geoffdaddy

Oh, and if I had small children to entertain, I think KOA is your best bet... we have not stayed there but they have a ton of stuff to keep kiddies occupied. Nice playground, an adorable small lazy river, a jump pillow, etc. A bit more pricey as you might expect with the amenities and a little noisier so if you don't have a hard sided travel trailer it might be kind of noisy.

Just FYI... we have stayed at several campgrounds around the Pigeon Forge area. Here's where we've stayed: Up the Creek - all full hook up, quiet area in Wears Valley but no amenities (no bathhouse, etc), further away but not too far a drive from Dollywood. We've stayed here several times in the past. Riverslanding - Basic, had a pool, but near a go kart track and is fairly noisy. Jellystone - Mostly basic, the cheap sites are REALLY tight if you have a big camper. Some of the amenities like the jump pillow are dilapidated and out of commission. This is the closest to Dol

Slight necro-posting... but I think it's interesting to see how things have changed with WDW with this. Back in the olden-days, handfuls of years ago, if parks were crowded, they would add to the park hours to spread out the load, frequently staying open til 11pm or later. Now, everyone has to fight for a reservation and pay more money for the ticket.

Yes! A wrong has been righted!

Correct me if I'm wrong though... the ticket books were done at a time when the gate tickets were both separate and REALLY CHEAP. EDIT: Ticket prices at WDW at opening were $3.50 a person minimum. Even accounting for inflation that is seriously cheap by today's standards.

We got to see this in person on our last trip. While I agree it does look nice and the equipment is probably an upgrade from the old stuff, I think it places smaller children dangerously close to the cart path with nothing to corral them in.

Nothing says special like a panning for gems sluice in a campground. Never seen that before!

I gotta say, the way sites are assigned has never made much sense to me. You would think given that they don't advertise the ability to reserve specific sites that sites would be handed out mostly on a first come, first served basis. On our last trip down we tent camped and got the 2000 loop. We arrived on a Tuesday staying through Saturday. We were assigned a site that was extremely rocky (like river rock rocky). Jennifer called the front desk and they told her, "well, they are all like that." Yuh huh. The loop was almost completely empty when we arrived and she said we need another site and

Returned back from the Fort a couple of days ago. So far, I'd have to say that the impact to the Fort is minimal, so here's hoping it stays that way. So much so that I retract some of my Negative Nancy sentiments. 🙂

Enquiring minds want to know... any updates?

"Go back, Sky People!"

There's an idea. Maybe some artistic type can replace the musket mickey in the Disney Ft. Wilderness Campground logo with a Na'vi holding a stick and that'll be the new logo.

After seeing that vid of the backhoe tearing down Mickey's Backyard BBQ and the pics of the beach I made the comment "I can relate to how those Na'vi felt in the Avatar movie now."

We'll be there in a couple weeks. I'll take pics.

Just saw someone over on facebook posted video of them tearing down the Mickey's Backyard BBQ pavilion building with a backhoe. Heartbreaking.

What torques me is that they could have thrown some money at improving the campground instead... but now they are making it smaller.

I don't have a problem with a new resort. I do have a problem when it: A. Encroaches on the resort we know and love B. Eliminates the amenities (Backyard BBQ - GONE, Horse barn - moved into the campground land, setbacks and greenspace - GONE, jogging path - GONE, beach - GONE). C. The 3D renderings I've seen of the construction plans shows the edge of one wing of the resort building is practically right next to Pioneer Hall. Not only that, at least with the old River Country DVC plans it looked like a Disney themed resort. This one looks like an Embassy Suites, it doesn't l

The best times to visit the fort are during the week I think.

I think a lot of that is probably Florida campers. If you're close it's a lot easier to justify a bunch of trips. For us, a 10 hour one way drive more than a couple times a year kind of kills the magic for us. Your mileage may vary. At my job I get 4 weeks vacation annually currently. Wife doesn't work, so getting time off is not too much of an issue. Our girls are in a half-homeschool/half-public school program (they are in 2nd and 4th grade) that is flexible where we can take off a week at a time even during the school season, so you can bet with the way the prices are now we are watching fo

Yes, but for whom? I can imagine a third party real estate company snapping some of these, which would really throw a wrench into the works, particularly with regard to "city" governance. Disney might lose out on their monopoly position.

I have been saying this for a while, but since we haven't had a serious downturn in the economy since 2001 (housing crisis aside), I wonder if Disney World is setting themselves up for a big fall with all these DVC expansions when the next recession hits. The first thing that goes in those cases is discretionary spending and timeshares are darn near the first thing to get defaulted when it does. It seems like Disney will expose themselves to a lot of risk when it happens. How's that for a doom and gloom prediction?

I expect that it will. Think about check-in at the Fort at peak times. I don't think they are going to want to subject the guests of their high dolla resort to that. Much better to have them use the Fort Wilderness lodge bus road for that instead since they park in the back anyway.

They ditched their original plans for THAT???!?

(insert grumblings of toll bridge on major interstate in the first place...) ;)

My wife has traveled this way for family visits a couple times since Riverlink went live and I've got a couple observations: The first was right after it went live. It's a toll by plate/transponder system only, and after she crossed over, I looked up the info and it said that if you had no account that the system would monitor for a round-trip within I think a 2 week period and you would be mailed an invoice. The first sign of mail I got was a "2ND NOTICE" that tacked on another $5 administrative charge even though we never received a first notice. We called to complain of course,