jazzmatazz

6 hours ago, sherryberry said:

Glad you had a great trip! We were there the same time and Kenneth caught a bad cold while we were there. I wonder if you got the same one from Disney?

Whatever I got has been going around home for quite some time. Just Disney probably lowered my immunity being attacked on all fronts that I finally caught it. I usually get sick at least once every winter but had managed to avoid it up til now.

54 minutes ago, Beckers said:

Oh you got to meet baymax!! How exciting! 

Im sorry you got sick but at least it's when you got home and not during your trip. 

 

What at did you think of Disney quest? We've never been. 

I felt it was overpriced but it was a ton of fun! They lowered it to half price entry closer to closing time to get people in. I really wanted to see it because I didn't see us getting back there again to check it out before its gone. We both love video games and it was great to play a lot of our childhood favorites. The virtual reality stuff was really cool too, you don't really notice the dated graphics because you are too busy taking in everything else in those.

Well I'm finally feeling better to post about my birthday trip. Thanks to everyone who answered all my questions, everyone was so friendly at camp too! I had to go catch a nasty cold literally the Sunday we got back to Wisconsin and it's still kicking my behind. My boyfriend is the best, he did all the overnight driving we drove down to Georgia the first day to stay with some friends but they moved during our time at Disney back to WI! So the way home was 18 hours straight through. Was certainly a long day. Our camp check in was Jan 31st Monday we spent the day at downtown Disney springs and checked out Disney Quest. Tuesday we went to Epcot which was great the only downside was some foreign teen sports group who were being rude about the fireworks seating yelling at us to sit down. Sitting down would mean me not seeing the fireworks/water works show through the bushes we were in front of. Basically they sucked and I tried to steer us away from them anytime we saw them walking around the park the entire trip.

Magic Kingdom was our second day and we focused on rides, I left my camera locked up in the car that day since I didn't want to deal with lockers. Thursday MGM (it will always be that to me plus it's less of a mouthful to say) Tower of Terror, never again. I think my boyfriend had a smile on his face the rest of the day with how much I screamed on that one. Big thunder mountain was scary enough for me as is.

Our last day was spent back at MK to play Sorcerers of the magic kingdom before park hopping over to Animal kingdom. Boyfriend forgot his magicband back at camp and I was so glad that it was easy enough to get a card through customer service so we didn't have to take the boat back to camp.

I had a ton of fun, I know he did too. It was also our first full week together as a couple after a year of being together. Since we usually only see each other every few days or so or over a weekend.  So it was great to see how each of us handles stress and we make a great team. Hopefully it leads to more adventures :)

5 hours ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

The posts about the Fort being full got me to wondering why that is.  This isn't a busy time of year at WDW.

So, why is the Fort so busy?

Well, maybe the aggressive rate structure they use at the Fort has something to do with it.

According to the chart posted on MouseSavers, January 18 through February 6 is the only time before August that the Fort categorizes as "Value" season.  The highest rate, for a Premium Site on a weekend, during "Value" season is $106 a night.  That very same campsite will cost you $156 a night once "Peak" season arrives on February 11 (and even more for President's Day weekend and around Easter). http://www.mousesavers.com/2016-fort-wilderness-campsites-rates-season-dates/

I'm guessing that there are a lot of smart guests who studied those rate charts parked at the Fort right now.  Including Grumpy and Grandma.

Let's see what happens on February 10th.

TCD

I'm leaving this Friday to camp at the fort Jan 31st-Feb 9th. I did hit the value season and Tent camping non premium was about $52 a night and 62-65ish on weekend days. I booked around Dec 17th with no issues. Getting my Disney tickets took longer going through military but I got it done finally. My issue is I farm most of the year and work retail in winter to keep busy so Jan-Feb are really the only time of year I can travel easily. But going during "Value" time was certainly a way to get me to book a stay.

In the future if it works better you can always pick up your military tickets right at the Shades of Green Resort at Disney http://www.shadesofgreen.org/ 

 

Shades of Green started it's life as Disney's Golf Resort in 1973 and if I am correct has some of the largest "standard" rooms "on property".  It's kind of unique as for some things it is considered a Disney resort (EMH, DME) but for others it is not (free parking at the parks).

Sorry to be a tad off topic. But I wouldn't recommend Shades of Green at all. I tried going that route and it took them two weeks to respond to me with a vague answer that didn't answer any of my questions. I got much better service just driving to the closest military base to us.

I'm kind of clueless about this too. I just completed my check in, I guessed my arrival time I'm shooting for an hour early before check in but probably won't get there til 1pm. I'll be there in 14 days! Now that I finally have tickets, I had a slew of car troubles and it took us longer to make the trip to go pick up our tickets from the military base.

You could also pick one up at Walmart once you get to Disney. They have Mtn Bikes for 79 dollars on the website and I believe they put them together for you if you order ahead of time.

 

Someone else on another thread suggested that you could have Walmart deliver a bike to the Fort for you but pretty sure it would need some assembly.

