Well, Disney World is still here. The kids have not been to Disney World for three years. Pam and David have been here twice in the past year (this is the third). Fort Wilderness is rated as a 10 out of 10 in our Florida Camping guide. We generally visit campgrounds that are 9 out of 10's (or 10 out of 10's). The State Recreation Areas are often 9 out of 10. Although most commercial campsites are rated poorly, Disney quality bucks the trend. Really, you have it all. Excellent, spacious sites. Easy access to facilities. And most importantly of all, easy access to the Magic Kingdom (by boat):
.. or any other Disney theme park (by bus). There are Disney movies at night, complete with a campfire. It doesn't get much better than this. Now if we could just relocate this place out of Florida swampland ...
One of the exciting places to visit is the Hoop Dee Doo review here at Fort Wilderness. We did go there three years ago when we were here. We are not planning to go there this time (it is very expensive). It includes dinner and a 'show'. The show is actually quite fun, like an old-time saloon, complete with 'dancing girls'.
During our stay at Fort Wilderness we tended to visit a lot of Disney theme parks, Epcot probably being the favourite of most (though if you ask Pam and Heather Lynn they will say they like them each for different reasons). Daniel and James visited Epcot's Innoventions for a full day. There they played video games. It turns out that they did not think as highly of the video games as they thought they would. James says there are about four good games. The nice thing about staying in Fort Wilderness is the proximity and easy (free) access to Disney theme parks. Daniel and James can just leave the campsite, take along their annual passes (we got annual passes for everyone), and 'do the Disney thing' all by themselves. They like the independence and it helps Mom and Dad get used to them travelling around on their own in a relatively safe environment.
Daniel and James particularly like the evening entertainment at the campsite. They show Disney movies (surprise, surprise). Typically, the evening starts with a sing-a-long at 19:00. The first movie, normally a Disney animated one, starts at 19:40. At around 21:20 the second movie begins. The second movie is normally not an animated one.
Heather Lynn is definitely a Disney theme park fan. Reba not so much, however, she is a major Star Trek addict. Books have been her specialty on this trip, however, she certainly takes any opportunity she can get to watch Star Trek TV shows. Heather Lynn has been consuming a lot of Star Trek material (particularly books) as well as Reba.
The computer has been very handy. The new version of Scrabble is particularly popular, as is James' emulator for a Final Fantasy game. (We recently removed all these games so he has had to stop them .. he is on to something else .. but more about that later.) We definitely need to branch out, however, since there is not much variety in books and games being read and played so far. The new electronic keyboard has not gotten as much playing time as it ought to, so that will be our next challenge.
David and James went to Typhoon Lagoon on Thursday, Feb. 18th. We finished the day together at MGM (complete with a Muppet Vision 3D and The Making of Armageddon visit). A very nice father/son combo day.
On one day David, Pam, and Heather Lynn took a wrong turn and ended up in the US Southwest sooner than we had expected:
Actually, this is just a shot in front of the Big Thunder Mountain roller coaster in the Magic Kingdom.
Packing up went relatively smoothly on the 19th, however, Daniel kept disappearing - right up until after we were supposed to depart from the park. Fortunately, he turned up prior to the rest of us leaving, and we were all able leave the campsite and head on over to Epcot for the day prior to checking in to our Marriott resort for the next week.