The Trolls Return to the Fort

[Judy in Texas 150]

I love a good Troll Rant.  I have to say I've never heard the Richard Petty Driving Experience; but, I'll take your word for it. 

 

Rant on!

[The Troll 67]

I must suggest a throat punch vs punching Richard Petty in the face. Throat punch is the new rage.

 

That's what Mrs. Troll says.

 

I guess we didn't hear the cars our last two trips because we had rain on and off both weekends.  Roundy rounders don't go good in the rain.

 

Well, it's raining plenty right now, and let me tell you, as soon as a smidgen of daylight pokes through the clouds, they roll those frickin' racecars out onto the racetrack. When there's money to be made, Disney's there.

 

Bring it on, Troll!

 

I would say that so far the weather is a Troll Fail^TM.  Didn't you have bad weather the last time you were at the Fort?

 

You're in the 900 loop, you say?

 

Are there any nice open sites around you?

 

TCD

 

Tons! The Fort is a virtual ghost town right now.

 

i must not spend enough time at the fort as I don't ever hear the Richard Petty Racecar thingy

 

I've made a video. I'll be posting it soon. Trust me...it's bad.

 

I am in and I agree about the race cars. You would think they could afford mufflers for the price they charge. I don't even like trucks with loud exhaust. The buses make enough noise at the fort, don't need anymore.

 

Absolutely. I say we start a petition and letter-writing campaign to silence the noise.

 

I am in. The race car noise is obnoxious while youre trying to enjoy some peace and quiet, but I also like the roar of a NASCAR and will be testing a track out someday.

Rant on though. I love a good Troll rant and TR!

 

Don't get me wrong -- I like NASCAR. I also like grizzly bears, but I don't want them in my backyard. I like oysters, but I don't want them in my breakfast cereal. I like sunshine, but not when I'm trying to sleep in.

 

If you do test a track someday, please join the solidarity movement against the Richard Petty Abomination and don't test that track!

 

I love a good Troll Rant.  I have to say I've never heard the Richard Petty Driving Experience; but, I'll take your word for it. 

 

Rant on!

 

Like I said, video is on its way.

[momof3kids-Yvonne 596]

I would hereby like to voice a complaint.

We are on page 2 and thus far there have been no pictures of the Troll pups.

[DaveInTN 3,247]

For the record, I am not reading your trip report.  I love absolutely everything about WDW, and your rants are too negative for this guy. 

[Katman1356...Jason 1,140]

For the record, I am not reading your trip report.  I love absolutely everything about WDW, and your rants are too negative for this guy. 

 

:bs:

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

For the record, I am not reading your trip report.  I love absolutely everything about WDW, and your rants are too negative for this guy. 

 

 

:bs:

 

You both got an up arrow for those posts.

 

Good job, guys.

 

At least you're keeping this report going while Troll figures out how to post a video.

 

TCD

[The Troll 67]

All right! Thanks to everyone who's joined in so far!

 

Time to get this Troll Report on wheels.

 

As I mentioned in my first post, we arrived on Saturday and spent most of the day setting up, shopping, and washing the camper. The love bugs are out bad right now, and we drove all the way through the thick of them from almost the tip of the Florida panhandle down to the center of the state. Needless to say, when we arrived, the camper was just coated in love bugs. So I had to drag out the rags and scrubbing brush to make that right. I took a before and after photo.

 

Before:

 

 

After:

 

 

By the way, I'm trying out a new photo hosting service. It's called Minus. I've tried Flickr and Photobucket, and they both suck. Flickr is running itself out of business by preventing its users from posting direct links to photos. Instead you have to post a link to a photo set, which to trip reporting, is fail. Photobucket allows direct linking, but its way of "monetizing" itself is by forcing you to watch annoying advertisements as you're trying to upload your pictures.

 

They say that the HD video advertisements will not interfere with your uploads. I say bull. Those video ads gobble up lots of your bandwidth. And for some reason, whenever a new ad pops up, my upload of photos hangs. Then an hour later it says it's done, only for me to discover that for inexplicable reasons, randomly, 10 or 20 of my photos failed to upload.

 

So goodbye, Photobucket, hello Minus.

