Travisma

I have never seen anyone giving out treats other than on their own or adjacent shared site.
Pretty sure even pre covid it wouldn't have been allowed.
The cabins will get some visitors, but not like the big loops down around the meadow area.

2020, you were not "allowed" to hand out anything to trick or treaters.
That being said, plenty or sites had tables set up with an assortment of goodies that people could help themselves.
CMs were patrolling and discouraging anyone from actually handing out treats.
Who knows what 2021 will bring.

2000 loop has been graveled !
800 loop is closed, saw piles of gravel in front of some of the sites.

Took a walk around part of the Fort.  1500 and 1600 loops have a lot of utility flags and paint all over the roads and dirt.  Lots of utility flags along the main roads.  Looks like they are planning on doing some digging.

Currently at the Fort.  Want to give some updates.
 
Bus between the Fort and Wilderness lodge is running on the access road.  Walking trail is still closed and is torn up in a couple of places.
 
Liberty Belle is back in the Rivers of America and operating.  There is an article in the Orlando Sentinel about its trip last night getting back.  I can’t read it because I’ve visited their site too many times.
2000 loop at the Fort was pretty deserted yesterday Thursday 2/4.  Filling up today.  Not sure if they are reading their faxes.  I asked for 2025, then 2027.  Checked in and they gave us 2045, but 2027 was open. 
 
That’s it for now.
But it’s my granddaughter Olivia’s 12 birthday if anyone wants to wish her a Happy Birthday!
 

Or just take a little laundry detergent with you, smear it on all your clothes and hop in a shower at a comfort station

I know that camping gatherings are on hold until all this junk is behind us, but I still wanted to thank each and every one of you for sticking around and keeping the "dream" alive of one day getting together again.  On this day, 10 years ago, a couple of minutes after midnight, this forum began.  (I then, 10 minutes later, was unceremoniously banned from Voldemort, lol)
We recently had our Wild Womenz Weekend 2021, with COVID restrictions of course, and it was one of the best evah!  Some of our regulars couldn't make it at the last minute, but we knew they were there in spirit.  
COVID has been especially hard on teachers and being one, I have never, ever, been so swamped in my life.  We all know that life gets in the way for all of us and for anyone who is still really hurting from COVID, you are in my prayers.  
As I enter the twilight years of my education career, I am stepping up our focus on social media for FortFiends and beyond.  We will be moving forward with an Instagram and Ticktok page for FortFiends and this year renewing our trademark and applying for a logo mark (I think that is how you say it?  TCD?  help me out here) for Snarky, our mascot.   You may see in the coming weeks a tiny change to the bottom of the website.  Chris and I are merging the three businesses into one LLC.  FortFiends will be a DBA of Snarky Enterprises, along with the other two companies.  Nothing that you are used to will change, except names.  This will make things much easier come each tax season.  I will be updating the store to include our logo for the year and take out old and dated things and freshen up the look, with SuperGeek's help of course.  
Chris and I appreciate each of you and treasure the people who help behind the scenes.  They help in ways most of you will never know, but count on to keep things moving along.   Over the years, we have had many ups and downs, but all in all, I would say that my most treasured friends are fiends.  Fiends are the type of friends that just pick up where they left off, now matter how long of a time apart.  I look forward so much to WWW each year that if I dare say I am too busy to go, Chris will physically push me out of the door.  Even the girls know I am a squirrel and get distracted and call to make sure I am on the road.  You just can't find people like that in the normal universe.  They are friends you hold dear to your heart.
I challenge each of you, myself included, to make yourself get out of the house and go camping this year if you have been in hiatus. If you haven't, I challenge you to go more.   I also challenge you to invite people to this forum to discuss and share the love of camping.  We have regulars, yes.  We always need more regulars!  I plan on going camping more to just get out of the house.  We keep going virtual school then in person, then virtual and so on.  It is nice for a change and I know if I need it, so do you.  
If and when the world gets back to some kind of normal, we will be planning a 10th anniversary grand gathering.  I have no clue where or when because...COVID.  I do however seem to think it needs to be somewhere a little more affordable than the current rates at Disney.  Some of the WWW womenz have suggested a couple of new RV parks that will be opening soon around the area.  I will be checking them out for upcoming events.  I do know that WWW is expanding (hopefully) to a twice a year event.  Honestly, that makes me giddy!  Maybe the men can start to have a weekend without the women????
Please give a shout out to Monique, who is our trusted and love logo makers of all things Snarky, who designed our anniversary logo again.  We could not survive without her.
Until we meet again in person
Jen (and Chris, aka SuperGeek)

