I live at Disney World. February 2016 edition.

[ependydad...Doug 176]

9 minutes ago, Helmsey......Todd said:

The best quote from that video: "it's terrible.....go for it!" That had me cracking up!

Agreed. The more that I watch it, the more that I laugh at the background commentary.

It's funny what people will do for a dollar.

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

Doug, that video is hilarious!

 

I can't believe the wait for Figment.  And I only saw a couple of kids in your picture.  Can't believe all those adults were waiting.

[ependydad...Doug 176]

15 minutes ago, CCIntrigue...aka Gwen said:

Doug, that video is hilarious!

I can't believe the wait for Figment.  And I only saw a couple of kids in your picture.  Can't believe all those adults were waiting.

The video was so much fun. And you're right- most of the parties for Figment were adults. I guess that's why the "play" area afterwards was so empty.

[Littleolwoman.aka.Kristie 119]

Just caught up. How is your wife feeling? Love the pictures so far but mercy make your kids stop growing, little man has gotten so big. 800 looks nice. We got stuck in 500, definitely not a favorite. You seem to have managed the faux "large family" thing well. At the end of the day a nice glass of wine sets all right again.

[ependydad...Doug 176]

Just caught up. How is your wife feeling? Love the pictures so far but mercy make your kids stop growing, little man has gotten so big. 800 looks nice. We got stuck in 500, definitely not a favorite. You seem to have managed the faux "large family" thing well. At the end of the day a nice glass of wine sets all right again.

That boy is growing by leaps and bounds. We do forget a lot that he's only 3 1/2 (ok, soon to be 4 come June). He's a cutie and knows it.

Wife is doing ok. Still in a fair amount of pain. I seem to recall she hurt longer than they said to expect last time- I think they lie trying to help you feel better about going into the surgery. She's starting to get frustrated with her "vocal rest" and not being able to talk at all.

Those kids were really great. I was just telling my wife that I miss the boys. We literally laughed the whole time that we were together.

[FEARtheEERS 18]

This trip report makes me happy in so many ways!  I agree that the title is great!  We stayed for 20 something days in the summer and it felt like living there all while feeling too short also.  

I love the back entrance to Epcot.  Why?  I really have no idea, but it's just cooler. Maybe because I love the showcase so much.  

Love Minnie at breakfast.  Adorable.  Love seeing bigger kids with characters.

we have yet to do the Coke sampling.  It is on our list.

we have done the bungee cord roof hauling.  It is always interesting.  

Did a wheel chair and stroller on our last trip.  Definitely eye opening.  I'm so happy I stumbled on this tonight!  Can't wait to see more.

[ependydad...Doug 176]

This trip report makes me happy in so many ways!  I agree that the title is great!  We stayed for 20 something days in the summer and it felt like living there all while feeling too short also.  

I love the back entrance to Epcot.  Why?  I really have no idea, but it's just cooler. Maybe because I love the showcase so much.  

Love Minnie at breakfast.  Adorable.  Love seeing bigger kids with characters.

we have yet to do the Coke sampling.  It is on our list.

we have done the bungee cord roof hauling.  It is always interesting.  

Did a wheel chair and stroller on our last trip.  Definitely eye opening.  I'm so happy I stumbled on this tonight!  Can't wait to see more.

Aww, everything about your post just made me smile. Thanks for that.

Hey, we don't just feel like we are living here, we really are! This whole homeless thing... :D

The wheelchair and stroller have happened a few times now. At least we are sort of used to it.

Otherwise, thanks for the kind words!

[twiceblessed....nacole 433]

21 hours ago, ependydad...Doug said:

Message me with when "mid-April" is. There's talk about us possibly spending a week either at the Fort or down at TT Orlando in early April (5-12). We haven't finalized plans yet, though.

Done.  

[ependydad...Doug 176]

Moving right along, but first- if you missed the Beverly Video. You need to go watch it now. Maybe 2 or 3 times- it makes me laugh that hard.

We had done pictures and were ready to make our way to Hollywood Studios. First up, we had Fast Passes that we were barely making for Toy Story Madness Mania (that's its name, right?). The sign said it was over an hour wait, but the queue was strangely barren. Is there really that much line to shuffle through?

Moving on, we headed past the Great Movie Ride and my daughter really wanted to go on it again. My son wasn't a fan (as he got sat next to the "gangster" the last time we were here) but we put him at the far end of the row, between Mom and I, and he was mostly OK.

