007 Returns to the Fort

[rtguy007 74]

So I was debating on doing a trip report but we are 2 days in and well, I got a lot going on already. Probably not a lot of pictures but a whole lot of interesting stuff.

So friday morning we pulled out of the driveway at 7:45am. We are just south of Columbus OH by about 30 minutes to give you an idea. We were playing the drive down by ear on where we would stop and rest. To my surprise, we drove all the way through with the exception of an hour stop at the florida welcome center so I could get an hour nap in. We crossed the florida state line at exactly midnight. The wife and I were chanting come on as we rolled through the state line as the clock rolled over. It was great timing.

With my hour nap over it was time to hit the road again. I wasnt really tired when we stopped but thought it was a good idea to stretch and recoupe. As we were pulling out of the welcome center the truck made this odd whining/grinding noise while getting up to speed. It happened for about 10 seconds and I didnt think much of it. Besides the truck was still running well. So no harm no foul. We rolled into the fort around 4:45 and pulled in to the check in bay and went into check in.

Now if you saw or followed my site number post, you would know we had some issues with our site. We were assigned 1216 originally but because we got in really early the check in lady offered to put us on 709 and let us get some sleep there. We declined to do that because we liked the location of 1216 to the full hookup loops bus station (since the orange busses are not running). So off to overflow we went waiting for our text with our site to vacate so we could move in. I got the wife and kids settled in the front room of the camper woth the fans on so they could finish sleeping. I rolled the windows down in the truck, hung my feet out the window like a redneck, and then fell asleep for a few hours. I am sure a few people drove by and looked to make sure I was not dead. A guy laying on the back seat of a truck in overflow with 2 feet hanging out the window with socks on doesnt raise any concerns at all. 

At 11 I got up and took the kids back to the meadows to get a mickey head ice cream sandwich. It was then that I had my second issue....yep the magic bands were not letting me charge to them. This was really odd as I had used the same band on 2 trips the past year with no issues. So I whipped out the credit card I had on file and got the kids some ice cream. Then back up front to talk to them about the bands and the site.

While on our way back up front we walked by the pool and the shelter houses. The freeloaders were just starting the grills and cooking burgers and a big can of baked beans on the grill. We walked over and tossed something in the trash can over there and the guy came over and gave my kids some ring pops. This was a great experience for both the kids and I. While I have heard complaints about the freeloaders I was glad to see they were sharing and very nice people. We thanked them and were on our way.

So when we checked in the lady said to check back around noon if we had not got our text. Since this lined up with a trip for the magic bands I figured I could kill 2 birds with one stone.  The outpost was packed and we were still mostly exhausted and we had some stuff that we had to do saturday. So we were grumpy but we didn't let it show. The check in guy was really nice and said well your site is ready. We have you in 709.....wait what? We were told 1216 and we would wait for it. Well apparently the lady in the morning commited us to 709 after we said we would wait. While we are not a fan of the 700 loop we asked if we could get 1216 since that is what we were supposed to get. At that point it had already been reissued so we were out of luck. He pulled up a list of open sites and said he could get us in 1300. He told me the list and I pulled up the site app. He made a joking comment about being one of those people from the forum (I assume this must be common among the fiends here). I laughed with him and said we would take 1333. This would come to haunt me. He said great, committed us, and said it would be ready shortly as they were just finishing cleaning that loop. Now as for the magic bands, that took a trip to the concierge.

So at the other end of the counter I got to talk to a nice guy. Explained the situation with our magic bands and he was wuick to start working on it. And I learned a few things. My issue, well it all started with making a reservation for myself and my sister for November of 2018. That screwed up something in the reservation system and unlinked us from our reservation....but not our bands (screwy right?). So while he worked on that he discovered issue number 2. We bought a season pass for my wife since the kids and I already had them from May. When we added her confirmation code for the fast passes that screwed up our generation 1 bands. And guess what the kids wanted to use....yep the custom generation 1 bands. So this is where things got interesting. I learned that it was possible to remove a band from a person if the person up front knows how to do it. And since I was now 2 people as well as my kids both showed as 2 people, he proceeded to remove the bands from our old record and add them to the new one. Then we found issue 3. The bands got corrupted and they had to call someone to merge them all into a single account the split them back out.

