Will hurricane Matthew impact the Fort or Disney?

[Travisma 1,317]

4 hours ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

It would be a real shame if someone didn't get photos of the flooded sites and other things that are being described in this thread.

TCD

Where's the illegal Drone Guy when you need him?

Some nice aerial videos of all the flooded sights would be interesting.

[fotofx....Steve 34]

I did not see the actual sites (pads) flooded. Just the low lying tree filled area around them. I did not go into the areas that were barricaded so I did not get photos and can not be sure.

[keith_h 420]

The news just announced I-95 is now open through NC.

[Duane 152]

20 hours ago, keith_h said:

The news just announced I-95 is now open through NC.

That's the news we wanted to hear!  Although our detour through Sanford, Aberdeen and Laurinburg was scenic and uneventful, I would much rather cruise home on the interstate!

[geoffdaddy 33]

Can't believe it's been over a month since this happened. Still a bit miffed that it messed up our vacation by three days. GRRR!!

 

Figured I'd give everyone the rest of the story. After we received the first notice, we dutifully complied and went to the front desk to update our particulars. There was a manager type, not a "Cast Member" as he was wearing a dark suit but still a Disney name tag. I presume the manager of the resort? Anyway, he told us that they would make their determination, likely in the morning or at least by noon on Wednesday what their plan was. On the way back to the camper, we looped over to an adjacent loop just to see what conditions were like (as there was already a bit of standing water in various parts of the campground by then) and ran into the CM stuffing camper doors with the notice. He told us, "yeah, if we close it, and I think we will, Disney's going to make good on it, don't worry. You can see what it looks like around here, and we've only had 2" of rain in the past week, imagine what it'd be like with a hurricane!"

We packed a bit to prepare to ditch in the morning if needed. Not completely breaking camp, but at this point it was all up in the air what the weather held in store. My wife's a meteorologist so we decided to play it cautious but optimistic, but be ready to leave quickly if we had to. 

The next morning we didn't hear or see anything, so we went on about our merry way. Went to Blizzard Beach in the morning at opening, and then over to Typhoon Lagoon to close it down about halfway through the day, as our main plans for the trip involved just doing the water parks for the most part. All the while we were there I waited for a text message, a call, something to indicate their plans. Nothing. Nada. We asked a cast member at Typhoon Lagoon at about 2pm "are you guys planning on being open tomorrow?" "As far as I know, we'll be open tomorrow." We got back to the campsite at around 4:45, and the place was fairly deserted... only about 5 campers left in our loop and again a note shoved in the door. It read essentially that we're shutting the campground Thursday at 11am and everyone needs to be gone by then, contact the front desk for different accommodations. Called up the front desk which by this time you can imagine was completely swamped with guests. They assigned us to stay at Pop Century for the night, so we broke camp and went over there... check in was a major pain by this point... we didn't get into our rooms until 9:30pm, and the magic bands wouldn't open the door, so we had to go back to the super busy check in desk to get them fixed. 

We stayed until about 5:45am Thursday morning and then hit the road. No traffic at all all the way up until we hit the Atlanta metro area. The overhead programmable gantry sign read "1 hour delay from Exits 101-121, seek alternate route." Not feeling like sitting in stand-still traffic for 20 miles for an hour, we complied with the sign and too a back-roads bypass around Atlanta and over to Cheaha State Park in Alabama on the way home. We checked just about every state park campground in georgia south of Atlanta and almost all were completely full or could only offer accommodation for one night unless you were hurricane refugees.We finally scored a couple nights over at Cheaha on the drive back and spent the rest of our trip there. It's no Disney, but it'll do. 

 

[Millermouseketeers MaryAnn 150]

What a shame! I am sorry it messed up your Fort time.

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[LONE-STAR 370]

4 hours ago, geoffdaddy said:

Can't believe it's been over a month since this happened. Still a bit miffed that it messed up our vacation by three days. GRRR!!

 

Figured I'd give everyone the rest of the story. After we received the first notice, we dutifully complied and went to the front desk to update our particulars. There was a manager type, not a "Cast Member" as he was wearing a dark suit but still a Disney name tag. I presume the manager of the resort? Anyway, he told us that they would make their determination, likely in the morning or at least by noon on Wednesday what their plan was. On the way back to the camper, we looped over to an adjacent loop just to see what conditions were like (as there was already a bit of standing water in various parts of the campground by then) and ran into the CM stuffing camper doors with the notice. He told us, "yeah, if we close it, and I think we will, Disney's going to make good on it, don't worry. You can see what it looks like around here, and we've only had 2" of rain in the past week, imagine what it'd be like with a hurricane!"

We packed a bit to prepare to ditch in the morning if needed. Not completely breaking camp, but at this point it was all up in the air what the weather held in store. My wife's a meteorologist so we decided to play it cautious but optimistic, but be ready to leave quickly if we had to. 

