WannaBeImagineer

Here you go, straight from the engineer's report:  I think the details are hard to see in this jpeg but the pdf showed it pretty well.

 
WBI

Here you go, straight from the engineer's report:  I think the details are hard to see in this jpeg but the pdf showed it pretty well.

 
WBI

I agree and I think they will expand outside of the existing boundary.  This SFWMD application says they are impacting wetlands and providing mitigation, I'm sure they are doing that for a reason.  This is from the application:
 
The Project Consists of construction of a 38.01 acres pond to provide water quality treatment and floodplain compensation to accommodate the development of 799.29 acres which includes the construction of a wet detention pond, parking expansion and rehabilitation of a theme park area resulting in a maximum of 95% impervious area, and expansion of an existing ramp from Osceola Parkway to the theme park entrance plaza area and the construction of an entrance road from World Drive to the theme park entrance with a temporary bridge spanning the L402 Canal. The project will impact 53.37 acres wetlands and mitigation will be provided by permit issued under application#140801-15.
 
 
Here's a picture showing both the existing drainage areas and the proposed:
 

 
I circled in red the area that's changing.
 
Here's a better picture of the proposed:
 

 
You can see they are getting rid of all those wetlands up to the canal.  
 
I really think they are going to expand the park or backstage area up to that canal.
 
WBI

Hey Josh has posted a couple of reviews of the F&W on his website and I found an interesting line:
 
The plates here are kind of cool – entirely disposable but look like they just as easily be made of china.
 
http://www.easywdw.com/uncategorized/2015-epcot-food-and-wine-festival-chew-marketplaces-review-and-more-new-food/#more-16412
 
I guess those plates from the other bloggers website were disposable.
 
WBI

Some random thoughts:
 
Those arials show some cool details. Holy smokes the size of this expansion is much larger than expected. That towncenter area has some very large buildings going up, are they really going to be just shopping? With this area getting so much bigger it seems like they are trying to draw more locals who can pop in at anytime for a meal.  Well that and the international travelers who are there for weeks at a time I guess.   I've heard good things on the Twitter about the Boathouse and Morimonto including their pricing is reasonable for the quality and Disney. Also the theming in Jock Lindsey's sounds and looks great. With all these new restaurants how does someone going once a year really get to enjoy them in addition to the ones you already love.  (I guess that's Disney's goal, make you stay longer and spend more) I still don't want to go to Downtown Springs until the construction is done but being the Indian Jones fan I am I'm really considering it. WBI

We did it because it was an easy and free souvenir, we also didn't have to carry anything around to get signatures, not that I ever would.  But our little guy could care less about getting autographs so it worked for us, I'm sure an older kid would prefer to get the autographs themselves.
 
Honestly the premium for a Disney Cruise is so high they should have the Fab Five come to your stateroom and sign anything you want free of charge.
WBI

Did anyone else see this, I wonder what effect this has if any on the way? 
Disney's VPs at Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios switch theme park roles 
Walt Disney World has announced another theme-park management switch.
  Disney's Hollywood Studios vice president Dan Cockerell will trade places with Magic Kingdom vice president Phil Holmes over the next month.
Cockerell has overseen Hollywood Studios since 2011. Before that he was vice president in charge of Epcot. Holmes has been vice president of the Magic Kingdom since 2001.
Earlier this month, Disney announced it was moving Melissa Valiquette from director of operations at the Magic Kingdom to vice president of Epcot.
 
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/os-disney-dan-cockerell-phil-holmes-20150724-story.html

What!?
 
Phil Holmes is leaving the MK?
 
Does that mean his portrait is going to be taken down in the gift shop in New Fantasyland?
 
And are we going to get a spinner ride like Aladdin's Flying Carpets at DHS?
 
Woo Hoo!
 
TCD

I don't know if anyone has posted the plan for the old racetrack so since I found it this morning I thought I'd share.
 
Sadly its not that exciting, they are demoing pretty much everything except the ponds.
 