My photos take a surprising turn for not having much and my memory isn't much better. So, let's just say that we milled about Hollywood Studios for a while. The end of the night came along and Fantasmic was going on. That meant, we could either catch a short queue for Rockin' Roller Coaster or for Tower of Terror. We split up and I took 2 of the girls, the other Mom took a couple of the kids, and my wife took the non-riders (aka, her and my son).

That was it as we had an early night because the race was the next morning. With my son not able to participate, we arranged for one of my cousins to babysit. She's a boat captain at the Magic Kingdom on the smaller boats. Apparently she'll soon be able to captain the big ferry. With my daughter's bum foot and the rule against wheelchairs being pushed, daughter sat it out. We cheated and I "adopted" a new grown-up daughter who used our paid-for-and-would-be-lost-otherwise-spot (but, shhhh, don't tell Disney!).

The next morning, we were up at the crack o' clock of day:

We found our group of Fulltime Families and posed for a group photo:

I loved watching one of the Moms dance with her daughter (click for video):

The lone walking dads:

By name, most of the other families didn't realize it wasn't a "girls-only" kind of thing.

Before long, we were headed for our corrals:

The Slowski's Corral:

There is only one beautiful woman that I want to wake up this early for, and this is my pretty lady:

Around a quarter to 7, they finally released our corral to head for the starting line. We weren't at the absolute back of it like we were last year. Here's my view behind of me:

Here's looking forward:

It is pretty walking through Epcot in the morning. And lookie what I see- are these guys FISHING?!

(A friend says they just looked like they were fishing, but were really picking up garbage.)

Sebastian wished us well. Well, not me- I don't wait in lines, I'm slow enough as-is!

Our fulltime family kids really do have friendships like "normal" kids. These two were inseperable:

More of Epcot:

And a mere 80 minutes later, I made it to the finish line. Fortunately the 5k sag wagon must be WAY slow. One of my friend's girls felt like a train wreck- sick and unpleasant. She even stepped off to throw up a little. The little trooper kept on going- I would have been DONE and just laid waiting for the sag wagon to pick me up. I stuck with them to see how I could help.

The Mom and her girls:

Moms and Girls (these two are great friends & the mom on the right is who started the Fulltime Families organization):

They even pulled me into the picture:

After the race, we coordinated a breakfast at Trails End. It turned out that there were just about 40 of us there. Getting that reservation was very painful as no one really knew who to call for a group that large. We ended up with 3 separate reservations, but they checked us all in together.

Unfortunately, as our waiter told us- the buffet is only really setup to hold about 20 people. So, we had a line:

There is no rest for the wicked and before long, we were headed back out to Magic Kingdom. Again, the kids taking care of each other:

We got there in time for the #Hastag parade. We were buying a balloon and ended up with front-row spots. Donald says hello:

The older boy must have been feeling the Disney spirit as he dug out his BAH hat.

Crane or not, I do like our castle:

She had been wanting a funnel cake since we were at Hollywood Studios. It didn't look like the greatest one, but she was happy.

I'll leave you with a pick of T2 and me on Winnie the Pooh's ride. We were being rowdy and obnoxious and belly laughed the whole way through.

We have a little bit more of Magic Kingdom left for the day, but I'll have to catch that next time. :)

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

Looks like a fun day!

[ependydad...Doug 176]

On 2/26/2016 at 5:16 PM, CCIntrigue...aka Gwen said:

Looks like a fun day!

It was a good time. We actually had so much fun with this family that we're going to spend Easter with them and then try to catch up at their family's farm in Indiana in August sometime. Pretty amazing how you can still make a community and friends while being nomadic.

[ependydad...Doug 176]

I left off at an awkward break point as I hit my photo limit. I only have a couple of more to finish up our Magic Kingdom day. My friend said that her absolute favorite ride at Disney is It's a Small World. The line wasn't very long and is even shorter with a wheel chair. So, we headed for that. No pictures of the ride, but a couple cute "waiting in line" pictures of the kids...

My daughter and their littlest (T4):

The two boys:

The last ride that I have pictures of is:

I do believe that the kids made a beeline back for Space Mountain for one last ride, but I could be making that up.

By this point it was Saturday and their last park day. We were headed back to Hollywood Studios as the kids all wanted to ride Rockin Rollercoaster and Tower of Terror again. My wife had secured FastPasses for both. My daughter also requested a meal at the 50s Diner as she enjoyed herself so much the last time we were there.

