We’re Done

[Starbuc71 162]

3 minutes ago, twiceblessed....nacole said:

Famous last words... 

No trailer, no camping...enough said

[Breezy2 18]

On 3/17/2019 at 9:17 PM, Starbuc71 said:

You can get sites we can’t. That’s a big difference

Agree with Jason. When the announcement was made we booked a partial site at a Florida Resident rate (under $100) for the first week in October. At that time there were plenty of sites available for all of September thru the middle of October. The announcement didn't have the immediate impact we thought it was going to. That said, we are fortunate we can avoid The Fort on the weekend so it could be just weekdays that are available. 

[Starbuc71 162]

33 minutes ago, Breezy2 said:

Agree with Jason. When the announcement was made we booked a partial site at a Florida Resident rate (under $100) for the first week in October. At that time there were plenty of sites available for all of September thru the middle of October. The announcement didn't have the immediate impact we thought it was going to. That said, we are fortunate we can avoid The Fort on the weekend so it could be just weekdays that are available. 

You are probably right. We are one of those pesky locals who used to clog up the fort on the weekends with a weekend trip. We work so during the week is out. At least there will be one less local family taking up a weekend reservation now..lol

[Travisma 1,317]

Not to be snarky and not being judgmental, but how do Fiend non retirees, have the time and $$ to visit the Fort multiple times during the year for more than a week at a time?

Have you saved vacation time from previous years so you can take more time off in one year?

Do you work from home?

Do you own your own business and have reliable employees that take care of the business while you are away?

I see the same thing on other Disney camping site... "we have 4 three week vacations to the Fort planned this year!"

Just being nosy.

 

[djsamuel 322]

12 minutes ago, Travisma said:

Not to be snarky and not being judgmental, but how do Fiend non retirees, have the time and $$ to visit the Fort multiple times during the year for more than a week at a time?

Have you saved vacation time from previous years so you can take more time off in one year?

Do you work from home?

Do you own your own business and have reliable employees that take care of the business while you are away?

I see the same thing on other Disney camping site... "we have 4 three week vacations to the Fort planned this year!"

Just being nosy.

 

The only way we can do it is because my wife is retired from Disney.  I am not retired yet, still 2.5 years to go.  If we can get her discount we go, otherwise we don't.  We used to go about 8 times a year (both before and after her retirement), but now we've lowered it to three times a year, but made the trips a bit longer.  Still, the total number of days is way down.  Some of the trips, I will drive to work from the campground and she enjoys the day at the campground or in a park.

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

2 hours ago, Travisma said:

Not to be snarky and not being judgmental, but how do Fiend non retirees, have the time and $$ to visit the Fort multiple times during the year for more than a week at a time?

Have you saved vacation time from previous years so you can take more time off in one year?

Do you work from home?

For us Disney has been our one big annual vacation for the past 14+ years. We were able to do 2-3+ weeks at a time because DH could use all his vaca time in one chunk (he worked there 20+ years so he had almost 4 weeks per year) and I work from home, or wherever I bring the laptop.

Budget-wise we've haven't found another vacation that interested us (yet) that we could afford for even a week that's comparable to what we pay to camp at the Fort for 3 weeks - even as the rates have gone up.  A big part of that has been planning out trips to be able to use annual passes for 2 years' trips so we're only buying park tickets every other year.

Plus having that annual pass in my pocket has given me the ability to find excuses to "drop by" for a quick trip with family/friends every so often.  (see "that one time my SIL and I drove 40 hours to spend 24 hours in MK" LOL!)

 

[fladogfan aka Gretchen 259]

I remember that!

 

[YENSIDCAMPER 66]

We have in the past bought annual passes.  We went late one summer for 9 days,  then went at Thanksgiving for 9 days,  Spring Break for 9 days, and the next summer early in the summer for 2 weeks.  This spread my wife's and I vacation time out over two years and the kids time was already off from school.  By taking advantage of the AP as gifts for the kids and eating at the site a lot, we were able to keep our costs down.  We also had a pop up and the site rate in 2011 and 2012 was around or under $50 a night.  Now that we have a MH the costs to stay are much worse.  We could however probably pull it off.  We are considering giving the kids AP for Christmas this year and doing the same thing.  I now get much more vacation time due to my years experience at work.

[Starbuc71 162]

9 hours ago, Travisma said:

Not to be snarky and not being judgmental, but how do Fiend non retirees, have the time and $$ to visit the Fort multiple times during the year for more than a week at a time?

Have you saved vacation time from previous years so you can take more time off in one year?

Do you work from home?

Do you own your own business and have reliable employees that take care of the business while you are away?

