When It Rains, Dance In the Puddles! Disney's Fort Wilderness Cabins Before 1st Disney Cruise on the Disney Fantasy - BOGP 2965

Be Our Guest WDW Podcast

Becky shares the details of her recent 'Land and Sea' vacation, which included a stay at Disney's Fort Wilderness Cabins followed by her family's

Key takeaways

• Renting a golf cart is essential for navigating Fort Wilderness comfortably, especially when traveling with multiple children.
• The Quick Service Dining Plan can be maximized by ordering the most expensive items on the menu since they are already prepaid.
• A heavy downpour at Magic Kingdom turned into a core memory through impromptu puddle jumping and dancing in the streets.
• Becky's first cruise on the Disney Fantasy was so successful that her family has already booked a seven-night Western Caribbean itinerary on the Disney Treasure.
• Utilizing a Polar Patio at Blizzard Beach provides an excellent shaded retreat for infants and toddlers during hot summer days.

Main topics

• Disney's Fort Wilderness Cabins
• Disney Cruise Line debut on the Disney Fantasy
• Navigating theme parks during rain

Notable quotes

We're already soaked. What's the big deal?

Conclusion

The episode serves as an inspiring reminder that flexibility and a res

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Happy Monday, everybody. Thank you so much for downloading or streaming the Be Our Guest podcast. Hope you had an awesome weekend. Thanks for checking in with us here to start another week. Becky's on the line to share her awesome trip report with us today. We're going to Disney's Fort Wilderness cabins, and they had a little pre-Disney Cruise Line stay down there. We talk about renting a golf cart, exploring the Fort Wilderness area, and going to the four theme parks. and also just dancing in the rain and jumping in the puddles when those happen. They had a great time using the quick service dining plan, having some fun over at Blizzard Beach. And then it was time for her family's first ever Disney cruise on the Fantasy. What did they think? Let me just give you a little spoiler. They loved it. So we get to hear about fun times for her kids, her three girls in the kids clubs. The parents, Becky and her husband, won a trivia. Which one did they win? What did they think about the dining around the ship, their stateroom, and all of the adventures around the fantasy? We're talking about it on today's show. So get ready for a land and sea adventure on today's episode. Don't forget, today's podcast is brought to you by the Magic for Less Travel. We're standing by to help you plan your next Disney adventure for no additional cost to you. So check out all the details today over at themagicforless.com. Please also use our Amazon affiliate link when you shop online. That one extra click supports everything we do throughout the year. Please click through brgustpodcast.com slash Amazon. And thank you for supporting us on Patreon. You can support us. It's just $5 a month. And when you do that, you get a bonus show called Mike in the Midwest. If you haven't, please consider supporting us this week. Thanks to everybody who's already done that. Again, just visit patreon.com. slash Be Our Guest podcast. Speaker 1 (1:49) Ready to take a trip to the world? You found the Be Our Guest Walt Disney World Trip Planning Podcast. This is where your memories come front and center on our podcast stage. Speaker 2 (2:06) Welcome to episode 2965 of the Be Our Guest Walt Disney World Trip Planning Podcast. I'm your host, Mike Rallman from BeOurGuestPodcast.com and one of the senior agents over at the Magic for Less Travel. Happy Monday to you. Hope you had a great weekend and that you are ready for an awesome trip report here as we start another week. Hope all of our friends down in the state of Mississippi are still with us after the big... Ole Miss-LSU game. If you're a college football fan, you know. We record this a little early, so I don't know how that thing turned out, but I definitely was tuned in from the zoo in Columbia because we were playing Troy. Not the most exciting game in the world. Hopefully, I say that with caution. But yeah, I know that was a big one. His lane came back to Oxford. Maybe we'll talk about that somewhere and get some comments going on that. But hey, we're here to talk Disney, and that's what we're going to do today. And I love these kind of shows because we have so much to talk about. We're going to talk about Walt Disney World. We're going to have some hot takes. We're going to talk about our first Disney cruise on the Fantasy, no less. And big group traveling together. And I got a teacher friend joining me. And not only that. A kindergarten teacher, which God bless America. Kindergarten teachers are amazing. And I've said this in the pre-show before we start recording. And I believe this more than kindergarten and first grade teachers should be paid more than any other teachers in the world because you just can't relate to those kids. Like they're so needy. So we have Becky joining us from up near Boston, north of Boston. So Becky, thanks for coming on the show. And like I said, kindergarten teacher, you're an angel. Thanks for being here. Speaker 3 (3:51) Hi, Mike. Thank you so much for having me. I think you should