So after an hour up front we got things squared away and got a little unexpected pixie dust. While we were standing there and a nice lady came up and asked if we had just got there. She was getting ready to check out and board a bus for the airport. She said here is a bag of ponchos and suntan lotion spray. Its all new and never used. Here you go and have a good trip. So we got a bag with 9 ponchos and a brand new bottle of kids suntan lotion spray (spf 50 and water resistant for the pool). Who said complete strangers couldnt be nice at the fort.

As soon as we left the outpost the text came in.....your site is ready. Please proceed to 1333.

Jumped in the truck, pulled back to the site, unhooked, and setup. Took about an hour and we were good to go. Time for some disney...well almost. We had to get the wifes annual pass. Off to Disney Springs we went. Upon arrival we were able to get in and out in about 15 minutes with her new pass. We decided to eat at Paridiso 37. To food was good and the service was decent. We will return again as we all enjoyed the grub.

Around 5:00 we arrived back at the camper. We took showers, layed down, and at 6pm we were all asleep for the night.

I will leave it there for now. Next up, fun at the MK, cranky kids with a storm, and WTF just happened to the truck. Stay tuned.

[ftwildernessguy 778]

A first for FWG.  I am first onboard!

[dblr....Rennie 224]

Reading along also!!!!

[BigTom 76]

I  am reading along also

[alexwyattmommy 181]

Oh no, not the truck.

Reading along.

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

I'm in!!

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

I'm in.

You are the first to report that the Orange buses are not running.  Are they providing transportation to campers in the loops along the Orange bus route?

TCD

[caveat lector 181]

Greathe start!  Althought the truck problem foreshadowing has me a bit concerned.

 

[Travisma 1,317]

Even after all this time and onto the second generation of MB's they still have issues with programming them and linking. unlinking.

I think a lot of the CMs aren't trained properly in how they work, and ultimately end up making a worse mess when they try to "correct" something.

[Cortezcapt (Derek) 156]

I'm in! Uhoh the truck and site 1333 don't sound like they are going to have a good outcome.

[rtguy007 74]

2 hours ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

I'm in.

You are the first to report that the Orange buses are not running.  Are they providing transportation to campers in the loops along the Orange bus route?

TCD

The orange busses are down because the path is blocked and they cant turn the bus around anywhere. They have a few disney transport vans running around. I will get the details but I know the 900-1300 loops do not have direct access to the settlement right now. You have to ise the vans to get from the loop to the outpost and then catch a bus there to the settlement. I am assuming the back loops are similar but you catch a bus at the settlement to get to the outpost. I will try and snap a picture of the sogn here shortly.

On a side note, the transport vans cant move ECVs. Just in case anyone has or needs one. Hope this is fixed by November because my mom needs one and its already and inconvenience with normal operations. This just makes it worse. 

[keith_h 420]

There is a bus stop across the canal/field from the 1300 loop if you don't mind the walk over to and through the pool area. I don't remember what loop it is nor the line color but could see it when we are in site 1318. 

[Mrs.TN22 12]

reading along.

 

[rtguy007 74]

5 hours ago, keith_h said:

There is a bus stop across the canal/field from the 1300 loop if you don't mind the walk over to and through the pool area. I don't remember what loop it is nor the line color but could see it when we are in site 1318. 

I know the one your talking about. The next one down by the full hookup loops would have beena very short walk from 1216 but alas.....we didnt get that site. 

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

My hubby uses an ECV and just drives the ECV through the Fort to either Outpost, Marina, or Settlement Bus Stop

 

[rtguy007 74]

Ok moving on. Like a bad cheech and chong skit.....on the second day of our summer vacation we almost had to go downtown to look for a job.

So we woke up around 8am and it was great being able to get that kind of sleep. We got up and dressed then headed back to trails end. This was the first time we got to experience the no orange bus issue. The transport vans are running really wonky so the front premium loops  must jump transport 3 times in the campground to get to the settlement. Its a mess. So the transport guy drove us from 1300 to 600. We thanked him and got out. From there we walked down beside of the stink pit (whatever they are pumping smells and I suspect one of the lines is sewage). It didnt take to long for the kids to complain about the walk, their legs hurt, then they were hungry.

