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Twenty One!: The TCD Twins' 21st Birthday Jamboree at the Fort

Tri-Circle-D

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Twenty One.

Do you remember when you turned 21?

It was a long time ago for me, and frankly, I don't.  Back in my day, the legal drinking age was 18, and there wasn't anything particularly significant about turning 21.

But, time are different now, and May 28th was the TCD twins' 21st birthday.

Being pretty good parents, Mrs. TCD and I offered to provide some type of birthday celebration, within reason.  We figured they might like to go out to a fancy restaurant, or maybe have a weekend at the beach, or something like that.

The girls' birthday fell on a Saturday night, and of all things, they asked if they could celebrate their birthday at the Hoop Dee Doo Musical Revue.

That was a proud moment for me, let me tell you.

So, I called and made us reservations, and forked over the money for the entire TCD gang and a few friends that the girls planned to invite.

Next, we had to decide on accommodations.  The girls wanted to invite some friends along for the weekend, and it became apparent that we would need more beds than the TCD pop-up could provide.  So, we decided to go big and reserve both a cabin and a campsite.

Wow.

Now you know the general plan.  It might sound pretty simple, but it wasn't, as we had kids flying in from out of town, and work and school schedules to work around.

You'll hear all about that as we go along.  For now, let's get this Trip Report started.

As you probably know, it was no easy feat getting reservations at the Fort for Memorial Day weekend.

Twin #2 is a CM, and is able to book cabins and campsites at a discount, but there are restrictions.  She could get the discount with a Thursday arrival, but not a Friday arrival.  It ended up being worth it to book the Thursday arrival.  She was able to get the campsite with a Friday arrival, but only a partial site came up as available.  Ideally, it would have been nice to be on a preferred site, but nothing was coming up.  At the time we were making these plans, we still believed that there would be another 24 Hour special event at the MK on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, so the Thursday arrival could have been useful for that.  Of course, we now know that there was no 24 Hour special event this year.  But, the Thursday arrival was still useful, so we left it.

Twin #1 is enrolled in the summer semester at UF, but most of her classes are on-line, so she has been home a lot.  For this weekend, it worked out that she could ride over to the Fort with me and the camper.  The plan was to meet Twin #2 at the Reception Outpost at the Fort to check in at around noon on Thursday, May 26th.  Twin #2 had classes at UCF that morning, and planned to drive over after class.

It was a bright, sunny morning, and Twin #1 and I arrived right on schedule.  Here we are approaching the MK parking booths at 11:48 am on May 26th:

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And, here we are parked in the overflow lot at 11:56 am:

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Since we were cabin people for this first reservation, we headed inside to check-in, which I never do.  Too bad, because I love the Reception Outpost:

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I actually had been by the Reception Outpost just a few weeks earlier.  I had a special request for the cabin, and wanted to speak to someone at the Front Desk in person about it.  I did.  The CM with whom I spoke told me that my best bet was to call the number on the front of the Fort Wilderness map and ask to speak to the site assigner.  I asked if I could speak to that person today, and the CM told me that the CM in charge of that were not there.  When I got home, a few days later, I called the number as instructed, and spoke first to a CM in a call center who first told me that she was at the Front Desk at the Fort.  After some prodding, she admitted that she was not actually at the Fort, and she did put my call through to the site assigner.  I spoke to an awesome CM, and he told me that he couldn't guarantee anything, but the chances were good that they could accommodate my request.  While I was at it, I also asked if he could put me down for the 1500 loop for my campsite reservation. He asked which site, and I told him it didn't matter- any would be fine, as long as I didn't have to be on the 2000 loop.  He said that shouldn't be a problem either.

We were pleased to find out at check in that our cabin request had been honored.  But, housekeeping hadn't released the cabin yet, so I had to provide a text number and wait to be texted.  The girls decided to head off to lunch, and I headed off to take care of the next order of business.

Another detail I had to work out ahead of time was golf carts.  With a bunch of guests and a cabin and a campsite, I figured we would need a couple of golf carts and that my best bet under the circumstances would be Tee Time. I arranged an off-site pick up at 1 pm, and made it there right on time.  While this isn't an awful process, it took me a good hour to pick up the carts, get them to the Fort and unloaded, and get the truck and trailer back to the off-site location.  While I was doing this, I got the text from the front desk that our cabin was ready, and the girls headed there, and then I did too.

I think that there is just one loop of cabins that have not been refurbished.  The one we got was a refurbished one, and this was the first time any of us had seen a refurbished cabin in person.  Where the Murphy bed used to be is now a 55" TV:

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We had already brought some of the party decorations into the cabin before I took these photos-Mrs. TCD made these flower arrangements- one was to go outside on the picnic table, but we started out with both of them inside:

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Here's a look at the new kitchen- that big blender you see there on the counter is my frozen drink maker, which only gets broken out on rare occasion.  Next to it you can see a bottle of Captain Morgan's and a bottle of Blackberry Brandy.  If you're a true Fiend, you know what those are there for.  Over on the left are the pans of Rice Krispie Treats and Brownies that Mrs. TCD fixed for the twins and their guests:

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I brought a cooler that I thought I would keep out on the porch, but it fit nicely in the space next to the couch, so we started out with it inside- the theme for the weekend was a Country Bears/Hoop Dee Doo/Western theme, so this cooler fit in with that fine.  That blue bucket is there in case of any drips, but there was no ice or drinks in the cooler yet:

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After we got our gear squared away in the cabin- it was time to loop.

