bigdisneydaddy

I think your idea about staying longer at Castaway Cay is great, I couldnt agree more. I think it would look awesome in the evening.

Your twin is channeling through you!!! :rofl2:

After seeing the pics he was wishing he had come with us.

The funny part is that I have a twin brother named Steve so I am used to it. LOL

Something to consider is the fact that towing weight limits dont take into account the frontal or side profile of the trailer, a travel trailer is essentially a large sail whereas a flat tandem trailer loaded low would have almost no resistance.

It looks like a great truck.

Being a little concerned about the "tail wagging the dog" scenario, I went with the '11 F250. It's a Turbo Diesel with 3.31 gears. On a couple of highway trips, with minimal head winds, I've 20-21 mpgs. Around town it only gets 16-17 mpg, but I'm hoping the diesel hype about them lasting 200,000-300,000 miles is true. I love this thing

As long as you dont use Rotella in it. LOL

The trip also had some special meaning since some of the money to pay for it actually came from my parents. My Dad passed away in 05 and my Mom in December 09, they left us some money and thats really what pushed us over the edge of being able to afford it. I tried real hard to create new memories for my family and give some meaning to the gift. They were both hard working people that came from poverty and I think they would be pleased that they were part of making our dreams come true.

The Poly was one of the places we always said we wanted to stay at but never had. We definitely splurged but it was worth it.

Learn something new every day.

are you talking about the kind that you install in an RV and run on 12v and propane ? I have never seen nor heard of a freezer that would run solely on 12V

It was funny that we ended up at Fort wilderness after we got back to the Poly, while I loved the stay there it kinda reminded us of why we like camping in our trailer. Although I had budgeted for it, the price of food is shocking for just 2 people. When we camp we always have some food pre made so that meals are easy to throw together, I shudder to think what it would cost for us to feed our crew if every meal was purchased.

We were also pleased with the efficiency of the magical express and how smoothly everything ran. Every single time that we had to change transportation or get somewhere, they always knew exactly who we were and what to do to get us there. I had some apprehension about it before the trip but everything worked perfect. The checkout at the Poly was flawless, we took our bags down to the transportation desk (could have had the bellman do it but we only had 2 bags and they had rollers) and gave them our info, we paid for the bags (Delta wont let you prepay more than 24 hrs ahead of the flight and I dont have a travel computer) they tagged them and all we had to do was wait for the bus. Way easier than renting a car and having to drop it off.

All in all it was a great trip. We met some nice folks, ate some great food, drank a couple of beers and got waited on hand and foot (not something either of us is used to) It was a great way to celebrate.

My princess

After the cruise we headed to the Poly for 2 nights

The view from our room

Heading back from the Fort and a trip to trails end, just cant keep us away from the Fort

Tonga toast at the Poly

Leaving the Poly heading to MCO and home

George and our servers, lots of fun with them, they were both good sports and we abused them severely

Chip and Dale on a break from the campfire program at the Fort

A desert sampler

Room service was awesome

another appetizer, strictly off my list since I am allergic to shrimp.

pot sticker appetizer

awesome salad with raspberry vinagerette, my favorite !

another salad

appetizer

medium rare mmmmmmmm

prime rib

This was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip, 3hrs of sipping drinks, burnt the hell out of the top of my legs from my knee up to my trunks but it was worth the pain.

Hopefully George and Lynn can jump in and recall what this was

Castaway Cay, man that place is heaven !

We booked this trip to celebrate our 25th anniversary back in June, this was our cake, they even sang to us.

When we stopped in Nassau we took the bus over to Atlantis to tour the aquariums and check the place out, they had several large glass sculptures, this was my favorite.

Dinner at Animators palate

cant recall what it was but Patti said it was good.

We were totally in awe of the ship, I expected it would be nice but I was amazed at the size and how cool it really was.

Backing into port in Nassau

Okay, gonna have to resize a little ...

Here we are on the bus at MCO ready to ride to Port Canaveral

Let me preface this by saying I am not good at pics and text, bear with me Please.

Here we are arriving at Port Canaveral

We flew down to MCO from detroit metro the morning of the cruise, our flight left at 8:30 so we were set to arrive in Florida around 11, everything went so smoothly the entire trip, we were pleasantly surprised. We flew delta and had our bags tagged for the cruise before we got to the airport. We walked down to the Disney cruise counter and got our key to the world cards and were all checked in, waited about 10 minutes and then we were herded onto the bus and whisked off to Port canaveral. We arrived just about the same time and George and Lynn and were only a few people ahead of them in line, since we had never met them we had no idea who they were. Kinda funny !

Thats too funny that we are in your pics of the line at the ships entry.

There has been lots of new technology that hasnt made its way into full size trucks yet, forced air induction and multi valve technology have been around for gas engines for a while and have proven power and mileage benefits, Ford beat the others to the punch. I would have loved to see the 4.5 diesel that GM was developing but that got shelved due to money

That was always my complaint with my GMC van. Maintenance costs were outrageous due to the labor involved. I had a leaky freeze out plug once and it cost me over 100 dollars to replace a 75 cent part. Anytime anything was done, it involved tearing apart the inside of the van to remove the cowl since access through the hood was non existant. In the case of the plug, the engine had to be pulled because the plug was behind a mount.

I dread the time when we have to start replacing alternators, belts and idlers, I dont have a clue how we are ever going to get to them.

I notice the techs at the Ford dealer dont exactly run out and give you a hug when you bring in an E series truck, the more likely scenario is that the low seniority guy gets stuck with it.

I wish we got all the diesel options like Europe.

I already have my salesman watching for the availability of the Chevy Cruze diesel.

we have 6 of them at work all 2009 models, I wont miss them at all. They are very hard to work on and even the basic maintenance like fuel filters requires that you remove several parts to have an extremely difficult access.