Or just take a little laundry detergent with you, smear it on all your clothes and hop in a shower at a comfort station

Or just take a little laundry detergent with you, smear it on all your clothes and hop in a shower at a comfort station

Keep it up without the A's and maybe you can be famous....
 
Written in 1939, Ernest Vincent Wright's Gadsby is a 50,000 word novel—and there’s not an "E" in sight (at least not once you get past the author's name or the introduction, in which Wright mentions how people often told him that such a feat was impossible). But Gadsby sticks to its own rules admirably. If there are abbreviations used, they are only ones that still would not contain the letter "E" if written out in full. In order to make sure he didn't accidentally cheat, Wright reportedly tied down the letter "E" on his typewriter.

Long article worth reading, but I'm just posting some snips
 
https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2021/01/19/planning-a-disney-vacation-may-soon-get-easier-and-for-that-you-can-thank-the-pandemic-and-the-influencers-really
 
Disney has been rumored to be looking at a reservation-style system for years. In late 2015, Orlando Weekly’s Seth Kubersky noted that the (new at that time) security checkpoints found at the entrance of Orlando-based theme parks was just the start of a multi-step process to better handle safety and crowd levels. Those comments have proven prophetic, as Disney introduced a very similar system when the Orlando theme parks reopened in July. The system is currently in use due to social distancing required decreases in-park capacity. Similar approaches have been used at other attractions, such as the Louvre, for years as a way to better predict crowd levels.

The move to eliminate annual passes, at least in their previous form, may help address the self-entitlement that cast members have complained about for years. It may also help limit abuses to the system. Disney has played a game of cat and mouse with passholders abusing the system for years.
 
 
As with all admission tickets, the terms and conditions of annual passes strictly prohibit commercial uses, but that hasn’t slowed a steady stream of content creators and resellers from making covering the parks their sole source of income. Entire websites and YouTube channels are now dedicated to tracking the drama between Disney influencers. Even as some influencers are now questioning their symbiotic relationship with the massive corporation, there seems to be an endless supply of new fans willing to replace them.
 
Early in the pandemic, many content creators were panicking. On his website, Pirates and Princesses, Thom Pratt, who notes that covering Disney is just a “part-time income” for his family, acknowledges the days of full-time influencers filling Disney parks every hour that they’re open may be coming to an end.

“I do think the influencer bubble might burst because many people simply will have to find another career path as covering Disney parks as a full-time job simply isn’t viable right now,” Pratt says. He adds he’s thankful for his other sources of income: “As someone who used to literally cover Disney for a living, I am incredibly thankful I don’t rely on that as my primary income right now.”
 
 
In the August Q3 earnings call, Disney CEO Bob Chapek made it clear that the company was looking to go after higher-spending vacationers over 'less valuable' annual passholders when he said, "Different guests, depending on where they're coming from, have different relative values in terms of their contribution as a guest to the park. And typically, someone who travels and stays for five to seven days is marginally more valuable to the business than someone who comes in on an annual pass and stays a day or two and consumes less, you know, merchandise and food and beverage."
 
 
The park reservation system also seems to have limited the number of influencers in the parks as witnessed with the debut of new additions, like the recently opened bathrooms in the France pavilion, where crowds were seen but nowhere near the levels that such an event would've caused prior to the pandemic. The same can’t be true for Disney Springs, where no ticket or reservation is required. When local cookie bakery Gideon’s Bakehouse recently held its grand opening, influencers flocked to the event, causing an 11-hour long wait at the cookie bakery.
D'Amaro spoke to Roger Dow, the president of the U.S. Travel Association, in August indicating the current Disney World style reservation system is likely here to stay, stating that the system leads to a better experience for casts and guests alike.
 
