Campground Crowding! And a look at Orange County Parks

We just finished up a short (5 day) stay at Moss Park, an Orange County park where we've stayed many times, so I figured rather than extoll the many virtues of the park again, I'd talk some more about what got us here and Orange County parks in general.

But first, the obligatory campsite pic!  We returned to site 54, the first site we ever had here, with its nice seclusion at the end of the park loop.

Moss Park campsite

While we were at Moss Park, we visited Animal Kingdom and Epcot, and had beautiful days at both.  We were at Epcot for the first day of the Festival of the Arts and witnessed (but did not participate in!) the unreal 7 hour lines for the Figment Popcorn Bucket!

The Lion King 50th anniversary statues

Up close and personal with a giraffe on
Kilimanjaro Safaris!

We caught the Jungle Book version of the new KiteTails show

Mickey and Minnie on the river!

Painting Epcot's version of Starry Night

Full view of the paint-by-number mural (background) with the 
expectation of the finished product on the bookmark (foreground)

So, back to the promised content.  You may or may not have noticed we're off our typical 2-week Thousand Trails 1-week County Park camping schedule for the Orlando winter.  This is because 2 months ago, when I attempted to make a Thousand Trails reservation for the second week of January, NONE of the Thousand Trails parks in the Orlando area were available.  NONE.  We've had weeks in previous years where we had to settle for our least favorite of the Thousand Trails in the area, but we've never before experienced a time when we couldn't book ANYTHING.  We *think* this was because the Disney marathon weekend occurred over the time frame we were trying to book.  So, due to this, we ended up booking two weeks at Kelly Park.  But then...we thought we'd be able to get into Thousand Trails for the third week of January but NO, again, EVERYTHING was booked.  This time it seemed to be due to the Martin Luther King Jr holiday.  So, maxed out at Kelly Park (we can only stay 2 weeks at a given county park), we had to move to another park.  I tried to move just down the street to Trimble Park, but NO again, there was nothing available!  This is particularly unreal - I've never had trouble booking a county park at the start of the booking window.  So we ended up at Moss Park, even though it's the farthest away from Kelly Park, because (I assume) it has a lot more campsites available.  Of course Moss Park is lovely and we enjoyed our stay, but this experience was a bit unnerving for both of us.

Campground crowding has been a hot topic in the RV podcasts, YouTube videos, etc. that we follow.  Aaron has been quite concerned about what this means for our future for some time, but I adopted a more optimistic attitude...  However this experience has got us both thinking.  Our little 2-week/1-week schedule has worked really well for us the past two years, and with it challenged so strongly these past few weeks, we're thinking the lifestyle we hoped for - with a bit of spontaneity! - might not be possible for a while.  Now, we're probably inappropriately extrapolating our 2 week experience in one location to year-round across the country, but as linked above we're not the only ones experiencing issues.  I saw a headline flash by a few weeks ago that said you needed to book things now 6 months in advance, which is just much more advance planning than we usually have!  So we will see how the rest of the season goes (we typically book 45/60 days in advance, so far so good on the next 45/60 days), but if we regularly find these kinds of issues, we may be dissuaded from this lifestyle.  Having a 40-ft behemoth of an RV without a place to park overnight is quite a worry for me!!

The other thing I thought I'd mention is much less dramatic - looking at an interesting trend in the Orange County Parks.  Now that we've stayed in Kelly Park, and with my memory refreshed on Moss Park, I noticed a couple things.  I feel that you can group the Orange County Parks into two categories - Moss Park and Kelly Park have an entrance gate with an entry fee for general park use and do not allow pets.  Trimble Park and Magnolia Park are free for day use and do allow pets.  Moss Park and Kelly Park have more, larger, more private sites with nicer bathhouses (with actual shower stalls with doors, for example).  Trimble Park and Magnolia Park have fewer campsites with less privacy and cheaper bathhouses (they're still nicer than many we've seen, but opt for shower curtains instead of doors and don't have as nice a changing area).  There's an obvious correlation here if the parks have more money because they collect day use entry fees, so they have more money to spend on nicer accommodations, but it is interesting that there's not a difference in the actual cost to camp.  I'm struggling to understand the difference in the pet policy.  One thought I had is that it's hard to enforce a pet policy if you don't actually talk to each car on the way in at the entry gate.  I suppose they might also want to avoid the pet waste issue in their 'nicer' parks.  Not sure on this one but it's an interesting correlation!

Hope you enjoy my random musings!  :-)

Christmas and Tropical Palms

We just wrapped up two weeks at our favorite Orlando-area Thousand Trails park - Tropical Palms Resort.  This resort is quite hard to get into and, having now booked out the rest of our stays through the winter, I can tell you this is the only time we'll make it in here this season.  In addition to being the closest Thousand Trails park to Disney World, it is also the best maintained park with the most amenities of any Thousand Trails park in the Orlando area.  The laundry room alone is worth the stay!  For the first time we weren't even able to book the 'elite' site here, so we were 'stuck' in a premium site nearer to the back of the park.  Still a great experience, but because of ongoing construction (they're expanding the park - good news for next year!) it was a pain to get to our site.

