ependydad...Doug

1 hour ago, Travisma said:

Not sure what to do, but did you see the pictures of the rope drop from yesterday posted on the Disney Campers FB site?  Crowds were way before the security check lines.  Hope it's not as bad when you want to go.

I didn't see that, but we got to the park about 11am and it was bat crap insane. I was shocked at the crowds.

And the lines.. 145 minutes for Space Mountain. ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY FIVE MINUTES.

I rented from Kenny and will do so again. I will NOT, however, trust his guy to hitch the trailer to my truck. It's entirely my fault that I let him and that I didn't verify it- but in my defense, it was a coupler that I'd never seen before and didn't understand how it worked. The trailer stayed hitched getting back to the Fort, but when I drove the cart onto the rear, it turned into a terrible see-saw and the trailer came unhitched from the truck. I got lucky that there was no damage to the truck and no one was around helping me. I ended up with a 6-person cart fully on the trailer and the tongue firmly on the ground. All while blocking the loop. A few guys helped me lift it up onto the ball and then we rehitched it properly.

My big disappointment was the general lack of response. The guy I returned the trailer to said "Sorry" but didn't seem to care. And I ended up texting my contact who said Kenny would call and, unfortunately, he didn't.

Pretty scary, pretty frustrating. If you do the trailer thing and use your truck/their trailer- double check the hitching. It was likely a 1-off occurrence, but once was more than I cared to experience.

$700 + in-laws =

I retract my former comment.  [emoji6]

I would gladly pay $700 to fly away from my inlaws.

LOL, you guys are cracking me up.

I talked to THE MAN about piecing me together a reservation for the week after the wedding. Now I just have to be able to drive from PA to the Fort from Saturday to Tuesday (but working on Monday).

We just did these for the first time and enjoyed it. I wonder if my kids would prefer our phones or the special Agent P phone.

37 minutes ago, Helmsey......Todd said:

Do it 

29 minutes ago, BradyBzLyn...Mo said:

Totally something I'd do so... ditto!  :)

Hey now, I'm gaining traction on arriving at the Fort on October 18 for a week and then we'll bounce around Florida for the winter.

Part of my issue is the expense side of things. Flying is ~$700 for my family of 4 plus that's right in the middle of a Fort stay, so there's an expensive campsite that we'd have to deal with. :) And then staying up there... 2 words: in-laws.

When we went, they said it would be an extra wait to sit there. We had arrived early expecting this and said ok. We were seated in less than 10 mins. 

Same for Narcoossee's for window seats. We arrive a little early, they tell us there will be an extra wait, sometimes there is, sometimes there isn't.

4.78 down, .98 up.

Not great, but I've seen a lot worse. Not trying to work, just streaming some tunes and yacking the yack. It does nicely.

For campground wifi, that's pretty quick. The upload speeds are less than I'd expect, but not unheard of. Uploading photos to Facebook won't be the fastest...

My wife is so conflicted. We have a wedding to attend in PA on October 14. But want to spend a couple of weeks in Orlando in October. And I'm already driving back and forth a few times this summer.

She's been lobbying me to drive south and then fly back for the wedding.

Has anyone actually ran SpeedTest on it?

I have not used that device but I have the Netgear N300 Extender both at my house and at my day job.  It has 4 network jacks in the back of it.  The laptop will work with either of those and connect through the VPN.  I tried that on a Friday night at the day job (auction building) and on Monday morning I received a call from my supervisor telling me that IT wanted to know if I was somehow using wireless.  I said, I was plugged in to a network jack the whole time :)  I did not dare ask how they knew and I did not lie with my statement either :)  I just didn't answer the question directly

He reminded me that subverting the wireless policy could lead to disciplinary action and asked me to not try to find a work around again.  So, I've been a good boy since then and have kept connected to a true wired connection.  But yeah, that will probably work if I choose to risk it again.

Wow- that's scary impressive that they monitor that closely.

I could pay that if it includes a day's admission but couldn't fathom $150 for a couple of hours regardless of what special characters they bring out.

And then- how do they price it for passholders since we don't need the day admission?

2 hours ago, Travisma said:

The coax for TV is in place, they have to keep that functional anyway.

I stopped doing CATV work way before the dawn of broadband internet services, but I would think that it wouldn't be much more $ if any to keep the broadband going, though I could be mistaken.

I'm more thinking the storage space of the modems, tracking what's lended out, training employees on lending them out, and the support calls that might or might not come (including training for that).

Given that a vast majority of people can use wifi- why keep it around for the few that can't?

