Trip Report Hakunamatata’s June/July 2019 Practice Retirement, We Are Hauling Our Travel Trailer To Ft Wilderness Trip Report

Pre-Trip Report:

This year we are taking an extended trip to Disney and staying at Ft Wilderness. A few factors that drove us to taking an extended trip this year:

• One kid starting high-school and one kid starting college means that discretionary income will be minimal over the next (insert number here) years.
• I had extra time off accrued from last year that I have to burn this year or lose.
• We just started the whole camping adventure and really like it. Ft Wilderness is one of the, if not the, top rated campgrounds in North America.
• Star Wars opens later this year and the madness will likely be spread out over a couple years with the delayed openings of stuff.

So we head to the fort and check in June 7. Since we are having an extended stay, my trip report will be broken up into major items and not sequential posts by dates.

Dining has been secured and FP+ have been selected for length of stay (for anyone interested in long term stays, entire length of stay in Disneys eyes is 14 days regardless of how long you are actually staying.)

I will be posting some of our dining selections below as we are doing quite a few new to us locations.

Happy reading!

 

[Hakunamatata]

We had gone back and forth, added, cancelled, contemplated and finally arrived at the following which consists of some old favorites and a few new to us selections.

Trails End - dinner - by far one of the best meals we have had on property. We went three times during our stay.

Raglan Road - Normal good experience.

1900 Park Faire - Meh. Not a fan of fancy breakfast items. Felt rushed and Mad Hatter was not there that day and they had no replacement character.

Be Our Guest - prime rib was surprisingly good. The dessert trio was not what I would have chosen and the three selections were poorly sized.

Kona - great! Macadamia pancakes and press pot was spot on.

Garden Grill -dinner. Good food and by far the best CM interaction since we have been here. Our server Bob was the most interactive and fun, personable and our experience interacting with him made an average meal superb.

Teppan Edo - Dinner - up there as one of the better dining experiences. We did it twice both times was a late seating that had us finishing after illuminations and the park fairly cleared out. Nice to take a leisurely stroll out with very few other guests.

Plaza Restaurant - Dinner- did this twice just because its a more economical table service at MK. Ok food. Refillable milkshakes were hits with the boy.

50s Prime Time - dinner - typical 50s prime time experience. Food was good and server was entertaining.

Sci-fi Drive In - lunch - another favorite with the family. Grabbed the names of the movies highlighted in the “previews” while we ate. Hoping to find them online.

Liberty Tree Tavern - why I get suckered into going back to this place again and again is beyond me. The best part of the meal was the salad with the Honey-Shallot Vinaigrette dressing and the mac n cheese. Ooy gooey cake was dry.


We had some duplicates of the favorites because we like them and just in case we had something come up and had to cancel we had a better chance of at least getting one visit in. These were spread out over approximately three weeks.

Quick Service Note: Mobile Ordering was the hero of the trip when it came to meals. Being able to find a table then order food was amazing.

Snacks:

Churros usually are my downfall while at Disney. We had churros but this trip sugar cookies were the big hit. The best were the ones at Contempo Cafe at the Contemporary. The shortbread cookies served in the parks are ok but a tad dry.

One thing I found out this trip that I had never realized before. Quick serve locations that do not have guest access to the soda dispenser do give refills. You just have to go back up to the counter to get them. Helps to stomach the 4.29 for a soda when you can refill.

 

[Hakunamatata]

Schedule

 

[Hakunamatata]

Reserved for Ft Wilderness

 

[Hakunamatata]

Reserved for Magic Kingdom

 

[Hakunamatata]

Reserved for Epcot

 

[Hakunamatata]

Reserved for Hollywood Studios

Many of the gift shops are shuttered right now along the main arteries into the park and toward ToT.

 

[Hakunamatata]

Reserved for DAK

Flight of passage continues to create long stand by lines. Ona Tuesday the line at 9:45am was backed up almost to Africa.

If you were wondering where to grab a quick breakfast for your standby adventure, Pongu Pongu does have a decent breakfast item offering. All items we sampled were freshly made. Not that microwave crap like Starbucks.

 

[Hakunamatata]

Reserved for general comments about rule breaking, bad behavior, strollers, ecv’s, kids not on leashes that need to be, people looking one direction while walking in a different direction then stopping in front of me.
“Keep arms and legs inside the boat at all times. That means you too kid.

 

[Hakunamatata]

Reserved for other general stuff

 

[Hakunamatata]

good times

i wanna see the travel trailer

 

[Hakunamatata]

We have gone back and forth, added, cancelled, contemplated and finally (I think) arrived at the following list which consists of some old favorites and a few new to us selections.