Existing:
 

 
Zoom of the demo plan:
 

 
Zoom of the parking lot expansion plan:

 
Like I said not very exciting, but I still wanted to share.
 
WBI

I don't know if anyone has posted the plan for the old racetrack so since I found it this morning I thought I'd share.
 
Sadly its not that exciting, they are demoing pretty much everything except the ponds.
 
Existing:
 

 
Zoom of the demo plan:
 

 
Zoom of the parking lot expansion plan:

 
Like I said not very exciting, but I still wanted to share.
 
WBI

I don't know if anyone has posted the plan for the old racetrack so since I found it this morning I thought I'd share.
 
Sadly its not that exciting, they are demoing pretty much everything except the ponds.
 
Existing:
 

 
Zoom of the demo plan:
 

 
Zoom of the parking lot expansion plan:

 
Like I said not very exciting, but I still wanted to share.
 
WBI

WDW Magic left some things out of their article.
 
With the same permit they also filed this:
 

 
Do you know where that is?
 
Me either, how about now:

 
It looks like they are doing some research on this area west of Western Way.  This land use map shows that its a lot of residential though.
 
WBI

I'll add Grayton Beach State Park, just outside of Seaside, FL.
 
The full hook-ups don't have much shade but spring break and the summer still books up 11 months in advance.
WBI

Yup we did it!
 
After wanting to for years we finally went on our first Disney Cruise.
 
I know there are a ton of good trip reports I need to get caught up on but I wanted to get this one started while it's still fresh in my mind.
 
We’ve been on other cruise lines and loved them so we weren’t sure if DCL would live up to the hype.
 
For those of you that don’t know, there’s me aka WBI, my wife, aka CP (camping princess), and our son, W, who is now 18 months old.   We’ve never cruised with W before and honestly he is the main reason we chose to spend the extra money for DCL.
 
After tracking rates for months, we finally booked a VGT category, that’s a last minute balcony guarantee cabin, on the Disney Fantasy for 7 nights with a Western Caribbean itinerary. 
 
This is a good time to point out that this is the first time I ever bought travel insurance, lol. With the amount of money this cruise cost, and the fact that VGT requires it to be paid in full at booking I just felt safer buying insurance this time.  I did use a third party insurance provider though to save some money.
 
Here’s our itinerary:

 
Since we booked VGT we didn’t get to pick our cabin but I’ll show you how that worked out for us shortly.
 
For future VGT shoppers the cruise popped up as a VGT 65 days before the sail date and that rate ended up being available for a couple weeks I think.  Then it disappeared and then reappeared at half the cost for the Military rate.  
 
Let’s get to the trip report.
 
Since we are traveling with our 18 month old son, we decided to drive over instead of fly, because W is getting to that age where he’s harder to fly with.
 
We left on Thursday after work around 6pm and took turns driving through the night.  It was rough, I didn’t really sleep when it was my turn so I was tired we tried to pull over and sleep a couple times but when we stopped W woke up, so no luck.  We made it to Gainesville around 6am and had breakfast at the Waffle House.  We hadn’t been to one in over 5 years but we used to be fans.  Not so much anymore. 

 

 
 
Next we hit Publix to buy a Sunpass then we headed over to our friend’s house to visit some friends and see the new baby.  After a good visit we hit the road.
Initially we had planned to stop at Disney World but since we were worn out we headed straight to Cape Canaveral.  Along the way I realized that E-pass won’t work with the Sunpass until 24hrs after you purchase the Sunpass, so I guess I’ll be getting something in the mail from E-pass telling me I didn’t pay tolls, whoops.
 
Anyway we got to Port Canaveral around 11am and headed straight to lunch somewhere on the water.  We ended up at Rusty’s Seafood.
 
I had a grouper sandwich which was really good, they had a special Cole slaw that was great on top.
 
Here's W at lunch, he loved eating outside watching everything and running around.
 

 
 

 

 
That's the Dream in the background.
 
