TCD is Thankful for Thanksgiving @ The Fort 2014

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

It finally happened.

 

The entire TCD gang enjoyed Thanksgiving, 2014 at the Fort.

 

We've never done that before.

 

Sure, we've been to the Fort for Thanksgiving week before, but we've always gone back home for Thanksgiving dinner.

 

Not this time.

 

We cooked our dinner at the site.

 

Turkey and all.

 

And, it was the best Thanksgiving ever!

 

We will get to that part in due time.

 

First, we need to back up and begin at the beginning.

 

I was very fortunate to snag a last-minute Thanksgiving reservation.

 

I wasn't sure on the dates, and initially had a week reserved.

 

But, the oldest TCD DD flew home on Sunday and wanted to spend a few nights at home.

 

Plus, there was bad weather predicted for Tuesday.

 

So, we carved the trip down to four nights, and arrived on Wednesday, November 26th.

 

That bad weather prediction for Tuesday ended up being very accurate.  According to the news that night, records were set in some areas of Florida for rainfall in a single 24 hour period in the month of November.

 

I'm glad we weren't at the Fort for that.  I later talked to some Fiends who were, and it wasn't pretty.

 

Instead, we left home around 10:30 am on Wednesday.  It was still raining a bit, and was real cloudy, but the weather experts all said it would clear up by late morning/early afternoon.  I hoped they were right about that.  They were right about the bad storms on Tuesday, so I had hope.

 

We had a lot of clouds on the way over, with some rare patches of blue sky, but, thankfully, no rain.  And the traffic wasn't bad.

 

And, here we are at 12:08 pm.  Not the prettiest day we've ever been here, but a huge improvement over the day before:

 

 

Have you ever seen water like that in the ditch out front of the Fort?  I have, but not in a long time, and never in November.  Also note that the street lights are still on- the clouds made it very dark, despite it being just past noon:

 

 

The elves apparently got the Fort's decorations up well in time for Thanksgiving:

 

 

I got to enjoy that view while I waited my turn:

 

 

Note that they have the Restricted Parking sign posted there by the guard:

 

 

When that sign comes out, it means we will be in for an interesting time at the Fort:

 

 

And sure enough, we ran right in to some chaos at the check-in lanes:

 

 

Anticipating that it might be busy, I had completed an on-line check in.  Of course, the idiots in charge had all of the lanes open, but none were designated for on-line check in:

 

 

I took this photo to show that I was still waiting.  I took the first photo of me in the check-in lane at 12:15 pm, and this one was taken at 12:18.  It sure seemed like I had been waiting for more than three minutes:

 

 

I decided that I would wait and take the next photo right as the motorhome in front of me pulled away, so I could document how long I had to wait.  But right after I came up with that plan, the motorhome started up and pulled out.  So, I have no long wait to complain about, and no photo to document it.

 

The check in went fine.  All that I could get for this trip was a premium site, and I was happy to have it.  I had requested the 900 loop as my first choice and 800 as my second.  I didn't request any specific sites, as I knew that was probably futile for a check in on the day before Thanksgiving.  I knew that I had to just be happy with whatever I got.  The CM told me that we would be in site 811, and that my site was ready.  Fine with me.  As a matter of fact, a long, long time ago, before it became a premium campsite, the TCD gang spent Thanksgiving 2007 in that very site.

 

The CM went and fetched out check-in packet, since we had done on-line check in.  That packet included just one blank KTTW card for us to use at the comfort station and the gate.  The last trip, which was earlier this same month, they gave us a card for each person.  I asked the CM for more cards, and she said they only provide one per campsite.  I told her that was a not how it was the last time we were here, and that we at least needed two in case we needed to use the men's room and the ladies' room at the same time late at night.  That made sense to her, and she coughed up one more card.  And said she wasn't supposed to do that.

 

The CM then handed us two separate pieces of paper and told us that there would be restricted parking throughout our stay, so if we had any visitors not listed on our reservation, they could not park at the Fort and would need to park at one of the parks or Downtown Disney:

 

 

The other paper was this one on holiday decorations rules.  The CM told us that all decorations, including lights, had to be turned off by 10 pm each night.  And that's what this says:

 

 

Don't you love how folksy good old Jose is now that he manages the Fort?  Rootin' Tootin'?  Toe Tappin"?  Really?

 

Not only that.  The rules in the little booklet have also been updated:

 

 

There was no separate hand out for firepits.  Those rules are now covered there in the book.