 
Disney World’s digital FastPass system required weeks of planning before visiting, with the most popular attractions often filling up nearly two months early. At Disneyland, MaxPass seemed to merge the paperless FastPass system's benefits while keeping what made the original day-of FastPass system work. It allows guests to skip the lines but doesn’t require months of planning to get on rides. Once FastPass returns to Disney World, the system may resemble MaxPass more than the previous FastPass+ system.

Disney World may also look to its older sister in California for another big move. Prior to closing, Disneyland allowed for dining reservations just 60 days in advance, while Walt Disney World had pushed out the reservations to a full six months. For Disney World visitors, having to decide when and where they were going to eat half a year before visiting, followed by having to book their ride reservations two months before visiting, proved confusing and stressful.

When Walt Disney World reopened in July, the dining reservation window had shrunk to the same 60-day format used in California. There’s no indication that this will change post-pandemic. Instead, Disney looks to be using this once-in-a-lifetime slowdown to address out-of-control reservation and annual pass systems that made parks on both coasts far less enjoyable than they once were.
 

I liked the real old way. 
When you drove into World Drive just before the parking ticket booth, there was a sign on the right that would say that the Fort had campsites available for that night.

I think some of the TAs have a large amount of staff members that all start booking sites as soon as they open.
 
So they do scoop up a bunch of reservations as soon as they can.
 
I'm sure if Jason can get that lazy cat of his trained to use a PC, he could book more sites... 

I liked the real old way. 
When you drove into World Drive just before the parking ticket booth, there was a sign on the right that would say that the Fort had campsites available for that night.

A feel good story...
 
With nearly 20,000 Walt Disney World employees laid off this year, we've heard heartbreaking stories about cast members desperately seeking food and shelter, while Mickey's stock price (and executive compensation) soars. But despite the dire situation, there are still die-hard Disney employees spreading joy and inspiration on their own time, just like Walt would have wanted.
Chief among them is entertainer Billy Flanigan, a 39-year veteran of WDW's stages, who spent his furlough pedaling around Central Florida and across the country, delivering musical "Flanigrams" to over 524 friends and family. His 6,000-mile-plus journey is the subject of Billy Flanigan: The Happiest Man on Earth (instagram.com/thmoedoc), an upcoming feature-length documentary from local producer Andrea Canny and director Cullen Douglas, which will benefit the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
How did you originally come to Orlando?
I was a senior at the Boston Conservatory of Music. I went to my Shakespeare class and I was the only one in there, and the teacher said, "I think it's odd that you're not at the Disney audition." I didn't even know there was one.
I went there, signed up, and I was one of three or four people that were left at the end of the night. Myself and one other girl from the school both got hired at the same time, so we came down together, and that was in 1982. We came down two weeks before our graduation ceremony, and then both flew back to graduate, and then came back to finish our rehearsals.
We did all of the grand openings at Epcot, which was awesome and amazing and incredible. I was there opening day, performing right in front of Spaceship Earth, with all the publicity and the balloons and the birds and just the thousands of people that were clamoring to get in.
From there I went from show to show to show to show, and ended up being at one point what they call the "park swing," where I knew all the shows at Epcot and the Magic Kingdom.
What was your most memorable performance?
When I was at the Hoop-De-Doo Revue [dinner show], Princess Di and Harry and Prince William came to the show. And I kind of broke all the rules that they told us not to do: Stay away from their table, don't go near them ... Those two boys wanted to just be like everybody else, and everybody was walking around them and kind of ignoring them, so I went over and talked to them because I just thought it was the right thing to do. ... [Diana] stopped me and she said, "Thank you so much for treating us like normal people," and that just meant the world to me.
Your least favorite performance?
Stitch's Supersonic Celebration. It opened in Tomorrowland, and it maybe lasted six weeks before it closed. It was a really fun, well-written show [and] it was a really fun show to do. But the thing was, we rehearsed everything at night. ... Then when we opened it, it was in the day and ... people were sweating and trying to sit underneath the PeopleMover to get in the shade, so it was not well-planned.
How did you become Disney's longest-running consecutively contracted performer?
I have been available! In the beginning, in 1986, I had six days off the entire year, because I was always available; if they called, at the drop of a hat I would do it.
What's the future of live entertainment at WDW?
I have no doubt that they are looking to bring all of the entertainment back.
They know they need entertainment for crowd control, because as you're walking through the parks you see these thousand people that would be in Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular, that are now just roaming in the park. So they need it. It's not that they're ever going to get rid of it. I 100% believe that all of these shows will be back up and running, and they are really working hard to do that.
Where did your "Flanigrams" greetings come from?
I would bike every day on the trail [during Disney's closure] but everything was like a ghost town. I had not seen people in a couple weeks, so I said, "I'm just going to knock on some doors of people who live off of the trail."
I knocked on a door and I backed up (because social distancing), said a little hello, and she just broke down in tears. ... I took a picture of us, and then she posted on her Instagram and Facebook that I had stopped by to do a "socially distant hello," and how much it meant to her. It was such a small thing, but it really meant the world to her. Another girl responded to her and said, "I want one of those," so I saw her response and went to their house the next day. And then it just started.
How did Flanigrams go nationwide?
I drove [from Florida to California], and along the way I stopped in Texas, in Phoenix, Arizona, and then obviously Los Angeles. I used to work at Disneyland for two years, so I was able to Flanigram a lot of my cast from the old Golden Horseshoe show. ... I flew back from California, and then I drove up to Massachusetts to visit my mom and Flanigramed all my family and friends from high school. I just love doing what I do, and I do it just to make people happy; I don't do it for fame or glory or anything like that.