Unfortunately, it was also another work day (handling pay day) for my friend. So there was a little waiting around-

The upside with leaving late is the empty bus:

My son was too little for RNRC, so we got a rider switch pass for him and we waited outside. I saw popcorn on a cart and offered some to him. Unfortunately, it was kettle corn which my family doesn't like at all. Here a cast member was talking to him and offered to look on the brochure to see where regular popcorn was sold. It's these little touches that always warm my heart to DIsney.

The rider-switch ended up being a great thing and a terrible thing. It meant that I could ride. It also meant that of 4 kids, I had to pick 2 to go ride with me. The lobbying was fierce.

We left there and the bigger kids hit up Star Tours. No pictures as you can't pay me enough to ride that. From there, we made our way to our lunch reservation.

Awkward & forced selfie.

For you photographers who use your big camera to take pictures of your food. Here's what you look like:

The final decision for RNRC was that the 3 adults would go. That way no kids felt special and all were left out. Unfortunately work-won for our friend and my wife wasn't sure her stomach could ride it again after lunch. So, my daughter got a slot since she's my kid and the other 4 wrote their names on papers and we drew one from a pile. The littlest won.

From here, we headed back to Lights, Motor, Action. I know this is being bulldozed and wish it hasn't been the exact same show for so long, but I really do enjoy it. I took a handful of selfies that make me chuckle, so you get to endure them also.

And now, on with the show!

From here, we grabbed some second lunch back near where the Jedi Academy thing happened. In the duration that we sat there, we must have watched 3 sets of kids come through. My son practiced all of his sweet lightsaber moves from our view.

And then we made a huge mistake. A terribly huge mistake. We went to see the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular.

(I'm still trying to figure out why they pretend to have fire extinguishers.)

And, here's why it was a mistake:

Since watching this show, my son believes he is a stunt man. I'm constantly being punched, kicked, and tackled. He's also taken to crying "CANONBALL!" as a type of war cry before he does something "less than safe" - be it jumping from something, pile driving me, or rearing up to do something. My body can't take much more of this!

Before too long, we were heading out as we had dinner reservations at the Grand Floridian at 1900 Park Fare or whatever the princess dinner is.

But, that's the picture break. I'll post more later.

 

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

You will ride the crazy ferris wheel at DCA and you won't ride Star Tours ?  

[ependydad...Doug 176]

20 minutes ago, CCIntrigue...aka Gwen said:

You will ride the crazy ferris wheel at DCA and you won't ride Star Tours ?  

Simulators. I can't do the enclosed booth and massive screen. Once I start to get ill, I close my eyes and not being able to see makes me sick. I open my eyes and seeing the screen movement makes me sick. It's a lose/lose situation.

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

6 minutes ago, ependydad...Doug said:

Simulators. I can't do the enclosed booth and massive screen. Once I start to get ill, I close my eyes and not being able to see makes me sick. I open my eyes and seeing the screen movement makes me sick. It's a lose/lose situation.

I usually don't do well in simulators either, but Star Tours doesn't bother me much.  Now Mission Space is a different story.  You won't catch me on that one again!

[ependydad...Doug 176]

2 minutes ago, CCIntrigue...aka Gwen said:

I usually don't do well in simulators either, but Star Tours doesn't bother me much.  Now Mission Space is a different story.  You won't catch me on that one again!

I won't even try it. Literally the last simulator I got on was some "Body" one at Epcot back in 2001 on our honeymoon. My wife were still young and dumb and not very confident of ourselves. We didn't know what we were getting into and didn't have the nerve to nope it out of there. Instead, we stayed and suffered and hated every moment of it.

[ependydad...Doug 176]

We made it over to the Grand Floridian ahead of schedule. Thinking that I'd give the Moms a break, I offered to take the gaggle of kids for a quick loop on the monorail. I'm still not sure what I was thinking as it was like herding cats. We all made it, and that's what is important.

They're really a great group of kids:

And the laughter literally never stopped:

We made it back and headed in. I tried taking a nice picture of our friend and I, but like I said- the laughter never stopped...

Try #2 worked out, though:

We came to learn that instead of the evil step sisters, one of the mice was there. I was a little sad, I find the step sisters hilarious. AND, I had planned on proposing marriage using a piece of bread. Oh well, the kids still had fun.

Prince Charming came by right after I was throwing gummy bears to see who could catch them in their mouth. He stammered quite a bit when I offered to throw one his way... it was pretty funny, I think I caught him off guard.

No matter, we got our picture taken together:

Apparently Cinderella had a small mishap with her wig a couple of tables before us. She was a little disheveled when she made it to us. But, we still enjoyed meeting her:

And, because she's my absolute favorite- I got this for a new photo background and to print out and tape on my bedroom wall. <3 her.