 

And note the language about parking. That's new.  It now says that you can have two vehicles at your site and a third in the overflow lot.

 

The rules about guest equipment are new- it says it all must be contained on the pad, except you can have a dining structure set-up off the pad, as long as it is within ten feet of the pad.  That means no more tents off the pad, right?  We'll see about that.

 

And there, right in the book, it says all seasonal decorations have to be shut off by 10 pm.  All of them.  We'll see about that too.

 

You know what there was a lot of at the Fort?

 

Water.

 

And mud.

 

This is the main sidewalk along Fort Wilderness Trail, right behind the 600 loop.  It's submerged:

 

 

We did a little pre set-up looping, and saw that the overachievers on the 1600 loop got hit hard by the Tuesday weather. There were puddles, mud, and deflated inflatables everywhere:

 

 

 

What a mess.

 

We also wanted to go and check on our teepee friends. There's a group of teepee enthusiasts who set up in the group camping area every Thanksgiving.  And, sure enough, they were there:

 

 

If you look there on the right of that last photo, you can see that there's a teepee enthusiast setting up his teepee.  It's a lot of work.

 

This is a shot from the same spot as that last photo, but turned to the left.  If you look carefully, you can also see that there's a small backhoe and big truck there digging a hole in the ground.  The teepee folks are going to make a big old fire and cook a bunch of turkeys in that pit tomorrow:

 

 

The group camping area does not have electricity out in the areas where folks set up their tents (or teepees).  But, one of those clever teepee people brought a long extension cord:

 

 

The whole time we were doing our pre set-up looping, the clouds were moving around, but it wasn't clearing up.  I actually felt a bit of rain and we had some on our windshield, so I wanted to go back to the site and get things set up in case it started to rain again.  One of the twins was going to stop by and pick up my oldest daughter so they could go to lunch while I set up camp.

 

When we got back to our site, my daughter wanted to walk up to the comfort station, and I went with her. This is the path in the middle of the 800 loop.  It's not usually under water, but it was today:

 

 

The girls went off to lunch, and I got busy.

 

A couple of hours later, we were good to go.

 

Our site had a good spot for the official TCD hammock:

 

 

And, it provided a view of the old FWRR track:

 

 

As you can see in that last photo, the sun was trying to come out.

 

That's the 700 loop pet walk over there:

 

 

This is the only place in the Fort where you can easily see the old railroad ties.  There's a bunch going the other way:

 

 

After a while, the girls got back.  And we all went for a sunset loop.

 

This shot was taken back by the group camping area parking lot.  The clouds had finally left! (and I'm happy to say they never returned) :

 

 

The little pond by the group camping area was as full as I've ever seen it:

 

 

After a bit, we returned to our site and enjoyed our traditional first night meal of a Giddyap and Go chicken dinner from Trail's End take out.  We ate inside the camper as it had gotten quite cold outside. 

 

The plan for tonight was that we would hit the MK late. The girls had visited there earlier to watch the Festival of Fantasy parade and reported back that there were unusually light crowds there for this being the day before Thanksgiving.  The MK would be open until 1.  The cold weather would also help keep the crowds low. Not only that, but we had received a bit of FP+ pixie dust to get our trip started right!  Keep reading to find out what that was.

 

Since we had time, we did some night looping.  There were definitely way less decorations up this year than there have been in years past.  I think a lot of guests are not happy about the new decoration rules, and it seems like many less have made the effort to decorate their sites.

 

As we looped around, we saw an ambulance head toward the pool/campfire area.  The girls wanted to go and see what was up, but I knew that they would probably not let golf carts drive down that access road while the ambulance was there, so we kept looping.  A bit later, we drove by again and saw that the lights were still flashing, but that they were still letting golf carts in and out of the drive by the tennis courts.  So, in we went.

 

When we got near the pool, there was a CM there directing carts to turn and drive on the sidewalk that goes around the pool.  That's normally off limits to carts, so that was fun.

 

And that's not all.  When we got past the pool, we saw that they had pulled the poles and were letting golf carts drive over the bridge behind the Meadow Trading Post.  It's been a long time since we could do that, so we drove over the bridge too.  And then we drove back.  And then drove over it again.  And back.  We even stopped at the top for a photo or two:

 

 

 

That was fun.