make all the rules for my payroll because I'll take it. I'll take it. Take this Speaker 2 (3:59) straight to administration. Yeah, for sure. I'll say Speaker 3 (4:04) Mike from Be Our Guest podcast wants me to be paid double everybody else in my building. Speaker 2 (4:10) I'm sure the wore-out fourth grade teacher that's been there 27 years and is hanging on by a thread would love to hear that. Speaker 3 (4:17) Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. And I'm a K to eight, too. So, you know, it's I'm sure all of them would be like, yeah, sure. OK, all right. Speaker 2 (4:25) So real quick, let's get to know you a little bit. There is kind of a it's funny because, you know, I taught in an elementary school for 17 years. Well, I was taught in a gifted center for the last nine. But there was a weird correlation, at least in my corner of the world, in a couple of buildings that I taught in. With teachers and Disney fans. It was like a Venn diagram where they were in the middle there a lot. A lot of teachers are Disney fans. Do you see that up in your corner of the world as well? Speaker 3 (4:53) I 100 % see that. I have a lot of teacher friends who are, you know, Disney travel advisors on the side. And, you know, I see a lot of that. One of my closest co-workers, she's actually a huge Disney fan. One of my guidance counselors is a huge Disney fan. So, you know, we have a lot to chat about when we're trying to distract ourselves from the day-to-day craziness during prep. We have hallway chats and it usually comes back to Disney. Speaker 2 (5:18) It's also kind of a fun way to draw the kids into some lessons. You know, I did that over the years. A lot of times, you know, like I was teaching a unit on maps with kids and I just, I'd recently been on a Walt Disney world trip. So instead of using maps of the U S I had animal kingdom. I mean, I'm old, right? We had paper maps, you know, that I got when I left each park. And I guess now you'd have to use the app or something, but you know, back then, you know, we just, we talked about, you know, cardinal directions and. You know, finding yourself from, you know, if you had to go from Tomorrowland to Frontierland, like which direction would you have to go west? Would you have to go east? You know, and that kind of stuff. And it was more fun for the kids to kind of explore a place where most of my kids didn't get to go, but they got to kind of have fun with that. Exactly. And Speaker 3 (6:00) honestly, every year I do at the end of the year, we'll see if I do it this year in kindergarten. But when I was in first grade every year, I would do a virtual field trip to Disney World at the end of the school year. So I would show them all my favorite rides and they would get to pick where they wanted to go. And we traveled all. around and it was a lot of fun i Speaker 2 (6:15) love that that is awesome so god i love when our kids get to explore because teachers have kind of a love of disney and they get to have a little connection to that and hopefully all of our kids will get to visit you know waltz's world disneyland maybe a cruise sometime in their life and uh let's it helps Speaker 3 (6:29) to be able to relate to the kids too like oh you know in toy story when this happened or you know what's woody's favorite saying and you know Howdy partner, you know, all the things. So, you know, all those, all those things, it's really helpful for that, for that age group. So I Speaker 2 (6:46) taught like sixth grade, most of the time, four through six gifted my last like eight or nine years. And I had, my classroom was super old. Cause like my parents went to middle school in the classroom where I taught gifted. So they were seventh and eighth graders in the classroom where I taught. right into my career so it had one of those picture this i don't know if you know though we had an intercom throughout the building and so we had like that big box that was the intercom speaker okay do you have the guy to know he's like our bill i mean the building by now actually they demolished the building a few years back after i after i left but on top of the speaker i had buzz and woody Speaker 2 (7:26) These are my Buzz and Woody McDonald's toys, Happy Meal toys that sat forever on top of my intercom speaker. And I told the kids that they had built-in cameras. And so they had security cameras in their eyes so that the administrators could see what was going on in our classroom at all times. So they were pointing out at the kids, but they were always watching. Like, you know, just like in Toy Story, they're alive. So they could, you know, check it in. Well, yeah, Speaker 3 (7:51) that makes sense. And like Woody's head turns and we're always watching, right? I Speaker 2 (7:56) mean, it could have been Roz. I should have got a Roz, but I didn't. All right. So let's talk about your trip because we've got a lot to talk about. We're going to jump in. So tell us about the genesis of this land and sea vacation, how to come together. Speaker 3 (8:07) Okay, so we went on a quote unquote one and done trip two summers ago. And, you know, my husband was like, all right, we're going to take our girls. They're good ages for it. But that was it. We're not going to do it again. And then, oh, whoops, we did a