Keep Bailing, the Water's Rising Fast!

[Travisma 1,317]

This Labor Day trip had been planned and booked quite a while ago. We had some relatives coming down from NY, and even though they weren't camping or going to the parks, they wanted to visit us, go to the campfire program, and do some hotel hopping. 

 

Then came the unusually wet summer, even by Florida standards and the approaching Erika.  So we started watching the weather and waffling back and forth if we should keep our reservations, or cancel and get a hotel.

 

Erika blew away, and the weather got back to our FL normal.  Since we had been to the Fort in rainy weather, we decided to keep the reservation and forge ahead.

 

Thus begins the tale

 

 

So being the good grandparents we are, we sprung our granddaughter out of school at 10:30, got her home, and hit the road at 11:00.

 

From our door to the Fort gate is 73 miles, one and a half hours, so we hit the guard shack at 12:30.

 

Skies were ominous but still no rain. Here's the pictures of the new guard shack.

 

Well no further pictures at the moment since Imgur is down.

 

And without pictures, I might as well wait to continue the report.

 

So it'll continue in a little while, or not until tomorrow night.

 

Guard Shack

 

 

 

 

 

While we waited for the guard to give someone directions that was lost, a CM approached us with a clipboard. She asked our name, went through pages and pages then told us we weren't on the list and asked if we had done the online registration.  Since we hadn't she directed us the normal check in process.  We pulled right up, got taken care of, and were told that we got site 1510, one of the 3 we had requested!  A great start to our stay. She explained that our MB's could be used to get into the restrooms and the returning guest lane.  I asked about using the bus entrance and was told they didn't work at that gate.  More on this to follow.

 

We got to the site and got set up.  With the heat and humidity it took about 3 hours to set up the PUP, tent, screen room, and kitchen. All in all it looked great.  We normally get 1511, this one had more room for the way we set up, but was a little sunnier.

 

My 2 daughters and granddaughter arrived and they go settled in and we had dinner.

 

Shortly after that, the rains arrived.

 

It was a strong but steady rain.. My wife, one granddaughter, and I were in the PUP and the others were in the tent.  Now this is a large 8 to 10 person Coleman EZ UP that has worked fine for us other storms.

 

Well it didn't this time due to the standing water on our site, and only our site in the 1500 loop.

 

 

 

and the water next to the site

 

 

Had to fish my hammock out of the growing floodplain...

 

So I spent about a hour scooping water off the site using a Frisbee.  I got the majority out but it had already flooded the tent. only good thing was we had cots in the tent and they were able to get their bags up out of the water.

 

Then came the fun, reporting this mess to the front desk and trying to get someone to look at the mess and offer a solution.. The first call started out by saying we can relocate you.  I said I'd rather not since the amount of time it took to set up, and how long it would take to break down and set up again.   Plus it was still rainy, we were beat, and we wanted to do something fun.

 

After our second call and no action my daughters and granddaughters took off to the MK and my wife and I waited.

 

We then made a third call.  Each time the first offer was to move us, then that they were contacting engineering.  We got the same story each time, they had no way of contacting the engineers directly and didn't  know how long it would be.

 

Finally after a 4th call a young lady arrives at our site with another woman.  The young lady said she was the duty manager and that she was dealing with a lot of rain related issues.  Again an offer for another site, then she said they could bring in some coquina sand to help dry the site.  She also offered to credit us a 1/2.  I told her that we wanted a full day credit since we lost the majority of the day setting up, bailing out, and waiting around for someone to show up.  They asked if they should bring in the sand that night (9 pm) and we said no, so they decided they would show up at 9 am.

 

The biggest annoyance was that they even gave us the site.  With all of the rain, I can't believe that someone else hadn't complained and they didn't do the needed repairs.

[YENSIDCAMPER 66]

I am in.  Sorry to hear about the rain.

[Katman1356...Jason 1,140]

Count me in too!

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

Great start, can't wait to read more!

