Let's Talk Turkey: TCD's 2016 Thanksgiving at the Fort Trip Report

[shoreline99 137]

Speaking of the Fort Xmas music, didn't you (or another fiend) mention the names of some of the albums they play in that music loop? I seem to recall seeing that posted here before, might have been in a trip report. I'd love to find some of those albums - it was awesome music to listen to, especially in the evenings at the pool.

[Helmsey......Todd 134]

52 minutes ago, DaveInTN said:

 And in cases where Mama ain't happy cause the crapper stinks, you can't put a price on her happiness.  

In this case you can....it's $15.99 plus tax 

And I'm pretty sure at some point in each of our 3 trips to the Fort I would have gladly paid their price for a beer. Luckily we have been prepared and have not needed to do that (yet).

[Memphis 105]

The prices at the TP are a community service action to teach preparedness which Disney no doubt is able to take some kind of a write off.  DAW  (Disney Always Wins) copyrighted credit to TCD  personally I don't mind Disney always winning.  I just hate that it is always a landslide victory.  

[caveat lector 181]

Excellent updates sir. As usual, your pics and oratory skills are above reproach.

I am Pro:

TCD TRs

TCDRMOG

Sentences like "I'm sitting here sipping coffee and watching birds"

Kenny Carts

Funny pics of over priced convenience items

The obligatory windmill picture (although didn't call out specific vegetation lineage this time)

[Littleolwoman.aka.Kristie 119]

It's fun how all these pictures evoke different emotions with all who follow along. They bring back memories of past trips, good or bad. 

The uhal invasion is interesting. I know a lot of campers will drag these boxes in with their Christmas decorations overflowing from them. I wonder if that was the case in this situation and they were waiting until after Thanksgiving to unload? 

BTW I still think "first page" bragging rights should be a thing. 

[sherryberry 35]

I'm here! I'm here! Enjoying every minute of this report and looking forward to seeing Rocky!

[wendinator 109]

9 hours ago, shoreline99 said:

Speaking of the Fort Xmas music, didn't you (or another fiend) mention the names of some of the albums they play in that music loop? I seem to recall seeing that posted here before, might have been in a trip report. I'd love to find some of those albums - it was awesome music to listen to, especially in the evenings at the pool.

I seemed to recall commenting on this previously and managed to find this old post:

On 1/11/2012 at 4:53 PM, wendinator said:

SoundHound thinks the song is from Country Mountain Christmas. I didn't have much luck searching under that album title, but did find this on iTunes which might be a winner. Listen to a preview of track #3. http://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/bluegrass-christmas/id157772484

Edit to add: hope my crazy Canadian link works for you. If not, search for "Bluegrass Christmas" or "Christmas Treasures Series & The Clarke Family"

 

On 1/11/2012 at 5:08 PM, Tri-Circle-D said:

Good Job!!!

If that Christmas Treasures Series and the Clarke Family isn't it, it is close enough for me.

It sure sounds like that is where this music came from.

Thanks!

TCD

[shoreline99 137]

Awesome! Thank you! I was pretty sure someone had posted that but couldn't find the link. 

[GaDawgFan.....Kelly 799]

I'm going to have to download that!

Great update. Now get cooking! Ha ha

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

21 hours ago, Momof6....aka Marty said:

The more time I have spent at FW, the more i enjoy these TR's.  Years ago, looking at these pictures would have been nice.  But now they remind me of the smells, the feeling of the air, the excitement of relaxing at the Fort.

77 days.  I think I can wait, but it is very hard.  Thanks for helping me remember why I love it so much.

I am glad that you "get it."  After all of my trips to the Fort, I still enjoy looking at photos and thinking about what it's like to actually be there.

I've said many times that there is no way that photos alone can do the Fort justice, there is so much more than just the pleasant views.

