FtWildernessFamily...Holly

We are reserved Sept 22-29, I called this past weekend to apply it...20% too baby!

Took the total from $641 to $513. Woot woot!

Sorry to hear about your dogs too. We lost ours on January 4th.

We always stay in 500 - very easy to navigate and most sites are nice (we have a 35 ft 5er with 3 slides) but when we return in September, we are going to request/try 400. While I know it's a pet loop too, it's not the same pet loop our Marley loved so much...

Ahhhh yes. Definitely lock your bikes up!

Mine got stolen from the bike rack at the marina in 2009 after a marathon 14 plus hour day at Magic Kingdom. Hubby notified a CM who called OCPD. They came and took a report but the bike was never found. OCPD told Hubby that since the Fort is a "transient" park - meaning more folks than just campers come through there - it isn't the typical camping crowd once you get outside the loops, with whom you can leave your wallet on the outside table and never worry about it, etc.

Never owned bike locks before then, definitely do now.

(for the record.....the thief did me a favor because I hated that bike. HAHA. Santa brought me a new one that year)

Fort management did provide me with a free bike rental for the remainder of the week, I thought that was nice.

Thank you everyone!! :)

Yay! Page 1 of the TR. But what's that 3 next to the 1???

haha

Lovin' your report, as always. Love how you tell a story, I read it more like a conversation.

Keep it coming!

Russell described the new TT theming the same way, that it looked like Tron. He didn't like it either.

Gwen's video is awesome. I bookmarked it to show it to Maddie when she wakes up. :)

The Reason For The Season

About the time the ladies finished up on Soarin', it was time to head back to WS for our dinner reservation at Via Napoli. The way the Candlelight Processional dinner packages work, is you book an ADR at the restaurant of your choice within a certain timeframe, predicated by the CP show time you choose. We wanted to do the 6:45 show, which meant a mid-afternoon dinner. Our reservation was at 3:30.

When you think about it, the dinner packages are brilliant on Disney's part. Not only do they make good money as the meals are all inclusive, but they fill up the mid-afternoon dining slots that traditionally may go unfilled, in particular at some of the Epcot restaurants that are tougher to sell. Smart marketers, they are.

We arrived at Via Napoli around 3:20 and there was a long line outside. I got in line, and almost immediately a CM approached asking if I had a reservation. I told her we had booked the dinner package, and I was directed inside to a separate check in counter for CP guests. After checking in, we were called to our table within 5 minutes.

The inside of Via Napoli is very pretty. I really like these light fixtures.

Those tables were all filled within 15 minutes.

In the background of that last picture, you can see the 3 pizza ovens along the back wall. They are wood burning ovens named after the 3 active volcanoes in Italy: Mount Etna, Mount Vesuvius and Stromboli.

On our only previous visit here we had the pizza. It is outstanding, I'll tell you! But with the dinner package, you pay one price and order an appetizer, entree, dessert and non-alcoholic beverage off the menu. So I wasn't inclined to get pizza...I was looking for maximum value and to try something new.

This is the salad that came as an appetizer with one of the kids meals. Needless to say, it wasn't eaten by a kid...but the rest of us enjoyed nibbling at it.

Stella got the fruit appetizer.

INC and I shared the appetizer sampler for two....fried calamari, eggplant, mushrooms, zucchini, and arancini (rice balls).

I have to say, this appetizer was pretty disappointing. Everything was quite greasy. I knew it would be a lot of fried food, but thought it would be just crisp fried. This was really heavy and oil laden, and we left a lot of it on the plate.

Gwen's appetizer was the shrimp and bean salad. This was very tasty!

Izzy got the melon and proscuito.

Emma got the arrancini appetizer. These things are pretty tasty.

Overall, we would rate our appetizers as "so so".

Did the entrees hit the mark?

Stella and Anna both got kids alfredo.

This was my dish. I think it was called Candele, and those are veal meatballs. They were outstanding.

That's all the entree pics I have. I remember a couple of the girls got personal pizzas, which rocked! And INC got the lasagna, which was white with spinach. That was also very good. Overall, the entrees were much better than the appetizers.

Even though at this point you could have rolled us out of there, dessert was included so we tried some.

Stella and Anna had the kids gelato.

A couple of the girls had the soda...which was vanilla gelato with an Italian fizzy orange soda. This was ok, but they were expecting a sweeter soda and the Italian soda was a bit bitter and not at all sweet. But the gelato was good.

Gwen and I ordered this....which was the dish of the night IMO.

It was called Coppa di Brutti Ma Buoni, which means Ugly But Good. It was vanilla gelato with amarena cherries. I could have licked the dish.

What struck me about my sundae was, if you were ordering it off the menu, you would pay $14. It was good, but ain't no sundae worth $14 in my mind unless it feeds several like the kitchen sink. But if you ever dine there on a package it's a must do.

INC had the tiramisu, which was also outstanding.

So that was our Via Napoli meal. Each successive course improved on the last. Which is a good thing, because I was not impressed with those appetizers. But I was overall quite happy with our meal. Will I eat there again? Probably not other than for the pizza. I will DEFINITELY dine there again for the pizza.

At this point, we didn't have much time to kill before we needed to be in line for CP seating. Even with the dining package you need to get in line if you want decent seats. The benefit is that you are guaranteed a seat, and they are primarily in the center area. Most nights you can get a good seat in standby, and if I did this more than just rarely that's what I'd do. But as I said earlier, being 12/23 and Gary Sinese, I wanted a good seat. And good seats we got!