bounce back offer because we had so much fun. And then again, the same thing happened last summer. We did. the exact same thing. Okay, fine. We'll do one more trip. Cause we had to go down to Florida. Cause my sister lives down there. We were having a baby shower for her. Um, and I was like, well, we're going to be in Florida. So we might as well go to Disney. So we did. And we did a whole week long vacation at, um, we actually stayed at old Q West and Speaker 2 (8:49) it was, it Speaker 3 (8:50) was so great. Um, the girls love the Mickey. slide um the pool um they loved the dole whip um key lime pie dole whip was like 10 out of 10 we loved it so much um and so then again we got our bounce back offer and we were booked for a week at um boardwalk for this current summer and then all of a sudden my middle daughter who's um eight she was seven at the time she turned eight in april and we were like She was like, have you ever heard of Disney Cruise? Like, what's this Disney Cruise? And I was like, I had never been on a cruise before, ever. And I was like, no, like, I'm prone to seasickness on, like, smaller boats. I don't think I want to do that. We just love the park so much. No. So then I started thinking about it, and I started doing research, because that's what we do, right? And I was like, okay, maybe we could do this. I don't know. I don't know. And then we were going back and forth. And then my husband was like, all right, well, why don't we try like a shorter one and see what fits in our timeframe? We had previously, again, because I'm a teacher, we had gone mid to end August. like the last two summers. So it's like the surface of the sun. It was hot. It was, you know, it was hard. I know exactly. So that was Speaker 2 (10:06) my whole existence for 20 years. Yes. Yeah. Speaker 3 (10:09) So then we were like, okay, well let's go earlier in the summer. We still want to go during the summer, but let's go a little earlier. So then we were looking at dates. We were throwing things around. And then my husband's best friend, he actually lives in Florida. He lives in Windermere, which is like really close by. He's a pass holder. He's all of it. Um, he's. you know, obsessed with all things Disney. So we were chatting with him and my husband was like, Oh, Becky's starting to, you know, get the idea about going on a cruise. And he was like, yes, we have to do the cruise. We have to do the cruise. You guys have to do the cruise. So we decided, all right, we'll give it a try. So I was like, but I don't want to go to Disney and not go to Disney. So we decided to do three nights ahead of time at Fort Wilderness. So we stayed at Fort Wilderness for three nights because I really like the idea of because we have three girls, three three daughters. At the time, they were ages nine, eight and four. Since that point, they're now ten, eight and five. But so I want to be able to enjoy the vacation while we're on vacation, too. So. it's not very fun for me and my husband to like sit in the dark or sit in a bathroom while our kids are sleeping and like, you know, a smaller quarters. So we liked the idea of having like a one bedroom, like that's what we did at old key West. So we were like, Hey, let's, let's try out the cabins. I've heard great things. And I always went like camping. Like I put that in air quotes because we would do like a trailer kind of deal at a campground when I was growing up. So I was like, Ooh, I think I like that vibe with Disney added on top of it. So we decided to go there. And then we found the four night cruise on the fantasy, which I thought was long enough for us to try it out, but not too long in case all of us were sick and we didn't like it. So I was like, all right, I think that's the happy medium. I don't, I think three nights would be too short. So let's try the four. And, and I think that'll be able to give us a good, you know, let's see if we like this kind of thing. So Speaker 2 (12:09) that's Speaker 3 (12:10) kind of how this evolved. Speaker 2 (12:11) Let me jump in here because you did. I mean, unintentionally, you did what Disney Cruise Line did to introduce Disney Cruise Line to Disney World fans back in the 90s. Because it launched as a land and sea vacation exclusively. And what they offered was either the only thing they had basically were three night stays at Walt Disney World combined with four night cruise or the flip flop. You could do the four night cruise and the three night or the. four days stay at Walt Disney World and the three night cruise. You could do one of the two when it launched with the magic and then the wonder. And so you, it's so funny that you kind of fell on that because that was kind of how they introduced cruising to Disney fans with the magic originally. And it worked out great. Cause that's how I did my first cruise, right? I went down, we stayed, I can't remember like at one of the all-stars or Caribbean beach or somewhere and did, you know, my first cruise on the magic. That's how I fell in love with it, right? I was like, it's the same thing. I mean, I'm from Missouri. I had never seen a cruise ship in my life. I saw the magic. I'm like, it's the biggest thing in the whole history of the world. Now you see the magic and I'm like, oh, that's a teeny tiny ship. You