21 hours ago, DaveInTN said:

Those prices may seem high, but if you are halfway through cooking up hot dogs for lunch and your propane runs out....that's still cheaper than tossing the dogs and heading to Roaring Forks for lunch.  And if your black tank is stinking up the camper, I'd rather overpay for some chemicals at the trading post than have to leave the bubble and head to Wally World.  So yes, convenience is key.  And in cases where Mama ain't happy cause the crapper stinks, you can't put a price on her happiness.  

Very good points.

While I like to poke fun at the prices, I am very thankful that the Meadow Trading Post carries the supplies that it does.  I've bought several of the overpriced items there, including an occasional six pack or two, and was glad to have the things I needed there rather than having to leave the property to get them.

21 hours ago, shoreline99 said:

Speaking of the Fort Xmas music, didn't you (or another fiend) mention the names of some of the albums they play in that music loop? I seem to recall seeing that posted here before, might have been in a trip report. I'd love to find some of those albums - it was awesome music to listen to, especially in the evenings at the pool.

Props to Wedninator for answering this question for you!  I'm with you, I love to just sit there sometimes and listen to the music.

20 hours ago, Helmsey......Todd said:

In this case you can....it's $15.99 plus tax 

And I'm pretty sure at some point in each of our 3 trips to the Fort I would have gladly paid their price for a beer. Luckily we have been prepared and have not needed to do that (yet).

I got caught short on beer a couple of times when we had unexpected visitors, and it cost me dearly.  Now, I always carry extra.

19 hours ago, Memphis said:

The prices at the TP are a community service action to teach preparedness which Disney no doubt is able to take some kind of a write off.  DAW  (Disney Always Wins) copyrighted credit to TCD  personally I don't mind Disney always winning.  I just hate that it is always a landslide victory.  

So true!

17 hours ago, caveat lector said:

Excellent updates sir. As usual, your pics and oratory skills are above reproach.

I am Pro:

TCD TRs

TCDRMOG

Sentences like "I'm sitting here sipping coffee and watching birds"

Kenny Carts

Funny pics of over priced convenience items

The obligatory windmill picture (although didn't call out specific vegetation lineage this time)

I am pro all of those things too.

15 hours ago, Littleolwoman.aka.Kristie said:

It's fun how all these pictures evoke different emotions with all who follow along. They bring back memories of past trips, good or bad. 

The uhal invasion is interesting. I know a lot of campers will drag these boxes in with their Christmas decorations overflowing from them. I wonder if that was the case in this situation and they were waiting until after Thanksgiving to unload? 

BTW I still think "first page" bragging rights should be a thing. 

You are right about photos evoking emotions.  It's fun to look back at photos from trips and remember what it was like to be there.

Those people with the UHauls were only there for the weekend, and did not have any Christmas decorations that I could see.  What I did notice is that there sites seemed to have multiple tents and cars- they used the trailers to maximize the number of people they could fit in their cars.

15 hours ago, sherryberry said:

I'm here! I'm here! Enjoying every minute of this report and looking forward to seeing Rocky!

I am glad that you made it.

11 hours ago, wendinator said:

I seemed to recall commenting on this previously and managed to find this old post:

 

Excellent researching.

I knew we had discussed the Christmas music, but didn't realize it was in a previous TCD TR.

In addition to that information, fellow Fiend MetalDad gave me a CD with Fort Wilderness-ish Christmas music on it- it's one of my prized possessions.

10 hours ago, GaDawgFan.....Kelly said:

I'm going to have to download that!

Great update. Now get cooking! Ha ha

We are about to get cooking!

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Alright, let's get cooking.

We left off at the Meadow Trading Post, and I was headed back to the 1300 loop.

I took the long way home via the 1000 loop.

I appreciate people who don't skip Thanksgiving decorations and go right from Halloween to Christmas.  I liked this site's decorations:

One thing that's fun about the Fort is that you can be sure that you will see the latest and greatest of this year's Christmas inflatable decorations.  We saw a few of these Finding Dory inflatables around the Fort-I hadn't seen this anywhere before- I'll bet it's for sale at Lowe's or the Home Depot:

That one cracks me up- the only thing that makes it a Christmas decoration is the little ribbon and holly sprig around Dory's coffee pot.