Here was the scene outside the ampitheater before being seated.

That's a lot of people!

The tree across the lake. I call this shot "Tree Across The Lake".

Turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese, I really think so. (this is foreshadowing for later that evening...)

We made our way into the theater and got great seats.

Before too long, the orchestra came out and began playing, and the Candlelight Processionial began. The choir proceeds by candlelight into the theater while singing....just beautiful.

The main reason I was excited about seeing this show again, in particular 2 days before Christmas, is to ensure that we stayed focused on the reason we were all celebrating. I was afraid that taking my kids to Disney World for Christmas would put the focus on rides, camping, food, and other silly things. Disney World can easily represent the worst attributes of rampant consumerism. But Disney also, I think, does a good job in this day and age maintaining a visible focus on real Christmas symbolism. They have not fallen on the secular bandwagon and rethemed the CP as the Disney Winter Festival. It is about Christ, His coming and what it represents for mankind. I loved it.

The announcer introduced Gary Sinese, and it was exciting to see him walk out on stage. He appeared very humble in my opinion, as if he knew this wasn't about him. I don't imagine all celebrities would look at it that way. His reading of the Christmas story was incredibly moving. I can tell you that the readings, the music and the pageantry of the choir brought this dope to tears several times.

And Anna LOVED it! Every time the horns played, she'd put her hand up to her mouth like a trumpet and play along. She danced back and forth. It was awesome.

The show is about an hour long, but it feels like 20 minutes. It was over too soon. But it was great, and I recommend it to anyone that has never seen it. If you are traveling to WDW at Christmas time don't miss it.

Coming up....we ride Test Track, and All Aboard the Damn Judi Dench History Extravaganza!

Yay!! I was hoping you'd love it!!! :) It really is such a moving description and storytelling of Jesus' life and trials. Russell gets all seriously choked up and sobby both times we've seen it, as did I. We snuck down for a weekend in December so that we could see it again on Sunday, December 16th. Lea Solanga narrated, she's the singing voice for Jasmine in Aladdin and for Mulan. She did a fantastic job. Original Holly was there the same weekend and saw it the day before on Saturday, same narrator.

I'll do that every single year if we can, that's how much we love it. The orchestra and choir are both so amazing and powerful.

SOOO glad you loved it.

Suspense.Is.Killing.Me.

I cannot WAIT to hear what you thought about the Candlelight Processional. I remember your comments about it during my (still unfinished) TR from last Christmas.

MORE PLEASE!!

I had a great time too! Between Maddie's tummy troubles (issues with what she ate and a little anxiety) and Russell's midnight trip to the ER, we ended up hanging around the camper more than we wanted to.

So great to place a face with a name on a lot of folks! :)

Original Holly - I thank you too for my redneck wine glass. I am planning to take it to work and use it as a candy dish on my desk in my office. You are one of a kind.

And Christy - thank you for your offers of keeping Maddie while we went to the ER - I just wish I had seen your texts before we left. You are a blessing to me.

Dave - we can help out too if need be since we're "local". Just let me know, ok. Shopping, etc.

We can bring potato salad and macaroni salad. :-) Maybe a red velvet cake from Publix.

Yep, it's right for us as well. Site 7. Friday to Monday.

OOO Kim, I love Happy Bunny. :)

Well....I haven't been here much for a while so excuse me while I get caught up:

We have our one child and there's 3 of us total.

Also, Bob - I mistakenly told you site 5 but we're reserved in site 7.

We're only about 7 weeks away!! :)

We do a lot of camping at a COE campground near us called McKinney. It's on Lake Allatoona and only about 20 minutes from our house. We were just there last weekend.

I'll second Topsail Hill in Santa Rosa Beach, FL. It's hard sometimes for me to determine if Topsail or the Fort is my favorite campground as they appeal to me in different ways. But they are both right up there at the top of my list and become easily interchangable as #1.

We go there at least once a year and are currently booked in mid July.

Win the lottery so I can live there. Or at least on the road.

This will certainly change our strategy on how we plan our days. Not radically, but we would hit a FP machine and get FP's to use later in the day.

It's all good.....

We did dinner at CRT in Sept 2010. Hands down, our favorite Disney meal ever.

The food was fantastic and you just can't beat the ambiance.

Book early!

While waiting on our server we realized that all the bar menus have the same compass logo (I Think) we also take a picture of the menus and I think they are all the same I’ll have to check that out.

Nick, I'm 99.743987% certain that the Whispering Canyon Cafe menus have the compass on them as well!!!

:)

Lou IS Walter. Where do you think Jeff gets his material?

OH.MY.GAWRSH.

LMAO!

Awwww on the Philharmagic shot. That's my favorite show!

Awesome shimmying climbing skills there! Looks like Dave has some competition! Not that we need to have an actual competition.

I love the photos of Pioneer Hall!! And adorable photo of CP at the Farm with her coffee! Great job!

Kim, maybe we DO need a competition!!!

Yay!!!

Ready to read more.

Nice set up!!! Sometimes I miss our tent-camping days.

EXCELLENT! So sad to see this come to an end.

And that is my fave picture of your DD too, and I've never seen any others except those you posted here. She's a beauty! :)

Yeah, I got over the Dawg thing pretty easily myself. It's all good, CKCK!!!

I'm booked. Yee haw...