weehaulers

I have pics to send but need the email.

Thanks, they left sometime between 3 and 6 am so we moved over. Kids are happy.

This is our first time back since early this year and I was sad to find the wading pool at Meadows was gone. We're here some pretty busy times every year and I've never had trouble getting a lounger with the pool there, if it was a seating issue. :-(

The check in options I see are random. Sometimes you get a lot of questions, sometimes none. We are rarely here alone but only occasionally does t ask my for travel partners, the rest of the time I have to fax a request. 

On a Premium site they will all be large enough for your rig comfortably, so request the pet loop. You can pick the fifth wheel if you want, they won't hassle you at check-in for that but they will relocate you for pets if you're put in a no-pet loop before arrival. 5ers typically need more room for the same size rig so that option just may get you a bigger site. 

I don't know why they ever ask about awnings unless it's more pertinent for the non-Premium sites. Never been in a Premium site that you couldn't put the awning out if you parked intelligently on the pad close to the hookups.

If you want to request a particular site or loop, the fax process is your best bet. There's a post around you can search on where and when to fax your request. Many fiends have a favorite site/loop. For us it's the back of 1400 for its easy access to the meadows pool and campfire, but it's only a pet loop during holidays when all sites are booked up. 800 is a pet loop we like, closer to the beach area. 

Oohh, I love free stuff. I will look tomorrow but may all be full with the holiday weekend. I saw they were out of golf carts. 

'Self-extending is apparently Disney's magical name for campers who should have checked out but just decided to stay an additional day/night in the site and there's nothing Disney can (will) do about it. 

Rant because it's been a long day and I am grumpy. We are here with a big group for the long weekend and did the fax and called multiple times and we're all supposed to be together. When the first member of the group checked in we were all together.  We were the last check-in of the group by about 30 because we stopped to help a broken RV. 

Not in the same loop. The last site for the group spots never checked out and never added a day according to the front desk but is spending the night anyway. Anytime we are not out of our site by 11 on the dot the housekeeping cart is outside with their checklist looking at their watch, yet this site has been occupied six hours beyond checkout at our check-in and Disney is OK with this and hasn't updated their reservation system to show the site as occupied? Someone in the know please tell me there's an impoliteness fine that these campers are going to have to pay

I am extra grumpy because we have an infant, so not having the group right outside makes juggling baby and the older kid not magical at all.  I guess I should be grateful that there was a spot in another loop and we're not sleeping in overflow on the generator?

Supposedly they are leaving tomorrow and we can break the crib down and bring the slides in and unhook and rehook and set up again. 

That is all. Rant over. I feel better. I ate a Snickers too.  X'-D

We started with a 34' Class C (Diesel).  It got about 11 mpg.  We have a young child (he was really young then), and a big issue we had with it was that his sleeping area was either over the cab or in the kitchen, where the outside door is.  Once he went to bed, we were stuck tiptoeing around or hiding in the master bedroom.  It was a nice unit (Gulfstream) but was not built for cold weather.  It had the Chevy 5500 front, which I liked better then the Ford, because the Ford has a hump in the passenger footwell.  It was nice to be able to get to the back of without going outside.  It was really easy to drive, went through the mountains of CO fine.

We went to an RV show a few years later and got bedazzled by the Class As with the bunk beds and their shiny tile floors, and ended up with a Fleetwood 40G diesel pusher.  It got about 8 mpg.  It was gorgeous, had lots of electronics.  Going down the highway with it was bouncy bouncy bouncy though, and I (the wife) found it tiring to keep straight.  When through NC mountains fine though, in the winter, and it was great.  Because it had the U shaped dinette, the only place for our son's car seat to ride was in the passenger seat (MY seat with the flip up foot rest!).  The passenger couldn't talk to the driver while at the dinette.   We also found out with time that the bunk room was right in the middle of the coach - between the master bdr, the bathoom, and the kitchen/living, and directly on the otherside of the outdoor TV/under awing area.  Once again, mostly stuck tiptoeing around after bedtime.  It was also very dark as the windows are short and usualy have storage cabinets above them.  It had a "super slide" that was the entire side of the coach - guess what that means - your camping area in narrow sites is "super small".     It had a residential refridgerator, so you weren't doing generator-free camping for long.   We had to make a choice when we travelled to tow a car or take the golf cart.    Ultimately though, we traded it in because I just didn't feel safe travelling in it should an accident occur.  The class A's aren't safety tested, there's no real structure to them other then the floor, and there's a drawer full of knives, heavy (but pretty) sink and stove cutting boards,  etc. (Did I mention we have a young kid, MOM?) :-)

We ended up trading it for a new F350 DRW (hump in the passenger footwell got me afterall, ugh) and a fifth wheel toy-hauler for the same monthly payment as the Class A was, except the truck payment will fall off in a few years vs 20.  Our 5er is a monster, 42' (blame the husband), but it carries our side-by-side Kawi cart, and we have the truck when we get there, so we have all three pieces.  The garage has two queen beds and a half bath for the boy, but there's also an inside bunk above the kitchen if we're on the road and the garage is full where he can sleep.  It has really high ceilings and gigantic windows.  His room is at the back, and ours is at the front with the living area separating us (yeah baby!!)   We get about 11mpg towing with the truck, but the Ford pulls it like it doesn't even know it's there.  No sway, no bounce, it could be a jetski back there, except you won't be making any U-turns.   It has a generator built in so just a dash inside in the rain if you don't want to hook up.  It's got amazing insulation in the main part (we need to beef up the garage floor, it's not finished the same as the main floors and does have a bigger temp swing).  It's also been though the CO mountains with no problem.    We've boondocked in it for multiple days.   Although the Ford doesn't have a built in kitchen and bathroom, I feel so much better about travelling in it should something go wrong (I mentioned, paranoid mom of young kid, right?).  My main dislikes of the new set up are just the massive size, since it does limit campsites, and we took a less sexy living area/kitchen to not have a camp-side slide (a reasonable trade-off).  Husband misses his retractable power code reel.   And no one makes a TH with an outdoor kitchen, which we really wanted.  We have a lot of bikes/kayaks/toys that we travel with that either have to fit underneath or on back of a C or A but are tidy and dry in our TH.  If it's raining, the kids have a gigantic, washable play area in the back we can lock, um, entertain, them in.