[twiceblessed....nacole 433]

In!! Wow. ..that's a lot of water

[Travisma 1,317]

In!! Wow. ..that's a lot of water

Oh, there's more to come, it was a rainy weekend!

[swimmarz 72]

did i make the first page?!

looks like i did...

sorry about the water

[BuckeyeFortFan 35]

And that is why I will never tent camp again. Thanks for the trip report.....and the reminder of what misery is. Looking forward to reading more.

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

I'm in too!  That's a lot of water.

[Katman1356...Jason 1,140]

Sorry for all the water. I will definitely tuck that site number away to not request.

[BigTom 76]

Never want 1410 site

[Travisma 1,317]

Let me make a couple of quick statements so everyone doesn't think we are just a bunch of whiners.

 

Yes, the Fort did offer a solution numerous times to us that we refused..... they would move us to a different site.  They never said what site, since we said to us that wasn't a solution.  Like I stated earlier, we had spent about 3 hours in the heat and humidity getting the site the way we wanted, so NO, breaking everything down in the rain at 6:00 pm and later was not a good solution to us.

 

It took almost 3 hours and 4 calls to get someone to the site.  Each time we called, they acted like we hadn't called previously and asked the same information over and over.

 

We were told that the Front Desk had no direct line of communication with the engineering department, so they had no way of knowing how long it would be before someone came to the site.

 

We asked about just moving the tent to a different site (at that point there was a high and dry spot in 1600 that was adjacent to us) and keeping the PUP and everything else on our site.  I didn't think that this idea would fly, but we figured why not ask. Eventually we were told that the Fort was full and it would have to be all or nothing. 

 

So that meant they would put us somewhere that was slated for someone else, and some other poor sucker would get our 1510 with the river running it.

 

The Fort would not assist us in any way if we decided to move.  They would move a tent if it was theirs, but not touch our equipment.  I guess that makes sense, they don't wan to be libel for breakage.

 

The manager and someone arrived, saw the hole that opened up where I was scooping water off the site with a Frisbee, and both asked, is this what you called about, getting this hole filled?

 

We were told numerous times by numerous Fort people that they had experienced a lot of rain and the ground was saturated.  I told them we were from Tampa, we knew about the weather, and asked again why only our site flooed and none of the surrounding ones hadn't.  I walked the entire 1500 and all were dry except for some small puddles in the corners here and there.

 

We were told they would bring sand in to soak up additional water and that we didn't need to move anything or be around when the work was being done.

 

This entire scenario happened 2 more times before they actually put more sand down.

 

A day manager arrived the next morning along with an engineer.  Asked about the hole again!  Said they would put sand down.  My wife was in the PUP and as they walked by she overheard them say that the sand wasn't going to help a bit.  Well they were correct, it flooded again the next time it rained.

 

And again, since they were having so much rain, I'm sure others complained about the site, but they booked us on it anyway.

 

The site needs to be re-engineered to get better drainage.

 

So, I guess you could say that the second flooding issue was our fault for being stubborn and not moving, but we also were told that the sand would magically soak up the water.  Pictures to follow of our new beach.

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

Pictures to follow of our new beach.

 

That doesn't sound good ...

[ependydad...Doug 176]

I'm in. In NJ, I saw some crazily flooded sites and people with stuff draped everywhere to try and dry it out. I felt for them. We were high and dry in our pup.

I have many torrential rain stories, but never flooded a tent.

[Seals 111]

Spring 2010 we were in a site in the 2000 loop that flooded after heavy evening and overnight rain. We were divided among 3 tents. Around midnight I looked in on my son in the small backpacking tent and his mattress pad was floating. I woke him up and made him move to our tent. And he was mad I woke him up. After the long day we'd had at MK he probably would have floated there asleep all night. Then I spent a long time in the laundry room drying all the clothes in his suitcase.  Luckily the other two tents didn't leak. But the site was flooded and the next morning as my husband tried to push the water off with a piece of cardboard a Fort vehicle drove by slowly with the driver looking at him and didn't even stop.  Later a kind neighbor let us borrow a shovel and we moved sand around to make it drain. Luckily the weather cleared up and was beautiful for the rest of the week so we didn't have to test our engineering. We didn't even think to complain at the time. But I wish I did to know how they would have responded. 