The Evil Step Mother was hilarious, as expected. I don't know how she can keep a scowl so well. The kids wanted me to propose to her, but I was honestly a little scared of the reaction!

We left there and went to Disney Springs for a couple of little things for the kids. Really, my job was to wander around and follow my son.

Sunday came and it was time for goodbyes. Goodbyes for Fulltime Families are special- as we know we'll try to catch up out on the road somewhere. We're hoping to get together for Easter and then again maybe in August. We'll see. If nothing else, we'll see them at the next Fulltime Families rally in Gettysburg in September!

But, we did something that we so rarely do- we kicked back and relaxed!

And then we went for a ride.

Where we saw this really awesome king pin cover/head protector:

We went looking for and found a tiny bit of the old railroad tracks:

Sunday evening, we went out to the airport to pick Grandma up. Grandma came down to take care of her little girl post surgery- well, take care of the grandkids while Mandie couldn't talk for the week.

Before surgery/on Monday, they left me at home (working, woo.) and went to Magic Kingdom for the day. This was our one and only FastPass for Mine Train. AND- we only got that because the CM who sold us our 3 renewals and 2 new annual passes gave us a free FastPass for it.

Tuesday was my wife's surgery day. And then it was a pretty quiet week around camp.

On Friday, they all headed to Disney Springs for a day of shopping. Thankfully I wasn't there as my mother-in-law is one of those "walk every inch, pickup every item, talk about it all, but buy very little" shoppers. The World of Disney with her could be reserved as a special kind of torture. The texts from my wife got more and more hilarious as the day went on. I did show up for dinner, though.

et me tell you- buying that Laundry's Card was worth it. I called for reservations and they offered 3:45 and 9:15. Instead, we bought our Laundry's Card online (for $25) a day ahead of time. That gave us time to get the email with the $25 off a check AND were able to use it at our first visit. We literally skipped the entire line of waiting and waiting for a table, at all with it.

As usual, the food was passable, expensive for what it was, and service was decent. Nothing really to write home about- except the kids love it there. Boo on them for not offering the dino hats any longer.

Afterwards, my son wanted to play in the digging pit (the downside to cutting the line was no waiting time). I let him do it with clear instructions that I wasn't stepping foot in there. I've made that mistake before! After about 10 minutes, we made our way to the Lego store where everyone else was.

I also got to see the bag that made my daughter lose all sense of common sense and reason. The text that I received was:

I love you and this 300 dollar bag I saw and I was wondering if you could look for it on the internet for cheaper?"

So, kudos to her for knowing that was frightfully expensive and hoping for an online deal. But, lol- they don't see Nightmare Before Christmas Dooney & Bourke bags for cheaper online. It's a nice bag, I guess. I just had a hard time impressing on her was $300 meant in real value.

Saturday, we made it back out to Magic Kingdom. We had a slow meandering day. It started with me forgetting my eyeglasses back at the house. My eyes aren't terrible, but they're not great either. I sent the family on ahead of me and I rode back to the camper (love that golf cart!).

The ride over to MK was pretty pretty:

Then there was a flurry of patrol boats at the monorail bridge over the water.

Turns out, they were taking one of the big ferries to dry dock.

We did a bunch of things, but I have very few pictures. The place was PACKED. Ride times were all super long- even Goofy's Barnstormer had wait times of 40-50 minutes.

It looks like we took advantage of the wheelchair and It's a Small World. My wife said they ran out of return time cards or something and were just letting people head down to the handicap queue.

The kids wanted to pick up their game of Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom. So we made our way up to that. Outside of there, they had hula hoops out. We played with those for a while:

And then we gamed for a bit:

We rode a ride and I found this "Where in the World?" light fixture. I feel like it's acceptably deceiving.

We used up our 3 FastPasses and got the 4th. We started jugglign that and rode Peter Pan. The ride stopped twice while we were on it. It wasn't a gentle stop but rather quite abrupt and uncomfortable. But, I did get a good shot of Peter at the boat.

Then we grabbed dinner at Pinnochio's Village Haus. What a nightmare that was. The ordering queue was literally jam packed with people. There were so many people, it was almost unnerving.

It was about 7:30 when we went in there. I don't know how long it took to order, get our food, and eat- but it felt like just shy of forever. I do know that my ear started bothering me and feel like it was going to be painful. Apparently Dad's discomfort isn't a reason to go home, so we pressed on.