I see the same thing on other Disney camping site... "we have 4 three week vacations to the Fort planned this year!"

Just being nosy.

 

This is how this thread started.  Us, being local, used to be able to do 1 week a year (spring break) and usually 5 days at thanksgiving.  We would get maybe 2 or 3 long weekend trips (3 day, 2 nights) back when availability was there. Now with the price and the availability issue.. we’re done.  Back where this thread started. 

[ThemeParkCommando 81]

14 hours ago, Starbuc71 said:

This is how this thread started.  Us, being local, used to be able to do 1 week a year (spring break) and usually 5 days at thanksgiving.  We would get maybe 2 or 3 long weekend trips (3 day, 2 nights) back when availability was there. Now with the price and the availability issue.. we’re done.  Back where this thread started. 

Full circle!  It does look like the campground now has a three night minimum over the weekends.  I was able to get just about any date in September, as long as my reservation had 3 or more nights on it.   Looking for 2 nights, Fri/Sat or Sat/Sun,  was a no-go.   Thu-Sat or Fri-Sun worked just fine.  It would be nice if Disney's website explained about minimum stays. 

 

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

We've also cut our trips way back, but for us it was just the massive amount of hours I work, and when I finish a project, I could take a few days off without using leave. I was at my old job for almost 20 years, so was earning 4 weeks a year, and with the massive amount of hours worked, even when I had planned time off, I had to use very little leave due to deferred holidays, and part of the time having spare hours. For example, for one 17 day trip we took, we started the trip on a Wednesday, and I didn't need to use leave for the 3 days, because I was already over 80 hours for the pay period, then I had 5 deferred holidays for the next week, then I did use 5 days for the third week. 

[ImDownWithDisney 342]

On ‎3‎/‎19‎/‎2019 at 8:47 AM, Travisma said:

Not to be snarky and not being judgmental, but how do Fiend non retirees, have the time and $$ to visit the Fort multiple times during the year for more than a week at a time?

Have you saved vacation time from previous years so you can take more time off in one year?

Do you work from home?

Do you own your own business and have reliable employees that take care of the business while you are away?

I see the same thing on other Disney camping site... "we have 4 three week vacations to the Fort planned this year!"

Just being nosy.

 

I'm lucky that my company offers generous vacation time. I typically have 5 to 6 weeks a year available. Also I have to work every 4th weekend. That gives me 2 days off the following week. So I can take 3 days and be off for 5. I try to always schedule a work weekend before vacation to cut down on time. Now that my wife is working again we are constrained by her time off. For example the kids and I check in on Saturday, but she is flying down Tuesday night. I also own a fabrication business. It takes up nearly all of my free time, but I have my father working with me so he looks after things when I am gone.

We also like to do short trips at times too. We've done 2 long weekend trips so far this year.

On the $ side we are fortunate to have some disposable income, and I don't mind spending it on memories while my kids are young. We buy AP's to help on park fees, but honestly we probably spend more as a result of AP's lol.

[keith_h 420]

When I still worked I would get 5 weeks vacation, 5 fixed holidays and 7 optional holidays. Between these I could take a couple of long breaks a year. I was also a remote, work from home employee for about half my career and other than needing to be at certain meetings set my own schedule. We would frequently take trips that included work days built around the day's activity schedule or I would stay at the hotel and work while the family went out to play. It also helped that our kids were in multi-track year round up until high school so we had a number of long school breaks throughout the year.

[the_Meirkat 5]

Fort Wilderness site prices are steep.  No doubt about.  Accountant Hubby chafes at paying so much "for a parking spot" but because he is married to a certified Disney nut, he puts up with it for our once a year trips.  This year, we are spending the last week of April at the Fort and will probably only go into the Parks a day or two.  

We are headed to D23 in Anaheim in August.  I have already started managing expectations for Star Wars at Disneyland.  I am thinking it will still be too crazy to be anywhere near the Parks at the end of August.  

[Starbuc71 162]

Unfortunately, I work 60 hours a week and don’t make enough money to enjoy the fort like we used to.  I know times have changed but it seems to me the prices with everything always increased but not as fast as they do now. You never heard of people complaint about fort prices until about 5 years ago.  I also understand that you need to spend money to make money and in order to have the money to spend to increase your business, it comes from the consumer/ customer. Like I said when I started this thread, I’m not here to bash Disney and their prices.  Their financial model just does not fit my wallet anymore. And for those of you with disposable incomes, well to do retirees, and people who have mega time off,  God bless you and yes, I’m jealous.  I will die before retirement.  

