Feb 2007

We got up bright and early this morning to hook up the RV and take it over to Camping World for an 8am appointment to get our heater fixed. Bottom line is that after 3 hours they still weren't sure why the heater didn't work, but they thought that it needed a part and they can't get the part til next Wednesday. Joe and I spent the morning in their customer lounge doing homework. And of course we had to browse their store and ended up buying another $100 worth of RV accessories, including a portable electric heater. Now, you're probably thinking that it's good to get an electric heater since our gas heater/thermostat is not working. WELL, after 3 hours of not being able to find the problem with the thermostat and ordering a part, they replaced our battery that was not holding the charge as well as it should be and PRESTO!!! the thermostat and heater began working. They have no clue why this happened and suggest we still replace the part that we ordered. (In case you're curious, all of the work was covered under our warranty -- thank goodness).

So we will be back next Wednesday. We're going to try to extend our stay at Fort Wilderness 2 days.

We get back to Disney, have lunch in our RV and head to EPCOT. It's open late for Disney Resort guests today so we see most of Future World despite the late start. We spent 2 hours in Innoventions with Joe seeing and trying out all of the exhibits. Jere got to try out a Segway (those riding machines that you stand on and lean different ways to make it go), while Joe & I went to play a game about fire safety. The state requires all homeschoolers to have fire safety in their curriculum, so this was a fun way to fulfill that requirement (for the record, the team that Joe and I were on won the game!).

Woke up this morning to 58 degrees in the RV. I hit the remote to increase the temp and nothing happened -- in fact we couldn't get the thermostat to do anything. Bottom line -- thermostat is busted and no way to get the heater to turn on without it. I was not a happy camper! This RV thing is just too challenging for me at times -- especially in the morning....I am not a morning person.

So we make an appointment at Camping World to get the thermostat fixed tomorrow morning and head to the Magic Kingdom several hours later than planned. The lateness is not a big deal to Jere or I, but Joe is not a happy camper in the morning either.

We take the boat from the campground to the Magic Kingdom around 11am and it is another beautiful sunny warm day. We walk on most rides, including Space Mtn, and have a good time. Even Splash Mountain had no waiting -- and we found out why no one else was waiting in line at 6pm at night to go on a WATER ride -- yes, we got wet and yes, it was cold!!!

The Wishes fireworks show in the evening was great and we actually had a good viewing area, since the crowds were relatively low.

The RV is fairly warm when we get back around 8pm.

We slept in, had a big breakfast and drove over to Animal Kingdom. The weather/sky is wonderful----clear, sunny and today's high was around 75 degrees. Great day to visit the park.

This park also has Magic Hours for guests tonight from 5pm to 8pm, so we saw everything in the park today, with very little waiting. We spent about 90 minutes at the animal research center for Joe's homeschooling, learning about endangered species.

Only downer of the day was Joe feeling nauseous after riding their new roller-coaster, Everest Expedition. It was a great ride, but at one point on the ride you go backwards down a hill and through lots of turns in total, complete darkness. I had taken some Bonine for motion sickness, so I felt a little queazy but ok after 5-10 minutes. Joe needed to lie down for awhile. We thought about calling it a day, but then Joe said he just needed to walk around a little to feel better; and he was right, so we stayed and did the rest of the rides. We were there from about 11am til 7:30pm and saw all of the rides/shows except the Lion King show. We didn't realize that the last show was at 4:00 for that. We had seen it before and enjoyed it. They have a new musical show, "Nemo, the Musical". This is the only ride/show we waited in line for (in fact, even the new rollercoaster was no waiting), since it's so new. Many of the people raved about it as they left. It was different and had great visuals/costumes & lasted about 45 minutes, but I wasn't crazy about the music.

We are actually getting better at packing up everything in the trailer to get it ready for travel :-) We did it in less than two hours! Hopefully this whole RV thing will get easier with experience. I'm still not a convert to the RV way of life.

It took us about 6 hours to drive to Disney, with a planned stop at the Ochopee Post Office to mail some post cards and an unplanned stop for free orange juice at the Florida Citrus Growers visitor center. We had some 'challenges' getting in and out of a gas station--we gave the other customers a "show" (I honestly wondered at one point if we were going to be trapped there with no way to get out), but the trip was uneventful besides that.

Backing into our campsite at Fort Wilderness (the Disney World campground) was also a 'challenge'. And again, we gave our neighbors a "show". Even our next door neighbor, who wasn't there for the show heard about it from others. BUT the important thing is that we did finally get backed into the site without hitting anything. Disney does not make it easy -- lots of obstacles. We did hear that later today, the motorhome a few sites down from ours did hit the one pole and damaged his very expensive motorhome.

There are a lot of big expensive motorhomes around us. And everybody seems to have at least one dog. Apparently, we're in the 'pet loop'. I'm a little concerned because there is one dog that is constantly barking, but our one neighbor said that's the first they heard it. Hopefully he'll quiet down when his owners get back from the park.

The campsite is very nice and the restrooms sparkle. If anyone is familiar with campground restrooms, you know that not only do they usually not sparkle, but even the best usually have the appearance of a restroom at an old greasy spoon diner :-)

We got set up and went over to the Shades of Green to get our military Park Tickets and then head right over to MGM studios, since it's open from 7pm to 10pm for Disney World resort guests only. There were very few guests at the park so we walk on all the rides and have a great time.

Ft Wilderness isn't the cheapest campground, but it's about the same as the other nice campgrounds in the area, plus you don't need to pay $10/day for parking at Disney parks and you get to use the extra Magic Hours for park guests. We're planning to stay here 6 nights.

Lots of puddles here this morning after yesterday's rain showers in southern Florida. And the lake outside our door is definately higher -- the alligators are all hiding this morning. For those who watched last night's SuperBowl game, the Everglades got the same downpours. We were glad we went north yesterday to visit my niece -- it was cloudy in Ft Myers, but no rain.

My parents didn't work today so we did some sightseeing in the area. We visiting Big Cypress National Preserve visitor's center and watched the film and looked at their exhibits and then drove down to Everglades National Park Visitor's center (Everglades City) and saw a really good presentation by one of the rangers on manatees.

My aunt and uncle came over to see our rig. The seven of us fit into our combined living room/kitchen with room to spare :-) They're retired and also have a 5th wheel trailer that they use to winter in Florida.

We started packing up for our trip to Disney tomorrow and had my parents over for dinner. None of us ate much; it was a long day and I think we are all tired.