Now we are back at the campsite.

I figured I'd take some photos to show the preparations being made, and follow up with some photos of the Thanksgiving spread before we dove in.

Here's something new I brought along for this trip- my Moscow Mule mugs.  I had never had a Moscow Mule until I stopped by the Territory Lounge with Twin #1 on a trip earlier this year.  Now, I have my own set of mugs, and I make a pretty good one. Since this is our first Thanksgiving with the twins being 21, I thought it might be fun for us to all have one later tonight:

The plan was to have the turkey in the cooker by 10:30 am.  I snapped this photo showing the meat thermometer reading at 10:32 am.  I was right on time:

Mrs. TCD sent us with a Thanksgiving tablecloth and various other decorations, and Twin #1 was up and helping with those:

There's the turkey cooker.  The turkey is in there cooking.  I started out with the lid on it, which I probably shouldn't have, but I wanted it to get off to a good start.  I loved the layout of this campsite- I was able to have the cooker set off in an area where no one would be walking by.  That's one of the twins' hammocks you see there in the background- we had a lot of space between us and the next site around the loop on this side of the site:

There's our Thanksgiving buffet table set-up.  I've used this table before- it's our official FSU beer pong table.  It is long and narrow, and makes a perfect table to set the food out on.  The only problem is that it's too long for one tablecloth, so I had to use two, oh well:

If you look at that table, you'll see a large crockpot, and next to it my little triple crock pot.  I had a batch of crockpot macaroni and cheese going in the big crock pot, and those cans you see on the table next to the triple crock pot will be heated up and put into that- I had corn and two kinds of gravy.  I would make up a pot of stove top stuffing a little later, and Mrs. TCD would be bringing pans of mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and other sides with her.  All of the preparation went smoothly, and we were right on schedule for our 1:30 pm meal time.

Then I heard my phone buzzing.

Someone was calling me.

No one calls me.

I expected a text from Mrs. TCD when she left home at around 11 am, and my older daughter would be sending me a text around the same time as she headed over from Winter Park.

So who was calling me?

It was DD1.

The instant I answered the phone, I could tell from the tone of her voice that something was wrong.

I hate calls like this.

I asked her if everything was OK, and held my breath to wait for the bad news.

She blurted it right out- she had just left her apartment to get in her car and head over, and she had a flat tire!

Crap.

I had stuff cooking.

Including that 16 pound turkey in the oil-less turkey fryer.

And she was 25 miles away with a flat tire.

On Thanksgiving morning.

But, in the scope of bad phone calls, this was not too bad.

One of the things that Mrs. TCD and I are emphatic about is paying for a AAA membership for each of our girls.

I asked DD1 if she had her AAA card.

She did.

I told her that I wanted her to call them and see what they said.  Hopefully, they could get someone to her to change the tire, and I wouldn't have to make a 50+ mile round trip drive, a lot of which would be on I-4.

I also asked her to text me a photo of the tire- I wondered if it was a nail or something else that caused the flat.  It was something else:

Yikes.

DD1 drives a VW Beetle, and to be honest, I didn't have the slightest idea what kind of spare tire set-up she had.

I got a call back from her in less than 10 minutes.

She had gotten right through to AAA, and they were going to send a man within the half hour!

Whew!

I got on the phone and called the Disney Car Care Center.  I learned while the twins were at Disney for their College Program that the Car Care Center is operated by a very good company that offers good service, including selling and installing tires.  They were open on Thanksgiving morning, and the fellow who answered the phone was able to give me a couple of options on new tires, and told me that he could try to get me in before they closed at 1 pm. I asked him if I could come in on Friday morning, and he said no problem, he could get me right in an out.  Sweet.

I heard back from DD1 not long after that, and the AAA guy was there.  She had a full sized spare tire, and he checked her other tires, and she was good to go.  Sweet.

That worked out surprisingly well.

I told DD1 to park in the overflow lot, and to let us know when she arrived.  She made pretty good time, and I headed out on the cart to meet her.  On the way there, I noticed that they had signs and portable lights set up in the field next to the unhitch area, and they were going to use that for overflow parking:

Mrs. TCD and Rocky arrived not long after that, and then things became a blur.