see those Royal Caribbean ships. I'm like, oh my gosh. I know. We were actually in port next to one of the Royal Caribbean's and I was like, whoa. What is that? I know. It's like you're on the treasure and you're like, oh my God, the treasure's small. I'm like, what is going on? I know. I thought it was big. Yeah, but okay. I love your idea, though, of having the bigger cabin. So let me get a check on that because I want to talk about the Walt Disney World stay. And it's funny because you said you like kind of camping. That's the only place I haven't stayed with my family because my wife says she Speaker 1 (13:44) needs a food court. And she's not like Speaker 2 (13:48) we've. And the funny thing is, we dated. We used to do things in the Midwest. We call them float trips. where you kind of camp out and then you get on like a raft. Like what you do, Speaker 3 (13:56) you Speaker 2 (13:56) get on an old school bus and they take you about 10 miles up, like not a big river, but kind of a smaller river. And you float back down to your, to your tent. Yep. Speaker 3 (14:06) My brother used to do that all the time in the Saco River in New Hampshire. It's like, it's like one of those things. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 2 (14:12) Cause it was super cheap. Right. Exactly. That's why you did it. Cause I go through the summer as teachers. Cause you could do it all like a weekend for like a hundred bucks. So we did that all the time. So we used to camp. I mean, we were a lot younger then. So I guess that's probably it. But we've never stayed there because she's not into the whole camping vibe anymore. She needs like a food court and that kind of stuff. And like a gift shop. There was a gift shop in Fort Wilderness. That's nice. That's actually one of my favorites. So you rented a golf cart though, which I think is key. According to Scott, because Scott stayed there and he loved it too. So give us the review. I mean, was it what you were expecting? What about the girls, your husband? What did you think about this? State is old Key West is a different vibe. Totally, Speaker 3 (14:46) totally different vibe. And our first day that we ever did as a family was at art of animation. So going from art of animation to old Key West, those are two completely different places. High energy and kind of very laid back. Yeah. Old Key West is just like, you feel like you're actually on vacation a little bit, like, you know, relaxed and whatever. But our one big thing about old Key West was that at the end of a busy park day, you're exhausted and you have three exhausted kids. walking back from the bus stop, I was like, this is the worst part of the entire day. And I'm dreading going back because we have to like drag them back and everyone's upset and everything else. So literally having that golf cart, I could never like envision doing it another way. You need a Speaker 2 (15:27) golf cart. Art of animation. I Speaker 3 (15:29) feel like they should have all golf resorts everywhere. Like why not? And honestly, Old Key West feels like that vibe of like having a golf cart. It does. You're right. Because Speaker 2 (15:40) it's like a little like old folks community or something. I mean, I don't mind the vibe anymore. I'm like an old folk, you know? So who cares? Speaker 3 (15:47) Yeah, no. And it was fun. But it was definitely not like, you know, my kids weren't as into it there, which I understand because it didn't really feel for them like it was like Disney Disney, especially going from Art of Animation. But honestly, like I we loved Fort Wilderness. And I think because of how the cruise went, I think. Fort Wilderness kind of got overshadowed. Speaker 1 (16:09) And I wish Speaker 3 (16:09) we had more of an opportunity to explore all that Fort Wilderness has to offer. And just to let your wife know, I hate camping. I hate all of that. I need an air conditioner. I need a full bathroom and I need a kitchen. That's her. Yeah. And a real bed. Like I will not be sleeping on the ground on an air mattress. So this was like, this was. perfect the girls were able to go in their own room they each got their own bed because they have the bunk beds plus the bed and then my husband and i did the pull down murphy and it was perfect and they were comfortable and everyone slept wonderfully um yeah so you know Tell Pam it's really awesome. I've told Speaker 2 (16:49) her that. She's being a pain. You Speaker 3 (16:51) have to Speaker 2 (16:51) get a Speaker 3 (16:51) golf cart, though. You Speaker 2 (16:52) have to get a golf cart. It's like a golf cart slash go-kart. You know what I'm saying? I'm like a 12-year-old. I see them. I used to run around there. I run every morning. I stayed at Wilderness Lodge. There used to be a path you could run from Wilderness Lodge through some woods, and then you'd pop out over at the campground. I'd run those loops and everything, and it was so fun because I'd see people ride their golf carts. I'm like, God, I want to go. do that and Scott and he did his videos yeah they Speaker 3 (17:19) had so much to offer they had the horses wait like we would like check out the horses as we're waiting for the bus like that was the coolest thing for my kids just to like see these giant you know majestic animals just