TCD is Thankful for Thanksgiving @ The Fort 2014

[GaDawgFan.....Kelly 799]

That's a LOT of decorations. 

 

OK, now you have me even more interested in usual... We want to check out the decorations at the Wilderness Lodge, Contemporary, and the GF. I'm not sure which order to go in for transportation.

 

I have a lunch ADR at Whispering Canyon but might cancel it because I'm in love with the turkey brie sandwich at the Contempo Cafe. 

[GaDawgFan.....Kelly 799]

Oops

[GOBA Mom Lynn 18]

Wow, setting up your tent in a playground!

If I had kids & a basketball......I would send them there to play....at like 7AM.  :)

 

Otherwise, great tour of the Fort.   Looking forward to the resort decorations.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Great update but I think you forgot something, didn't we run into you Friday afternoon?

 

I guess I can cut you some slack since you're writing two trip reports and I haven't even started one yet. lol 

 

It was great talking to you though, next time we'll have to make time to have a beer and visit a little longer.

 

WBI

 

Shoot!  We sure did meet up on Friday afternoon.  I would have remembered that eventually.  It was good to see you and the Camping Princess again, but the highlight was meeting Prince William. Y'all done good there!  Super cute kid!

 

I'm glad that we got to meet up, but you're right, we need to have a longer visit next time.

 

I thought we'd see each other again, but we were gone all day on Saturday.

 

That's a LOT of decorations. 

 

OK, now you have me even more interested in usual... We want to check out the decorations at the Wilderness Lodge, Contemporary, and the GF. I'm not sure which order to go in for transportation.

 

I have a lunch ADR at Whispering Canyon but might cancel it because I'm in love with the turkey brie sandwich at the Contempo Cafe.

 

I'm going to cover how we saw the decorations in the next update, but that probably won't be until tomorrow- so I'll tell you what worked out well for us.

 

Park the cart at Pioneer Hall.  Take the boat to the Contemporary.  You can have your sandwich then if you like. Then monorail to the GF.  When you're done there, monorail again.  If you're just doing decorations, get off at the MK and boat to WL.  Then you can take the bus back to the Fort, and your cart will be close to the Settlement Bus stop.   You'll see that we added an Epcot visit to our plans, which you could do too if you want.  This all can be time consuming, so don't be on a tight schedule.

Wow, setting up your tent in a playground!

If I had kids & a basketball......I would send them there to play....at like 7AM. :)

Otherwise, great tour of the Fort. Looking forward to the resort decorations.

Seriously. They finally make a rule that says you have to keep your stuff on your site, and they let these people have a tent on the playground?

Why bother writing up and printing rules if everyone can just do what they want?

The thought has crossed my mind more than once that I should just show up at the Fort some time with my hammock and tie it up down by the beach and sleep there without paying for a site. I think I'd get away with it.

 

TCD

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

 

You are a good daughter.  But, where does that get you?

 

TCD

 

Overworked and severely underappreciated.  You have a good point ...

 

Sorry to hear about your daughter's sorority sister.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Overworked and severely underappreciated.  You have a good point ...

Hopefully, you're storing up treasure in heaven. Don't listen to me.

 

Sorry to hear about your daughter's sorority sister.

It's a sad story. The young lady had Lupus, and had been fighting it for a long time. She suddenly fell ill again and ended up being transferred to a big hospital, where she died. At 19. She was a great young lady, and had accomplished a lot already, despite her illness.

TCD

[Momof6....aka Marty 769]

 The thought has crossed my mind more than once that I should just show up at the Fort some time with my hammock and tie it up down by the beach and sleep there without paying for a site. I think I'd get away with it.

 

I dare you!

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

Hopefully, you're storing up treasure in heaven. Don't listen to me.

David is storing up more treasure than me.  In addition to helping with keeping up two households, he works hard to keep me sane, focused, and grounded.

 

It's a sad story. The young lady had Lupus, and had been fighting it for a long time. She suddenly fell ill again and ended up being transferred to a big hospital, where she died. At 19. She was a great young lady, and had accomplished a lot already, despite her illness.

 

That is very sad.  I can imagine her sorority sisters took her death hard.  At that age you feel like you're invincible, and it's a rude awakening to lose a friend.  I've been there.