We were both busy heating and putting out food, getting the table set, and I had to carve the turkey.  I didn't have time to take photos.

The TCD DD's were taking photos and videos like crazy, and I figured I would snag some of their photos later to include in this TR.  But they have not appeared anywhere where I can snag them yet.

So, I have not photos of our spread, or meal.

At least for now.

But I will say that it all went spectacularly well.  The turkey was perfect, and we had a great meal together.

That was followed by a lazy afternoon of hammock time and looping.

Twin #2 had to leave for work at her job at Lilly Pulitzer at 3 pm.  They were open all day, and it was busy there.

She decided it would be best if she was dropped off at Disney Springs and then take the bus back later.  They make the help park across the street, and it's a long walk to work.  Twin #1 dropped Twin #2 off.

Rocky loves looping more than any of us.

The 1300 loop doesn't have a tetherball court, but when we were looping around the 900 loop, he spotted one, and practically jumped off the cart to get at it.  I know these photos aren't the best, but they're all I have.  Again, I know there are some videos, but I don't have them:

Rocky wore himself out between the looping and tetherballing.

The plan for the evening is that DD1 and Twin #1 were going to take Mrs. TCD on a resort tour to look at Christmas decorations.  I agreed to watch Rocky.  That's a huge win for me!  The girls headed off right after dark.  They took the Yellow bus from the 1600 loop bus stop all the way to Wilderness Lodge, then boated to the Contemporary, and monorailed from there to the Polynesian and Grand Floridian.  They had a great time, and even ran into a Photopass photographer at the Grand Floridian:

They took the monorail from the Grand Floridian and then took the boat from the MK back to the Fort.

Rocky and I picked them up at the walkway into the 100 loop.

We came back to the site, and I whipped up some Moscow Mules, but only Twin #1 wanted one.  Everyone else was too tired!

We had some hot cocoa, and enjoyed the evening.

Right before 11, we got a text from Twin #2 that she was on the bus back to the Fort.  We picked her up in the cart at the Outpost, and did some more looping, followed by another round of hot cocoa, and pie eating.

And that was our Thanksgiving Day at the Fort.

It ended up being perfect.

TCD

[Travisma 1,317]

7 minutes ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

Alright, let's get cooking.

We left off at the Meadow Trading Post, and I was headed back to the 1300 loop.

I took the long way home via the 1000 loop.

I appreciate people who don't skip Thanksgiving decorations and go right from Halloween to Christmas.  I liked this site's decorations:

One thing that's fun about the Fort is that you can be sure that you will see the latest and greatest of this year's Christmas inflatable decorations.  We saw a few of these Finding Dory inflatables around the Fort-I hadn't seen this anywhere before- I'll bet it's for sale at Lowe's or the Home Depot:

That one cracks me up- the only thing that makes it a Christmas decoration is the little ribbon and holly sprig around Dory's coffee pot.

Now we are back at the campsite.

I figured I'd take some photos to show the preparations being made, and follow up with some photos of the Thanksgiving spread before we dove in.

Here's something new I brought along for this trip- my Moscow Mule mugs.  I had never had a Moscow Mule until I stopped by the Territory Lounge with Twin #1 on a trip earlier this year.  Now, I have my own set of mugs, and I make a pretty good one. Since this is our first Thanksgiving with the twins being 21, I thought it might be fun for us to all have one later tonight:

The plan was to have the turkey in the cooker by 10:30 am.  I snapped this photo showing the meat thermometer reading at 10:32 am.  I was right on time:

Mrs. TCD sent us with a Thanksgiving tablecloth and various other decorations, and Twin #1 was up and helping with those:

There's the turkey cooker.  The turkey is in there cooking.  I started out with the lid on it, which I probably shouldn't have, but I wanted it to get off to a good start.  I loved the layout of this campsite- I was able to have the cooker set off in an area where no one would be walking by.  That's one of the twins' hammocks you see there in the background- we had a lot of space between us and the next site around the loop on this side of the site:

