Truer words have never been spoken!
No matter how many times I've been to WDW (or how many more grey hairs I have with each trip) I still enjoy it as much as the last time.
We just returned from our annual Memorial Day/Nate's Birthday celebration trip at Disney's Fort Wilderness Campground.
We left on Wednesday, May 21st and stayed until Monday, May 27th. I'm going to break this into days as I took a lot of pictures and I don't want to bore you.
I'm hoping you read a bit, take a nap, maybe even have a beer and then come back for some more.
Because of the holiday rates, we chose to "slum it" in the full hook-up sites as opposed to the premium sites that we normally book. There was no way I was paying $125 a night for a concrete slab, electricity, water and a hole to drain our stinky slinky in!
We stayed in the 1700 loop and we actually loved it! We were surrounded by tall pines which protected us from the Florida sun and it was very quiet considering the campground was at full capacity!
That's 799 campsites, NOT including the cabins or the group tent camping area. That's a lot of people in one resort!
While Trevor and I got set up and were waiting on Nate and his girlfriend Karissa to arrive, my dear friend Donnie surprised me with a visit.
He brought Khloe too!
He's completely heterosexual, just very in touch with his feminine side.
Not long after we were all set up, the kids arrived.
Mason was extremely excited
Our site in 1707
And from the backside
Since Karissa's birthday was Friday and Nate's was Saturday, we all agreed that we would just celebrate both on Wednesday evening. With celebrations and gifts out of the way, we could enjoy our 6 days at the world.
See.....Nate, Trevor and I, all have annual passes to the 4 theme parks. Karissa does not.
Nathen gave her a birthday card from him and her parents with $100 in it so she could pick any park she'd like to go for a day.
She was thrilled......but even more thrilled when Nate pulled the other $200 out of his pocket so she could buy an annual pass!
We (Trevor & I) knew of this plan all along, that's why we wanted to open gifts so soon. Thursday morning we would head to a park and get her AP.
After gifts were exchanged, Trevor fired up the grill and we had steaks, crab mac & cheese, corn on the cob and cheesecake.
Oh yeah....and drinks. Quite a few drinks.
We took Mason for a walk around our loop.
And had a couple more drinks.
Things were going downhill fast so we thought we'd better get the cheesecake out.
They're going to kill me for posting these photos.
I think my rendition of Happy Birthday put Nate over the edge.
Oh well, you're only 22 & 23 once!
We hit the hay fairly early, some of us earlier than others.....
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
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THUR 5/22
Hey, they're young and can still recover from a night of drinking!
Bright and early Thursday morning we drove our truck to Disney's Hollywood Studios. We've had some really cool temperatures in Florida for the month of May. Today was no exception and a fog hung over the Tower of Terror as we headed in.
Nate and Karissa went to one window to buy her AP while Trevor and I went to another window to replace our paper tickets with the new hard cards that Disney has just implemented. If you're aware of this change I will say that it made entering the parks much more efficient throughout our trip.
With all of our tickets in hand, it was time to teach Karissa the ways of an annual passholder.
Enter the park of choice, hit the must-do attractions or ones that have no wait, possibly grab a bite to eat and get out before it gets too hot or too crowded.
We can always come back another time!
We made the mad dash to Toy Story Mania (IMO, the best attraction in the Studios) hoping to ride in the standby line and grab Fast Passes to ride again in the allotted time. Imagine the grid lock when they announced that Toy Story was not operating at the moment. We were able to get Fast Passes for 10:50 - 11:50, so we headed over to the Great Movie Ride.
After the Great Movie Ride, Karissa and I rode Star Tours, since the wait was only 10 minutes. (My boys don't like simulators, so they waited outside)
We then wound our way around to the Backlot Tour.
By the time we finished up there, our passes for Toy Story were in effect, so we headed that way and enjoyed some friendly competition in that attraction.
The crowds were growing and we were getting hungry but we were between breakfast & lunch so nothing really appealed to us.
Well, this "penis plant" appealed to me, but I'm easily entertained!
I didn't take as many photos as I normally do in the parks. Since this was Karissa's first time it was neat to see her reaction to things and that prevented me from grabbing the camera.
As a long time Disney goer, it's easy to get jaded by some of the changes, the lack of customer service and the lack of upkeep that would never have happened years ago. Seeing through the eyes of a "Disney virgin" makes you realize that it's still a wonderful place, despite those things.