We headed out to the 2100 loop first, and the gate that was installed in front of the loop was open.  Presumably, there were still workers in there.  I was able to pull in a bit and snap some photos:

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There wasn't much new to see from the front of the loop- but there's no question that this loop is being returned to a camping loop.  It was 3:46 pm on Thursday afternoon when I snapped those photos, and nobody seemed to be working very hard in there.  They don't seem to be in any kind of hurry to complete this project.

From 2100, we headed on to the 2000 loop.  There is always something interesting to see there, and sure enough, we saw this fellow with a window AC in his VW camping van.  Nicely done:

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We did some more looping, around the 600 loop,  and nearly got T-boned by a golf cart shooting off of a campsite there.  Of course, it was being driven by a kid who was barely tall enough to see over the steering wheel.  You can see him speeding off into the 700 loop here- note that his head is barely above the headrest:

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I am not sure if they even have a hand out with golf cart rules on it.  We didn't get one when we checked in for this trip, nor did we get one on our previous trip.  Maybe 8 year olds are allowed to drive golf carts now?

We then looped around the 800 loop, which is one of my favorite loops. There is usually something interesting to see there, too.

We spotted a familiar sign on one of the sites:

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We have seen these folks camped on the 800 loop on several previous trips.  We love their pet names.  Take a closer look:

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Very clever.

And funny.

Just a few sites down, these folks had some nice Star Wars decorations:

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Take a look at those Storm Troopers- what the Fort is going on here?

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They had an R2 unit guarding the trailer door:

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The poor Del Rio family, with their plain dog names were just down the loop from the Captain Gizmo folks:

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Check out these fancy Mickey lamps:

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In that last photo, you can see that those folks had a sign at the front of their site advertising some website.  These plywood cutouts had something to do with that, but I was too frightened about what I might see to look at the actual website:

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I could understand this site with the dog skeletons if we were close to Halloween, but we weren't, so I'm not sure what is happening here:

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Here are some Ohio State fans:

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The first site on the 700 loop had the same campers on it that were here when we were last at the Fort in April- I guess it's easier to leave the motorhome parked than have to move all of those stuffed animals from the windshield:

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Here's a shot of the exterior of our cabin- taken from the path to the marina- we don't have the outside decorations up yet, but we will be getting to that:

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We had to head back to the cabin, because Twin #2 had somewhere to be.  She is now a double part-time Disney CM.  In addition to taking a full load of college classes, she is a part time attractions CM at the MK, and just was hired part-time for the Lilly Pulitzer store in Disney Springs.  The store had just opened that week, and Twin #2 didn't want to rock the boat by asking for time off.  She had to work that night for Lilly, and would also have to work a shift at the MK on her birthday morning.  But, the rest of the time she had off.  So she headed off to work, and Twin #1 and I were left behind.

Our plan for that evening was to hit the Territory Lounge at the Lodge, and then make our way to Disney Springs to meet-up with some of the twins' friends, and to visit Twin #2 at work.

We just walked over to the Settlement Bus Stop from our cabin.  This family was sitting there waiting for a bus, and all of them were busy on their phones.  I thought that would make a good photo, but a couple of them stopped before I took this shot:

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We were heading to the Territory Lounge because Twin #1 had stopped in there not too long ago for the cheese fondue, and said it was awesome.  That sounded good to me.  I have popped my head in to this lounge before, but this was my first time actually being seated here.  It was bigger than I thought it was, and I loved the vibe:

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I have never had a Moscow Mule, and always intended to try one some day.  Today ended up being the day:

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That wooden arrow is a cool touch:

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Twin #1 was still two days shy of being legal, so she had to have a coke.

But our waitress was kind enough to bring her her own wooden arrow.

Twin #1 was right about the cheese fondue- it was good, and comes with a nice supply of pretzel rolls and grapes:

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From here, the plan was to take a bus to Disney Springs.  I had just done that a couple of weeks earlier, and it took forever, so I wasn't thrilled about that plan.  But, we heard rumors that the new bus stops were open at Disney Springs, and I thought it was worth a try.

The Lodge shares with the Contemporary for Disney Springs- so we had to head there first before heading back toward our destination.  Along the way, I noticed that they are building a big berm along the road by the new construction at the Lodge.  I presume this berm is to shield those $3000 an night cabins from the road:

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I think this is a good place to stop.  We will be arriving at Disney Springs next, and you will find out if the TCD gang earned First Fiends Dropped off at the New Disney Springs Bus Stop Bragging Rights.

And first page bragging rights are officially up for grabs.

TCD

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Tri-Circle-D

I need to post this last batch of photos so I can be done with this TR, as I'll have another one to start next week. And, I still need to take that trip. Heck, I still need to pack for that

Travisma

So is it just the 1500 and 2000 loops where Disney allows it to be like the lawless old west where anything goes? Are us lowlife tent/PUP owners $$ not as good as the TT and the rolling mansion R

Beckers

Shall we call you Dory?

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blm2003

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I'm in, and on page one even!!! This never happens.

Happy Birthday to the Twins! 
I have to say, I really like the look of the refurbished cabins. I'd still rather be in the camper, but those are nice looking. 

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