This is a terrible picture of our campsite but the only 
one we managed to take...

We only had a couple of days to take advantage of the proximity to Disney World before our annual passes were blocked out for the holiday season, but we made the most of them!  We saw the Candlelight Processional at Epcot for the first time and it was just beautiful.  Andy Garcia hosted the evening we visited and he had some entertaining commentary, but overall it was just a reverent telling (and singing) of the Christmas story.  It was absolutely beautiful and definitely put us in the Christmas spirit!  We also saw the new Harmonious nighttime show at Epcot (impressive!) and finished our cookie stroll.

The Candelight Processional

Close up of Andy Garcia reading the Christmas story

Our reward for finishing the cookie stroll!

We also spent a few hours at Animal Kingdom, catching the new Kite-Tails show (Lion King version).  It was neat!  Lots of handheld and jetski-held kites.

Animal Kingdom Christmas tree

Simba in the Kite-Tails show

We enjoyed several quiet days at Tropical Palms after we couldn't go to Disney World, and for Christmas itself we drove (just the car) back 'home' (to the adjacent towns where we grew up) to Virginia to spend a couple days with both sets of parents and most of our siblings (Aaron's brother and my sister).  It was great to see everyone but the drive home the Sunday after Christmas was awful, so if we end up doing this again we definitely need to figure out an alternative RV storage in Florida so we can travel some different dates.  This trip kind of came up last minute when my sister decided to spend Christmas with my parents, and we'd already booked all of our stays through the holiday season so we were a bit inflexible in our travel plans.

All ready for Christmas morning at my mom's house (pre-kid
destruction)

Merry Christmas everyone!  And a happy new year!

A last week-ish in Orlando

We just spent our last week-ish in Orlando before heading north for some general maintenance and repairs.  We stayed a second time at the Thousand Trails Orlando RV Resort.  Our stay this time was MUCH better than our previous stay last year.  Last year we made the mistake of taking a pull-through site when it was offered (usually these are better sites!), and ended up in the absolutely worst part of the park in a site where we couldn't put out our window awnings without hitting the RV next to us.  This year we were prepared and told the we wanted a back-in site, and we lucked out and got a spot in the brand new section of the park (new since last year) with wide level concrete pads and ample space between RVs.  Much improved!

Campsite at Orlando RV Resort

The first week we were there we visited Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, and Epcot in our final 'goodbye' tour.  It seems several school systems were already in spring break, as the park reservations were sold out every day.  Fortunately I had booked the 3 parks months in advance, but we could only sit on 3 reservations with our annual passes, and once we used those three everything was sold out and I couldn't get any others for the week.  In one bright side of COVID-19 restrictions, the park capacity limits meant that the parks didn't actually feel much more crowded, if at all, compared to our last visits in the fall before our Texas trip.

With the Lady & the Tramp topiaries
at the Flower & Garden festival in Epcot

Living with the Land ride at Epcot during the Flower & Garden Festival

Chip inside the Land Pavilion at Epcot

Inside the butterfly garden at the Epcot Flower & Garden Festival

In front of Spaceship Earth

Baby giraffe at Animal Kingdom!

Magic Kingdom!

The second half of our stay we enjoyed seeing my sister and her family, who were there on Spring Break and managed to find an AirBnB on the approach road to our RV park.  Together we visited Hollywood Studios, the first time at Disney World for my niece and nephews!

All of us in front of the Millenium Falcon at Galaxy's Edge.  
Our first time with matching Disney shirts!

We had an awesome day, park open to park close, and the kids had a ball!  My sister's family is planning to move to St. Augustine this summer, so she and my brother-in-law went to look at houses and we babysat the kids at Gatorland!  Our nephews are obsessed with alligators and snakes so this was a perfect option.

Hunting for snakes on the 'Swamp
Walk'

Wrestling an alligator!

After this stay, we'll start heading north to West Virginia to do some semi-annual maintenance on the RV and work on a few more repairs on our repair wish list.  At the moment we're planning for six weeks at the farm before hitting the road again, so get ready for some more 'RV repair' posts!

Lake Magic & Christmas at Disney

We spent two weeks at Lake Magic - another Thousand Trails resort - in our last stay in Orlando until we come back in March.  That's right folks, we're finally leaving Florida!  But more on that in our upcoming posts from the road!

Sunset picture with our Christmas lights

Lake Magic was decent enough, but after our last impressive Thousand Trails stay at Tropical Palms, we weren't so impressed.  This park has no security at the front gate, definitely feels like a parking lot, and has a LOT of one way streets that add a good 5-10 minutes to your trip anywhere just to get out of the park.  The laundromat is one of those that you have to buy a $5 laundry card before you can pay to do laundry, which is particularly frustrating for those of us who only plan to be there 2 weeks!  It's also a bit farther from Disney.  Our site had a lot of fire ants as well, though they do treat for those in general.  Still, the stay was just fine, the folks around us were friendly and we had no real problems during our stay.

Some very noisy sandhill crane neighbors

This being our last time near Disney for a while, we spent most of our free time visiting the Christmas-themed parks, so please forgive an onslaught of Disney photos here!