 

They call it "Minus" because it's supposed to be photo sharing minus all the complexity. So far I say, bull. It's just as annoying as the other sites. But if I can upload photos reliably and it's free, I'm not going to complain...much.

 

On Sunday, the rain clouds rolled in and the downpour began. The place got soaked. It rained and rained and rained. So we holed up inside the camper and watched football.

 

Monday morning rolled around and we were bound and determined not to let the rain keep us cooped up. There's plenty to do at Disney indoors. The first thing we decided to do was get takeout breakfast at the Trail's End. That's something we'd never done before. There are actually two options at Trail's End for breakfast -- takeout and the buffet, which is, well, pretty much just like dinner.

 

We placed our order for takeout. At the top of the takeout menu was some offering that they call the "Bounty Breakfast." It looked delicious. It comes with eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, French toast, a biscuit, and a clogged left ventricle.

 

I ordered the oatmeal with raisins. Mrs. Troll ordered biscuits and gravy. While waited for our orders to be filled, I took a look at the breakfast buffet. I must say that also looked really good. They had a breakfast pizza. They also had waffles shaped like Mickey's head, including his face. Yes, that's right. The waffles weren't just shaped like a Mickey head; they had his face on them, too.

 

 

I really wanted to eat Mickey's face drenched in butter and syrup...but instead I just ate my takeout oatmeal.

 

With raisins.

 

I do believe that's what horses eat for breakfast.

 

Anyway, after my oatmeal, I decided to head over to the Wilderness Lodge to sneak a quick workout in at the Sturdy Branches health club. I've reported on Sturdy Branches before in other reports, but for the newbies, it's a gym over in the DVC area of the WL that's free. I go there every trip.

 

To get to the WL, I rode Mrs. Troll's Trek bicycle. Yes, I rode a girl's bike. I brought my masculine tough bike with its masculine top bar, but I couldn't ride it because I have one of those soft, spongy seats on it and the seat was waterlogged from all the rain. So I had to ride a girl's bike. And as any self-respecting dude can tell you, there is simply no way a man can look cool doing one of two things: Riding a girl's bike or carrying your wife's purse.

 

Every man cringes when he hears these dreadful words: "I've got all the shopping bags...if you'll just grab my purse, we've got everything out of the car."

 

Ugh.

 

Anyway, so there I was, on a girl's bike, riding my way to the WL.

 

There's a nature trail that connects the Fort to the Lodge. It barely qualifies as a "nature trail," as it runs immediately adjacent to a well-traveled road. Yet despite the road and the occasional Disney utility truck, it's a very tranquil, nice ride through a dense Florida wetland.

 

When the jackasses in the racecar aren't out, that is.

 

I like the nature trail so much, let's try something new. I'm going to try to describe the experience in words and you try to picture it in your mind. So close your eyes as you read this and see if you can conjure the image in your...

 

...oh, yeah. Don't close your eyes. Just use your imagination.

 

So there's a freshly paved asphalt path that winds its way through a thick, verdant stand of well-aged pine trees and new Florida cypress. There's dense patches of moss hanging from the crisscrossing branches of the cypress...

 

...oh, forget it. Here's a picture:

 

 

See? Lots of green stuff.

 

More green stuff:

 

 

More:

 

 

Check this out. Notice the albino spider:

 

 

From this spot I got a good view of the new roof being put on the stables:

 

 

Let's take a closer look:

 

 

 

As I continued on, I noticed a cut tree right by the path:

 

 

Now I understand at times you have no choice but to cut a tree down, but I think that whenever they do, they should be required to plant a new one. If they keep cutting and cutting, considering it takes so many years for a tree to grow to maturity, there will soon be nothing left to the Fort.

 

As I snapped these photos, a family on a rented surrey passed me by:

 

 

Notice that in between the two adults who are paying for this vacation there is an able-bodied, lithe child doing nothing. That child should be peddling the whole thing and the two adults should be kicked back, sipping Mai Tais.

 

Hey, what the hell is a Mai Tai, anyway?

