Tuesday, October 30th: Fort Wildnerness
Once we had taken a little time to freshen up and charge our phones, we piled back into the rental SUV and made the trek to our evening destination: Fort Wilderness Resort. Tonight's itinerary would begin with a dinner reservation at Trail's End, and end with the Return to Sleepy Hollow event (complete with the Ultimate ticket upgrade which included the Van Tassel Dessert Party). We had been looking forward to this night for months (in fact, it was one of our most anticipated nights of the whole trip
) so we were both in super high spirits as we crossed underneath that magical archway
.
Arriving at the Fort, we encountered a rather stern security guard at the resort gate, and I wondered for a few minutes if he was planning on letting us in at all
. Eventually he seemed somewhat convinced that we were there for valid reasons (a bit of an unsettling start, since we had shown him our ADR confirmation and our reservation for Sleepy Hollow at the outset
) and allowed us to pass through to the parking lot.
As we drove through the lot looking unsuccessfully for a free space, we easily figured out why security had been hesitant to let us in. The lot was FULL
. We were almost thinking that we wouldn't even be able to find a spot when we finally found a single empty space a million steps from the bus stop. Beggars can't be choosers, so we wasted no time in snagging that sole empty parking space and began the long pilgrimage to the bus. It was still a gorgeously nice day and we were still feeling oddly bloated from our morning Boma indulgences (and we are able bodied adults who can always use a little more exercise!), so we told ourselves that the lengthy walk wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. And it wasn't.
Arriving at the bus stop, we caught the first signs of the excitement that awaited us that evening!
We barely had a chance to capture a photo of the signage when a bus rumbled up and stopped right in front of us. Perfect timing
.
There were very few folks at the bus stop and more than half of them were obviously waiting for park buses, because they didn't opt to get on the internal resort shuttle. We definitely had our pick of places to sit.
As the bus lumbered along the resort roadways, we noticed that scads of people were lining the roadsides.
At that point, we had no idea what they were waiting for.....but later discovered that there was a Halloween golf cart parade that snaked its way through Fort Wilderness. We wished we had have known, and we would have made a point of scheduling our dinner ADR at such a time as to have been able to catch the parade. Drat!
Whatever time we lost at the security gate and with our lengthy stroll from the far reaches of the Fort parking area, we had made up by being able to immediately board the bus. We had a little bit of time to kill before our dinner reservation, so we decided to explore a part of Fort Wilderness that we had never really checked out before: the Tri Circle D Farm.
With the entire population of the resort (or so it seemed!) waiting to partake in the golf cart parade, we were the ONLY people touring around the farm. It was almost eerie having the entire place to ourselves!
It's a cool little part of Disney. The horses are gorgeous. I'm not really a "country girl", but I could get used to this kind of a farm
.
I'm really rather surprised we hadn't thought to tour around this part of the resort on previous visits. Definitely glad we took the time on this trip!
Once we had completed our self-tour of the farm, a quick check of our phones noted that it was time to make our way to check in for our dinner reservation. We groaned a bit as we shuffled toward the check-in desk......what was wrong with us?
We STILL weren't feeling hungry!.....and gave our name to the CM at the podium.
Hopefully there would be a wait to be seated
.
But of course, there wasn't
. The one and only time they've seated us immediately upon arrival at Trail's End
.
Our dinner is next!