Santa ... Shannon

There are two new solar installations, the one nearest the monorail is the less-interesting.

I just had thought, and it's either devious or wonderful... I'm not sure which. I was thinking that, since finding real FWRR spikes is next to impossible these days, it might be fun to "seed" the old roadbed with standard spikes, you know, so the kids can have some fun. Does it really matter that the spikes are from the BNSF? Does it matter that Mickey's head comes off and there's a petite woman inside? WDW is the place of make-believe, so why not help make some magic?

Disney and Apple are down? Time to sell some indexes and BUY!

There have been multiple threads on Voldemort (in the non-camping sections) about the strategy, so yeah, at least at one point there was a lot of interest. As for the economics, suppose you have 8 people staying off-site. Say they have two cars, that's $40 worth of parking each day. Now, do you think EMHs and 60 day FPs are worth $5 a head? If so, you just paid for a Partial. I'd say they're worth more than that, and apparently others do too.

Phantom campers are not a win for Disney. They are far more likely to dine and shop off-property. They aren't a win for the Fort either. Sure they don't use water or electricity, and they don't leave messes at the site. But they also don't buy snacks at the pool, or trinkets in the post. They don't rent golf carts or go on hayrides, either.

Oh, they could take care of phantom campers. Just make a simple rule that the site must be "occupied" every night of your reservations. Unused sites will be forfeited (and rented to last-minute guests), MagicBands will be revoked, and FastPass+ selection on those bands would be lost. Security drives around at midnight and notes empty sites, bang-zoom, Disney gets to double-sell the site and word spreads REAL QUICK that the backdoor is closed! At the very least the phantoms would have to check-in and go set up a tent to appear to be occupied. And if they did then other campers who wanted those

So now that Jose is gone I was thinking it might be a good time for us, as the largest group of Fort Wilderness guests, to write a letter to the new management suggesting some areas that need attention. What do you think? Should FF.net get involved in advocacy? I think such a letter would carry a lot more weight coming from us versus coming from me. As a group we represent what, maybe 2000 booking nights a year, and I alone am maybe 12 nights. Anyway, I think we need to really draw attention to the misuse by phantom campers, underage cart drivers, lack of clarity on pet policy, and many others

Page 3 is good for me. Glad to see the magic has returned!

Looks like they just put wheels back on.

Let me just underline what Carol said, "the roads are narrow" is an understatement. This is not a big-rig friendly CG! We arrived after the office closed so we had no warning. So we set out to find an available site in our 40' DP with TandemTow and Prius in tow (@60' total length). Our first clue we were in the wrong place was all the rather mature, low-hanging branches... these things were hitting us pretty good, but they looked healthy, not beat to hell. Hey Dummy, that means other big rigs have not been through here, not much anyhow. We pressed on, and the trees got denser and the road got

I sure hope they make these Full and not Premium. Look forward to more sleuthing!

I agree that there is nothing "preferred" about 2100, if it's going to convert I'd expect it to become either Full or Partial (please, no more Premiums!). I have never seen the cabins even 1/10 full, so it seems to make perfect sense to me, but I don't go during the summer. Do the cabins ever get full (even full-ish)?

Have you thought about leaving the laptop at work and using remote access, that way all that is being transmitted over wifi is your "terminal" data, not any of the bank's financials which go from your work laptop over the banks VPN to the Feds. I've been very happy with Splashtop which allows me to log into remote Macs and PCs from my Mac or even iPad. I'm pretty sure they allow you to encrypt the Splashtop traffic, too.

Middle-GA raised, and long-time Atlantan here. IMO, 441 is a nightmare when you are anxious to get to your destination: 1000 little towns where the speed drops to 30mph. Unless the zombie apocalypse hits, driving through downtown would be faster. I avoid taking the Perimeter, too (285). All through-trucks are required to take 285 so not only does it add many miles, it is a gladiatorial battle with truckers and pocket-rockets that like weaving through. Get in the third-lane from the left on 75 and stay there, watch several cars ahead, and just knuckle through downtown... that's my advice.

Great mi... ah, never mind. No reason to insult you! LOL

PhilharMagic?

I'm really off my game today... but yeah, thanks for the correction. Trying to get us back on track though, I thought it very interesting that on the article above they quote an annual report (1978?) that mentions Fort Wilderness right alongside Contemporary and Poly, and mentions the expansions to the Fort to handle demand. At one point the Fort was seen as a full-fledged family member, not a red-headed step-child.

It was rebranded The Disney Inn after WDW sold off the golf course operations. I think the fact that there was no overt theme made Disney want to put their efforts elsewhere.

Ah, very cool. I knew they expanded meeting space and facilities, and renovated everything, but didn't know they added more rooms, too. Thanks for the correction. -------- An interesting blog about the Disney Golf Resort: http://passport2dreams.blogspot.com/2012/01/return-to-golf-resort.html

I think that Shades of Green is still the same capacity it was as when it was the Disney Golf Resort. I realize it's no longer a Disney-owned resort. --------- ETA: I did a little research and it seems that the Disney Golf Resort underwent a single expansion, nearly doubling capacity, sometime around 1976, before becoming Disney Inn and well before becoming Shades.

If they have 4x, I'll buy a bunch of em, mistake or none.

Haven't seen many 2-story houses in FL. I'd live there, but I'd probably still long for a year-round Fort site!

I'm late to the party, but just wanted to interject a couple of thoughts. I just did a price comparison between The Fort and Sherwood Forest for 9 days in August (picked at random). SF is $650 out the door, and the Fort was $850. That's a $22 per day difference. IMO, SF's nicest sites are far inferior to any site at the Fort, to say nothing of the facilities. Figure in the cost of parking for non-resort guests, the value of EMH access, the convenience of being on-site and being able to use Disney transport, early FP+ selections, and just the ability to remain in the Disney-bubble and not havin

You know, this guy

The style reminds me of the blue bear chewing on the canoe sign at the entrance to Camp Minnie Mickey, that's where the guess came from.