 

TCD

 

 

I dare you!

 

Go, Marty!

[GaDawgFan.....Kelly 799]

 I'm going to cover how we saw the decorations in the next update, but that probably won't be until tomorrow- so I'll tell you what worked out well for us.

 

Park the cart at Pioneer Hall.  Take the boat to the Contemporary.  You can have your sandwich then if you like. Then monorail to the GF.  When you're done there, monorail again.  If you're just doing decorations, get off at the MK and boat to WL.  Then you can take the bus back to the Fort, and your cart will be close to the Settlement Bus stop.   You'll see that we added an Epcot visit to our plans, which you could do too if you want.  This all can be time consuming, so don't be on a tight schedule.

 

 

So depending on the time of day, I could reverse that, right? Take a bus to the Lodge, boat to MK, then monorail? If so, which bus is it? I always forget (since I've never been).

[FunFinder265....Cody 36]

Ok, so I've been away from FF.net for awhile, but I get page 8 bragging rights! I'm in and digging this report so far.

Going to be at The Fort for a quick weekend in January with some out of town friends, and they want to do a short hotel bar hop, since they've never been there before. We were thinking about boating to WL, then boat to MK, then monorail around to Contemporary, Poly, GF, then get off at MK and boat back to The Fort. Is that how you would handle it using those 4 resorts?

The thought has crossed my mind more than once that I should just show up at the Fort some time with my hammock and tie it up down by the beach and sleep there without paying for a site. I think I'd get away with it. TCD

I bet you could get away with it, let me know how it works. I'm considering just bringing a tent and setting it up far away but in between 2 sites and just let those 2 people think I'm with the other group. I bet I could get away with that for at least a weekend.

Cody

[FunFinder265....Cody 36]

Since I double posted, I get first post page 9 bragging rights as well

Cody

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

I dare you!

Nice try.

A double dog dare I would have to do, but not just a regular dare.

 

 

That is very sad. I can imagine her sorority sisters took her death hard. At that age you feel like you're invincible, and it's a rude awakening to lose a friend. I've been there.

I am sorry that you lost a friend at a young age. Here's a write-up on Twin #2's friend. It's the all too familiar story of a great young person being taken too early:  http://www.tampabay.com/news/obituaries/despite-illness-courtney-carter-looked-for-deeper-meaning-and-inspired/2208899

 

Go, Marty!

Do not encourage her.

 

 

So depending on the time of day, I could reverse that, right? Take a bus to the Lodge, boat to MK, then monorail? If so, which bus is it? I always forget (since I've never been).

Yes, that would work. Or, you could just take the boat from the Lodge to the Contemporary.

The Yellow bus turns in to the Wilderness Lodge bus. If you're on the Yellow route, you can just catch it from your loop. If not, take any bus to the Settlement, and catch the bus there. If you want to take your cart, park it at Pioneer Hall. You can also take the boat to the Lodge and just park at the marina.

 

 

Ok, so I've been away from FF.net for awhile, but I get page 8 bragging rights! I'm in and digging this report so far.

Going to be at The Fort for a quick weekend in January with some out of town friends, and they want to do a short hotel bar hop, since they've never been there before. We were thinking about boating to WL, then boat to MK, then monorail around to Contemporary, Poly, GF, then get off at MK and boat back to The Fort. Is that how you would handle it using those 4 resorts?

I bet you could get away with it, let me know how it works. I'm considering just bringing a tent and setting it up far away but in between 2 sites and just let those 2 people think I'm with the other group. I bet I could get away with that for at least a weekend.

Cody

Your resort touring plan works fine, but as I said to GDF, you could just boat directly to the Contemporary from the Lodge and skip the MK stop on the initial lap.

I think you could get away with putting a tent someplace too. But, it would be awkward to get caught. If you want to try- I know of a perfect place.

 

 

Since I double posted, I get first post page 9 bragging rights as well

Cody

Way to go Corey. Page 8 and 9 bragging rights!

TCD

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

 

 

I am sorry that you lost a friend at a young age. Here's a write-up on Twin #2's friend. It's the all too familiar story of a great young person being taken too early:  http://www.tampabay.com/news/obituaries/despite-illness-courtney-carter-looked-for-deeper-meaning-and-inspired/2208899

TCD

 

What an inspiring but sad video!  Thanks for sharing.  