We got to trails end early and checked in for breakfast. 3 rounds through the buffet and two rounds of moonshine and we were all ready to go to the MK. We paid our bill and headed out. All was good and we were off. What a great start to the day.

Over at MK we got through security quickly. Kids  got to use the magic bands they were bugging me to use and we were in. The happiest place on earth. There was not a lot of excitement the first few rides. We hit up the jungle cruise, pirates, then big thunder. While on big thunder we started to hear big thunder and over the PA they came, we will be closing the ride at any time due to oncoming inclimate weather. While they continued to operate as long as they could, we were able to get through before the westher hit. The kids were happy. We then moved over to our first fastpass at splash mountain. We got through in record time. Our second fastpass was for big thunder but at this point it was looking bad. We gambled and cancelled the fastpass and hit the train station to try and run to the front. And as soon as the train showed up the ran hit and the train was stopped along with pretty much every ride in that corner of the park. It was about 2 and out dinner at Liberty Tree wasnt until almost 5. We decided to go ahead and eat. We were lucky to get our ressies moved to 2:30 and we took off in the rain to Liberty Tree. Remember those free ponchos? Apparently we didnt even though they were in my backpack. It wasnt raining hard so we didnt get soaked. The issue was that the rain combined with the kids being upset the rides they wanted to get on were shut down, things were not going well.

Liberty Tree was great and not crowded. We were in there for about an hour and a half. Food was excellent and that ooey gooey toffee dessert is fantastic. But the time had come to pay the bill and leave.

Lack of a nap was starting to take a toll on my daughter (shes 4). We headed over to SM for our next fastpass and experienced rider swap for the first time. My daughter was 2 inches to short to ride so we went ahead and did the rider swap. My wife and son rode while my daughter and I broswed the magic bands in the gift shop. I ended up getting a 45th tiki room band for my mom and a 45th train for myself. I normalky wouldnt buy these but trains were my favorite growing up and I had to have it. I was jonesing to see the special effects as well for the train as I couldnt find any youtube videos online. Well my bubble was burst pretty quickly.

After my wife got off SM with my son, I grabbed my rider swap pass and took him on again. When I used my new band at the FP station.....no special effects. I know this happens on some bands so I thought maybe I will check at the photo pass or front gate later. Well after getting off SM, again no special effects with this band. Now I am a little bummed. Last try was at the gate but that would be later.

Wemoved on to buzz which was our last fastpath. I did pretty well and the rest of the gang didnt do well at all (all scored less than 7500). After buzz I snagged a small world FP. We burned that and I snagged an ariel FP and used it as well. At this point it was time for what I call the rice crispy treat ride. Thats right....a trip to pickup 2 big mickey head rice crispy treats and then to the boat to eat them on they way back to the fort.

So on the way out I told the wife I would meet her at the dock and she toom the kids. I had to try the band again at the gate. I walked up, hit the reader, and ding ding.....a green circle and the lady said welcome to the MK. Now I was bummed. It doesnt appear that the limited edition 45th train band has any special effects. Oh well I still like the band. But I was really liking the boat which I could see pulling into the dock so off I went to partake in the rice crispy treat ride.

So back to the fort. I was dreading the trip to the store. I really hate that walmart over on 27 (i think that was the road). However last time down we found the one on turkey lake and it was much better. So instead of getting cleaned up we decided to be tourist and smelling really bad and covered in sweat, sunscreen, and dried up rainwater, we made our way to walmart.

we grabbed the essentials. Water, lunch meat, bread, apples, bananas, water, and beer. Yep beer is an essential for my wife. Me not so much. I was recently put back on anxiety meds and they said no alcohol while on them. Since I battle with OCD and ADD as well, things can get interesting and alcohol makes it worse. Its bad when all 3 issus are fighting each other (which is when I could really use a nice round of rum and coke or rum jumbee and lemonade). I digress.

