The Helmsey's First Family Trip to the Fort

[Big Kahuna aka John 71]

Thanks for sharing your vacation.......

[alexwyattmommy 181]

Are your sure it doesn't stand for - Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth?

I am so glad there was medicine for your little girl.  It would have been a very uncomfortable experience for all of you otherwise.

 

Thank you for sharing.

[jmaul 65]

Nice date night at 'O'ha'na's.  I'm still upset I couldn't get an ADR.

 

Glad DD1's sickness was short lived.  Would not have made for a fun drive.

 

Thanks for sharing your trip.  Glad you had a good time.

[Lou... 3,118]

 I waited at the outpost for a bus to take me back to the loop. While waiting this fella pulled up, I’m hoping someone can decipher the secret message on the marquee (I’m looking at you, Lou)

 

 

 

After him trying for some time to get it to change, and some other bus drivers trying to help, he eventually left and went on his way with no passengers.

 

 

"DH" does stand for "dead head", or go directly to the destination.

Buses go directly to the resort anyway, and we will pick up guests at the park as well, so I've never been able to figure out why they have DH on the marquee.

 

It's used only during the morning peak time and most buses will have it on their marquee, but it usually changes to the destination name before they arrive.

 

There are so many new drivers, and too many of them don't fully know how to operate the black box that controls the marquee, so that might explain why he needed help.

[DaveInTN 3,247]

Sounds like a great trip!  Thanks for sharing.

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

Great TR!  Your girls are adorable.  Love your last picture.

[disney4dan 68]

Great trip report, sorry about DD1 getting sick.  Happened so many times to my daughter that she now "knows" she will get sick on a road trip and does not look forward to them.

 

I've learned to pack gallon sized freezer zip lock bags in the vehicles. 

 

Glad to hear that you and DW get a special trip coming up soon, the selfie photo of the two of you at Soarin shows great affection between you.  I hope you have many more years to enjoy WDW. 

 

Your picture with Mickey that you say you framed reminds me of a photo we have in our living room with our oldest at maybe two years old.  Time flies!

[AC in A2......Aaron 693]

Awesome TR!

Thanks for sharing!

Glad your DD's illness was short-lived.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

OK, I read the whole thing.

 

Good job.

 

That family photo with Mickey definitely needs to go in a frame.

 

TCD

[WannaBeImagineer 98]

Great trip report, thanks for posting!

 

If you don't mind could you post some things you learned on this trip?  We are planning to be at Disneyworld with our son who will turn one while there so I'm curious of what you learned?

 

I hear the baby centers are great, and with only one kid right now we'll avoid the bus sized stroller, and we typically take a break mid day.  Any other secrets?

 

Thanks!!!

 

WBI

[Helmsey......Todd 134]

Great trip report, thanks for posting!

 

If you don't mind could you post some things you learned on this trip?  We are planning to be at Disneyworld with our son who will turn one while there so I'm curious of what you learned?

 

I hear the baby centers are great, and with only one kid right now we'll avoid the bus sized stroller, and we typically take a break mid day.  Any other secrets?

 

Thanks!!!

 

WBI

 

some things we learned:

 

1. Spend more time at the Fort. We didn't plan enough down time and I feel we missed out on a BUNCH there. Next trip will likely be 50% park and %50 Fort.

2. The earlier at the parks the better ( I think this is common knowledge) for crowds and cooler weather. There were times where we didn't get to the parks until later in the morning since we didn't have anything scheduled in the mornings. Part of this was also due to getting 2 kids up and ready, and scheduling\coordinating for others in the group. See item #3 :)

3. Planning for a group can be "not fun" if they all don't provide input ahead of time and suddenly decide they want to go stand in line for 2 hours to ride something. Next trip we will plan for us, and if anyone else is around we will try to accommodate some things with them as well, but not every single thing together.

4. Food - we ate out more than we should have this trip but that was due to me wanting to be able to try as many places as I could. Next trip there will be 2 or 3 meals out max and spending more time at the Fort should help with this.