After lunch we headed to our hotel for the night, the Radisson.
 
I booked this the day before and got a great rate, I think $117 for the night.  The hotel looks older but its improved in some places and was a good deal for pre-cruise. Other must agree with that because I think it was 100% cruise people there. 
 
Our room:

 
 

 

 

 
 
We quickly got changed and hit the pool where I got to try out the new waterproof camera.
I went with the Nikon Coolpix S33 and it worked great throughout the cruise, I highly recommend it.  I got it for $129 and it came with a free floating strap, from Crutchfield.com (amazon was out of stock).
 

W and CP like to play and point saying you you you so if you see him pointing at the camera that's what's going on, it makes him laugh every time.
 

 
Posing:

 
Pool entrance:

 
A travel agent lady volunteered to take our picture:

 

 

 
W loved the waterfall.
 

 
 

 

 
This was W's first time with the life jacket, he's still too small for it really but he had a blast in it.
 

 
 

 

 
 
 
After swimming for a while, we got ready for dinner and headed to Fishlips so we could watch the cruise ships head out.  We ordered a few apps and drinks and soon enough the Dream came by.
 

 
 

After dinner, we tried to cruise down to Cocoa Beach but traffic was bad so we didn’t go far, we did stop at beach store and looked at all the junk but didn’t buy anything.  Then we hit up McDonalds for an ice cream and to let W run around, hoping he would get tired.  At this point I was dead tired but he wasn’t, lol.  We got back to the room around 6pm and I was passed out shortly after, evidently W and CP stayed up for a while and even went and heard live music by the pool.  All I remember is a little boy crawling over me every once in a while.
 
Next up embarkation day.
 
WBI

We always stop by there also.
 
I usually get an éclair and while good, I don't remember my last one being super fresh.  I can't remember what else we got but I remember there being a huge line but it went really fast.
 
TCD you'll like the French CMs there, they always seem really "happy" to be there.  We always joke about what they are thinking about the dumb tourist eating their Disney french food. lol
 
WBI

Nothing too exciting but there was just an ERP application submitted for roadway improvements near Epcot.
 
Proposed Project:
The proposed interchange improvements consist of the widening of Epcot Center Drive and Buena Vista Drive, as well as several ramp realignments.  In addition, Buena Vista Drive has been designed to provide future bus lanes, within the median, from Backstage Lane to just east of Bonnet Creek Parkway.  Surface water management systems will serve the improvements.  The project will utilize two existing ponds (1400 and 1800) and four proposed ponds will be built to provide the required treatment (1200, 1500, 1600 & 2000).  Two floodplain compensation ponds (FPC-1 and FPC-2) will be constructed to compensate for the floodplain impacts due to the proposed interchange improvements.  The floodplain impacts are within existing depressional or wetland areas that are connected to the C-1 Canal.  To maintain existing flow patterns, the project will add two new culverts, one under Overpass Road and one under Buena Vista Drive.
 
http://my.sfwmd.gov/entsb/docdownload?object_id=0900eeea88631939
 
WBI

Kind of looks like the floating island things they have in the movie.
 
There is a gigantic tree in the movie but they shot it until it fell and killed a bunch of big smurfs.
 
WBI

Ok I'm trying to knock out some of this report while my other pictures are loading.
 
 
 
Here we are driving to AK.
 

 
And getting out of the car:
 

 

 
First up was the safari
 

 

 
Anyone know where these pictures were:

 
 

 
 
A
 
 
Then we headed to Everest for some single rider turns:
 
The walk over:

 
Ok I'm forgetting details but we walked a trail and saw the Lion King:
 

 
 

 
We were picked for front row.

 
 

 
 
Timon came right up to us during the show but it scared W so that was too bad.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
WBI

Ok I'm going to keep this going.
 
 

 
 
Careful this pic is really blurry. lol Not sure why

 
As you can see it was raining on and off, we road TSM and looked around. 
 
W wouldn't leave his 3D glasses on so he didn't care for TSM.
 