 

I lost a classmate in the fifth grade.  We went home for Christmas vacation, and when we returned to school he wasn't there.  We all knew he had a serious heart condition, but at that age we had no concept of dying ... at least not someone so young.

 

Then as a senior in high school a classmate died in a car wreck.  That one hit me even harder.

[ajcjmom 8]

Great TR! 

 

I am behind on reading everything here as life and work has gotten in the way.

 

Some day I am hoping for Thanksgiving or Christmas at the Fort.

 

We were in Illinois for Thanksgiving and we will be in Denver for Christmas.

 

Hopefully I can catch up things during my Christmas break.

 

Whitney

[LONE-STAR 370]

I saw all those golf carts. I just figured they wanted to know which one was there's. The shark was strange. Did you see the beer mug cart? If not I didn't take a pic.

[Memphis 105]

I want to see a beer mug cart!  That has got to be a fiend  :cheers:  or at least a future fiend  :cheers:  

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Great TR! 

 

I am behind on reading everything here as life and work has gotten in the way.

 

Some day I am hoping for Thanksgiving or Christmas at the Fort.

 

We were in Illinois for Thanksgiving and we will be in Denver for Christmas.

 

Hopefully I can catch up things during my Christmas break.

 

Whitney

 

Wow, it sounds like y'all are busy.

 

Safe travels to Denver!

 

I saw all those golf carts. I just figured they wanted to know which one was there's. The shark was strange. Did you see the beer mug cart? If not I didn't take a pic.

 

No I did not see the beer mug cart.  I would definitely have taken a photo of it if I had.

 

I'll bet the beer mug cart was part of the Weird Golf Cart Decorating Club.

 

They must have been cabin people- I never saw those carts in any of the camping loops.

 

I want to see a beer mug cart!  That has got to be a fiend  :cheers:  or at least a future fiend  :cheers:  

 

Definitely.

 

That member of the Weird Golf Cart Decorating Club had potential.

 

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

We left off at the marina around sunset on Friday night.

 

As the resort boat approached, we could hear the captain singing zip-a-dee-doo-dah at the top of his lungs.  And he was good. I've heard of this singing boat driver, but never met him before.  Until tonight.

 

He took us over to the Contemporary, and, sure enough, right before we docked, he broke out with Winter Wonderland.  And he was good.

 

That was kind of magical.

 

We headed in to the Contemporary and checked out their Frozen gingerbread house.  These are the stats:

 

 

And this is it:

 

 

I was expecting more.  It was basically flat.  Not really a house.

 

The Kristoff, Anna, Elsa and Olaf were cute, though:

 

 

 

But, overall, we weren't impressed.

 

Next.

 

We headed to the monorail.

 

They didn't put up the giant Mickey wreath this year:

 

 

I like that giant wreath.

 

Fail.

 

We skipped the Polynesian and headed right to the Grand Floridian.

 

It's pretty impressive there:

 

 

There was a piano player taking requests.  His music filled the whole atrium.  And he was very good:

 

 

We took the fancy elevator down to the ground level.

 

Now, that's what I call a gingerbread house:

 

 

There are some neat details on the Grand Floridian gingerbread house. Like this Rapunzel and Flynn in Christmas clothes scene above one of the windows:

 

 

Smoke comes out of the chimney!:

 

 

They had a scrolling photo display which showed the gingerbread houses back to 1999:

 

 

There's a shop inside the gingerbread house:

 

 

A CM came out the side door so we could get a look inside:

 

 

Here we go.  Two entitled moms who don't have to follow the rules.  They pushed their brats under the ropes so they could take photos of them touching and playing with the gingerbread house, and acted like there was nothing wrong with that:

 

 

Some people.

 

In addition to seeing the Christmas decorations, the other reason for our visit was to check out the GF quick serve.  It was redone recently, and we have not been back since.

 

They had some new things on the menu:

 

 

 

 

My daughter tried the chicken cordon bleu sandwich, and I tried the Cuban.  They were both great, and we liked the expanded seating area.  I would have liked to try that holiday sandwich, but I had just eaten a lot of turkey the day before, and we had quite a bit left back at the camper.