There's our Thanksgiving buffet table set-up.  I've used this table before- it's our official FSU beer pong table.  It is long and narrow, and makes a perfect table to set the food out on.  The only problem is that it's too long for one tablecloth, so I had to use two, oh well:

If you look at that table, you'll see a large crockpot, and next to it my little triple crock pot.  I had a batch of crockpot macaroni and cheese going in the big crock pot, and those cans you see on the table next to the triple crock pot will be heated up and put into that- I had corn and two kinds of gravy.  I would make up a pot of stove top stuffing a little later, and Mrs. TCD would be bringing pans of mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and other sides with her.  All of the preparation went smoothly, and we were right on schedule for our 1:30 pm meal time.

Then I heard my phone buzzing.

Someone was calling me.

No one calls me.

I expected a text from Mrs. TCD when she left home at around 11 am, and my older daughter would be sending me a text around the same time as she headed over from Winter Park.

So who was calling me?

It was DD1.

The instant I answered the phone, I could tell from the tone of her voice that something was wrong.

I hate calls like this.

I asked her if everything was OK, and held my breath to wait for the bad news.

She blurted it right out- she had just left her apartment to get in her car and head over, and she had a flat tire!

Crap.

I had stuff cooking.

Including that 16 pound turkey in the oil-less turkey fryer.

And she was 25 miles away with a flat tire.

On Thanksgiving morning.

But, in the scope of bad phone calls, this was not too bad.

One of the things that Mrs. TCD and I are emphatic about is paying for a AAA membership for each of our girls.

I asked DD1 if she had her AAA card.

She did.

I told her that I wanted her to call them and see what they said.  Hopefully, they could get someone to her to change the tire, and I wouldn't have to make a 50+ mile round trip drive, a lot of which would be on I-4.

I also asked her to text me a photo of the tire- I wondered if it was a nail or something else that caused the flat.  It was something else:

Yikes.

DD1 drives a VW Beetle, and to be honest, I didn't have the slightest idea what kind of spare tire set-up she had.

I got a call back from her in less than 10 minutes.

She had gotten right through to AAA, and they were going to send a man within the half hour!

Whew!

I got on the phone and called the Disney Car Care Center.  I learned while the twins were at Disney for their College Program that the Car Care Center is operated by a very good company that offers good service, including selling and installing tires.  They were open on Thanksgiving morning, and the fellow who answered the phone was able to give me a couple of options on new tires, and told me that he could try to get me in before they closed at 1 pm. I asked him if I could come in on Friday morning, and he said no problem, he could get me right in an out.  Sweet.

I heard back from DD1 not long after that, and the AAA guy was there.  She had a full sized spare tire, and he checked her other tires, and she was good to go.  Sweet.

That worked out surprisingly well.

I told DD1 to park in the overflow lot, and to let us know when she arrived.  She made pretty good time, and I headed out on the cart to meet her.  On the way there, I noticed that they had signs and portable lights set up in the field next to the unhitch area, and they were going to use that for overflow parking:

Mrs. TCD and Rocky arrived not long after that, and then things became a blur.

We were both busy heating and putting out food, getting the table set, and I had to carve the turkey.  I didn't have time to take photos.

The TCD DD's were taking photos and videos like crazy, and I figured I would snag some of their photos later to include in this TR.  But they have not appeared anywhere where I can snag them yet.

So, I have not photos of our spread, or meal.

At least for now.

But I will say that it all went spectacularly well.  The turkey was perfect, and we had a great meal together.

That was followed by a lazy afternoon of hammock time and looping.

Twin #2 had to leave for work at her job at Lilly Pulitzer at 3 pm.  They were open all day, and it was busy there.

She decided it would be best if she was dropped off at Disney Springs and then take the bus back later.  They make the help park across the street, and it's a long walk to work.  Twin #1 dropped Twin #2 off.

Rocky loves looping more than any of us.

