Theed31u

So we have been watching for full hookup and decided to go full hookup.  We did end up getting reservations starting June 15th and extended it through July 1st.  With how the 4th of July falls we should be able to drive and be back to our regular spot on July 3rd.

We have been to the Fort a few times and have always stayed in the full hookup 1700 loop.  We first stayed in the back of the loop and fell in love with the sites around site 1719.  When booking for this June there were 2 out of 14 days that were blocking us from getting a full hookup site so now we are in preferred and not sure how we will like it.  

Are there any advantages to any of the preferred loops?  We are a family of 6 with kids that love to ride bikes, is there one loop that might be better to let the kids ride?  

I'm trying to see if it is worth our time to keep checking for availability of full hookup or just go with the preferred.

Thanks!

We have been thinking about adding solar to our class C.  We don't do a lot of boondocking but we keep it out at a lake all summer when we are not on the road.  Our main goal would be able to keep the fridge going on AC while parked at the lake and a couple nights off grid while on the road.  We have an on-board generator for things like the A/C or microwave.  

Anyone with experience or good at electronics that could give us an idea of what we might need?

Thanks!

We (a family of 6) are looking at going in June 2022.  After looking at 14 days at the fort and 10 day park tickets we will be passing on Genie+.  We like to plan ahead and not knowing what sort of value we would get out of it I just can't bring myself to spend the extra $1000 on it.  If it ran exactly like fast pass and I could book multiple things in advance I would consider it but as it sits now, I'll pass.  Looking at the free Genie service it doesn't look much better.  The free service seems more like Disney pushing crowds where they want them and marketing dining to you.  After watching multiple YouTube videos of people's experiences, I do think we will be doing it old school and using all the standby lines.

I heard rumors that Reflections was canceled and they were pulling out construction stuff and planting grass over the area.  Anyone heading down there that could check it out?

We have a 2013 Forest River Sunseeker.  It has an A B or Both selector for the speakers.  A plays only over the cab speakers, B is for the living area and Both is of course for both.  We have found that when we listen to the radio or CD the audio comes over all the speakers just fine, but when we listen to the TV over the speakers it does not come out of the rear or center of the living speakers. 

Any one run into this issue or have an idea where to start diagnosing it?  I have not found anything that gives details on the wiring, but I have checked the audio out plugs from the tv.

We just used the Kid's Nite Out service tonight and thought I would share the experience.  The lady from Kid's Nite Out showed up right on time.  She had some quick questions about the kids (any allergies, any medications, if they were allowed to watch TV or play on electronics, bed time, meal time, etc.).  Our oldest is 11 and does good being helpful so we also told her that.  So we gave her our numbers and left for our ADR.  We got a text about 30 minutes later from the caregiver says that it was her number and we could contact her if there were any issues.  We got another update about an hour later says everything was going good.  We got back after 4 hours and 45 minutes.  They were all happy and content.  She made some notes on what they did and ate on a carbon copy form so we could see and keep one.  Our two youngest loved that she brought Barbies to play with them.  She also brought some stuff for the kids to make necklaces and the girls made tiaras.  The kids seemed very happy with the experience and it was very weird for us to not have the kids for a little while!  

The service was $29/hr with a 4 hour minimum.  Anything over the 4 hours they charge to the next 15 minutes at the same rate.  There was a fee for them to travel here, but it must have been reasonable because I don't remember it.  They are also allowed to take a tip, but you cannot add it to the fees paid by credit card.  They dont need a firm return time so that was nice to not have to rush to make a specific time.

Overall a good experience and I think we will keep this as an option on future trips.

12 hours ago, tim5055 said:

I’m a firm believer that new tires and checking air before every trip isn’t sufficient. Yes, I replace my tires ever 3 - 5 years. Yes, I check and air up my tires before every trip, but.......

 

i take it it one step further, I have a tire pressure sensor on every tire on both the tow vehicle and the trailer.   So far on three occasions even though I had new tires that were at the proper pressure before the trip I have had alarms that caused me to stop. Two of the situations were screws I picked up from the road and one was a valve stem that began leaking. In all three cases I had sufficient time to pull to a place of complete safety and address the situation in a place other than the side of the road.  One of the the three, when I exited the highway there was a tire store at the bottom of the exit ramp.

 

In all three cases, once I stopped, even though the tires were drastically low on air,  they appeared fully inflated and they passed the “kick” test. 

 

I fully believe that that the vast majority of “Chinese Junk Tire” failures and “old tire” failures are really road hazards that have caused a loss of tire pressure that caused a catastrophic failure. In all three of my instances, had I not responded to the alarm and stopped towing I’m sure I would have a failure. Most times when a tire overheats and fails you end up with little evidence to prove what happened. 

 

Everyone should have a TPMS on all tires. 

I have a Class C and have been looking at TPMS.  Any suggestions on an affordable system?  Are the external as good as the internal?

Leave for the fort in 8 days so I'm not sure I will have one by then.