 

No matter. About five minutes later, the family with the lazy, freeloading child got this far from me:

 

 

Now granted, Mom and Dad don't appear to log very many hours on the elliptical machine, but as another trip reporter has astutely pointed out, the surrey bicycle is not the most efficient man-made machine. But I didn't want them to get too far ahead of me, so I hopped back on my girl's bike and set out to overtake them.

 

Which I did with about two strokes of the pedals.

 

Here's some more green goodness:

 

 

Moments later I came upon this sign:

 

 

Right at this spot was this tree, which I don't think is native to the "Sunshine" State:

 

 

The thing I just love about Disney is the incredible attention to detail:

 

 

Theming, theming, theming. Nothing is too mundane or too "unnoticeable" to go unthemed.

 

Here's a shot of the girl's bike, standing loyally by:

 

 

I mentioned that the Sturdy Branches gym is in the DVC area of the WL. Now, I've commented quite a bit about the DVC concept in previous reports, so I won't belabor the point in this report...

 

...oh, wait a minute. What am I talking about? Yes, I will. I am going to belabor the point very, very much.

 

Be prepared.

 

Some DVC belaboring is up next!

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Very nice, Troll.

 

I didn't know that the horse barn roof was still unfinished.  Where does Disney find its contractors?  That roof has been under construction for over a month.  It's just a shingle roof.

 

Looking forward to the DVC belaboring.

 

TCD

[michele j 9]

I'm in. 

 

Where are the troll pups?  We need to see the pups.....

[Beckers 1,136]

Very nice, Troll.

I didn't know that the horse barn roof was still unfinished. Where does Disney find its contractors? That roof has been under construction for over a month. It's just a shingle roof.

Looking forward to the DVC belaboring.

TCD

Same place my township did. Took them over a month to redo their roof and the building is not big by any means. Just wasting my tax dollars.

[Thrill Shakespeare (Andy) 58]

I'm enjoying the TR, Troll!  I'm all ready for a good ol' DVC rant.

 

I enjoy running on that trail over to Wilderness Lodge.  Well, when I'm not being run over by guys riding on girls' bikes. :rofl3:

[Ok Grumpy AKA Cindy~~ 9]

I'm in! Rant On!

[ImDownWithDisney 342]

The quality of these rants plus the trademarking of said rant should lead to a corporate sponsor for these TR's. Kotex would be a good one. 

[diane+ not THAT monte 7]

HI Troll,    Newbie here . Love the rants so far , btw the race track was built for the Indy Racing League .    the 900 loop is the best .                                                                                                                                                                                  

[Beckers 1,136]

How long until we see hairy troll legs up as his is kicking back with a beer?

[mommy rainbo.....Bo 41]

I'm in. I've been waiting and stalking the trip report page. Off to read and catch up.

[The Troll 67]

Very nice, Troll.

 

I didn't know that the horse barn roof was still unfinished.  Where does Disney find its contractors?  That roof has been under construction for over a month.  It's just a shingle roof.

 

Looking forward to the DVC belaboring.

 

TCD

 

Yeah, I think I know why the roof is taking so long. I have photo evidence of it. I'll be posting it soon...

 

I'm in. 

 

Where are the troll pups?  We need to see the pups.....

 

They're coming! Don't worry. I have two of the most photographed dogs on the planet.

 

I'm enjoying the TR, Troll!  I'm all ready for a good ol' DVC rant.

 

I enjoy running on that trail over to Wilderness Lodge.  Well, when I'm not being run over by guys riding on girls' bikes. :rofl3:

 

Ha ha...good one. I almost ran over a runner guy not wearing a shirt yesterday!

 

I'm in! Rant On!

 

Glad you're in! Thanks for joining the party!

 

The quality of these rants plus the trademarking of said rant should lead to a corporate sponsor for these TR's. Kotex would be a good one. 

 

Um...this is a compliment, right? Right. Moving on.

 

HI Troll,    Newbie here . Love the rants so far , btw the race track was built for the Indy Racing League .    the 900 loop is the best .                                                                                                                                                                                  

 

Well, the Indy Racing League can have it back.

 

How long until we see hairy troll legs up as his is kicking back with a beer?

 

Ha ha...it's coming, it's coming.

 

I'm in. I've been waiting and stalking the trip report page. Off to read and catch up.

 

Thanks for joining! We're only just getting started!