Trails End - dinner
Raglan Road - dinner
1900 Park Faire - breakfast
Be Our Guest - dinner
Kona - breakfast
Chefs de French People - lunch
Storybook Dining - Dinner
Kona - breakfast
50s Prime Time - dinner
Kona - breakfast
Beaches and Cream - lunch
Raglan Road - lunch
Sci-fi Drive In - lunch
Be Our Guest - dinner

We have some duplicates of the favorites because we like them and just in case we have something come up and have to cancel we have a better chance of at least getting one visit in. These are spread out over approximately four weeks so I will be providing updates with photos as we go.

Dining plans updated.

 

[gendaisy]

We are going to be at the Fort June 8-15! I'm excited as this will be our first time camping at Disney. Maybe out paths will cross while we're both down there. Your extended trip sounds wonderful!!

 

[Hakunamatata]

We got these. I step closer.

 

[Hakunamatata]

Today is the day we check in to Ft Wilderness. We left Houston Thursday as soon as the boy finished his last final exam. We stayed over Thursday night at the KOA in Lafayette Louisiana right off I10. For oir first ever stay at a KOA it was a really nice place with lots of activities for the little ones, a nice central lake, clean restrooms and showers. Not over run by mosquitoes which was surprising.

We were up and on the road by 730. Ran through a couple of torrential downpours. Outside of Lafayette, Lake Charles, and Baton Rouge, the roads in that state have improved dramatically.

We were originally planning to stay in Chatahoochie Fl for our second night on the road but were making such good time I hopped online and got us a room at the Townplace Flamingo Crossings where we rolled in at about 9:30.

I highly recommend the Townplace/Springhill complex at FC. I travel a-lot and this by far is the nicest of these brands I have stayed at. You get a real resort feel and they share a really nice pool.

They also have a pool bar with a really nice food menu

So check in at the Fort planned around 10am which is all dependent on some thunderstorms forecasted to move through in a couple hours.

 

[LAKid53]

Today is the day we check in to Ft Wilderness. We left Houston Thursday as soon as the boy finished his last final exam. We stayed over Thursday night at the KOA in Lafayette Louisiana right off I10. For oir first ever stay at a KOA it was a really nice place with lots of activities for the little ones, a nice central lake, clean restrooms and showers. Not over run by mosquitoes which was surprising.

We were up and on the road by 730. Ran through a couple of torrential downpours. Outside of Lafayette, Lake Charles, and Baton Rouge, the roads in that state have improved dramatically.

We were originally planning to stay in Chatahoochie Fl for our second night on the road but were making such good time I hopped online and got us a room at the Townplace Flamingo Crossings where we rolled in at about 9:30.

I highly recommend the Townplace/Springhill complex at FC. I travel a-lot and this by far is the nicest of these brands I have stayed at. You get a real resort feel and they share a really nice pool.

View attachment 379956View attachment 379957

They also have a pool bar with a really nice food menu

So check in at the Fort planned around 10am which is all dependent on some thunderstorms forecasted to move through in a couple hours.

Glad you got there okay. We had a nice line of thunderstorms move through - my thanks for bringing some rain with you.

 

[Hakunamatata]

We got checked into the Fort right away and got our spot, set up, quick lunch at P&J and took a boat over to Magic Kingdom. Got our APs activated , get the Tables in Wonderland card and had guest services take a look at my charging capability. Kept erroring out but everyone else in my party could charge, even the people I didnt want to. (For a second I thought Bernie Sanders had taken over Disney). They thought they fixed it but when I tried to buy a beverage it wouldnt go through.

So back at the fort after riding Peter Pan and Pirates and catching Hall of the Presidents. Went to the registration office and they got IT on the phone and they got it fixed, or so they say. We will see as im getting ready to go have an adult beverage from Crockets and wait for our 7pm Trails end End ressie.

 

[Hakunamatata]

Today we started the day with P&J Take Out from the Fort for breakfast. I had the chicken biscuit and it was pretty good.

Chicken Biscuit

Dinner was at Raglan road i had the Wild Boar burger and it was delich shared apple crumble for desert

I loved these statues at Haunted Mansion

 

[mrerk]

So, I haven’t stayed at the Fort for a while. Where exactly is P&J’s?

 

[Swissmiss]

KOA is AOK ... brings back memories of family trips is the 60s and early 70s. As kids, we always liked the KOA campgrounds best.

Hope you are enjoying your trip.