standing there and you know they were like looking at them and there was all sorts of stuff when we were able to explore one day um there was just so much so much to do and I wish we had more time there um because we didn't really get to use it to the best of its you know what it has to offer. So that's definitely something like, we definitely want to go back to Fort wilderness. Cause I was like, man, I love it here. It's just so, there was something really special about being able to drink your morning coffee on a little deck outside of your cabin and hear like the nature sounds and like, just like see people like buzzing around on their golf carts. And we were there around the 4th of July. So people had crazy decorations, like blow ups and lights and their golf carts were all done up. And I was like, I didn't really know that that was. So my girls at the end of the night would be like, how are we going to find our golf cart? And I was like, easy. It's the one that doesn't Speaker 2 (18:21) have anything on it. It's the one that doesn't have lights or like, you know, a fake rocket shooting off the side. Exactly. There's Speaker 3 (18:27) no giant bald eagle on top of it. It's the one right next to it. Speaker 2 (18:32) It'd be like, I need to get on Amazon and get like a two hour delivery or something. No, but I seriously Speaker 3 (18:36) considered it. Cause I was like, this stinks. There's nothing here. I feel like totally lame for not knowing this. Speaker 2 (18:43) Next time. I was like, my Speaker 3 (18:45) planning has failed me. Speaker 2 (18:46) People always take notes on the Monday shows because the guests always give great information. Okay, if you're going to Fort Wilderness, get decorations. If you're anywhere near a holiday, decorate your stuff and bring your blow-ups. And Speaker 3 (18:57) they make Speaker 2 (18:57) those Speaker 3 (18:57) lights that have batteries, so you can just hang them up and turn it on, and it will be great. I have them in my kids' rooms. I'm like, I should have just brought them with me. Totally. Speaker 2 (19:06) Okay. So we got to get all this in. So how about times at the parks though? Because you were there. One of the things you mentioned, and this is where we, I love when we differ on things. You guys spent a lot of time. It was the Blizzard Beach thing on your check-in day. So it was free. Is that how you did it? Good call with that many kids. Speaker 3 (19:22) Yes. So we flew in the day before. We actually flew in on the 4th. Pro tip, flights are actually cheaper on the 4th of July because in Ottawa Speaker 2 (19:29) people Speaker 3 (19:29) are flying. Speaker 2 (19:29) Yeah, people don't want to travel. Well, hey, I actually flew home one time on the 4th of July. That's an awesome time to fly because you see the fireworks from the air. That's a great tip. Yeah, well, we Speaker 3 (19:38) didn't see that because we were in mourning. I wish we did. But we were flying in, and so we stayed at my husband's friend who I mentioned previously. We stayed at his house, and we got up early. We got an Uber, and we went right over to Fort Wilderness. We dropped our stuff off. And I had a little go bag ready. So it had like I had the girls wear their suits. So I just had like, you know, sunscreen, all the necessities and a little go bag. So we were able to leave all of our stuff at Fort Wilderness and we hopped right on the bus. I think we had to go to Animal Kingdom and then we transferred to Blizzard Beach. And I actually I was able to snag one of those polar patios. for Blizzard Beach because my sister and her family, they have a one-year-old son, my nephew, and they were going to join us because they're local to Florida as well. So I was like, oh, I don't know if he's ready for the parks yet, but why don't you guys come to Blizzard Beach? I think that's a good, you know, Speaker 2 (20:32) easy Speaker 3 (20:33) thing for him to ease into the world of Disney, you know? So come hang out in the water. I know it's hot, but, you know. will be great. So we got the patio and I'll say that was amazing. We were in a great spot. We were right at like the Tykes Peak area, like right behind the Anna and Elsa little statues with the slides, like the little kid slides. And we were right near like that ski patrol area for my kids that they just loved it. My four-year-old She went down that slide. There was, I think, three slides next to each other. And she was racing my eight-year-old daughter. They were just going down. They probably went down 10,000 times, legitimately. We had an attendant that came to the Polar Patio. And his name was Steven. And he was actually from Scotland. So he was in Boston for the World Cup. Speaker 2 (21:23) Was he a part of the Tartan Army or whatever? Oh, no. Oh, God. That's great. Speaker 3 (21:28) I was like, wait. he was like, where are y'all from? Like, you know, and I was like, oh, we're from Massachusetts. We're near Boston. And he was like, you guys are crazy. And I was like, no, you guys are crazy. He's probably Speaker 2 (21:40) trying to put a traffic cone on your head or something. But Speaker 3 (21:43) he was like, he was wonderful. He put his phone number on like a little plaque thing on, and he was like, whatever you need, just send me a text. And