[The Troll 67]

OK, pressing on.

When we last left off, I was on my way to the WL for a quick morning workout at Sturdy Branches.

One thing about me as your resident Troll Reporter, I take notes for the report along the way. Otherwise I'll forget lots of juicy details that happened, like children that play with ketchup bottles as play toys in the food court and then get yelled at by their mother, "You better not spray people with that ketchup bottle again!"

Yes, that really happened. I'll be sharing that story soon.

But for now, know that as your dedicated reporter, I keep notes. I've been chastised by a few of my fellow trip reporters for doing this, as evidently they consider it "cheating." I'm not sure how they see it that way, but it is what it is. I take notes.

So I was on my way in to the gym when I decided to sit in the grand DVC lounging area outside the Sturdy Branches joint and record my thoughts up until now. As I did so, it dawned on me just how nice the WL DVC area is. So I decided I needed to thank all the DVC suckers members out there for buying their DVC memberships for twenty-plus grand and making that nice sitting area with the cabin-ish leather chairs and rustic rockers all possible.

So thank you very much, DVC members!

So while I was sitting there, jotting down my notes and listening to the grand theatrical music they pump in there -- you know, that music that sounds like it's from the sound track from the movie "Dances with Wolves" -- I got to thinking about the DVCs and the danger they pose to my beloved Disney World.

Yes, you read that right -- I said danger.

What danger do they pose, you ask? Well, let's examine that in a moment. But first, here's a picture of the Troll wargs:

OK, back to the DVC belaboring.

I mentioned before the picture of my pups that I think the DVCs may pose a danger to Disney World. How, you ask? Because I believe it's a fatally flawed business model. Let's examine.

First, let's look at the example given on Disney's official DVC website.

OK, they say there's a one-time buy-in of $24,000. Yes, that's three zeroes after the four, folks. Twenty four thousand dollars. Now, I suppose you can finance that chunk of cash for 30 years, like a house. Fair enough. But keep that in the back of your mind for now.

Be aware that you must pay this money over to Disney all at once, in one lump sum. So you don't finance it through Disney, you finance it through your own bank. So if you decide to declare bankruptcy or if you just say, "Screw it. I'm not paying anymore," Disney doesn't lose anything...well, not on the initial buy-in, that is. They already got their $24,000 out of you. If you walk away -- like so many thousands of people did when the housing market tanked -- the bank, not Disney, eats the loss.

Could that happen?

Yes, of course it could. It's very possible. But so what? you say. If people give up on their DVC memberships, Disney is no worse for the wear, right? The bank is.

Well, not exactly.

What we're forgetting is that included in your "membership" are maintenance costs. According to the example given on that official DVC site, the maintenance costs in the example are $900 per year. So now let's go back to the $24,000 you originally had to plop down. You owe that to the bank. After interest, if you financed it for, say, 30 years, you're looking at paying the bank at least $1,000 bucks for that note every single year. Add to that the $900 in maintenance fees and you're paying somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,000 per year for your DVC membership.

And what does that $2,000 per year get you?

Three nights -- yes, three -- in the Bay Lake Towers.

$2,000 bucks for three flippin' nights.

I don't care if Mickey Mouse came in person to do turndown service for me, there ain't no place on Disney worth $2,000 for three nights.

This can't sustain itself, folks. Just like the housing bubble couldn't sustain itself, the bottom is going to drop out. Sooner or later people are going to grow weary of forking over all this cash to vacation at Disney year after year after year, and they're just going to walk away.

And then what?

Lots and lots of vacant DVC units.

Mark my words.

In the meantime, though, I really like the Sturdy Branches joint. They swapped out all the equipment since the last time we visited. This, I think, was a mistake. In a past life, the Troll worked as a personal trainer in health clubs, so one of my many mismatched passions is fitness equipment. The equipment in the Sturdy Branches used to be Cybex, which, while a few years old, is still the top-of-the-line in terms of fitness equipment. They've replaced the Cybex with a much lower quality Life Fitness line. The Life Fitness stuff is brand spanking new, but like I say, the Cybex was far superior.

One thing I did find cool was this:

See that little switch in front of the handle grip? That switch allows you to change the machine's range of motion directly from the handles without having to get up and go behind the machine to do it.