[Littleolwoman.aka.Kristie 119]

In! Bringing along my puddle boots ; 0)

[keith_h 420]

Those pictures are horrible. I know it would have come close to sending me through the roof.  A well designed and maintained tent pad shouldn't do that.

 

When we still tent camped I always kept a trenching shovel as we never knew how a site would drain. More than once I trenched around the tent to get the water to flow around it. Of course we weren't paying Disney prices and for those I would expect a tent pad that drained correctly saturated soil or not.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

I'm in on page 1.

 

Sorry about all the rain, Mark.

 

Surprisingly, we didn't have any in Dunedin on Friday or Saturday, but then it started raining pretty hard on Saturday night, and rained on and off through the day on Sunday.  Not what we needed.

 

That site is awful.

 

I had flooding like that on 1502 one trip.  The cement pad sloped back to the coquina, and the wood frame kept the water in like a swimming pool.  We were in the camper, so it wasn't so bad- but I couldn't use the screen room on that trip, as it was basically set up in a huge mud puddle.  For the prices they charge, that is not acceptable.  But, that's one more reason not to book a partial site.

 

TCD

[Travisma 1,317]

I'm in on page 1.

 

Sorry about all the rain, Mark.

 

Surprisingly, we didn't have any in Dunedin on Friday or Saturday, but then it started raining pretty hard on Saturday night, and rained on and off through the day on Sunday.  Not what we needed.

 

That site is awful.

 

I had flooding like that on 1502 one trip.  The cement pad sloped back to the coquina, and the wood frame kept the water in like a swimming pool.  We were in the camper, so it wasn't so bad- but I couldn't use the screen room on that trip, as it was basically set up in a huge mud puddle.  For the prices they charge, that is not acceptable.  But, that's one more reason not to book a partial site.

 

TCD

1502 was dry, so they must've done some sort of fix on it.

 

The areas surrounding 1501 had filled up like a lake, though the site itself was high and dry.  You couldn't take that short cut from the bus depot to the loop unless you wanted to be wading in some pretty deep water.

 

Friday night after the rain there was a pick up with one of those tent attachments in the bed setting up camp in 1501.  I think they had an EZ UP canopy also.

 

Saturday, they slowly drove thru 1500 with everything still set up in the truck bed.  I figured they were moving around the corner from us.  Took a walk later and they were nowhere to be found.  Not sure where they relocated to.

 

Other than the standing water between sites, all the pads except ours were dry. 

 

And if we were just in our PUP without the tent, I wouldn't have been so frustrated.  But for what they charge, I expect a site to be engineered properly and not have a lake at the bottom of my steps.

[Momof6....aka Marty 769]

In and hoping things improved!

 

When we were in 1504 last fall, the site would flood when it rained, but it was dry about an hour after it stopped.  I was extremely grateful to be in one of Curt's pop-up campers rather than a tent.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

 

  But for what they charge, I expect a site to be engineered properly and not have a lake at the bottom of my steps.

 

I agree with you.

 

That's a tent site.  It's not acceptable that water pools on it.

 

TCD

[Starbuc71 162]

Please don't take this as my normal negative self, but a few things:

1. Your from Tampa and places that normally don't flood, have flooded this year. Neighborhoods by my home in Trinity are still cleaning up and getting nervous every time it rains

2. Your tent camping. There is always a chance of a tent getting water inside but I do agree it all is determined by the land you set it on

3. As much as I always agree with TCD about fort management, they did try to help by doing the obvious and offering another site, then offered to bring more sand. They even offered money off the site. Usual fort management would do absolutely nothing

