southernview -- Ray

I did talk to a lawyer and he read the bylaws, he feels that they left a lot of loop holes.............

I have belonged to a condo association for several years and can tell you, at least in our association, the bylaws cannot be changed without a majority vote of the members.   The association board does not have the authority to change them on their own.  This is a family owned condo and I have the thankless job of being the unfortunate individual that has to attend the meetings because we live nearby.  Over the years we have had some real complainers and many are just like ftwildernessguy says--"a fascist group of old pains in the ass."

Thanks for the site vs CS ratio study, not something I had considered. I expect the only thing we will be using the CSs for is for showers at night. With sewer hook up, we can do that in the trailer if the CS is busy at the time. I will continue to look at it but y'all are convincing me on the 1400.

I think I have decided the route we will take is the 78-65-231-10-75. After looking at wecamphere.com and rvparkreviews.com, I think that Lee's Country Campground in White Springs, FL will be a good stop going down and Deer Run RV Park in Troy, AL will be a good stop on the way home. Lee's is about 8 miles out of the way (back up 75), but has great reviews. About a 10 hr drive on day one, 3 hours on day two. Deer Run isn't quite as far on day one, but I don't want to have to rush out of FW on our departure day. Has anyone stayed at either of these places? All this has time to change in the next 8 months before we go.

I also may rethink my day to do the Hoop Dee Doo Revue, making it for a day during the week instead of our arrival day. I still have two months to decide on this till we get to the 180 day point.

Y'all have great information and I will continue to ask questions as I think of them.

Looks like everyone has their favorite route to take down to the fort and I'm no different.  If I am leaving from my Alabama location, I take the same route that you have chosen down as far as Dothan.  From Dothan I hang a left on Hwy. #84 and pick up I-75 at Valdosta.  Of the little towns that you go through, only Thomasville presents any problem going through and it is a minor one as they have a rather long bypass around the town.  I took the I-10 to I-75 route for years and got tired of the 18 wheelers that dominate that route, so I tried the 84 route and have never looked back.  Very light traffic and almost no trucks, and the time difference taking this route is negible as far as I'm concerned.  The road is very good 4-lane all the way.  Of course, if I am leaving from Panama City Beach, I really have no choice other than I-10.

I have stayed overnight in White Springs several times, but we stay at the Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park.  It's only $20.00 a night and they have some pull thru sites that are perfect for overnight stays.  The first time we stayed there we liked the place so well that we extended our stay for another day to explore the park as it has some interesting things to see.  The recomendations that you have received for Deer Run in Troy are right on, it's a really nice campground.

Welcome to the whatever it is.  I'm not a smart-ass, I'm just a glutton for punishment and stick around here.

I'm fairly new also--don't let this group scare you, underneath the good natured ribing lies the best Disney information that can be had.  Trust me, it's worth the trip.  Welcome, join right in the melee.

Wow!!!  The Battery looks amazing.  I googled it for more info and it is one place we will definitely check out.  Question.  Would it be easier for us to bring our own bikes or is there a place to rent them?  Where could we park the truck for the day while we are exploring on our bikes?

We were there in mid October and had no trouble finding a parking spot along the waterfront on Murray Blvd.  We trucked the bikes to there and then rode around exploring.  Many of the nicest homes are along the waterfront and the whole place is mostly bike friendly.  I did not see any bikes for rent, but then again, we were not looking for that.  Waterfront Park is really beautiful and is a nice place to rest or eat a picnic lunch.

We did not go to Beaufort as we came up from the South and had spent time in Savannah, so Charleston was our last stop on the coast.  Savannah is another place similiar to Charleston and, like many places on the East coast, also very steeped in history.

A photo from Memorial Day weekend, 2013:

 

 

TCD

That's a first for me--never saw them checking ID's at FW pool.  Must have been for that day only as I was there two days later and it was gone.

Thanks for the suggestions.  We are trying to fine tune plans but it looks like our dates will be  the last week of September or first week of October.  Any special events going on at that time?  We definitely plan on checking out some of the Forts and doing some walking and bike tours to see the historical districts.  Any particular tour better than the other?