I think they are going to have checkers at the exits like SAMS/COSTCO.

Didn't see this listed on any blogs/posts, but the delicious ice cream sandwich was back at Dino-Bite Snacks in AK.
It's big enough for two to share and a bargain at $6.99.
We were too busy eating them to take pictures!

Just announced, 12/20 is the return date

Didn't see this listed on any blogs/posts, but the delicious ice cream sandwich was back at Dino-Bite Snacks in AK.
It's big enough for two to share and a bargain at $6.99.
We were too busy eating them to take pictures!

Mask wearing isn't just to protect the wearer, it's to protect everyone around you also.
Just like you can't tell if someone has a disability by looking at them, you don't know if the person next to you that you breath on while not wearing mask has a compromised immune system.
Someone posted on a FB page, the Fort is being treated like the rest of the Disney Resorts (whether we think it makes sense or not).
Anytime you leave your room (site) and go into the public areas, you have to mask up except for certain circumstances that are spelled out to you when you book, arrive, and see the various signs around the properties.
 

Mask wearing isn't just to protect the wearer, it's to protect everyone around you also.
Just like you can't tell if someone has a disability by looking at them, you don't know if the person next to you that you breath on while not wearing mask has a compromised immune system.
Someone posted on a FB page, the Fort is being treated like the rest of the Disney Resorts (whether we think it makes sense or not).
Anytime you leave your room (site) and go into the public areas, you have to mask up except for certain circumstances that are spelled out to you when you book, arrive, and see the various signs around the properties.
 

Mask wearing isn't just to protect the wearer, it's to protect everyone around you also.
Just like you can't tell if someone has a disability by looking at them, you don't know if the person next to you that you breath on while not wearing mask has a compromised immune system.
Someone posted on a FB page, the Fort is being treated like the rest of the Disney Resorts (whether we think it makes sense or not).
Anytime you leave your room (site) and go into the public areas, you have to mask up except for certain circumstances that are spelled out to you when you book, arrive, and see the various signs around the properties.
 

I have had multiple heart attacks, high blood pressure, diabetes.... Guess you could say I am high risk... I could go through the rest of my life being miserable or enjoy the time I have left. There is nothing I enjoy more then the Fort and Disney so I am willing to deal with it.

Don't forget the limited edition (read "insanely overpriced") Expedition Everest branded Yeti coolers and mugs available for purchase in the gift shop.

I love FL weather (most of the time) but as I get older the heat is getting harder to handle.
I'm looking forward to the cooler/lower humidity weather coming this week.