[LONE-STAR 370]

9 hours ago, Starbuc71 said:

Unfortunately, I work 60 hours a week and don’t make enough money to enjoy the fort like we used to.  I know times have changed but it seems to me the prices with everything always increased but not as fast as they do now. You never heard of people complaint about fort prices until about 5 years ago.  I also understand that you need to spend money to make money and in order to have the money to spend to increase your business, it comes from the consumer/ customer. Like I said when I started this thread, I’m not here to bash Disney and their prices.  Their financial model just does not fit my wallet anymore. And for those of you with disposable incomes, well to do retirees, and people who have mega time off,  God bless you and yes, I’m jealous.  I will die before retirement.  

I can't remember what you do for a living? 

[ftwildernessrick 10]

For the first time since 1981, my wife and I have decided not to renew our annual passes later this year. We just came back from a shorter trip last Saturday (spring break) and the 195.75 nightly rate (with tax)  was crazy.

we are opting to return every other year.

[geoffdaddy 33]

On 3/19/2019 at 8:47 AM, Travisma said:

Not to be snarky and not being judgmental, but how do Fiend non retirees, have the time and $$ to visit the Fort multiple times during the year for more than a week at a time?

Have you saved vacation time from previous years so you can take more time off in one year?

Do you work from home?

Do you own your own business and have reliable employees that take care of the business while you are away?

I see the same thing on other Disney camping site... "we have 4 three week vacations to the Fort planned this year!"

Just being nosy.

 

I think a lot of that is probably Florida campers. If you're close it's a lot easier to justify a bunch of trips. For us, a 10 hour one way drive more than a couple times a year kind of kills the magic for us. Your mileage may vary. At my job I get 4 weeks vacation annually currently. Wife doesn't work, so getting time off is not too much of an issue. Our girls are in a half-homeschool/half-public school program (they are in 2nd and 4th grade) that is flexible where we can take off a week at a time even during the school season, so you can bet with the way the prices are now we are watching for the lowest cost days at the fort, balancing that against the super-hot summer weather. 🙂 We have two trips this year, one in May which is 4 nights and another for a week in August. Cost of fuel is a major deal since we do a 1400 mile round trip tow for each trip down to central Florida, so being able to cost-average the fuel costs over more days is a must. The first half of the May trip we are staying at a much cheaper campground for three days away from Disney and then driving an hour over to the Fort for the second half of the trip. The week-long trip we were able to get a deal on a Premium site that was almost as cheap as a partial hook up loop (using the Sun and Fun room offer), so deals can be had if you book early and can be flexible. I agree the prices are getting out of hand though.

We save up our credit card points for Disney to offset the cost, which helps. I have "gamed" the Disney Visa a few times when they've had the $200 gift card promos by signing up for new cards in the past.

As far as visiting the parks though, that's another story! We haven't done a multi-day park-hopping extravaganza in several years. Been there, done that... a lot of fun when we did but on top of being expensive, we have realized we're getting older and it just wears us out and we get tired so we typically limit ourselves to 1, maybe 2 single park days on any trip lasting a week. We love the Fort and visiting the other resorts and buying drinks and snacks when we're not penny pinching theme park tix. We bought season park tickets to the water parks last October which are of course still good til October this year. We love the water parks and for the most part they are MUCH more relaxing than the theme parks are. We don't plan to visit any of the normal theme parks at all in May, and we're only going to do the Not So Scary Halloween Party in August. The water park tickets will still be good for both trips, so that helps a lot on the cost. Again, that was cost-averaged for several park visits over three trips and it's just a little more than a single theme park day's ticket cost for each person and is good for a year.

To save money in the past we have also tent camped several times instead of towing our camper down in the cooler months (late Oct-late March). For those trips we can use our Prius which gets about 42MPG on the highway, vs towing our camper at 8MPG.

We have said this several years in a row now that this will be our year visiting the Fort for a couple years. It's not a stretch to say that it's getting to the point where it's not worth it. I have a feeling this year might be the last for a year or two for real though. I know this is cynical and a bit mean-spirited of me but Disney World is lots of fun of course and I always say there's nothing wrong with Disney World that a "good" recession wouldn't cure IMO.

 

EDIT: Oh yeah, most importantly for a few trips, our camper has three queen beds, so we have been able to split costs between our family and another on several trips! Sometimes with family, sometimes with friends. Our girls are getting a little too big to split a bunk more than two ways though, so I think those days are over, unless we split a tent site with separate tents.

 

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

For us it's a combination of 3 weeks leave a year, plus lots of comp time, plus willingness to work remotely while on vacation. I probably spend at least 2 hours each morning of my vacation answering emails, and taking care of some of my work. We are not early getting out the door, hubby is still snoozing, so I get up, sit in my recliner under the awning and get it done. The time I spend in the morning does not diminish our vacation in any way.

