elaine amj
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2012
After reading the Dis for many years and hearing all the rave reviews about camping at the Fort, I finally decided to celebrate my early retirement (at 39) to realize a long held dream to camp at the Fort over the Christmas holidays. The year before, I booked a 17 night trip from Dec 21-Jan 7 for the 5 of us (spoiler: we ended up only staying 12 nights). Even crazier, I decided to fly us there with all our tent camping gear. Helped that we flew Southwest with 2 free checked bags per person.
The cast: My mother (71), DH, me, DD18, DS17.
I had lengthy lists and carefully researched every possibility. It was going to be a budget trip for 5 ppl (but over $2k for a patch of dirt was OUTRAGEOUS! Incl tax it was like $146/night). Just 2 park days with old nonexpiring tickets - Dec 30&31 for NYE madness. Then I earned some extra money on a side job and decided to splurge a bit - deluxe dining for one night (Dec 25-26) and 3 days at Sea World/Busch Gardens with all day dining (only $140/pp).
A month out, a friend of mine decided to join us. First trip to any theme park ever with her husband, and DS16. Their contributions to the campsite dropped our costs down quite a bit. So our group expanded to 8.
About a month or two out, Southwest canceled our nonstop flight to Orlando and moved us to a 6am flight. Waking up at 3am (would there be a point to sleep?) to drive to the airport with a dozen pieces of luggage at 4am sounded like torture. So I changed our flights to Dec 23. It would also give us more time to pack and have some Christmas celebrations at home.
Unfortunately I came to regret the decision. It turned out to be really challenging to manage 5 ppl and 8 giant bags, 3 carryon bags and 4 backpacks through the airport (I am still impressed we fit it all in my minivan!). We also had a folding wheelchair for my mother to manage that we gate checked. I decided to yellow tag half the bags but take our tents with us on DME. It is such a looooong walk to DME.
We landed at 5:40pm (about an hour or so behind schedule). We got our bags and waited for DME. Finally got on the bus at 6:44pm. We went to every single resort possible. Made it to the Fort at 8:09pm (I was not pleased). Eventually got taken by van (with all our luggage) to the campsite at 8:40pm. We were hungry, it was rainy, and it was dark. Our lovely neighbor came right on over and saved the day - he golf carted my hungry family to get some food from the Meadows Trading Post (I had told them to see if the food truck at the campfire was still open but our neighbor didn't know anything about it). They ended up coming back with some fruit and chips while my Mom and I worked on the tents. We finally got a couple of tents thrown up, air mattresses blown up, a few things unpacked, etc etc and about 10pm, my mother decides to cook noodles. I was not happy because I just wanted to sleep lol. Anyway, we were all better for some food and finally crashed at 11pm after covering all our suitcases with garbage bags.
I also have to share this awesome suitcase my mother found at a yard sale this summer for $6. Looks like it was for dance and it has poles that convert to a very sturdy clothes rack! It was sooooo helpful for keeping us organized.
Our first few days was chilly and rainy. And we had multiple long waits for internal buses (turns out I hated the buses). But it helped to have so many amazing friendly neighbors - friendliest of any campground we have ever met. Our neighbor took half our group looping while a couple of us walked a couple of loops. The elaborate decorations took our breath away. Wow.
We also had fun decorating our campsite with the few things I was able to pack in our suitcases.
I used the cardboard from all those discounted Disney gift cards that helped me save a bunch towards my trip!
My DD18 had a blast chalking our site and was delighted the few times someone came to chalk us
The cast: My mother (71), DH, me, DD18, DS17.
I had lengthy lists and carefully researched every possibility. It was going to be a budget trip for 5 ppl (but over $2k for a patch of dirt was OUTRAGEOUS! Incl tax it was like $146/night). Just 2 park days with old nonexpiring tickets - Dec 30&31 for NYE madness. Then I earned some extra money on a side job and decided to splurge a bit - deluxe dining for one night (Dec 25-26) and 3 days at Sea World/Busch Gardens with all day dining (only $140/pp).
A month out, a friend of mine decided to join us. First trip to any theme park ever with her husband, and DS16. Their contributions to the campsite dropped our costs down quite a bit. So our group expanded to 8.
About a month or two out, Southwest canceled our nonstop flight to Orlando and moved us to a 6am flight. Waking up at 3am (would there be a point to sleep?) to drive to the airport with a dozen pieces of luggage at 4am sounded like torture. So I changed our flights to Dec 23. It would also give us more time to pack and have some Christmas celebrations at home.
Unfortunately I came to regret the decision. It turned out to be really challenging to manage 5 ppl and 8 giant bags, 3 carryon bags and 4 backpacks through the airport (I am still impressed we fit it all in my minivan!). We also had a folding wheelchair for my mother to manage that we gate checked. I decided to yellow tag half the bags but take our tents with us on DME. It is such a looooong walk to DME.
We landed at 5:40pm (about an hour or so behind schedule). We got our bags and waited for DME. Finally got on the bus at 6:44pm. We went to every single resort possible. Made it to the Fort at 8:09pm (I was not pleased). Eventually got taken by van (with all our luggage) to the campsite at 8:40pm. We were hungry, it was rainy, and it was dark. Our lovely neighbor came right on over and saved the day - he golf carted my hungry family to get some food from the Meadows Trading Post (I had told them to see if the food truck at the campfire was still open but our neighbor didn't know anything about it). They ended up coming back with some fruit and chips while my Mom and I worked on the tents. We finally got a couple of tents thrown up, air mattresses blown up, a few things unpacked, etc etc and about 10pm, my mother decides to cook noodles. I was not happy because I just wanted to sleep lol. Anyway, we were all better for some food and finally crashed at 11pm after covering all our suitcases with garbage bags.
I also have to share this awesome suitcase my mother found at a yard sale this summer for $6. Looks like it was for dance and it has poles that convert to a very sturdy clothes rack! It was sooooo helpful for keeping us organized.
Our first few days was chilly and rainy. And we had multiple long waits for internal buses (turns out I hated the buses). But it helped to have so many amazing friendly neighbors - friendliest of any campground we have ever met. Our neighbor took half our group looping while a couple of us walked a couple of loops. The elaborate decorations took our breath away. Wow.
We also had fun decorating our campsite with the few things I was able to pack in our suitcases.
I used the cardboard from all those discounted Disney gift cards that helped me save a bunch towards my trip!
My DD18 had a blast chalking our site and was delighted the few times someone came to chalk us
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