Then we ate something, and went to the Osbourne Lights:
 

 

Feels crowded
 

 

 
 
Then it was time for Fantasmic.
 
We grabbed a carrot cake cookie to eat while in line too so that was nice.  Waiting with W is never nice, he wanted to run around pretty bad, especially once we got a seat,
 

 
 

 

 
 
After the show we hopped a bus back to the Fort where W fell asleep.
 

 
Then we road up to the marina to watch Lou's favorite pageant.
 
Look Lou you can tell W like it so much he never woke up.
 

 
Tomorrow its on to Animal Kingdom
 
WBI
 

Time for an update!
 
We left off with a delicious lunch at Be Our Guest, we had taken advantage of the FP+ and it worked great!
 
Up next it was time for a big first!
 
W was going to get his first haircut at Main Street USA Harmony Barber Shop.
 
As you might guess we took tons of pictures but I'll try to narrow it down.
 

 
The barber was great he covered W in Mickey stickers to distract him and it worked great...for a while.
 

 
 

 

 

 
 
Hey Lou if you are secretly reading this, is this the barber you asked about?  The one I couldn't remember his name?
 
About this time W realized something was going on behind him so the barber pulled out another distraction that worked like a charm.

 
 

 
In case you didn't know they offer a first hair cut package.  It comes with a locket of his hair, a certificate, and mickey ears. 
 
All for $18 not to bad considering the location.
 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 
After the haircut I think we did some walking around and W fell asleep so we headed back to the Fort.
 

 
 
 

 
Pretty soon we decided to head to the pool, which shockingly was the first time we actually got in the pool there.  It was pretty cool but I did the slide and we enjoyed it.
 

 

 
Next up we head to Hollywood Studios.
WBI

Hello everyone!
 
I know I said I wasn't going to do a trip report from our last trip way back in November but I was missing the Disney World this morning and I saw there was some interest in pictures of our little guy so I decided I would post a non-trip report.
 
During our Thanksgiving trip we realized that most pictures had our son in them so my wife started saying "Where in the World is W...." with every picture she'd take, so on that note I thought that would be perfect way for my lazy self to post some of our pictures.
 
I'll try to keep them in order, and if you want I'll give time to guess the location on the hard ones, but the obvious ones I'll just post away.
 
Here we go.
 
We road tripped through the night and arrived at this entrance:
 

 
Someone was ready to get out of the carseat after 13hrs.
 

 

 

 
 
Our site wasn't ready, I guess I was to specific with my request but no big deal.
 

 

 
 

 

 
We toured and snacked and finally our site was ready so we setup.
 
If anyone is interested we rented a cart from Kenny so I can fill you in on how that went.  Honestly Kenny was great but I did not like the offsite pickup so I won't be doing it again, I don't like having to leave once I'm there and to make it worse it was raining the whole time.
 
W really liked the cart:
 

 
 

 
We hopped a boat and monorail to 'Ohana!
 

 
It was great as usual.
 
Ok on to the next morning, getting ready for W's first Rope Drop!
 

 
 
Any guess where we're going:

 

 
How about now:
 

 
 
WBI

I went with the 8" ears on a 12" center globe, just because I thought it looked better.
 
Here's some blurry pictures from our last trip at the fort:
 

 

 

 
Mine is also setup where I can use three lights, one in each globe. Let me know if you have any questions.
 
WBI

I went with the 8" ears on a 12" center globe, just because I thought it looked better.
 
Here's some blurry pictures from our last trip at the fort:
 

 

 

 
Mine is also setup where I can use three lights, one in each globe. Let me know if you have any questions.
 
WBI

I just realized I posted the same graphic twice, the other one shows the locations of all the new property they bought.  One parcel is south of Animal Kingdom and has existing buildings on it, maybe an old hotel.
 

 
WBI

The permit modification application is over 900 pages long but here's a couple maps showing the property. 
 
Other than these its not too exciting.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
WBI