Of course you wouldn't want to miss touring The Battery downtown.  We took our bikes downtown and rode the length of it. There are so many historical sites downtown that you need guidance to see them.  We stopped in at the Visitors Reception & Transportation Center at 375 Meeting Street, right across the street from the Charleston Museum and picked up some self-guidance pamphlets which were very helpful.  The Battery has to be one of the most beautiful places in the country.

One of the homes along S. Battery St.

Since you may be staying on James Island, I suggest that you go out to the point of the island and visit the area where the first shot of the Civil War was fired from at Fort Johnson.  Admittedly, there is not much to see as there is only one building remaining of the fort, and only a monument to mark the area the shot was fired from, but it's good to visit if you are interested in that sort of thing.  Everyone seems to know that the first shot was fired at Fort Sumter, but few actually know where that shot came from.  The Charleston and Savannah areas are steeped in history and if you have any interests along those lines, you are going to the right place. 

We had great week at the fort the week after 4th of July. As much as I wanted to take pics every 5 minutes and put a trip report together, it just didn't happen. I give kudos to all of you that actually take enough pics to make that happen. Anyways, on this trip I noticed a lot of things that have changed over the years at Disney, for the worst. I was going to put a topic about all of these but didn't want to be negative on here but the one thing that got to me was all the people using the resort monorail to get back to the TTC. We waited 4 monorails at the contemporary to get to the poly. I remember back in the day you had to show a resort ID to get on the resort monorails, heck you had to show your resort ID to walk from the contemporary to the MK. I guess that prevented people from parking at the CR. for the money all the resort guest pay including us trailer trash, they should check ID's. like they should check ID's at he pool right?

I wonder how long ago this was--we have been going to WDW off and on for over 25 years now and have never had to show an ID to ride any Disney transportation.  We used to resort hop on that monorail all the time, guess we were just lucky.  Speaking of checking ID's at the pool, has anyone ever known them to check ID's at the FW pool?

I agree that KZ is thought of as being a little superior to most trailers, and I'm sure that there are many people that have had a good experience with them.  However, my neighbor purchased a KZ triple axle fiver which continously had problems.  It stayed in the shop for weeks at a time and he finally got rid of it the first of this year--traded it for a Pinnacle.  I guess there is a bummer in any brand that's out there.

We should all be grateful that Disney still allows private golf carts let alone UTV's. I believe it's only a matter of time until some young buck takes over management of the fort and puts 2 plus 2 together and sees all the increased revenue going out the window with private cart owners not paying the $65 plus a day for a rental. As stated in the past Disney is smart, no matter what changes they make weather it's good or bad if we don't pay it someone else always will

I've been saying this for years now, and I have always thought that they would wait until they had a good excuse, like people abusing the rules, to put this very thing into motion.  It goes along with everything else they do--just follow the money trail.

Oh, bike locks to lock them to the bike racks at the bus stops or boat docks when you go to the parks, or if you drive to the parks, lock them to a tree when you are away.

This post has made me curious.  We have been camping at FW for many years and have never had any trouble with anyone fooling with our bikes.  We bought rather expensive ones a couple of years back and decided that we should start locking them.  Has anyone had any trouble with bike theft or otherwise tampering with them? 

Exactly, tell me about it.

If having it in Spanish is so important, why don't they have it on the buses.

If I remember correctly, they transport about as many people as all of the other transportation modes combined.

Yeah, and beside that, the monorail doors are already closed by the time the warning in Spainish ends. I've always thought it was stupid because of that, if nothing else.

For a real taste of what it would have been like to camp in the area before it was developed, go for the 1900 loop. Actually, I've camped there twice and it wasn't as bad as everyone implies.

I camped there for half a day back in November before I insisted that I be put on a real campsite.