 

http://www.walmart.com/ip/26-Roadmaster-Granite-Peak-Men-s-Bike-Black-Green/45089317?action=product_interest&action_type=title&item_id=45089317&placement_id=irs-106-t1&strategy=PWVUB&visitor_id&category=&client_guid=abc56931-b168-45c9-8db5-54eca6e81ed7&customer_id_enc&config_id=106&parent_item_id=45089314&parent_anchor_item_id=45089314&guid=9454c07f-9f46-4e91-8380-473b42f46d5c&bucket_id=irsbucketdefault&beacon_version=1.0.1&findingMethod=p13n

Was looking at walmart bikes online.  I wouldn't pay for assembly though. My time in retail I was trained for bike assembly at a different store.

This thread isn't helping my craving for Sushi.  I'm getting so desperate, I was eyeing up sushi at the convenience store.  Thankfully fear kicked in :)

Oh my! Don't touch that stuff! It's evil and usually quite gross!

Yeah I figured I can get a decent bike especially since I've been wanting to sell my secondary bike it's an older bike with the big baskets on the back. It's lovely, when I lived in town but now that I'm back at the farm it's quite useless to me. So that will help with some trade in value with my friend since it's one he'd probably keep for his wife.

Thanks for all the feedback! We are quite the pair of sushi snobs.   We have to be quite picky around here since Wi is a land locked state but thankfully we are within 2 hours of Chicago so we get some decent seafood in depending on where you go. He used to live in Japan for awhile so he's very sensitive to the quality of fish and since dating him so have I. Most of the places locally I can only touch rolls now instead of nigiri. Teppan was completely booked up for reserved booking when I initially was looking for reservations. Didn't quite care where as long as sushi was on the itinerary.

We'll be camping in a tent the same week as y'all! I agree about the plastic underneath the tent. And also about the electric mattress pad. We also use an electric blanket - we stay warm and cozy in the tent! We run an extension cord into the tent for charging phones, to run the heater, and I keep the mattress pad and blanket on all night. When we were there last year in January, it did get pretty chilly at night. I was actually amazed at how much the space heater heated up the tent. We usually run it on high when we first get back to the tent and then turn it down after the tent warms up. I hope you have a great birthday and have fun camping!

I'll be sure to update about which loop we end up in. I know we aren't a preferred tent site, everything was rather booked by the time I made reservations. I know my plan for Sunday was to stay mostly at camp, maybe Disney Springs in the AM if we get there way early before check in.

One thing we found out the hard way in Cub Scouts was any tarp or plastic you put under the tent should not be bigger than the tent floor.  That will just funnel the water in. So, same size or slightly smaller.

 

As far as the bike thing goes, they do rent them at FW. Not sure if you tracking one down means borrowing one or buying one, so that may be cheaper.

 

Have fun and have a great birthday trip!

I'm unsure of the size of tent I'm bringing yet. All I know is my boyfriend owns the bigger tent out of the two of us. As for tarps we have plenty of them around the farm to the point dad wants some of them gone so I can easily take a bigger one and then cut it to size as needed.

I know a guy locally who fixes up and resells bikes rather cheaply so I was thinking about just buying my guy a bike since he's been procrastinating on getting himself one. He's so tall that he can't use my second bike because they were made for shorter people.

I got myself a dinner reservation there for Feb 1st. I absolutely love sushi and it was high on my list of things to do while at Disney, get sushi!

Thanks so much for the tips so far! My guy has an air mattress he's set on bringing. I'm quite used to sleeping cold as much as I don't like it. Bf's bed is in a basement in a house only set to 60 degrees when it's 20 out right now. That bed is also a water bed with a broken heater! So I usually have to sleep in two layers of pjs and a heavy sweatshirt so if it dips down at night time I'm not going to die! I'm sadly quite used to it at this point. 

I'll have to see what kind of space heater my dad has, he recently bought himself two for around the farm here since at 93 he's a stubborn man who wants to keep working but can't handle the cold. I'm sure he'd lend me one of them.

Hello! I'm new here. I'm staying at the campgrounds Jan 31st-Feb 6th for my 27th birthday trip to Disney. I've never stayed in a Disney resort before. Nor have I been camping since 2007 and let me say that was the worst camping experience of my life in Boundary Waters. Error on the people I was with didn't want to listen to the student saying we were pitching our tents in a flood zone. Needless to say it really turned me off camping after sleeping in a puddle for an entire week. So I'm certainly a bit nervous to go camping again and I know it's not going to be that bad in any way.

What are some things I should prepare for camping in January February? I read on one blog it was rather hurricane/tornado season for Florida. I'm from Wi so it's certainly cold up here right now. I'm kind of new to having electricity camping, do most tent campers just run a cable to their tents to charge their phones? Am I going to need different tent stakes for the sand? 

I think I'm mostly prepared to go otherwise. Just need to buy a new pair of tennis shoes and track down a second bike for my boyfriend since he doesn't have a bike. Even with the cost of those two bigger priced items it's still so much cheaper to go camping than a different resort hotel.