So with groceries in tow, stinky family, and some cranky kids, we started back to the fort around 8. Then that is when all hell broke lose in my mind (you know the anxiety, OCD, and ADD). We had just pulled into tbe fort and was coming around the hitch up pull off when all of a sudden the truck lost power steering. WTF just happened. I went from about 20% to 80% on the anxiety scale. Well turning that cummins with no power steering on that nice graceful curve was an issue. The wheel was stuck in the turn and almost didnt turn back. I got it to straighten out and was able to stop up at the stop sign. So here I am, almost at the campsite with no power steering. I let off the brake and idle up to 1300, pulling on the wheel with everything I have and the pulled hard the other direction to get it i to the loop instead of in the trees between 1200 and 1300. It was rough. Right when I thought I had control to get to 1333, yes all the way around the one way, I discovered another issue. No power brakes. My 80% went to about 130% and I was freaking out that I was goong to run i to somebodies camper or worse, the other campers or theor kids. I was still ii g and flipping back and forth between drive and neutral while trying to pull on the wheel as hard as possible just to make the turns and not get going to quick. I safely made it back to the site and got it parked. The next part was figuring out what happened.

Now my anxiety was through the roof and my OCD was kicking in. I had to figure out what happened and how to get it fixed. The week before we left I had it in the dealer for a full checkup and an alignment and had a clean bill of health. What could have happened and what was that smell.....it was familiar. That was antifreeze. Low and behold under the truck was a nice steady stream of antifreeze draining out of the truck. And looking back around the loop, the teuck had been marking its territory as we struggled to get it back to the site.

So here we are, 1000 miles from home with a 2 year old truck with 60k miles on it and it is what I call no more worky worky. I jumped on the bike and headed up to the front to see if they could help me locate a towing company. There was no way that beast was moving. While the lady at the concierge desk was nice and tried to help, she was  not much help at all. She provided a list of repair shops but they didnt have a list of towing companies.

I headed back to the site and buzzed my mom to let her know what was going on. Thats when she reminded me that our insurance had roadside assistance and I had forgotten about that. I called up the hotline and got in touch with a nice lady who took my information and told me that I would have a text shortly about an ETA for the tow truck. And shortly was right. Text came 5 minutes later, they would be there at 10:40pm to pickup the truck. Well thats what the text said. At 10:40 she called to see if they had shown up yet and I told her not yet. She called up the local company and ended up finding out that their available trucks couldnt tow my 2500. They needed a bigger flatbed. So an hour later she calls back to inform me that the towing company was reassigned to another company and they would be at the fort at 1am. Yes in the middle of the night. She also told me they would tow it to my choice of 2 RAM dealerships. I went with Napleton of Orlando about 10 to 15 miles away.

At 1am exactly the truck shows up at my site. I am sure the neighbors were happy. He had it loaded up and out of here in about 10 minutes. Now the OCD went away and the anxiety was up  to 200%. What was this going to cost, how long was it going to take, are they going to have the same issue like at hime where they have limited amount of diesel mechanics and repairs take over a week at times. I had to calm myself down. Thats when I realized that I was stranded...at the happiest place on earth, with season passes, and some of the best food around, and with my family. And the best part.....I have an extended protection plan through chrysler to cover almost every part of the truck up to 100k miles. And it has some interesting perks.

So at 2:30am I finally fell asleep but not for long......

Stay tuned for the next installment of 007s return to the fort. Will their be more truck issues? Will the kids send me to the looney bin? You will have to wait and see.

 

[rtguy007 74]

And before I forget....I am officially starting the notification. Site 1333 is cursed. When we were down last August in 1325 we saw a guy have his class a towed in as it was having issues similar to my truck. No steering and no brakes. It was an older class a and I didnt think much at the time. I did snap a few pics I will try and find to post but it was a sight to see and confusing at the same time. Here we are one year later in the same site with similar issues.

You have been warned. 1333 in mid august carries a curse. And it could be costly.

[keith_h 420]

1 hour ago, rtguy007 said:

And before I forget....I am officially starting the notification. Site 1333 is cursed. When we were down last August in 1325 we saw a guy have his class a towed in as it was having issues similar to my truck. No steering and no brakes. It was an older class a and I didnt think much at the time. I did snap a few pics I will try and find to post but it was a sight to see and confusing at the same time. Here we are one year later in the same site with similar issues.

You have been warned. 1333 in mid august carries a curse. And it could be costly.

Nice to know. If we can't get our preferred site in 1300 I'll make sure to tell them I have it on good advice, NOT 1333.

[alexwyattmommy 181]

Not supposed to laugh, but I giggled out loud at the marking its territory part. Very glad you all got back the site safely.

