Mundy’s Magical Meanderings (Updated 3/21X2)

Paulaparm

DIS Veteran
Joined
Feb 3, 2020
Messages
789
Who: Paula and Gary
When: January 19-Feb 19, 2025
Where: Fort Wilderness and The Daytona 500

Travel Days January 19, 20, 21


We had packed up the camper on Saturday afternoon in dreary Northeast PA and got it hooked up and ready to go. We headed home (we keep our camper parked at a lot close to our seasonal summer spot) to relax a bit and ordered some Domino’s Pizza for supper. We hit the hay by 10:00.


We were up and out of the house by 6:30 Sunday morning. We had a few things to throw in the truck and were off by 7:10.


We live in northeast PA, and the weather man was calling for a storm this afternoon. Shortly after we got on the road, it started flurrying, but luckily nothing too heavy or laying on the road. The further south we went, the snow got a bit harder, but the roads were still just wet. Even with the less than stellar weather, we made good time. We hit MD at 10:15, WV at 10:26 and VA at 10:51.


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We were in NC at 4:20 and SC at 6:20. Our goal for the night was a Cracker Barrel in Orangeburg, SC. We arrived around 8:30, ate some leftover pizza, turned the furnace on, watched some tv and headed to bed.

After a good night’s sleep we headed into Cracker Barrel for breakfast. We fueled up the truck across the road and left around 8:30. We entered Georgia at 10:15 and Florida at 12:13!
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We had reservations at Orlando/Kissimmee KOA for the night. We arrived there at 4:20 and were escorted to our spot for the night. This was a great place that we would definitely consider staying at again. The pull-thru site we reserved was more than long enough for us to be able to keep the camper hooked up to the truck for the night.
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After we got things set up for the night, we took a walk. It was really needed after all those hours of riding! We did have to bundle up though, it was quite chilly! And would stay that way for a few days.

January 21 Finally!!

While check-in for the campsites at Fort Wilderness is 3:00, we like to get there earlier. You can check in anytime, if your site is ready, you can go to it and set up. If it isn’t ready you have the option of parking in the overflow parking lot and waiting, or you can head to a park, Disney Springs, or use that free water park ticket. Another option is to ask for a different spot than the one assigned to you. That is what we did.


We were going under the sign around 10:30…
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And had everything all set up around 1:00!
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As soon as we got all set up, it started to rain. It was still on the chilly side too, so we spent most of the rest of the day inside.
 
I am lovin the start of your trip report! Brings up all of the "waiting to get there" excitement cause we drive too. Thanks for taking the time to share. Looking forward to more :-)
 
Looking forward to reading all about your trip. It’s nice to see another driver from the Northeast make the road trip to Florida. I do the same thing, take pictures when we enter the different states so I’ll know what time we got there.
 
Joining in! It's funny, every time I see someone driving through VA I want to say to stop over in Alexandria and say hi! We're just off the beltway!
 
I am lovin the start of your trip report! Brings up all of the "waiting to get there" excitement cause we drive too. Thanks for taking the time to share. Looking forward to more :-)
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Change this to PA…
I too, find the drive down fun 😉
 
I'm hare for the adventure.

We missed you by a few days. We left on January 18th and had snow in South Louisiana on January 21st. Looks like the cold made it to Florida just for you.
 
Thursday January 23 Disney Springs

We left the camper around 10:00 and took the golf cart to the Outpost Depot to get the bus to Disney Springs.
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Yes, we had our winter coats on! It was also raining off and on, but we got lucky and it was just sprinkling for most of the day. We had an ADR for Homecomin’ at 11:30. I had the Cuban sandwich and Gary had the Chicken and donuts. They were both really good and we also enjoyed the moonshine drinks that we had. I even remembered to bring our refill cups from last trip. 😉


After that, we did some shopping. We looked around the M&M’s store and Columbia. Then we decided to head to City Works for a few drinks. Sometime later we headed out. It was raining a bit harder then, so we decided to make our way to Everglazed and Gideon’s and head back to the Fort. We were back on the bus around 4:30 and just hung out in the camper the rest of the evening. It was chilly and rainy and we wanted to get ready for our first day in the parks tomorrow!
 
Friday, January 24 Hollywood Studios


Let me preface this entry with a bit of explanation…Gary isn’t the Disney (World) lover that I am. He really enjoys himself when he is here. He has favorite rides, favorite restaurants, etc., but I’m never going to get him to make yearly trips, or every other year. 😀 It seems that we will do this trip probably every 2-3 years. We last visited 3 years ago during the same time period. Then we spent 2 weeks at Fort Wilderness and 10 days in the parks. We both felt we didn’t have enough time to spend enjoying the Fort, so we said that the next time, we would do 3 weeks and still just do 10 days in the parks. After visiting WDW, we head over to Daytona Beach for 10 days to attend the Daytona 500. That’s more his jam! Sooooo, that’s my really long way of saying we also tend not to rope drop or spend open to close in the parks. Luckily, we get to spend 10 days, so rope drop and really long days don’t always seem necessary during the time frame in which we visit! Our schedule for this trip worked out really well, we would spend 2 days in the parks and then have a rest day. It was great. We didn’t get tired feet, blisters, and we never got that special kind of “Disney tired”!


Another note I’ll make here while I am thinking about it. We did receive the free water park ticket for our check in day. Unfortunately, the water park was closed that day due to the cold temperatures. I intended to ask at the desk about the possibility of using it another day, not expecting to be able to, but would have been appreciative if we could. Of course, I never got around to doing it. After returning home, I read somewhere that because they were closed, the ticket was good for any day of our trip and it was available for us to use a different day. Lesson learned!


So let’s get to our day! We did have LLMP for today and a LLSP for ROR.


We arrived at HS 10:30ish, again donning our winter coats. At least there was no rain today. It was nice and sunny, but chilly. Our first LL was for A.S.Saucers. Just a little “burner” ride that we do enjoy enough with a short line.

**I didn’t take many pictures this trip. I also lost most of my notes. I did a pretty good job of keeping good notes so I could do this report justice, but I lost the file. I am working from memory, receipts, and photos (the ones I did take and ones we got from rides) It is what it is, folks!**

After visiting with the Aliens we headed over for one last visit with the Muppets. Corny, yeah. But we enjoy it. Then it was time for Rise of the Resistance. This was our first time riding this attraction. I am claustrophobic. Last trip, I didn’t know enough about this attraction to feel confident that I wouldn’t end up waiting in some small area packed with people, so we didn’t ride. This time I had done enough “research” and thought I would be okay. So we paid to ride and LOVED it!! We did up only riding this time as we never wanted to wait in a long line or pay more cash to ride.


After that we headed to ABC Commissary for lunch. I mobile ordered on our way over and our food was ready shortly. We got a table outside in the sunshine.
We both had the Mediterranean Salad and really enjoyed it.
Our next LL was for TSM so we made our way over.
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Gary beat me.😥

The next picture I have is from the Indiana Jones show at 4:30. That leaves about 3 hours unaccounted for. I’m (almost) certain we did the Frozen Ever After show today.

I know we left the park after Indy and took the Skyliner to Epcot…and I don’t know what we did there. I’m pretty confident that we shared an order of Fish and chips at Yorkshire County Fish Shop and we left the park around 7:30.

As I’m typing this, I am so irritated that I lost the notes, didn’t take better notes/photos. Next time! 🙄
 













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