 

We headed back to the monorail, but first stopped to listen to this very good live choir:

 

 

Then we took the monorail all the way around to the TTC and headed to Epcot.

 

These guys look like they spent all their money at Epcot- that must be why they're leaving:

 

 

The Flower and Garden topiaries are now in place for Christmas:

 

 

We had a Test Track FP+, so we headed there.  I let my daughter design the car, and this is what we got.  Not practical, but stylish:

 

 

Woo Hoo:

 

 

We were going to walk around the World Showcase and look at the Christmas decorations, but it was kind of cold, and we weren't dressed for it.  We did walk over to see the Epcot tree, though:

 

 

And then we headed out.

 

The last time we saw this ice skating Goofy, he was playing soccer in a display for the World Cup. This Goofy topiary gets around:

 

 

As planned, we bused it to Wilderness Lodge.

 

Awesome:

 

 

 

We didn't stay too long, and then bused it back to the Fort.

 

This is a bad photo of the Fort Christmas tree, but I took it to show that there was a large section of lights out on it.  It had been the same way the night before.  I was sad to see that fixing the tree was not a priority to the idiots in charge:

 

 

Since the new rules say all holiday decorations must be off by 10 pm, we headed out to the 1600 loop to look at the big display before it shut down for the night.

 

My favorite inflatable there:

 

 

They might have a hundred inflatables on that site, plus tons of lights.

 

How do they do it?

 

I'm not so sure about this:

 

 

It was near 11 before we got back to the site.

 

Our new neighbors across the loop didn't care about those new 10 pm rules.  They had all their stuff going strong:

 

 

The original plan for tonight was that we were going to head over to the MK around now to meet up with Twin #1, who was about to clock out.

 

But, we were cold.

 

And tired.

 

And we had a big day coming up tomorrow, which involved an early wake up, even by our standards.

 

So, we scrubbed the late night plans, and instead had a quiet night at the site and an early turn-in.

 

You'll hear about our eventful Saturday in the next update.

 

TCD

[WannaBeImagineer 98]

 

Shoot!  We sure did meet up on Friday afternoon.  I would have remembered that eventually.  It was good to see you and the Camping Princess again, but the highlight was meeting Prince William. Y'all done good there!  Super cute kid!

 

I'm glad that we got to meet up, but you're right, we need to have a longer visit next time.

 

I thought we'd see each other again, but we were gone all day on Saturday.

 

 

 

TCD

 

It was good seeing you too!

 

Thanks! The little guy is a blast, we've been pretty lucky with how good and easy going he is, plus he's a really good traveler!

 

WBI

[dvccamper 32]

We've had the singing boat captain before. You can't help but smile, you can see how much he loves to sing. Not sure how he feels about driving the boat.

[DaveInTN 3,247]

And this is it:

 

 

I was expecting more.  It was basically flat.  Not really a house.

 

 

 

The CR gingerbread house was flat when we saw it in 2011 too.  It's still not impressive...but at least the Frozen makeover didn't hurt it too much.  What's interesting is that they still used the same background, only now it's plain white while it used to be colorful.  As I think it is supposed to be a Mary Blair design....it used to look much more "small world-ish" than it does now that's it's white. 

 

ETA:  i've gone back and read the sign posted at the house in your pics....they do acknowledge the Mary Blair connection.  But they've certainly "white washed" it.  LOL. 

 

 

[Beckers 1,136]

Pretty sure the singing captain is Marty from DE. We had him 3 times.

[LONE-STAR 370]

Pretty sure the singing captain is Marty from DE. We had him 3 times.

Yes his name is Marty.

[lklasing 16]

Thanks for posting the video of Twin #2's friend.  She was a beautiful girl.  So sorry for your daughter and the rest of the sorority girls.  I'm sure they are heartbroken.

 

On a much lighter note, bless you for picking up the couple that was late getting to their Segway appointment!  That was exactly us back in July.  We were running down that same sidewalk and I was just praying that some wonderful soul would see us and give us a lift.  But, no such luck.  Happily, the Segway people were late too so it was no big deal, but we were all tired and sweaty by the time we got there.

[clakey 9]

You should have given the list of rules to Rocky.  Looks like a great place for him to take a hike!  What a joke!  The rump rangers that patrol the fort are also fun to deal with.