The next morning we didn't hear or see anything, so we went on about our merry way. Went to Blizzard Beach in the morning at opening, and then over to Typhoon Lagoon to close it down about halfway through the day, as our main plans for the trip involved just doing the water parks for the most part. All the while we were there I waited for a text message, a call, something to indicate their plans. Nothing. Nada. We asked a cast member at Typhoon Lagoon at about 2pm "are you guys planning on being open tomorrow?" "As far as I know, we'll be open tomorrow." We got back to the campsite at around 4:45, and the place was fairly deserted... only about 5 campers left in our loop and again a note shoved in the door. It read essentially that we're shutting the campground Thursday at 11am and everyone needs to be gone by then, contact the front desk for different accommodations. Called up the front desk which by this time you can imagine was completely swamped with guests. They assigned us to stay at Pop Century for the night, so we broke camp and went over there... check in was a major pain by this point... we didn't get into our rooms until 9:30pm, and the magic bands wouldn't open the door, so we had to go back to the super busy check in desk to get them fixed. 

We stayed until about 5:45am Thursday morning and then hit the road. No traffic at all all the way up until we hit the Atlanta metro area. The overhead programmable gantry sign read "1 hour delay from Exits 101-121, seek alternate route." Not feeling like sitting in stand-still traffic for 20 miles for an hour, we complied with the sign and too a back-roads bypass around Atlanta and over to Cheaha State Park in Alabama on the way home. We checked just about every state park campground in georgia south of Atlanta and almost all were completely full or could only offer accommodation for one night unless you were hurricane refugees.We finally scored a couple nights over at Cheaha on the drive back and spent the rest of our trip there. It's no Disney, but it'll do. 

 

Why didn't you just stay at the Pop longer?

[geoffdaddy 33]

Why didn't you just stay at the Pop longer?

Well, for one Pop Century is no Ft Wilderness. The room was fairly uncomfortable and only one nights accommodation was offered anyway. Plus at the time it appeared that Orlando was likely to get a direct hit and we didn't want to take a chance sticking around for it.

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[LONE-STAR 370]

10 minutes ago, geoffdaddy said:

Well, for one Pop Century is no Ft Wilderness. The room was fairly uncomfortable and only one nights accommodation was offered anyway. Plus at the time it appeared that Orlando was likely to get a direct hit and we didn't want to take a chance sticking around for it.

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I just wondere. We were supposed to check in at the Fort the Wednesday before Matthew. I called the Fort many times before we left and on the drive down.  They kept telling me were open come on down. Well when we were 30 minutes out a friend texted me the Fort closed. So I called the Fort and they said yes we are closed head north.

I told them North was not a option I needed a room and asked for WL, they took my cell phone number and said they would call me back.   Now that said before we left Texas the Fort assured me that while we were there if the hurricane did come they would have a room for us. So they called me back and said WL was full but we could pick from Pop, Port Orleans Riverside or French Quarter.  We took Riverside checked in Wednesday and then got to go to the Fort on Sunday. We could have stayed at Riverside the whole time if we wanted , but we wanted the Fort. Riverside was nice though no complaints just not the Fort. We were very happy to get to the Fort.

[geoffdaddy 33]

Well that sounds a bit more generous than we got. We hounded them calling several times and had a couple people tell us that they'd call us right back in a few minutes. An hour later we'd call back, rinse repeat. Not a lot of information was forthcoming about our options only that it was pop century and the only indication was for a single night. In our case we had nine people on our reservation and they set us up with three adjacent rooms as a result. In actuality two of the people on our reservation only stayed with us the first two nights and despite me telling them we had no need for a third room they gave it to us anyway. So I imagine them working off the assumption that we needed three rooms probably limited our options.

I guess in the end it really wasn't worth us hanging around.... Parks were closed part of Thursday and all of Friday, and the Fort didn't open back up until Sunday, and our original plan was to leave Saturday.

Sigh... in all honesty I felt like we should have refused to pay for the pop century as our room was hot and beds worn out, and we stayed a grand total of about 7 hrs there.

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[LONE-STAR 370]

22 hours ago, geoffdaddy said:

Well that sounds a bit more generous than we got. We hounded them calling several times and had a couple people tell us that they'd call us right back in a few minutes. An hour later we'd call back, rinse repeat. Not a lot of information was forthcoming about our options only that it was pop century and the only indication was for a single night. In our case we had nine people on our reservation and they set us up with three adjacent rooms as a result. In actuality two of the people on our reservation only stayed with us the first two nights and despite me telling them we had no need for a third room they gave it to us anyway. So I imagine them working off the assumption that we needed three rooms probably limited our options.

I guess in the end it really wasn't worth us hanging around.... Parks were closed part of Thursday and all of Friday, and the Fort didn't open back up until Sunday, and our original plan was to leave Saturday.

Sigh... in all honesty I felt like we should have refused to pay for the pop century as our room was hot and beds worn out, and we stayed a grand total of about 7 hrs there.

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I am sure the 9 people is what got you. I will say though Thursday was a great day in the parks. I am sure your next trip will be better. I know ours will be because it won't be hurricane season.