner, the liner is on hold as i got the Tonneau
apparently I have to compromise, i got a new truck and some new accessories and she gets a new rug for the living room

I went with the BAK roll-x, I know its on close out and they re-designed it( now called X-2) but online i found plenty of good and bad reviews, the bad ones were mainly from cold climates and complaints in winter and i live in FL so their issues should not translate

http://bakindustries.com/p-8241-roll-x-hard-rolling-tonneau-covers-overview.html

Originally it was a $1000+ cover, since they came out with the X2 they dropped the price to $899, and now they are no longer making it so many sites are selling it for $599

I got mine from the factory via eBay for $450 shipped

Ill post some pics once its installed

They have to rename the park, there are no studios left when they are done...
I am thinking Disney's Florida Adventure, in line with the California park that has the pixar land( toy story and cars themed attractions) 

See, now you got me thinking about tires again......  I really don't like the Chinese junk that came on my trailer, but to get what I want (the only US made trailer tire) I need to replace the rims and each new tire would be over $300.....

I am with you on that... at least i only have 2 tires/ rims to replace when i want to upgrade

I already installed a 3 inch suspension lift to try an accommodate a larger rim/ tire combo