5. Try to plan for cooler time (again this is probably common knowledge) to keep everyone happy. We thought we'd picked a good time with weather in the low 80's historically for this week but it was in the 90's several times on this trip. Thanks Florida weather.

6. The kids were more resilient than we expected them to be, they were pretty much just along for the ride and were content just about everywhere. We were worried about how they would do with all the excitement and possibly not getting naps, but they were troopers.

7. Get a premium site next time. We liked our site in the full hookups well enough, but after doing a bit of looping premium sites look like they would serve us better. If nothing else it will make backing a 42' 5th wheel into the site a little easier.

8. Better time management in parks. It felt like having things scheduled back to back at different areas of the parks caused us to be on the go the entire time. I think we missed out on taking it all in and enjoying things, felt hurried or rushed too often.

 

 

I think a lot of this boils down to trying to do too much in the amount of time we had. It was the first time there for us as a family and wanted to "do it all" and that took some of the enjoyment out of it. Next Halloween will be much better :) 

[WannaBeImagineer 98]

Thanks for the response Todd.

 

some things we learned:

 

1. Spend more time at the Fort. We didn't plan enough down time and I feel we missed out on a BUNCH there. Next trip will likely be 50% park and %50 Fort. I agree, but this is always a hard one, I never feel like I spend enough time at the Fort and now that our trips are not as regular we have a lot of stuff we try to do each trip.

 

2. The earlier at the parks the better ( I think this is common knowledge) for crowds and cooler weather. There were times where we didn't get to the parks until later in the morning since we didn't have anything scheduled in the mornings. Part of this was also due to getting 2 kids up and ready, and scheduling\coordinating for others in the group. See item #3 :) We are earlier risers and always go for rope drops, I fully agree!

 

3. Planning for a group can be "not fun" if they all don't provide input ahead of time and suddenly decide they want to go stand in line for 2 hours to ride something. Next trip we will plan for us, and if anyone else is around we will try to accommodate some things with them as well, but not every single thing together.  Great advice!

 

4. Food - we ate out more than we should have this trip but that was due to me wanting to be able to try as many places as I could. Next trip there will be 2 or 3 meals out max and spending more time at the Fort should help with this. We always overeat at WDW for the same reason, we like to try as much as possible and now we have so many favorites we can't help it.

 

 

5. Try to plan for cooler time (again this is probably common knowledge) to keep everyone happy. We thought we'd picked a good time with weather in the low 80's historically for this week but it was in the 90's several times on this trip. Thanks Florida weather.  Yup, we love the cooler months, but we have also gone in the summer because it was the only time we could go, but our last July trip I said not again, I'd rather the fall or winter!

 

6. The kids were more resilient than we expected them to be, they were pretty much just along for the ride and were content just about everywhere. We were worried about how they would do with all the excitement and possibly not getting naps, but they were troopers.  That's awesome!  I really hope we have that luck, so far our little guy has been a great traveler and up for almost anything so I think he'll keep it up.

 

7. Get a premium site next time. We liked our site in the full hookups well enough, but after doing a bit of looping premium sites look like they would serve us better. If nothing else it will make backing a 42' 5th wheel into the site a little easier.  We have a premium site booked, and I'm not really sure why but just thought we'd like it more, glad to hear you felt the same way.  And my fiver is only 29 feet so I should have plenty of room.

 

 

8. Better time management in parks. It felt like having things scheduled back to back at different areas of the parks caused us to be on the go the entire time. I think we missed out on taking it all in and enjoying things, felt hurried or rushed too often.  Good tip, I really don't like criss crossing the park a lot.

 

 

I think a lot of this boils down to trying to do too much in the amount of time we had. It was the first time there for us as a family and wanted to "do it all" and that took some of the enjoyment out of it. Next Halloween will be much better :)

 

Fully agree, when you try to do everything it causes problems, we've learned to do a lot without stressing about doing everything.  If we miss something no big deal, we'll do it next time, because we all know there will be another trip. :)

 

Thanks again!

 

WBI