We have a trip planned for June and were planning on taking our adult niece to help watch our 4 kids and give us an adult night out.  She now cannot join us but were looking for a way to salvage our night out to celebrate our 15th anniversary.  Has anyone used the Kid's Nite Out service?  Anyone have another suggestion to accomplish a night out?

Here is a map I found today.  I liked all the coloring on it, seemed to give me a better idea of what it all is.  I am wondering since the resorts will practically be the same place, will guests be able to use pools and amenities at both?  I do like that it looks like they will have their own bus terminal.

https://dvcnews.com/index.php/resorts/reflections/4462-plans-reveal-new-details-on-reflections-resort#prettyPhoto

Is this thread old?  On MDE they list late EMH Wednesday night and again  the next few Wednesdays.

Does anyone know if this is still the case with Walmart?  Another website said Disney will no longer allow Walmart to deliver because they won't allow it to be dropped off in plastic bags.  This information was posted sometime in February this year.

We are looking at an upcoming trip and trying to plan our park days.  A couple questions came up.  1) Is there still an opening show at the Magic Kingdom and 2) if there are AM extra magic hours, does this change the opening show at all?

My family will be going down in June also.  We were looking at the 300 loop.  Does the 300 loop have any advantages over the 100 and 200 loops?  What made you look at the 300 over the other preferred sites?

On 2/22/2019 at 7:18 AM, mouseketab.....Carol said:

I've done the WalMart grocery pickup in the Disney area, but never the delivery.

The pickup is easy peasy, just check in with the app when I'm about 30 minutes out, they track you as you are driving in, then when you pull into the spot, they bring your stuff out.

We have done grocery pick up before, just not sure our 34' motorhome will fit in the pick up spaces....  😁

We decided to make it a trip we do every couple years due to the price.  We also got the Disney Visa card and for our trip this summer we have enough points to cover our 11 nights and some left over for tickets.  There are 6 in our family and we are bringing my adult niece so staying at the fort is the only way it is affordable for us.

We are looking at taking our motor home out for a vacation this year.  We live in Iowa and would like to keep it to a max of 2 days travel each way with a week at the destination.  We are not set up to tow a vehicle so we have been looking for ideas of places we can visit from a campground on foot, bikes or on site transportation.  We have 4 kids ages 2, 4, 7 and 9 when we will be traveling.

Here are a couple ideas we have:

Washington DC - we have found a campground that has transportation on the city bus system so it would be easy to go visit places from the campground.

Six Flags St. Louis - there is a yogi bear campground 1/4 to 1/2 mile for the gate to the park.  We would be able to get a season pass really cheap and visit daily if we wanted.

We are not set on either of these so please share ideas and experiences!

One thing I noticed when we were in the parks that the upsells were not in my kids face.  By this I mean that I never once had to tell my kids we couldn't do something they saw others doing because it cost extra money.  

We did a trip in April with 4 kids (8, 5, 3 and 1).  We did 8 days at the fort with 7 of those days in the parks.  We are looking at our next trip and would like to spend 7 days in the parks but with the kids we are going to do 1:1 ratio of park days vs hanging out at the fort days.  We did take advantage of extra magic hours when they were offered so staying in the parks until 1 am was awesome for getting lots of attractions in a short amount of time but it was not fun the next morning heading to another park.

I would also like the information!  

On 11/20/2016 at 8:46 PM, GaDawgFan.....Kelly said:

From what I remember, and it's been awhile, I think we paid about 1/2 of retail on a Class C that was a few years old. I think it had 1,000 miles on it. Most things were still in plastic. I'm not sure the original owners really used it... maybe a trip or 2. 

We bought a Class C in 2015.  It was a 2013 and only had a couple thousand miles on it.  It looked brand new and we paid about 55% retail.  Our biggest problem was getting good terms on the loan, apparently my wife and I fall into a high risk category because of our age.  

We had reservations and did take a boat to the contemporary resort.  To get to epcot it might be worth it to take the monorail.  The boat to the contemporary was a smaller boat so if you have kids needing a stroller you may not be able to roll right on it like the magic kingdom boats.

We are not pin collectors in our family but depending on the price I think my kids could get into a scavenger hunt like this.

I think when we were making our reservation I just had 1:00 in as a check in time.  We changed our plans and figured we would get there early and just park in the overflow until the site was ready.  We showed up 9ish and they got us right in to a spot.  It was about 4 spots down from where we requested and they told us we could wait until our requested site was ready, but it was close enough for us.

Our family has played it both times we have been down there.  When we went down in April I showed my oldest 2 that they could trade cards and loved doing that.  We have a family deck that gets 1 of every card and then they each get to keep any duplicates and can trade them as they want.

We ran into a local in a the pirates area and found out collectors hang out there.  He took time and talked to my kids about it and even told us about the game that you can play at home.  It is a neat game and you can get then a lot of places in the park.

The Perry game in Epcot did not go over at all with our kids.