Very confusing. We are making our first trip to the Fort next Spring Break. We have a 2013 camper. There is a cable jack connection in a storage compartment outside. There is also a plate inside where I need to push a little button turn off the antennae amplifier if on cable. And there are two TV's that I would assume are digital since the camper is all of 6 months old. If I take a normal coax cable, hook it to the cable jack connection, push the little button, set the TV to cable vs air, shouldn't the channels come in?

With a 2013 camper it must have flat screen TV's and I'm sure that they are digital. What Carol said above is very true--you probably have good cable inside your camper, but you must furnish the cable from the outside camper connection to the park pedestal. You should use RG-6 cable and normally a 25' or 50' length is sufficient. For cable input the power button on the plate inside the camper should be set to OFF (light on plate should go off) and then, with your TV's set for CABLE on the menu, you can do a scan, or automatic channel search on the sets and you should get the channels.

Hello RRArtie, I'm also a fairly recent Fiend, but I welcome you to the forum. Your problem sounds like it might be in the cable circuit in that particular loop. If you have checked your connections on your feeder coax to the output on the pedestal and found it to be alright, I would see if anyone else on that loop is having trouble, and it could be that your particular site has a problem. It's unlikely that you wouldn't get good reception there if you previously had good reception back in November on another loop. If you have a long enough coax, you could try and see if you could get your next door neighbor on that loop to let you plug in to their pedestal in order to check your equipment.

There is a lot of misinformation floating around about the difference in digital and analog service, and I will attempt to shed some light on that in the below remarks.

If your present wiring and wall plate, with amplified antenna, was working normally with analog TV, it should work okay with digital. The difference between analog and digital TV is one of the most misunderstood subjects that has appeared on the scene in a long time. The only reason I mention amplified antenna is that, with digital TV it is a bit harder to get a workable signal. Actually, within a strong signal area a non-amplified antenna should also work fairly well. There should be no real reason to change the wall plate out on an amplified antenna, to receive digital OTA or cable unless there were other extinuating circumstances as mentioned below.

If anyone had an amplified antenna that had previously been receiving analog channels with good results, and had also been operating normally on cable hookups, there would be no reason to change out the wallplate unless there was some other problem such as the wallplate being defective, or problems in the cable connectors or other wiring. Having said that, there are components in older campers that might require upgrading in order to receive the best quality signal. This is mainly related to any splitters that might be present in a given system. Some older splitters were only designed to pass frequencies from 5 to 600 Mhz. Some really older ones also had a cut off at about 50 Mhz on the low end. In a weak signal area, these splitters might cause weak reception and inconsistent signal strength. It is recommended that a splitter should have a frequency range of at leat 5 to 900 Mhz, and some recommedations would up the high end to 1 Ghz, although I have never seen a problem caused by the 900 Mhz version. I do not recommend cheap splitters, there can be a difference in the quality, so stick with Channel Master, monster, or some other quality brand. High bandwidth means that the splitter can pass signals that are data dense, including high definition and broadband internet. In the case of splitting cable off to run to an internet modem it might be advisable to use the highest rated splitter available up to 2 Ghz, just to be on the safe side. Keep in mind that a connection going to a modem should be on the first splitter on the system.

If you also use satellite with your camper, and the coaxial wiring inside your unit is not wired for satellite, you might want to think about using the Channel Master wallplate #7542 which has a bypass for the satellite signal.

If you have any further questions, I'll be happy to discuss this further with you. In the meantime, I wish you happy camping.

Ray

When we first started camping at the Fort, we were tent camping and then graduated to a pop-up. The 2000 loop is the default loop for that type of camping and that's where we always got stashed. After a couple of years of this, dealing with the loud parties and children playing in the street that refused to move for anyone, we told the front desk that we would not stay there again, and we did get other loops shortly after. I rode through there on my bike last month when we were there, and it appears that not much has changed.

I just want to say that the wife and I also enjoy the Christmas displays. I did, indeed notice the Fort Fiend signs and, in fact, one display had some cards available advertising this site. I already knew about the site, but that convinced me to sign up and I'm glad I did.