The 1300 loop doesn't have a tetherball court, but when we were looping around the 900 loop, he spotted one, and practically jumped off the cart to get at it.  I know these photos aren't the best, but they're all I have.  Again, I know there are some videos, but I don't have them:

Rocky wore himself out between the looping and tetherballing.

The plan for the evening is that DD1 and Twin #1 were going to take Mrs. TCD on a resort tour to look at Christmas decorations.  I agreed to watch Rocky.  That's a huge win for me!  The girls headed off right after dark.  They took the Yellow bus from the 1600 loop bus stop all the way to Wilderness Lodge, then boated to the Contemporary, and monorailed from there to the Polynesian and Grand Floridian.  They had a great time, and even ran into a Photopass photographer at the Grand Floridian:

The took the monorail from the Grand Floridian and then took the boat from the MK back to the Fort.

Rocky and I picked them up at the walkway into the 100 loop.

We came back to the site, and I whipped up some Moscow Mules, but only Twin #1 wanted one.  Everyone else was too tired!

We had some hot cocoa, and enjoyed the evening.

Right before 11, we got a text from Twin #2 that she was on the bus back to the Fort.  We picked her up in the cart at the Outpost, and did some more looping, followed by another round of hot cocoa, and pie eating.

And that was our Thanksgiving Day at the Fort.

It ended up being perfect.

TCD

Sounds like a great time.

Good deal with AAA.

I'll have to catch the pictures later...

[GaDawgFan.....Kelly 799]

What an awesome Thanksgiving! That makes me really want to spend our next one at the Fort. That might be the only major holiday we haven't done yet.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Duane 152]

Either loop 1200 or 1300 is on my list to try next trip... It looks as though the sites in those 2 loops are some of the most private (at least the inside loops) with all of the vegetation.  What did you think about your site overall?

[DaveInTN 3,247]

That Big Easy looks great!  Whoever opened your eyes to that device is a GENIUS!  

[JMSisko 0]

Even with the flat it still sounds like you had a great Thanksgiving. Glad it all worked out.

I always look forward to your TR's

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Seals 111]

I'm a big fan of AAA. I've been a member for years and have only used it a couple of times, but 3 times in this past year. It's nice to have someone to call for help when there's no one close by to call.  I got my son a membership as soon he got a car. Love the photos of Rocky with his tetherball. We have a crazy hyper dog and now I'm thinking a tetherball pole is just what he needs for Christmas. 

[Helmsey......Todd 134]

Great looking site for a great meal!
I'm glad Rocky got some time with the tetherball.
And that is a fine picture of 3/4 of the TCD ladies. Hopefully there will be a chance later in the trip to get all 4 of them together.

[momof3kids-Yvonne 596]

Sounds like a great Thanksgiving day was had by the TCD family minus the flat tire if course. Glad to hear AAA was able to get out to your daughter relatively quickly on the holiday. This just reminded me that I need to renew our AAA membership.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[Littleolwoman.aka.Kristie 119]

We have the same mugs and greatly enjoy them. 

AAA is a must, agreed. We have only had one bad experience with using them.

[caveat lector 181]

Your beer pong table is too long for one table cloth. I think that qualifies as caviar problems

Pics of Rocky on the tether ball court......all is right in the world.

I've actually enjoyed a libation from a copper mug. however, it was jack Daniels based. it must be the new thing

[Travisma 1,317]

27 minutes ago, caveat lector said:

 

I've actually enjoyed a libation from a copper mug. however, it was jack Daniels based. it must be the new thing

My mom and dad had a couple of Moscow Mule copper mugs with an engraved mule in a kicking pose.  They were from the late 40's or mid 50's.  I'm pretty sure they got tossed during one of her moves or when we cleaned out her mobile home when she went to the nursing home.

So they are not new, just rediscovered by the "Millenials"

[DaveInTN 3,247]

Tell me about this Moscow Mule at Territory Lounge....

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

Sounds like a great Thanksgiving!  

[YJeepgirl32 3]

What a great way to spend Thanksgiving!!! What are Moscow Mules?