keith_h

4 hours ago, Littleolwoman.aka.Kristie said:

With quick overnights, do you all put your jacks down for the night? 

Most of the time I just put the two front jacks down. We also have a couple of screw jacks that we use under the stair frame that we always put in place. Between these the trailer is stable enough for us to sleep or move around without bouncing all over the place. The real time saver for us is not setting everything up inside. We leave the table stowed and use it like a couch. For meals we do easy stuff like sandwiches or something that can be microwaved and eat those at the picnic table.

Like Gwen we have 3 or 4 hours more to get to the Fort than you do. We stay overnight in Savannah which is close to halfway. Taking our time it gets us to the Fort around 12 - 1 PM. We stay at a KOA close to the interstate and don't do anything other than level the trailer and plug in. If our drive wasn't more than  6-7 hours we would probably drive straight through. 

I don't see why they would want to move the entrance at all. Mickey and Minnie are movie characters which fits just fine with the Chinese Theater. Just change the name and re-theme the interior and their done.

2 hours ago, Travisma said:

Plus new viewing areas would make the elite feel even more magical!

If not more magical at least more elite. 

Isn't it obvious. If you wanted air conditioning you wouldn't be sleeping in a tents.

44 minutes ago, djsamuel said:

Now that my wife is retired, she's lost access to the hub.  Therefore she needs to call reservations to get the cast discounts added to our reservations.  She's encountered people in Chicago, Miami, Charlotte and more.  Some are excellent, but many have no clue what the heck they are doing.  I just wish they would give retirees partial access to the hub so we can make our reservations like we used to and avoid having to call.

My company has a separate retiree site where we can access the discounts and programs that carried over from the employee site. It works quite well. I just follow a link and I'm taken to entry for our company's program. I'm surprised Disney doesn't have something similar.

12 hours ago, GaDawgFan.....Kelly said:

 

Actually there are 2 good reasons.... if you have a larger family, the Minnie Vans can be cheaper than the XL cars from Uber or Lyft. Also, if you need car seats, they're there at no charge. The other services charge extra for that.

 

 

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I wouldn't have thought about needing car seats as I haven't had a need for them for 30 years.  Just looked up the price and at the price I found, $10/seat, the Disney offering would be cheaper. It still looks like Lyft and Uber would be cheaper for parties of six except maybe when they are under high demand pricing. It's only $2 or $3 but a buck saved is a buck saved.

I'll join you.

18 minutes ago, Travisma said:

Some of the FB posts say you have to go to Orlando for training (maybe just FL?).  others say if your equipment breaks (phone?) it's up to you to get it repaired or replaced and again it's in Orlando.  You have to have a certain type of pc, and if that breaks you're out of work until you replace it yourself.

A lot of companies like work at home for the lower paid jobs in particular. It reduces their real estate costs and since they require the employee to pay for the phone line, internet and equipment their IT costs are lower as well. It is no favor to the employee no matter what it sounds like. It is purely a cost saving measure. Another drawback is they are usually dead end jobs. It is very hard to be promoted in this type of a call center job due to lack of visibility which is why I see it as more for a retiree or stay at home parent to make some extra money.

Kind of like guessing what a judge is wearing under their robes.

I looked at the Disney Careers site and that job has been posted since late May. It has a fairly decent description of the job but no compensation information. My guess is it will be similar to the work at home jobs Amazon has been posting and have pretty low pay. Might be good for a retiree or stay at home parent but it doesn't appear to have a lot of flexibility in scheduling so who knows.

Based on their example you can save up to 50% by waiting 2 extra minutes. If the ratio's are similar during typical hours of operation I don't see why anyone would want to use the Disney service other than the cute vehicles.

