TR | Happy Campers (December 2017)

Nothing more fitting than to see CM's at ENCHANTED TIKI ROOM, JUNGLE CRUISE and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN in PARKAS
 
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My weather has it getting down as low as 39 for tonight & Saturday night, but the days look good to me. I'll take a cool day over a hot and humid day any day of the week! Rain is coming in around 10 tonight, but done early morning on Saturday.

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I appreciate so so very much reading everyone's reports and photos while at home and I want to provide a worth while quality report with this one here too (like I hope my past ones have been). For the sake of a good read with photos, please excuse me for now and know that I will take my daily notes and provide a good report once back home.
Enjoy your trip and don't worry about us. This is your once a year experience. Have fun without the pressure to keep us entertained. Some of us that posted everyday don't have little ones and a few of us only sleep 5-6 hours a day. The parks aren't open 20 hours a day this time of year, so I was good.

j
 
PaHunter, took your advise and we did Epcot yesterday. Thanks!

Jim, hubby pushed that stroller around the parks like a perfect gentleman that he is. He says, sorry and will do better from now on.

My Charlotte has been very fussy the past couple days. This morning she seems a lot better. Crossing fingers she is on the up and up now. In all my prior trip reports, I do the majority of my report once back home. This trip, I thought I could keep it up in real time, but that has not proven true the past two days. Taking care of the kids, (you know keeping them fed, alive, and happy) plus trying to enjoy the trip myself, is resulting in all my time.

I appreciate so so very much reading everyone's reports and photos while at home and I want to provide a worth while quality report with this one here too (like I hope my past ones have been). For the sake of a good read with photos, please excuse me for now and know that I will take my daily notes and provide a good report once back home.

Again, we are in 1936 and here till the 18th.

Melissa,
Not a problem. Glad you and the family got over to enjoy EPCOT. I love EPCOT, but always seem to schedule ours on a Friday or the weekend, and it is a bummer. Did a weekday during the second week last trip and was better.
Have enjoyed the TR and post when you can, we will all still be here. First and foremost is you and the family enjoy yourselves.
 


Your trip sounds wonderful! It would have been fun if my kids could have met your kids - my kids don't know a thing about farming (and I guess neither do I) and it would have been a great opportunity to learn something new. Are you going to make it to the water parks? I hope it warms up for the water parks. I LOVE the water parks because I get to relax all day with the youngest while my husband gets older kid duty. I pretend I'm disappointed but...:yay: . I believe all of my kids prefer the water parks to the theme parks. Keep having a great time and enjoying the Fort! We will be there in either 19 days or 21 days (haven't decided on our departure date yet). Can't wait!
 
I'm sorry we will miss out on a meet & greet. We leave out on Monday, the 18th.

We have yet to do a water park. I'm not sure we will make it happen or not this trip. I know what you mean, the other afternoon I stayed home to take care of Charlotte while hubby took the kids to the pool. It was a real downer when I took that 3 hour nap with baby! Oh, it was the best rest I had all year!
 
Today is a fort day! Charlotte is still a little under the weather, so I'm staying around the site with her while hubby takes the kids to the pool. I just put her down for a nap, so after I do this update, I'm going to start baking some treats for when they return.

We met our neighbor this morning. They checked in yesterday too. They have two kids in similar age to ours and their baby is also 16 months. They have a Grace just like us and their son is also named after the father. Oh yeah, they homeschool too. They also were heading up to the pool this afternoon and likely swimming with my kids right now. No hotel will give you this kind of interaction with your neighbor. I just love it here!

As promised, pictures of our home for the next 14 more sleeps!

It's perfect! I wish it was a little wider, but it fits every other aspect on our perfect site wish list. What it lacks in width, sure does get made up for in privacy. No complaints here. None.

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I didn't get any blow-ups. Thought about it, but didn't. I did get one strand of Mickey lights that runs along the awning and then white lights all around our site.

I hope the Christmas golf cart gang drive by again tonight. I wanna be a part of that gang some day.

The chairs and firpit are next to the door for a reason. Tonight after a cook out, after looping, and after the kids go to bed, we plan to watch the fire and enjoy an adult beverage. This way if Charlotte wakes, I will hear her right away.

Tomorrow, we go to Magic Kingdom with lunch at the Beast Castle. Next, we go over to Animal Kingdom. Fast Passes for FOP, EE, and Safari.

We just had this site in November. We had lots of critters come visit; armadillos, rabbits, squirrels, raccoons and turkeys. We also had more mosquitoes at this site than any other before. I hope you have better luck with those nasty creatures, lol.
 


We have had an armadillo and squirrels so far. Large rummaging and bushes shaking the other night, I'm guessing deer. As for the mosquitos, I found two in our bathroom. That has been it.
 
Stopping in for a quick update. I have lots more details and photos to share soon enough.

Well, it's all a magical blur. One happy magical day runs into another happy magical day and so forth! Sun is shining and all is good here at the Magic Kingdom today. I have no idea what day were on with this trip. That's the beauty of extended vacations! We just did Thunder Mountain, Grace's favorite. Like always it's the back row for us. Why, it's the best of course!

Have a magical day, all!

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We're on the road and headed home!!!