I know it's always easy to blame Disney since they are a money hungry company like every other one, and I'm sure after this horrible rainy season in FL they will be looking at sites that flood, but remember you are camping and not dealing with a broken water pipe in a hotel room. Sorry for your bad trip so far. Hopefully it ended better

[LONE-STAR 370]

Please don't take this as my normal negative self, but a few things:

1. Your from Tampa and places that normally don't flood, have flooded this year. Neighborhoods by my home in Trinity are still cleaning up and getting nervous every time it rains

2. Your tent camping. There is always a chance of a tent getting water inside but I do agree it all is determined by the land you set it on

3. As much as I always agree with TCD about fort management, they did try to help by doing the obvious and offering another site, then offered to bring more sand. They even offered money off the site. Usual fort management would do absolutely nothing

I know it's always easy to blame Disney since they are a money hungry company like every other one, and I'm sure after this horrible rainy season in FL they will be looking at sites that flood, but remember you are camping and not dealing with a broken water pipe in a hotel room. Sorry for your bad trip so far. Hopefully it ended better

Not negative at all. It may be the most pro Disney post you have ever made.

[Travisma 1,317]

Please don't take this as my normal negative self, but a few things:

1. Your from Tampa and places that normally don't flood, have flooded this year. Neighborhoods by my home in Trinity are still cleaning up and getting nervous every time it rains

2. Your tent camping. There is always a chance of a tent getting water inside but I do agree it all is determined by the land you set it on

3. As much as I always agree with TCD about fort management, they did try to help by doing the obvious and offering another site, then offered to bring more sand. They even offered money off the site. Usual fort management would do absolutely nothing

I know it's always easy to blame Disney since they are a money hungry company like every other one, and I'm sure after this horrible rainy season in FL they will be looking at sites that flood, but remember you are camping and not dealing with a broken water pipe in a hotel room. Sorry for your bad trip so far. Hopefully it ended better

Like I said previously, they did offer to move us, and we declined, so the second flood we took a chance and lost.

 

BUT, the other sites were not flooded, they must've had previous complaints of this site flooding, and they still rented it out.

 

That would be the same thing as renting out a car that they knew had issues from the previous customer, but gave it to the next one because they were low on inventory.

 

That's what we are aggravated about.

[Travisma 1,317]

So they finally showed up Saturday morning with sand, and we got the same questions about the hole, etc.  They said we could leave so we headed to EPCOT to catch up to the rest of our group that went to HS earlier.

 

Here's what the site looked like after they were finished.

 

 

 

 

EPCOT was EPCOT.  It wasn't too crowded.  While waiting for our group to catch up, my wife and I went on The Land ride and Imagination.  The Land we waited about 10 minutes max, Imagination we walked right on.

 

Sampled some of the odd Cokes then met up with our family our front near the monoliths.

 

My granddaughters were lying on a bench when a CM came over and started talking to them.  She was very pleasant, then suddenly took out a pad and wrote them out a ticket!

 

My daughter walked over to see what was going on.  She had given them a coupon good for 2 ice creams of their choice.  A nice surprise.

 

We started to hit up out FP rides. Some of the normal lines for the rides weren't that long.

 

The big ball had a 10 minute line, so did the green line for Mission.  Test Track Standby was 90 minutes.  This was my wifes first time on TT.  We started designing our car, and the computer rebooted and not in a good way, so we never had our own design.

 

 

Forgot to add this picture earlier.  Our clan plus a photobombing stranger in the back left.

 

Looked at the new Silverado and Coronado on the way out.  The Coronado's interior is a lot smaller than I thought it was going to be.

 

My wife and I decided to head back to the Fort. The skies were not looking good, and we wanted to go check on our crockpots of mac and cheese and ribs.  I was concerned that if they knocked off our power while resanding the site, they pots wouldn't have restarted.

 

Had some light rain waiting for the Fort bus.  Like HS, the stop for the Fort is a long haul.

 

Got back and everything was done, so we relaxed around the site waiting for everyone else to get back from EPCOT.

 

And it's time for me to get ready for work, so to be continued.