Fancy, shmancy stuff.

I know what you're thinking: "Who cares, Troll? No one goes to work out while they're on vacation except schmucks like you, Troll!"

Well, that may be true. While I was working out, I heard the door open. There's a really heavy latch on that door that goes click-clack whenever someone enters. So while I was working out I heard a click-clack and in came this old dude with his wife. He had a huge, hard beer gut underneath a Donald Duck t-shirt. They were clearly DVC members. They took a quick look left to right, right to left, realized where they were, and turned around and left.

Anyway, once I was done with my workout, I took the opportunity to look around the Lodge grounds and snap some photos.

Check this out:

Where do you think I was when I took this picture? On the Old Swamp Trail? Walking along the nature path between the Lodge and Fort?

Nope.

It's just to the side of the walkway leading from the main Lodge building to the DVC area:

Clearly the Lodge DVC was built on swamp land.

By the way, see those handrails? They're all fresh wood.

More photos:

Hey, have you noticed that every time you go through a gate to one of the resorts, the castmember there says, "Welcome home!"? What's up with that? Are they trying to trick me or something? Um, Mr. Disney? In my house, beer does not cost $6 per bottle, thank you very much. I just go get one out of my fridge.

The "Welcome Home" thing must be a DVC thing. They're trying to trick us into believing the DVCs are our "homes."

Um, no.

Anyway, sorry. I keep getting distracted. Back to the photos:

Notice that stupid lady with the striped hair just walked right into my picture while the geyser was geysing. Thanks a lot, striped hair lady. I bet you go for racecar rides.

Check out the pool. Gotta say, this place is nice:

Again, I love all the attention to detail. Check out this turnbuckle:

See this speaker? There was fake cricket noise coming out of it:

Pretty cool that they have speakers dedicated to nothing but fake cricket noise.

That way you can listen to the crickets chirp in the daytime.

Up next, the Troll leaves his cheapskate footprints on the pristine DVC beach.

[h2odivers...Ray 952]

Great pix.

There is one thing you are forgetting about the DVC...there are enough people out here that think its a great deal, and will continue to buy them. And for some people, because of they way they like to vacation it is,

I'm just not one of them.

[h2odivers...Ray 952]

KFK!

[jjbescher 17]

I am one of those suckers and Love it.  When I bought in it was a lot cheaper and I get more then 3 nights.  I typically get 14 nights out of the points that I have.  Also, BLT uses a lot more points then Villas at Wilderness Lodge.  It all depends on the season you go.

 

However, I do believe they are putting in way too many DVC's and hope they NEVER build one at the Fort.  Hopefully the 2 (Plus GF and Polynesian) that they have around the Magic Kingdom area will suffice.

 

jon

[DaveInTN 3,247]

I was curious as to whether "geysing" is an actual word, so I Googled it.  That was a mistake.  I'm throwing my turkey baster out. 

[h2odivers...Ray 952]

I was curious as to whether "geysing" is an actual word, so I Googled it. That was a mistake. I'm throwing my turkey baster out.

Lmao!!!

I'm not googling that one.

[h2odivers...Ray 952]

I am one of those suckers and Love it. When I bought in it was a lot cheaper and I get more then 3 nights. I typically get 14 nights out of the points that I have. Also, BLT uses a lot more points then Villas at Wilderness Lodge. It all depends on the season you go.

However, I do believe they are putting in way too many DVC's and hope they NEVER build one at the Fort. Hopefully the 2 (Plus GF and Polynesian) that they have around the Magic Kingdom area will suffice.

jon

I agree it's a good deal if you like to stay at the upper end resorts. We are on a mission to stay at every resort. Value to treehouse villas.

I've actually run the numbers on buying one in the secondary market. Without going into to much detail.

If you stay at the deluxe resorts every year, your break even point is about 8-10 years.

[Katman1356...Jason 1,140]

We are considering buying a DVC. It might be a couple more years. Sil really wants to stay at the Deluxe resorts. She loves the feel and look of them. I know with the number of points we were looking at buying we could have 2 weeks at AKL every year. Count us among the ones who never want to see one at the Fort though.