[caveat lector 181]

I just go. Long ago came to the realization that on my death bed, I won't remember the extra time that I worked but will remember every walk down MK main street.

[h2odivers...Ray 952]

We own our business. And plan carefully 

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

18 hours ago, mouseketab.....Carol said:

For us it's a combination of 3 weeks leave a year, plus lots of comp time, plus willingness to work remotely while on vacation. I probably spend at least 2 hours each morning of my vacation answering emails, and taking care of some of my work. We are not early getting out the door, hubby is still snoozing, so I get up, sit in my recliner under the awning and get it done. The time I spend in the morning does not diminish our vacation in any way.

Totally agree that any work done in a recliner at the Fort doesn't spoil the fun.

When we managed to pull off our 6 week stay at the Fort a couple of years ago I worked full days for 3 of those weeks.  But that work was done either in a recliner at our site or a couple of times one on the Fort beach.  DH entertained himself with the dogs, looping or just relaxing, and neither of us felt that it ruined anything. Hey - it allowed us to stay at the Fort for 6 weeks!.  When the laptop closed at 5pm we did were free to do all the usual fun stuff. 

[Starbuc71 162]

Wow. This is the most response I ever got on a topic I started. I’m proud of myself.  LOL. I have to say, besides the fort prices, the price of park tickets etc., we still think camping at the fort is not like it used to be.  As more and more people have found the hidden treasure at the fort, it’s become more crowed and not as relaxing. Large groups or groups of friends come together more often and like most of  the people nowadays, they have no respect for other campers and only care about themselves.   Many times last year on our trips, small children were not being watched while the parents sit and consume beverages, golf carts are being driven recklessly by both adults and underage drivers, people are constantly cutting through your site knocking things over, more and more non resort guest are taking over the amenities and the pool you could cross walking from head to head.  I guess because we used to go so frequently we notice these things vs people who visit once a year or so.  How about the campers that pile non garbage things like patio blocks, broken camper parts and chairs etc. near the trash cans.  one time we saw a recliner next to the trash can.  It’s a shame it’s not like it was. Wait till the abomination II gets built next door. You will have all those guest looping on rented golf carts, surey bikes and whatever else they can rent to look at all the camping folks. I’m sure this thread will have more comments and agreement when that happens. Security is a joke. Every time they get a good head of security that enforces the rules but is not a jerk, they get promoted or quit.  

[twiceblessed....nacole 433]

4 hours ago, Starbuc71 said:

Wow. This is the most response I ever got on a topic I started. I’m proud of myself.  LOL. I have to say, besides the fort prices, the price of park tickets etc., we still think camping at the fort is not like it used to be.  As more and more people have found the hidden treasure at the fort, it’s become more crowed and not as relaxing. Large groups or groups of friends come together more often and like most of  the people nowadays, they have no respect for other campers and only care about themselves.   Many times last year on our trips, small children were not being watched while the parents sit and consume beverages, golf carts are being driven recklessly by both adults and underage drivers, people are constantly cutting through your site knocking things over, more and more non resort guest are taking over the amenities and the pool you could cross walking from head to head.  I guess because we used to go so frequently we notice these things vs people who visit once a year or so.  How about the campers that pile non garbage things like patio blocks, broken camper parts and chairs etc. near the trash cans.  one time we saw a recliner next to the trash can.  It’s a shame it’s not like it was. Wait till the abomination II gets built next door. You will have all those guest looping on rented golf carts, surey bikes and whatever else they can rent to look at all the camping folks. I’m sure this thread will have more comments and agreement when that happens. Security is a joke. Every time they get a good head of security that enforces the rules but is not a jerk, they get promoted or quit.  

Not much I don't agree with here... things have definitely changed.  We did 4 or 5 trips with our last AP, and I would say that 50% of our time at the Fort was lovely and peaceful... the other 50% is what you just said above.  So yes, it's changing  

[ImDownWithDisney 342]

A lot of it has to do with the economy. When we were there a few weeks ago there were tons of new rigs and trucks. A lot of people are doing well, buying rv's, and going camping. It's a big change from 2008 and 2009. The US has a lot of people within driving distance of one of the premier campgrounds in the country. Of course it's going to be crowded and popular when the $ flows. Wait until another recession hits, and availability won't be a problem. 

I agree the security issue is a problem. I saw a ranger stopping a kid driving a cart. I was actually impressed, but they need way more rangers....or higher quality guests with a respect for the rules.