Quick selfie by the castle at night:

We grabbed some snacks and goodies at Friar's Knook, I think (wherever has the Nutella Waffle). And made our way back into Adventureland to watch the Main Street Electric Light Parade. It was BARREN back there. We were able to sit and watch the parade with no obstructions in either direction. Pretty crazy.

And then sickness descended on the house. There was vomit, diarrhea, crazy sleep walking/talking, a nasty cough, and fevers. You name it, we had it. And it was ugly. My daughter literally slept 24 hours from Saturday evening until Sunday evening and then was up all night Sunday into Monday (thank God for unlimited data, Youtube, and Pinterest). Monday, I slept until 1:30pm.

While looping Monday afternoon, my wife lobbied for another week here at the Fort. She wasn't happy for how much time we lost to her recovery and the plague. So, we have started in on week #3 here. (And let me tell you- it's wreaking HAVOC on my nightly site budget. Fortunately, starting next week until the end of June or so will be Thousand Trails nights and I will either have no cost or very inexpensive cost.)

The good news is, Grandpa flew in last night! Sad that they're only here until Saturday now.

So that's that... I'm all caught up!

[bhall 115]

Great pics so far!

What campground is the Full Time Families Rally in September going to be at?

[Littleolwoman.aka.Kristie 119]

Indiana in August?  If you time it right you might catch the State Fair, totally worth visiting. Where is your friends farm?

[Ivy 36]

On 2/26/2016 at 5:01 PM, ependydad...Doug said:

 

Beautiful photo!  

Hope your wife is doing good from her surgery. 

 

[dblr....Rennie 224]

Indiana in August, does that mean you MIGHT make the FROG Rally, sign up should be late this month, hint hint.

[fladogfan aka Gretchen 259]

Good you guys are getting over the crud, hope you are enjoying your 3erd week!

[ependydad...Doug 176]

15 hours ago, bhall said:

Great pics so far!

What campground is the Full Time Families Rally in September going to be at?

I'm not sure. That part hasn't been announced yet.

 

13 hours ago, Littleolwoman.aka.Kristie said:

Indiana in August?  If you time it right you might catch the State Fair, totally worth visiting. Where is your friends farm?

That's cool. I'll take a look at when and where it is. It's in Covington.

 

11 hours ago, Ivy said:

Beautiful photo!  

Hope your wife is doing good from her surgery. 

 

Thanks. She's getting better. Being able to talk takes away a ton of frustration for her. Still in pain, which stinks.

5 hours ago, dblr....Rennie said:

Indiana in August, does that mean you MIGHT make the FROG Rally, sign up should be late this month, hint hint.

Ha! Yeah, we are talking about that now. I need to bounce around a bit- being in PA/MD for May & June and then in FL for the end of July and then maybe back to PA for September (OR- we'll get totally nuts and head to New Mexico for October which is what our original plan was). So, depending on the "choose your adventure path" that we take- I think I'll be able to swing through Indiana for the rally, visiting with my friend, and catching up with an Aunt of mine.

1 hour ago, fladogfan aka Gretchen said:

Good you guys are getting over the crud, hope you are enjoying your 3erd week!

Getting better. Still feel cruddy, but it's less bad crud.

[dblr....Rennie 224]

3 hours ago, ependydad...Doug said:

 

Ha! Yeah, we are talking about that now. I need to bounce around a bit- being in PA/MD for May & June and then in FL for the end of July and then maybe back to PA for September (OR- we'll get totally nuts and head to New Mexico for October which is what our original plan was). So, depending on the "choose your adventure path" that we take- I think I'll be able to swing through Indiana for the rally, visiting with my friend, and catching up with an Aunt of mine.

Great hope you can make it. Where in Pa do you plan to stay? May & early June we will be around and of course in September for the big Hershey show, trying to convince FROG the need a booth or at least at one of the manufactures to promote themselves.

[ependydad...Doug 176]

3 minutes ago, dblr....Rennie said:

Great hope you can make it. Where in Pa do you plan to stay? May & early June we will be around and of course in September for the big Hershey show, trying to convince FROG the need a booth or at least at one of the manufactures to promote themselves.

So far, I think I'm going to bounce around the Thousand Trails system - Gettysburg Farm (4/19-5/3), Circle M (5/3-5/17), Gettysburg Farm (5/17-5/31), Sea Pines (5/31-6/21), and then down into Maryland at Ramblin' Pines (6/21-7/5). I'm not sure where we'll head from there. I do know that for the last weekend the end of July, I need to be in Melbourne, FL.