Santa at Animal Kingdom

Riding the Christmas re-themed "Jingle" Cruise!

Belle's Christmas Tree at 
Gaston's Tavern in Magic Kingdom

Festival of the Holidays at Epcot

I thought this was one of the most impressive light displays
in all of Disney World - the dinosaur at Animal Kingdom

They started some semblance of evening performances in a 
couple parks - this is the nighttime light show on the Tree
of Life in Animal Kingdom

Our favorite tree on the Christmas 
Tree Stroll in Disney Springs - the 
Star Wars tree!

Merry Christmas everyone!

First time at Tropical Palms RV Resort

Tropical Palms RV Resort is the most convenient Thousand Trails park to Disney World, and unsurprisingly we could never find a spot here last time we were in Orlando.  This time around we got in!  I'm not sure whether it's because we're looking pre-Winter (not as busy?) or because the Canadians have been largely unable to come to the US (though that seems to be changing), but we made it!  This is my favorite Orlando-area Thousand Trails park so far!  It is clean and well-kept with concrete pads for the RVs and several trees scattered throughout, plus the laundromat is HUGE and clean with new machines.

Our campsite at Tropical Palms

A rainbow over the campground

On our way to the campground we stopped by Tire Pro Mobile RV & Commercial Truck Tire Repair to get our front tires replaced.  We really liked the mechanic who owns this business - he was knowledgeable and friendly with reasonable prices, and he seemed quite honest.  He told us we were probably ok for many more months, but together we decided that since Aaron and I are planning a big trip to Texas later in the winter, we should go ahead and get the tires replaced.  Aaron really enjoyed watching him work and asking lots of questions.

Tire's off!

The mechanic had a seriously 
impressive set of tools in his truck!

We only had a 12 minute drive to Hollywood Studios, where we enjoyed some holiday fun.

A 'chestnut pinecone' dessert

Santa!

We also took a quick trip to Epcot and Magic Kingdom.

Christmas lights are starting to go up at Epcot

Christmas cavalcade at Magic Kingdom

We rode Splash Mountain once more to make sure we saw it
at least one last time before they change the theming to 
the Princess and the Frog

Back at Animal Kingdom, we caught a Christmas cavalcade on the water with a festive Chip & Dale!

Christmas float!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas in Orlando!

Camping at Disney's Fort Wilderness

We decided to splurge a bit and make our first Orlando campground the Disney one...Fort Wilderness.  We talked about this campground a bit last winter but weren't able to get a reservation.  This time we booked in the shoulder season and found a site Sunday-Friday - we still couldn't find a site here for the weekend!

Our campsite at Fort Wilderness

Fort Wilderness was everything we hoped.  The campground had more of a feel of a state or county park than a private RV park.  There were lots of activities on site, including pools, outdoor movies, gem hunting, archery, horseback riding, bike and boat rental, and more.  Most of those you had to pay extra for of course...  The whole campground was bike friendly and we enjoyed taking our new-to-us bikes all around.

We're well into Halloween season of course, and our favorite nightly activity was to pick a new couple loops in the campground and walk or cycle around to view the outrageous Halloween decorations from our fellow campers.

These skeleton pirates were Aaron's favorite

Zombie Flamingos!  (Look closely at the eyes of the black
ones)

 Our decorations weren't nearly so impressive, but at least we had some!

Daytime view - Aaron decided all of his Baby Yoda 
decorations needed to join the pumpkin lights

Nighttime view

We visited each of the parks while we were at Fort Wilderness.  Sadly, only Magic Kingdom had special transportation - a boat that left from the back of the campground.  This was definitely the nicest way we've ever gotten to Magic Kingdom (normally you have to park and then take a crowded monorail or ferry).

Our transportation approaches

Going to amusement parks right now is a very different experiences, and I'd say in all ways except the sweaty masks a much better one.  Lines were shorter - rides that normally had 2-4 hour waits we could get on in less than an hour - and people stood farther apart in the ride lines, so I no longer had strangers leaning on my backpack while waiting for a ride...(yes that really happened multiple times last year).  They've also upgraded the security scanners so there's no longer a bag check line!  They've removed the fingerprint scanners and added hand sanitizer and handwash stations throughout the parks, so you can keep your hands cleaner.

Masks at Epcot

Social distancing at the manatee exhibit at Epcot

Social distancing in line for 
Smugglers' Run at Hollywood Studios

Masks at Magic Kingdom

All I have from Animal Kingdom are animal pictures...this
is from Kilimanjaro Safaris, which we basically walked
straight on due to the low park attendance (normally this is a
LOOONG wait)

Back at Fort Wilderness, our last morning we went on a trail ride around the remote areas of the campground.

Outside Tri Circle D Ranch at the front of the campground

Here I am atop Riley

The last pictures I'd like to share are of some random carriage sightings at the park - the carriage and hay rides weren't running due to COVID-19, but it seems that Disney is keeping the horses exercised and practicing.

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay and I hope we can make this an annual-ish tradition - just a few days a year.  We didn't get to enjoy many of the perks of staying on Disney property (mostly in terms of early access to dining and FastPass+ reservations) - hopefully next time we'll be able to!