 

While we were having our fun, the ambulance left.  It must not have been anything big, as the ambulance did not have its emergency lights on when it pulled out.

 

Then it was time to head to the MK.

 

As I mentioned earlier, I had made some FP+ reservations.  Lately, I always start out looking for Mine Train FP's.  They apparently released a bunch right before I checked, and I was able to get some for every day of our visit.  But for this first day, they only had early ones available for a party our size. I took those, thinking maybe we would head over early and use them.  But with the bad weather, that didn't happen.  While we were still at home, though, I got an email telling me that the Mine Train was down and that we could now use our FP+ for anything we wanted all the way up to the park close time.  So now, instead of losing those FP+'s we could use them whenever we wanted.

 

Earlier that day, I had moved our other FP+'s to as late as I could.  We got to the MK in time to watch Wishes.  It was a lot more crowded than we had hoped for, so we watched Wishes from the Adventureland bridge.  Then we headed to the Jingle Cruise.  I had made us FP+ reservations for this, but that ended up being a waste, as there was just a five minute wait in the standby line.  The holiday version of the ride was very popular last year, but it doesn't seem to be as popular this year. If you have a chance, you should check it out, they have more decorations this year.

 

From the dock:

 

 

Inside the ruins:

 

 

Trader Samta:

 

 

Our skipper wasn't the best.  I'm not sure how she got the job.  She told her jokes like she was reading them- and like she didn't even understand them.  Oh well.

 

Hey- we're at the photo limit.

 

Time to get those first page bragging rights.

 

We will finish up with our evening at the MK in the next update.

 

And then it will be Thanksgiving morning!

 

TCD

[GaDawgFan.....Kelly 799]

In! First?

[Momof6....aka Marty 769]

In!

[shoreline99 137]

First Page!

 

Sorry you had to deal with the rain. Wondering, though, how you cooked your turkey!

[rm0530 5]

I'm here and ready--we were there Wednesday through Sunday. Great weather!

[rm0530 5]

I'm here and ready--we were there Wednesday through Sunday. Great weather!

[Beckers 1,136]

Beckers is thankful for TCD at the Fort for thanksgiving TR!

[DaveInTN 3,247]

I am here!!

[Memphis 105]

I'm in.

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

I'm in.  Great start!

[BuckeyeFortFan 35]

Here.  I would love to be a skipper on the Jungle Cruise.  I would murder that.

[parrothead7368 aka Norm 101]

I'm in, first page second page, who knows?

 

Best Regards,

Norm

[dieseldave 5]

I'm in!

[ImDownWithDisney 342]

Man, I should have made a Fort visit to hang with TCD and fam! The weather was great from Wednesday afternoon forward

[h2odivers...Ray 952]

I'm in.

Turkey at the Fort!

[GaDawgFan.....Kelly 799]

More room on page 1? Time to comment.

That's a lot of water! Glad the rain stopped for you. I've been able to snag 2 overlapping Mine Train FP+ for our last minute trip. I'm hoping for that 3rd!

[Gots2pitt.. Jeff 64]

I'm in it?

[Gots2pitt.. Jeff 64]

DOH, KFK got me.

[WannaBeImagineer 98]

Wow you're fast with the trip reports!  I guess I need to get on the ball and start mine.

 

I didn't realize you were there on Thanksgiving day with the whole family, looking forward to hearing about it.

 

Did I make page one?

 

WBI

[WannaBeImagineer 98]

 I've been able to snag 2 overlapping Mine Train FP+ for our last minute trip. I'm hoping for that 3rd!

 

I think you should be able to snag one.

 

We actually were able to get two connected FP+ on Friday after Thanksgiving for mid day. 

 

We had really good luck moving them FPs around and getting new ones the day of, I was really surprised by that.  Unfortunately we didn't use a lot of the ones we got.  Plus we wasted quite a few rider swap passes, I meant to give them away and completely forgot.

 

WBI

[CandJDisney..Chris/Jessie 4]

I'm in!

[dvccamper 32]

I'm in! Looking forward to hearing about your Thanksgiving dinner and how you cooked the turkey.

[alexwyattmommy 181]

Glad you missed the rain but really sorry for those who didn't.

[Northerngirl--Lori 5]

Yay, another TCD trip report!! Im enjoying all the new trip reports! Thank you for letting us enjoy the fort with all the wonderful trips and memories!

[mouseketab.....Carol 1,261]

Great start, glad the weather cleared up!