We had satisfied our Studio itch so we left there to go back to the Fort for some lunch and Mason time.
We did some "looping" in the cart. (if you're unfamiliar with that term, that means to drive your golf cart through the campsite loops to see other peoples RV's and set-ups)
Mason LOVES looping!
After getting some fresh air through his hair, we stopped off at the dog park.
The kids stayed outside the gate
But Mason found them.
The off-leash area leaves Mason on sensory overload....panting and foaming at the mouth. It was time to take him back to the AC-filled RV.
We relaxed for a bit before deciding that since it was the middle of the afternoon and the sun was blaring, we would resort hop.
Or resort drink, as we like to call it. Where else can you go from place to place, sampling different beverages, all while having someone else chauffeur you around?!
We headed down to the marina to catch a resort boat.
There goes a Magic Kingdom boat full of tourists headed to the park.
And here comes our boat
These little boats go from the Fort, to the Wilderness Lodge, to the Contemporary and back, all day long.
River Country is still rotting away.
Bad show Disney! Tear it down already! I'm tired of looking at it. For a company that's so concerned with the environment and recycling, they really dropped the ball on this one.
First stop on our boat ride is the Wilderness Lodge. While it's a beautiful resort, we're not getting off here.
Instead, we got off at the Contemporary,
hopped on a monorail & headed to the Polynesian.
The Poly has some beautiful features
But is way too dark for my taste!
We sidled up to the bar for some cocktails. Here is our bartender prepping our pineapples.
Keep in mind, this is around 2:00 pm on a sunny day. This dark & dreary resort would not be my first choice for a weeks vacation.
Again, just my opinion, you're not required to agree.
We all knew we wanted to try the Lapu Lapu, which is a rum based drink in a hollowed out pineapple. The concept is cute....the drink not so much. It tasted like pineapple juice and a lot of dark rum. Thank God we had each decided to share one.
Because this drink was $13 each, we suffered through it. We knew our next order was not going to be another Lapu Lapu though!
Instead we had this vision of beauty.
That, my friends, is a Pina Colava!
Pina colada mix, Bacardi black razz rum and raspberry puree. It was delish!! We would be revisiting those later in our trip.
We made it safely back to the Fort after our Poly visit, stopped at Crockett's Tavern for a bloody mary, then back to our site to start dinner.
It was at this time in the trip that I changed the Fort's tavern name to "Crickett's Tavern"
Blame it on the Lapu Lapu
Trevor started up the grill and gave me the stink-eye while I took his picture.
The rest of the evening was spent chatting, laughing and relaxing at our site, surrounded by Disney magic.
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FRI 5/23
Friday morning, the kids and I decided to go to Epcot. If you know my family, you'll know that Trevor is not a big park fan. He will go if I ask him but he's perfectly content to stay back at camp with the dog and a beer. Trevor and Mason drove us up to the Outpost to wait for an Epcot bus, while they went to check out Nate's truck in the overflow lot.
Trevor and Nate just made some big changes to the ole Chevy, including a straight axle conversion. This was it's first long road trip so Trevor wanted to make sure everything was still where it should be.
After a short, yet crowded bus ride, Nate, Karissa and I, entered Epcot.
We dashed over to Test Track and rode the single rider line with a wait of only 10 minutes.
From Test Track we thought we'd see if there was any possibility of riding Soarin. The standby wait time said 20 minutes, which is extremely short for Soarin. Since those times are usually exaggerated and Karissa needed to experience it, we decided to wait.
After Soarin we still had some time to kill so we went to the Living Seas.
No, that's not a must-do, nor is it very exciting but Karissa's mom loves manatee and they have a manatee exhibit. We knew we needed to take some photos to send her.
It was at this time that I got very aggravated with Disney. The young castmember who was speaking at the exhibit was having this conversation with a guest.
Guest: Do they bite?
CM: Not normally, but if threatened they might.
Guest: Has anyone ever been bitten that you know of?
CM: I'm sure there have been instances.
I just stood there shaking my head. I'm blessed enough to live 15 minutes from manatee in the wild and we are constantly working to protect them. There's a reason they're called "gentle giants" Even if they wanted to bite you, they don't even have front teeth. They have back molars for gnawing on PLANTS!