Lots of complaints online that you have to waste a lot of time doing basic things over and over or pay up to skip levels.

That's how all of these "build your village" games work. If you don't want to wait, there's always the $$$ option for berries/donuts/whatever Disney calls their in-game cash.

There are plenty of people that have older laptops and pc's that don't have Wi-Fi.

I actually believe the opposite- that there are relatively few people who don't have wifi or can't use it. If you don't have it, a $20 USB fixes that up.

I see no reason to keep it (again, sorry bhall!). It's an expense that is easily cut with few complaints.

Someone just posted on Facebook that " WIFI AT THE FORT! It's up and it's fast!"

Loop 900.

Hmmm.... I get Disney's point, as he was trespassing, but too bad they couldn't have come to some sort of agreement.  The pictures really are pretty.

I'm guessing the agreement is "take them down or ban for life". This is why you post that kind of stuff under a fake name! :D

Wife was just reading someone from the guy who took the pictures- seems Disney banned him for life over it.

I'm frankly amazed you are allowed to use any external network wired or otherwise with sensitive data, being as I am in the same industry as you are...

I might be misunderstanding your situation as well...  Have you ask your tech people about the possibility of using a virtual computing solution, where none of their data ever actually has to pass out onto a machine/network of yours at all?  

Virtual Computers have been a godsend for me anyway.  I don't have to lug a corporate computer around, or worry about a personal device being lost or stolen.  If my connection drops when I'm remote my virtual computer sits right there waiting for me to reconnect, and I can pick up right where I left off...

No judgements here, just saying there is some new tek out there that might let you get out camping more!  :)

That's a good point. Over a VPN, remotely connect to a machine that is within the network that has the accesses required.

These pictures are eye-opening and sad.  I wonder how the photographer got in there to take them.  They couldn't have been shot from outside the fence.  Maybe a drone?  Or did Disney give him permission?

Scaled a fence, maybe?

We went last year and enjoyed ourselves. It helped that it was just my wife and I and we didn't have to deal with the kids. BUT- they didn't seem to do much special for the guests. It seems like they could have done some fun stuff in the wee hours of the morning.

The article mentioned the very low crowds once 2-3am came and that's no joke. There was a thunder storm around midnight that coincided with the end of a parade or something- I heard that here was a traffic jam of people getting under the train station and getting in or out. For us- we were already inside and were hanging out inside a building for the worst of the rain.

Jason is awesome!

I would have loved to be a fly on that wall. :-) I actually debated starting up as a pop-up provider if we ended up living in the area. I talked to the Fort rentals guy on FB, but he was fairly vague about the whole thing.

I don't see why they would get rid of the modem kits at this time. The infrastructure is already in place and they would allow the Fort to accommodate those folks that don't have wireless devices. I don't however expect Disney to repair or replace units as they fail and at some point expect them to decide to kill off the cable modems entirely. It will be interesting to see what they actually do. 

In this day and age, the number of folks who don't have wireless devices is pretty slim to none. That's not to say there aren't folks who, by policy, can't use wireless (which, if I recall is bhall's issue) - but even those cases are pretty slim.

Truthfully (and sorry, bhall's!), I don't think it makes sense to continue the modems- they're work and cost money (even if it's just dedicating storage and training people on how to give them out). The big question is if they stop entirely or let them go by the wayside based on damage like you indicated.

3 hours ago, Momof6....aka Marty said:

I would assume that Disney is saying they are doing it for safety reasons.  We should all be wary of letting strangers know when and where we will be somewhere.

I would assume the real reason Disney is doing that is to discourage guests from renting from outside companies.  They would prefer that people use the cabins, which would be more money for them.

Ok, if that's the reason they sold it- that's bunk. :D

But, the cabin rentals- I didn't think of that connection. I just knew Disney didn't rent trailers and the tents aren't equivalent. But the cabins.. yes, the $400/night cabins. I wonder, cost-wise, how much different they are from renting a site + a trailer (ignoring the pop-up side of things).

I really have nothing to add. My family just recently spent 3 weeks at the Fort. We are fulltimers, but it doesn't really change things. Some days were spent doing laundry, or running errands, or just living life. We didn't do like the other and go into parks every day- we had quite a few days where we didn't go in (but that was also partly due to the plague and surgery recovery).

It's a beautiful campground and a nice place to stay and spend for a while (if you can stomach the price, that is!).

I do also recommend annual passes to the parks- not feeling like you're "wasting" a day by just going in for a couple of hours is really nice. It definitely changes your outlook on park days.