FredMcKinnon.Com

Hey Friends,

I’ve been a bit quiet this week because we, The McKinnon Family, took off right after church on Sunday for a quick trip to what we call “Redneck Disney”.  I twittered and facebooked (is that a verb?) about it and had lots of questions about “Redneck Disney”, so this is the promised blog about it!

We don’t actually go to the Disney parks.  We go to Disney’s “Fort Wilderness” campground and camp.  Tents and everything.  It’s cheap and accessible.  Because it’s inside of Disney World’s massive resort area, you’re considered to be “in” Disney, complete with those handy blue ID cards and access to all of the transportation options.

The campsites at Fort Wilderness are super-clean.  The restrooms/showers (called “Comfort Stations”) are air-conditioned, have laundry facilities, water fountains, hot showers, etc.  Of course, when this trip was booked we were not anticipating it to be in the mid 90′s … super hot for camping.  But the campsites have power outlets so you can bring your extension cords and box fans and stay pretty cool.  We traveled with my brother-in-law and his family, who are Disney pros … so we had a portable fridge with cold drinks, we grilled burgers and hotdogs, we had a canopy over our picnic table, powered scooters to drive around, etc.

So what do you actually get to DO at Redneck Disney?  Well, that’s the best part.  This is a great way to enjoy some of what Disney has to offer for basically FREE … as long as your kids understand from the get-go that you are NOT going into the parks!

At the campground:

- swimming pools w/ water slide
- shuffleboard
- canoeing in the river that goes around the campsite
- horse rides
- campfire sing-along every night with “Chip and Dale” and roasting marshmallows
- campfire movies every night

So each night around the campfire there’s the sing-along and then a Disney movie.  But there’s so many more options.  Because you can take one of the complimentary buses (Andrew, my 4-year old calls these the “Mickey Mouse Bus” and as far as he knows, is totally one of the “rides” at Disney!) down to the “Settlement” area and catch one of the complimentary boats over to either Magic Kingdom or the Contemporary Resort.

Regardless of where you go, you can catch the free monorail and go anywhere – to any resort, to Magic Kingdom, to Epcot, etc.  And yes – once again, my kids totally dig riding the monorail and can get entertainment out of that for hours.  Not to mention, they are AIR-CONDITIONED!

All of the resorts along the monorail track (ie. Contemporary, Polynesian, Grand Floridian, etc) have their own complimentary activities going on – from contests, pools, and beach-side movies.  Every night you have several choices of movies to watch.

Oh yeah – and since the Disney boat/light parade comes by every resort, every night – you can catch that with the kids.  Go watch a movie, the boat parade, and stand on the beach and watch the fireworks over Magic Kingdom, and take the ferry or bus back to the campground … it’s a ton of fun.

Then, there’s “Downtown Disney” – a shopping mall of “everything disney” – restaurants, including the T-Rex (that’s the most expensive order of cheese sticks I’ve ever seen), Rain Forest Cafe, Planet Hollywood, and of course, all the hundreds of stores where you can shop ’til you drop.

So that’s Redneck Disney … go try it sometime!