Please, Disney! If you're going to hire someone to educate the guests, maybe they ought to know the facts.
So.......what better way to combat aggravation than with a cocktail?!
The real truth about Epcot is while we enjoy a lot of the attractions, what we really enjoy is the World Showcase. Imagine being able to sample food and drinks from many different countries with the simple swipe of a theme park ticket.
Nate stopped in Africa to beat out a tune.
We made a stop in China for a Canto-Loopy.
Imagine cantaloupe juice mixed with vodka. Yummo!
Nate didn't care for his, so like the devoted Mom that I am, I drank it for him.
No tour around the world is complete without a frozen margarita from Mexico!
We sucked those back as we headed to the exit. We had monsterous plans for the evening and I knew we needed some down time.
Speaking of Monsters!
That's Mike and Sully from Monsters, Inc. and the upcoming Monsters University, which opens June 21st.
Because of this movie, the Magic Kingdom would be open from 6:00 am on Friday until 6:00 am on Saturday. That meant we could be in the MK on both Karissa's and Nate's birthdays.
SWEET!
We hopped on our bus from Epcot, and as usual, we had to first stop at the Wilderness Lodge (Fort & Lodge share buses) The kids agreed that we would get off here (use the facilities...if ya catch my drift) and take a boat from there back to the Fort.
We made one other pit stop at the Lodge pool bar for another Pina Colava and got on our resort boat.
Disney aggravation #3 (if you're counting)
Our young boat captains name was Nate. As we got on the back of the boat, talking and laughing, Capt. Nate stands, straddling the dock and boat and says:
"AHEM! HI! (while waving) did you hear me?"
I've ridden these boats thousands of times, I even repeated some of his rules back to him.
I responded with: "Yeah Nate, we're good!"
The six other guests on the boat looked at me like; OOOOH, you got scolded!
This kid was the biggest twit of a CM I had ever encountered. I wished I had my boater safety course card in my wallet to smack him with.
When I got off I said: "Thanks Nate!"
He grunted something under his breath
I said: "Have a great day!"
He didn't respond.
LITTLE TWIT!
While leaving the Lodge I had gotten a text from another friend who had just arrived and was setting up. We stopped by his site on the way back.
That's my friend Andrew who brought his twin girls to attend the 24 hour MK party. They were also waiting until later in the evening to head over.
Andrew was in the 100 loop, site 123, where his Gator Gnome guarded his site marker.
Andrew is a Florida Gator alumni and a great guy. I gave him the gnome in October of 2011 and it comes out for every camping trip he's taken since then.
We had a nice chat, then left him to get some rest for the long day/night that lie ahead.
Nate was expecting a birthday card that our friend Genia had sent him so we took the cart up to the front to see if it had arrived.
SCORE!
He loved getting mail at the Fort (and putting a dip in his lip, which explains the goofy smile)
Thanks Genia & Tony!
That evening around 9:00, we got on a very crowded boat to the MK.
When we approached the dock we were stunned at the amount of people milling around. We are pretty used to Main Street being jam-packed with people, waiting on the parade and fireworks at this time.
You have to just weave and bob through the crowds until you turn off of the main hub, where under normal circumstances, the crowds thin. Most nights as the castle show is over, people beat feet to the exit.
Not tonight!
This was my view as we inched our way down the sidewalk.
Not only was I shocked at how many people were staying but mostly at how many had small children with them. These children were now either sleeping, screaming bloody murder or running in circles, amped up by sugary sweets that the parents had given them to avoid a meltdown.
When we reached Tomorrow Land and saw that the People Mover had a 40 minute wait, we knew our chances of riding anything were slim to none.
We didn't mind, we just wanted to soak up the atmosphere and maybe get a snack.
We found a little table at Sleepy Hollow where we shared our favorite snack in all of WDW.
The Nutella waffle covered in strawberries, blueberries and bananas.
Here's a better shot from another trip.
Two thumbs up AND a Z-snap!
Since Wishes was getting ready to start and you can see we were on the left side of the castle, we stayed there to watch the show.
If you ever get the opportunity to see it, it's amazing. The way they project images on the castle is a sight to see.
And just because one can never see enough of that beautiful castle, here are some shots from different angles as we strolled through the hoards of people.
It was after midnight, we had accomplished our goal of making it through both birthdays and we had seen enough.