We were not scheduled to check out until Monday the 18th. However, plans change and this morning we decided it was best to just head on back. I love my Fort Wilderness, but it's really really peopley there right now and it's time to go home!

We have a 16 hour drive ahead of us and plan to split it up over a few days just like we did on our way down. I'll do my best to cover as much as I can on the return trip.
 
Vince,

No apologies needed. We were there 14 days, were good and ready for home ;)

I'm use to January and things being low-key. Wednesday things got busy in the parks and the masses have been only growing since. Last night, crazy masses of people flowed from the parks and spilled into the Fort.

I know you don't do the Disney Parks and that you do have a December trip planned. If your not a people person, you might want to think long and hard about your future trip. This morning it was like the 2000 loop EVERYWHERE!!!

Sorry to hear that you left early. I myself am not a people person. I can't stand large crowds. Drive safe.
 
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Let's see where did I leave off with my report...

I posted about the check in (Sunday).
I posted photos of our site (Monday).
I posted about of our first day in the parks (Tuesday).

Now Wednesday.

So after a big first day in the parks, this mamma and baby needed some down time. I spent the morning watching fun loving, whisky drinker of a neighbor who cusses a lot put up some decorations. That was entertaing for a while. Hubby made hamburgers and hotdogs on the grill and then hubby took the kids over to the Meadows honey hole for some swimming. Charlotte was still dealing with a cold and I didn't want her in the water yet, so we took a nap. Not just a nap, but the GREATEST NAP OF ALL TIME EPIC NAP. If naps could win medals, then this one took GOLD! 3 hours of sweet sweet rest all snuggled up with my baby.

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It was early evening after the kids got back from swimming. We decided to do a nice boat ride over to the Wilderness Lodge to see the decorations. I just love that resort.

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After the WL we spent some time on the porch rocking chairs while the kids burned off some energy at the play area. Then we had a nice sit down Trails End dinner. Yummy!

Note| If you're under 2 pajamas are perfectly acceptable dinner attire.

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After that, we were all ready for bed. The electric light parade was everyone's lullaby.
 
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Took PaHunters advice and did Epoct on a Thursday instead of the weekend.

We were all up early early so it was easy to make rope drop.

Apparently we are to that point in society that we all had to repeat "I will walk and not run." The cast member had to do a nice long speech on the importance of walking and had the crowd repeat this three times over.

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We did Soarin twice and then Test Track. Had a little time to circle around and look at the decorations before World Showcase opened up.

The first photo I had to beg to get them all to look at me.

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Grace | Take my picture with Bambi, momma.

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Daniel | Well if she's getting her photo with Bambi, then I want one too.

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Some foodie photos for your pleasure.

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We got to meet the real St. Nicholas, folks!

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After that we headed over to Hollywood Studios for Toy Story, Tower of Terror, and Rockin Roller Coaster.
 
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" if naps could win medals, then this one would win GOLD". :teeth:

Great line, Melissa!

Continue, please. popcorn::

Bama Ed
 
Sorry to hear you left early. I get the whole too many people thing. Hope you have a safe trip back and enjoy the winter :cold: that has befallen the northern half of the country.
Also glad you did not get too far with this report, as I had the flu last week:sick: . So I was not too far behind after recovering.
Now I can sit back and be ready for the continuation of this tale...pirate:
 
Friday

Monorail resort hopping day!
Disney transportation day!

Woohoo! Going to be good!
Never seen the gingerbread houses!
All of us are excited!
Momma the most, cause it's a non park day!

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The kids were gifted a transportation card on the first boat ride. What? What is this? Never heard of the transportation cards before. You can collect these cards from monorail attendants and boat and bus drivers. Oh wait, will Grace turn into a card hoarder like she did with the Wilderness Explorer badges? The answer to this is YES! Yes, she did. She gets this hoarding from her fathers side, not mine. Sigh. At one point in the trip I caught her memorizing all the different styles of buses from the back of the cards. This kid is like a walking encyclopedia of knowledge!

Fun fact I learned from Grace...

Disney's transportation combined travels the equator an average of 11 times a week!

She also was told from a bus driver (so take this with a grain of salt) the the new double buses that bend in the middle cost $980,000 per bus. Wow!

We took the WL/Contemporary/Fort boat over to WL and had lunch at Rolling Fork. It was nice and quiet. Then another boat over to MK. Then monorail to Contemporary.

The house smells sooooo good!

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Next we took another monorail over to the Poly. Then another over to the Grand Floridian. Some day when I have an extra $20,000 lying around and I'm not sure what to do with it, I would like to stay a week in a grand villa with a castle view.

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After all the resort hopping, it was time for some dinner. We headed to Disney Springs and ate at D-luxe Burger. We ate here last year and it was great. Totally worth the $8 for the vanilla milk shake.

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The rain came in late Friday night and into early Saturday morning. Hubby cooked a big breakfast in the camper while the kids played checkers.

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I spent the morning catching up on laundry. I miss when the kids where little and they would get so excited to come help me sort and load all the quarters into the machines.

No more quarter machines and not so little anymore.

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The rest of day was uneventful. I took another nap with Charlotte and the hubby and kids looped and explored. Early dinner & early bed.
 

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