It wasn't all that long ago, ok I'm getting old so everything seems like yesterday,  that the US auto industry had issues like the RV industry does. Although not as bad that included things like dealers not doing warranty work unless you bought your car at there. The only thing that fixed it was the Japanese resolving their quality issues and coming to the market with a better vehicle at a better price. Almost going out of business due to a better competitor is what forced the US companies to improve. It also forced the companies to get better control over their dealers and set customer service expectations. I don't think you will see major changes in the RV industry until something similar happens to force a change. Right now RV's are selling like hot cakes and as long as they continue to sell and warranty costs are within expectations you won't see a change. In fact I think RV owners, myself included, are our own worst enemy in the way we will fix things rather than take it the dealer under warranty. I also don't think you will see major improvements with dealers until the RV manufacturers take more control of how they operate but again I see nothing to incent them to do this. Even if the RV manufacturers had more control you still need to get the dealers to see service as a profit center to staffed and run as such (i.e. get rid of the backlogs and reliable scheduling).  

As for Class A options the only way I know of to get more substantial construction is to go with a travel bus/motor coach and outfit it yourself. One of my neighbors has a regional gospel group and that is what he did for their tour bus. I will say it is nicer than any of the Class A's I've seen on dealer lots but I'm sure it was a lot more than $80K. What I do is once we've decided on the models we would buy is to look at the trade and owner reviews, various forums and any other place that discusses the company and its products. Based on this I can get a feel for the types of issues people have, how long before major problems show up and how the company handles warranty work. After that I buy and hope for the best.

The RV industry as a whole has pretty poor quality. Some of it comes from trying to keep their profit margins but a lot is also due to their labor structure. Many if not all pay on a piece rate for the job. This means many of the workers will rush through so they can go home or in the case of the Amish go work on their farms. This type of structure does tend to emphasize speed over quality and it shows. There are some manufacturers that generally have better quality than the rest but you pay for it and they tend to be somewhat limited in the models they offer. Even these can have issues as they all use the same suppliers for many of the components.

Whether you want to buy new or used is up to you. With a used unit you don't take the big depreciation hit and the manufacturing issues might have been resolved. On the other hand with a new unit you have to go through the new RV pains but you also know the history and if you do the repairs yourself know they were done to your liking. I pretty much go new as I'm one of those that rather know what the problems were and how they were handled. I also keep things and not turn them over every few years so the initial depreciation isn't a concern. 

Thank goodness Youtube wasn't around when my kids were little. I never would have been able to keep up with stuff like this. In their day a Mickey head shape with fresh blueberries was considered high art. 

This rock thing reminds me of a lazy form of geocaching.

6 hours ago, Travisma said:

But at least the rocks have another nefarious use... according to Disney... weapons

I'm sure there are many Neanderthals that would agree with them.

We need to start a pool on when Disney remove all of the potential weapons from their landscaping.

What about my service pet rock? I even have a service rock bandolier to prove its for real. It really couldn't be considered a weapon unless I had my slingshot which I promise to leave at home. 

The California theme might be a move for it to eventually become a California Adventure.

1 hour ago, DaveInTN said:

Does WDW need this many luxury hotel beds??  

If they can't support the higher end rooms the risk is on Marriot not Disney who I'm sure is making plenty of money off the land lease (or maybe purchase). 

1 hour ago, DaveInTN said:

The road to Serfdom.  

I prefer the road to Surfdom.

They've got drive through liquor stores. Why not drive through Disney stores as you exit the parking lot?

It'll never happen. Short cuts mean less opportunity to sell you stuff.

It's hard to be wrong when you cover all of the possibilities of what might happen to the MSEP. 

26 minutes ago, Travisma said:

That's why I highlighted the date.  That blurb said it does work.

Another Toll Organization page (not a government site) said EZ doesn't work in FL, and on the Sunpass page I didn't see any mention of EZ Pass.

I did see an E-ZPass Group web page, and they state that EZ Pass will not work in FL.

We're back to the 60's with Cassette Vs 8 Track!

That was the federal mandate date but it didn't have any penalties for not meeting the target and you know what that means.