I tried to snap a few pics of the crowds on the way out. Sorry about the quality, there's no stopping when you're in the flow of traffic.
This is the entrance with tons of people going in...
and swarms of people coming off the monorail too!
We saw a Fort boat heading our way and we were just hoping to make it on that first boat!
We did make it on the standing-room-only boat and made it safely back to our site. We were nestled in our beds by 1:30 am.
I talked to a friend on Sunday who works at the MK and the official number of people they put through MK for that 24 hours was 77,000 people!!
Well, 76, 997 + us.
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SAT 5/25
We had all agreed that since it was a late night, we would sleep in a bit and make Saturday a "Fort-only day" You are crazy to stay at the Fort without spending at least one day exploring the campground and all it has to offer.
Since it was Nate's official birthday I made some sausage gravy and biscuits for breakfast.
Trevor didn't take too kindly to an early morning photo shoot.
But Nate was in pork heaven!
We just chilled around camp for a while getting some much needed rest. One of Karissa's other birthday presents was that Nate had promised to take her horseback riding. She had never ridden a horse and today was the day!
They had a great ride and Trevor and I were still lounging at our site when they came back. They threw some shorts on and we took the cart out for a spin.
The pool was packed with people!!
The Meadow Trading Post is awesome as usual, even if it sells the same things all the time.
and we can always use more ice!
After we iced down the cooler we had a conversation about mini-golf. Karissa told us she had never played....HUH??
Mini-golf, we must!
We took the truck over to Fantasia Gardens, got our tee time, our clubs & balls and let the games begin.
Here is Trevor giving Karissa some of his best tips.
and him and Nate goofed off for me!
Karissa got the hang of mini-golf pretty quick and before long she made her first hole-in-one!
Such a proud moment.
With another new experience under Karissa's belt, we went back and threw some kind of animal on the grill. We stayed around the site that night, just enjoying each others company.
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SUN 5/26
After a much needed restful day, I woke up bright and early Sunday morning. I always get a little bummed on our last full day, knowing that real life is creeping back up on me. Since Animal Kingdom was the only park that we had not visited and it was 63 degrees this morning, I gingerly woke the kids up at 7:00 to see if they wanted to go. A cool morning is the best time to take the safari ride at AK when the animals have just been let out.
The kids agreed, got dressed and out the door we went. We decided to drive Nate's truck instead of relying on Disney transportation as we weren't planning on staying long.
Because Nate's truck is way over sized now, they gave us two parking spaces!
After entering the gates, we made one quick stop for a photo opportunity in front of the tree of life.
The Safari only had a wait time of 10 minutes so we hopped on board!
The safari was great as expected.
With the safari out of the way, the only other must-do for me at AK is to see the gorillas. They are my absolute favorite and I have been known to stand there for hours watching them.
To get to the gorilla enclosure, first you must pass the meerkats.
So cute and alert!
Finally, we came upon the gorillas!
The juvenile gorilla was in rare form on this cool morning. He drank from a stream, taunted his dad, threw things over the edge of the enclosure and clapped after each "performance"
The next best thing to gorillas are the white cheeked gibbons. We watched a family of them holed up in their exhibit, enjoying their newest addition.
We continued walking through Asia, where we saw the big kitties.
We then made our way over to Dino Land for my favorite "thrill ride" in AK.....Primeval Whirl!
As luck would have it, when we got off of Primeval Whirl, a Lion King show was getting ready to start so we headed over to Camp Minnie Mickey for that. We all enjoyed the show as usual!
Our last stop of the morning was "It's Tough To Be A Bug" which always provides a fun photo-op.
We wrapped it up after that and decided to head back to the Fort.
Trevor was relaxing with Mason in the screen room.
And every once in a while, Mason took an opportunity to see what was going on outside of the screen room.
We imbibed in some strawberry-ritas, visited with some fellow campers and enjoyed our last evening together.
Me & the twins (Andrew's daughters)
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Mon 5/27
This is it! The fat lady is singing! It's time to go home.
We enjoyed some early morning coffee while listening to the sounds of nature......and buses and boat whistles and screaming kids.
Then we started the dreaded clean-up/tear down process.
We were on the road by 10:00. We made a quick run through McDonalds for some breakfast and continued on our ride.
We were all exhausted and sad to be going home so soon, but ya know what they say:
"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened!"