So, before you commit to something new, learn from our tale of RV impetutiousness (< spelled that right on the first try!)  and figure out what's really important to you, and how you like to travel.   We have good friends that travel in an A with three kids and it makes me cringe.  They're sitting sideways and everything is a projectile.  So maybe they're eating sandwiches and watching TV back there! :-)

One day when it's just the two of us, we may be back in a class A with a lil Jeep in the back, when we can be as noisy and as crazy as we wanna be.  While it's a family affair, we're pretty sold on trailer life.

Hope this wasn't already posted and I missed it, but I just saw it today.  From the Orlando paper: 

36 memorable shots of Disney from the ’70s and ’80s

http://photos.orlandoweekly.com/36-memorable-shots-of-disney-from-the-70s-and-80s/#1

When we go for more then a weekend it's usually with a group and we put a request in, but since we're somewhat local when we just do a weekend, I'm not that picky about where we stay as long as we'll FIT.   Except for tiny spot last time, I don't know that we've had a 'bad' spot, except the horn on the MK ferry ship all night in the premium pet loops makes me crazy. 

How do you usually put a site request in? Call, fax?

We have some like the ones that Steve linked to, but our new most favorite chair DH got for Christmas last year...

http://www.campingworld.com/shopping/item/club-chair/42645

 

 

I second, or third, this.   We have two plus two ottomans.  They're usually on sale at Camping World.  Since we got ours and I had to start kicking our other group members out, they've started to proliferate through the group.

I made a few Fort reservations when we had a Class A using those specs, but by the time we showed up last month we had traded it for a larger 5th wheel TH and were making our first trip with it.  We were the only ones at the gate checking in, so the CM was nice enough to pull out her site binder to make sure we had a large spot with not a difficult back-in as we'd always been there with Class A or Cs before, and I had done the online check-in with the Class A.  Both RVs are the same length but the 5er also has the giganto-truck that needs to be parked, plus the golf cart.

I pulled out my trusty FW Sites app and we started comparing sites to find the best one.  We had pets with us so were looking in the 700 loop.

The app info was completely different then the CM's info on each site we looked at in 700.  The CM had the sites dimensions usually 15-20 ft larger then the app.  I told her I'd been using the app info for a while and it had always been accurate, and she said she thought they'd done some work on 700 recently, so I thought maybe the app was out of date for this loop.

Wrong!  The 65' site she thought she was putting us in was under 50.  We had to hang the back end over the woods and park the truck sideways to fit.  Since we were just there for the weekend we just dealt with it.   But now I'm paranoid that we're going to continually be assigned to under-sized spots in the 5er.    When we went in May, still in the Class A, one of our travelling group families was in a shorter 5er and we had to swap spots with us  after he couldn't fit into his assigned spot in 1400.

Has anyone else noticed Disney is apparently hallucinating their site sizes, at least in 700?

all paper work has been paid for and we were wondering how the check in works at the fort, so we know what we are in for.We really need this time off and hope to have a laid back but busy time at the fort.

When you arrive you'll pull up to an open booth and they'll check you in right in the vehicle. Do the Online Check-in on Disney's site now, and when you arrive they'll have all of your paperwork ready to go, it just takes a few minutes.

Regular check-in is 1pm, so if you're arriving at 7am your spot may not be ready, there is a parking lot inside the gate to the right where I *think* they will have you park until your spot is ready. We're pretty new FtW visitors so some of the veterans on here will have to chime in.

The one thing we did have a problem with on our first visit to FtW is getting there from the main Disney rd, so I'll give you the info we didn't have - If you follow what the GPS says, you will come to the Magic Kingdom Toll/Parking Plaza. They won't charge you a parking fee to pass through because you're going to FtW, but once you go through the toll-booth, you want to take the IMMEDIATE right turn. The Disney buses will be in that same right lane so merge with them, and take that first right. Follow the signs from there.

If you happen to miss that turn, take the next right turn that you can, and you should see the sign to FtW once you turn, or if you look to the right as your turn.

When we went the first time, the buses were blocking the sign for FtW that said to take rightturn, and we missed it, and ended up down at the Contemporary, trying to turn around the giant RV, so hope this saves you some pain.

fiends have said 845 or 847 or a site on the back outside of 800 loop

would be a good choice We would like to hear from 800 loop campers or eyes on to help us make our choice.

This is a little late since your original post but still before your trip date so I'm going to offer some info. We were just there last weekend in 843 and didn't see any signs of construction in that loop. Our spot was very wide and while we didn't have a car with us, we backed it all the way in and there was a ton of room in front of the cab before the road that could have fit a vehicle (We have a 34' Class C with a super-wide slide out). It was a good spot, didn't really feel like we had neighbors on the picnic-table side because of a bend in the road, and behind it was a large empty wooded area.

Also didn't have a golf cart but it was an easy walk for us to either trading post or the ferry, but it did seem to take a long time waiting for the bus to get to the front bus station to go to the other WDW properties.