Good morning Bama Ed. I do remember your idea of Camp Davy Crockett. That is still a wonderful idea. About the prime River Country location, I have 2 questions. First, arent there plenty of other locations around the lakes where they could build more hotels? Second, doesn't Copper Creek have cabins? I am thinking cabins by the lake and High end RV sites across the road. Maybe build an overpass for pedestrians and golf carts to avoid bus traffic. Just curious, did you go to the Rumers board and read my rose colored glasses tainted points for my dream resort? That said, I do respect your thoughts and opinions on all things Fort more than most if not all others. Thanks for your input.
Oh sure, I've seen the thread on the Rumors Board (I check the theme park, resorts, dining, rumors, and rundisney boards) but post here for the most part. To your points:
First, sure there is plenty of Bay Lake waterfront property available (and other lakes on property I guess). But with regards to BL, the land to the east of FW (behind the Four Seasons and Golden Oaks), is pretty inaccessible and would take some major work to access. Everything on the long north east side is far away from any existing guest facilities and parks. It's pretty remote and probably has no utilities. The northern edge backs up to the back shop area that supports the BL/7Seas navy flotilla. All of those points means that property, while waterfront, is far less attractive to development when there are other low hanging fruit opportunities like the RC area which is conveniently between two highly developed areas (WL and FW).
The last several DVC properties have all leveraged existing hotel facilities and services along with locations. Dining, parking, recreation, lobby services, transportation, all those services make a DVC addition/teardown/infill easier to justify. Beside the actual rooms/suites and a separate pool, generally little else is needed. CBR, WL, Poly, GF, BLT, all those have recent DVC's have used that strategy. In those cases, the services aspect was incremental; building a stand-alone OKW resort means services and infrastructure are not incremental but require a complete build-out (which makes them more expensive).
Second, sure, Copper Creek has about two dozen very nice cabins. But they are backed by over 300 suites/villas in the original WL DVC building and the half of the hotel that was converted to DVC recently. The cabins are expensive add-ons to the core collection of suites/villas that shoulder the financial load. Sites back across the road would be a very poor utilization of space. In the footprint of 3-4 DVC RV "loops" you could build a vertical resort of a couple floors and thus multiply the financial return exponentially.
Going back to the thought about DVC leveraging existing hotel services, we know a couple things. We know DVC needs a new project each time a buildout nears completion (the beast must be fed). We know with CBR that Disney will do DVC on what was formerly known as Moderate properties. So Disney might add DVC to a POFQ or POR. The rumored/planned Star Wars themed resort might have a DVC side. For a RC DVC to occur, the current plans mean several dominoes have to fall first. As the plans stand, the Mickey's Backyard BBQ pavilion would have to be relocated over by the Settlement TP, the Tri Circle D horse barn would have to be relocated up near the front where the horse rides are done. All those plans have already been drawn up and filed. Only then can you start the DVC construction around RC. When you see indications of those relo activities, that will be the tipoff.
Who knows what the next DVC project will be. But eventually, they'll come back to the RC property. And leverage all the services available at FW.
Finally, I will agree with one comment in the Rumors thread: if Walt himself had not planned a campground at WDW himself as part of the opening day plan, we wouldn't have a Fort Wilderness at all. It was strongly linked with him and so it was completed and expanded. At
Disneyland Paris, they have a Camp Davy Crockett (where I got the name from) that is essentially just cabins (no campsites) and it is MILES and MILES away from the DLP hotel and resort area.
I like your idea, don't get me wrong, but I just don't see it in the cards.
Bama Ed
(they could include charging stands)