[h2odivers...Ray 952]

That's incredible that y'all drove straight through from Ohio.  

We

love rainy days at the parks.  

Holy shoot!   I hope it wasn't anything major with the truck   

 

[LONE-STAR 370]

Well I'm guessing you lost your water pump when I bought my 2016 Ram the mechanic told me the only problem I would ever  possibly have would be the water pump he said the 13, 14, and 15 had a issue with them but he said in the 16s he hadn't seen to be an issue. I have 18,000 on mine so far so good. When we stayed 1300 loop back in 2015 my parents van lost its water pump it got towed out also cost me $1,100.00 

[caveat lector 181]

Wow, that is a bummer about your truck. Thanks for sharing the narrative.

I always leave house assuming a breakdown. I guess it's a eastern philosophical bent. I have the requisite phone numbers and alternate plans. My truck is over 6 years old, so the assumption grows stronger. :)

[Littleolwoman.aka.Kristie 119]

Oh man does this TR bring back memories of our epic trip down to the Fort with our blue van spilling transmission fluid everywhere. 

[rtguy007 74]

Welcome back to the third day of what seems to be turning out to be the worst vacation I have taken. Well other than the one I dont really want to talk about.

So first thing monday morning I woke up at 7. If you remember I didnt get to sleep until 2:30am so you could imagine I was cranky. I took a quick trip to the bath house to get cleaned up and going for the day. At 7:30 I was on the phone with the dealership about the truck.

Talking to the dealership seemed to go well. A wuick discussion with the service writer had my nerves calmed and I felt better about the situation. He said that he woukd get it on a lift and call me back in a few hours. Since we didnt know exactly at this point what was going on, we decided to cancel our morning trip to HS and just stick around the campground.

While we waited for a call, my wife did some laundry, the kids watched some tv, and I tried to get some extra sleep. Around noon I got up and we had not heard from the dealer. At this point we decided to cancel the afternoon trip to blizzard beach and head over to disney springs for lunch and to hit a few stores.

On a side note, I love that Disney is putting out  new DuckTales shows. It was a great show when I was a kid and now the kids are excited about it. They watched the first episode while I was getting extra sleep. They said it was awesome.

Anywho, lunch was at Planet Hollywood. We ate here back in May and the kids wanted to go back. Hopeful that the food and service was going to be better we took the chance and walked in. Long story short, the service was still crappy and the food was just as before.....lacking in flavor. The burgers were just grease patties and my wifes salad looked ok but it is hard to screw up a salad. The only thing that was really good was the fries.

After leaving we headed down to the co op to look around. We stopped along the way and saw the 30k darth vader in arribas bros. Took a wuick stroll through world of disney then the lego store. The kids wanted to get their one toy from the lego store so my son got a small star wars kit and my daughter got a small moana kit. They were happy. Last stop was the under armour store. I needed to pickup a few things with a gift card I found 2 days before we left. Forgot my wife got me a $100 gift card for xmas  while we were in house transition 2 years ago.

At this point it was almost 3 and still no call from the dealer. I went ahead and buzzed them to try and get some info on what was going on. To my surprise, there was no answer at all. Not in sales, parts, or service. I was starting to wonder if I got the crappy dealer of the two that I was offered. I left a message on the service line expecting a call back.....it never came.

We hopped the bus back to the fort and decided to go for a bike ride. While getting the bikes ready I realized it was around 5. I decided to call the dealer again and finally got someone on the phone. They told me that they did get the truck on a lift and the water pump threw its bearing out and it was cracked off the front of the block. The serpentine belt was also toast due to the truck continuing to run after it came off the water pump. Said they had to order in both parts and it would be ready Tuesday.

With that news we took off for about an hour bike ride around the loops. One thing I underestimated was the humidity on this ride. We were all sweating bad and smelled like pigs by the time we were done. Of course we were pretty much ran down for the day and I was still not fully recovered from the lack of sleep. We decided to turn in for the night at this point. We all got baths and were in bed by 9:30. We had a surprise for the kids the next morning so there was no wind down movie tonight.

Stay turned for tuesdays update tomorrow. Same disney time, same disney channel.

[LONE-STAR 370]

What year is your Ram I can't remember ?