Ft Wilderness?

[nynick52]

Here are some pics of our Arogosy's first big girl trip to Disney from October. Ellie is half stripped of paint when we made the voyage, with the front and rear cowls sprayed silver.

Camping at Ft Wilderness 10-09 - a set on Flickr

[Minnie's Mate]

Originally Posted by 2airishuman

is this it?


Attachment 91243



LOTs of highLY modified carts at FW...

cheers
2air'

Boy don't I wish!!!

Originally Posted by Distantdrummer

Can you be more specific as to what you need the golf cart for? Is it just to be used in the campground? Where exactly do you ride in it to?
Where do you store it when you are away from it?
Is there a loading (unloading) platform at the campground to offload the carts or must you bring ramps?
Any fees or special rules for bringing your own cart?

Are Chip & Dale the only Dis-characters to be found at the campground ever?
Are reservations close-ended or can you always stay extra days if you choose? If you can, do you have to move to another site?

thanks

There are three bus routes in Ft. Wilderness; each is separate from the others and each runs to the bus station and marina. They are used to get from the bus stop at the entrance to your loop to the bus station or to the restaurant (Crockett's Tavern) and Tri-Circle D Ranch (basically a petting zoo with pony rides available at cost) and to the Marina. The restaurant, petting zoo and marina are all at the same location, just spread out a little. The buses in Ft. Wilderness only run in the campground and you have to change buses to go to Epcot, Disney Studios, and Animal Kingdom and take the ferry to the Magic Kingdom's front gate.

The issue is that you have to walk from your camp site to the entrance to your loop (really not far) and you have to wait on their schedule. Also, if you want to go to the swimming pool, you have to go by bus to the loop nearest to the Meadows pool and walk the rest of the way. If you need to run to the Meadows Trading Post or want to go to the nightly outdoor theater, you have to do the same thing (Meadows pool, outdoor theater and Meadows Trading Post are side-by-side). There are really wide sidewalks throughout the camp ground, but with more than 700 camp sites, you would have to do a lot of walking; good exercise, but you may not want to spend that much time walking. You can also take your bicycle and ride to all of these locations and use your bike chain to secure them to the bike racks in these locations.

The golf cart is just more time efficient. There are golf cart parking lot at the Meadows Trading Post, Meadows Pool, large playground at the entrance to loop 300 and adjacent off-leash dog park. There are also parking lots at the marina and adjacent small store and a separate golf cart parking lot at Crockett's Tavern. There is also a golf cart parking lot at the bus station.

It really isn't too big of a deal to take the internal buses, but you have more freedom with a golf cart. There are no unloading platforms for golf carts, you have to bring your own ramps. What I do is to remove the truck's tailgate and secure the golf cart with a come-along and additional cargo straps attached to the back of the golf cart frame and the tie down hooks located at the bottom of the rear of the truck bed. I store my ramps beside the golf cart. I have a short truck bed, but if you have an 8 foot truck bed you wouldn't need to remove the tailgate and wouldn't have as much to secure the golf cart. When I get to Ft. Wilderness and get the Airstream backed into the site, I pull forward and back in diagonally and use my ramps to unload the golf cart at our site. If you try to unload in the loop road, you run the risk of having someone need to get by with their tow vehicle or with their entire rig and making them wait. People can get impatient.

There are no fees for bring your own cart. We've never had anyone bother our cart when we've parked them away from the camp site for the day, but our cart does have a uniquely keyed switch. All of the Disney carts use the same key and have a number on the side to keep someone from taking the wrong cart.

Chip and Dale are the only characters at Ft. Wilderness and are only there during the nightly camp fire sing-a-long just before the beginning of the movie...kind of a pre-show. Each night a different movie is shown. You can get a movie calendar when you check in.

Since 9/11 Ft. Wilderness has become very popular. Prior to that, I'm told, Disney would leave a note with your bill on your windshield on the last morning of your stay inviting you to stay longer. Now, you have to make advanced reservations months ahead of time and during the holidays (Christmas, New Year's, spring break, Memorial Day weekend, July 4th, Labor Day weekend) you have to make your reservations up to a year in advance. For Christmas this year, I made my reservation in January of this year and was unable to get New Year's Eve. I also made my reservation for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party in May and was unable to get the Friday night of the weekend, but was able to get Sunday night. This was to coincide with our county's long school weekend in October. This is also during the Epcot's Food and Wine Festival. This is not to say that you can't add a day at the beginning or end of your trip, it really depends on the time of year and if they have a vacancy. Often, people will make a reservation in advance and have to cancel at the last minute or have to shorten their stay because of being unable to get the full time off from work. You might have to move to another site if the only vacancy for the night is at another location...a pain, but people do it. My suggestion is to call ahead and ask if there is vacancy.

I am more than happy to answer any questions you have, if I can. We have stayed at Ft. Wilderness an average of 4 times per year since we got our Airstream in 2006. Prior to that we were staying at Disney Resort Hotels. I would also recommend www.disboards.com as a good source of information on all of Walt Disney World. If you scroll down the list of forums you will find a forum that is specifically for camping at Ft. Wilderness. You will find that there are Ft. Wilderness regulars that post about everything. You will also find that some of them organize FW rallies on the board.

Ft. Wilderness is one of the original Walt Disney World Resorts. It was laid out when it was extremely rare to see a travel trailer longer than 25' so getting into some of the sites can be tricky if you have a longer trailer, but I was able to get our 30' Airstream into one of the tighter sites on our first trip to Ft. Wilderness and that was my first time backing into a camp site. This was our third trip with the Airstream and the first time we didn't have a pull-through site.

One last thing, being a Walt Disney World Resort you will be entitle to all the benefits of staying on Disney property. You will be given a key card to use to enter the bath houses. It is referred to as being "your room key" and you will be able to charge purchases and meals to this room key and it will identify you as an on property guest so you can take advantage of the Extra Magic Hours reserved for resort guests. By staying at one of the WDW resorts, you are guaranteed admission to a park. It may not be the park you had planned for Christmas Day, for example, but will be able to enter one of the four parks that day. This is particularly handy if you are a late sleeper on your vacation. On Holidays, we have known of the Magic Kingdom filling to capacity by 10:00 AM! If we had not been in the park before reaching capacity we would have been able to get into one of the other parks that day. If we weren't resort guest we would have been told "sorry, try tomorrow". Also, there is the convenience of not having to park in the parking lot for every visit. As was said earlier, you can have purchases sent to the Meadows Trading Post for pick up instead of carrying them around all day. See, that golf cart is handy after all!

Sorry to have rambled and been so long in my reply, but I hope I have been of some help.

[Minnie's Mate]

BTW, this is the only photo I have of our golf cart. We also have a Mickey Mouse "hood' ornament on the front.

[clancy_boy]

As I told you earlier - MM is the "MAN" for Disney info.

On staying extra nights, remember - there are no reserved sites so if there are other camp sites in the same pay band then they will let you stay in your site for an extra day or two. The new arrivals will never know, they are just guaranteed a site in the cost range they selected.

We have twice stayed longer and once got there a day early - now mind you, never during a holiday or special event - they were very happy to have us stay longer.

BTW - the kennels are the best - I know I already said that but it's worth saying again. NO NEED to keep your big dog in the trailer all day, they want you to keep your pet safe.

[Devoman]

Good site to use when going to Ft wilderness or any where else.
Disney's Fort Wilderness Campground Photos

[nynick52]

I have been attending the parks since 1976 and have never not been admitted due to capacity issues, let alone been told sorry, come back tomorrow.

The sites have also been upgraded to handle all size units. I don't believe that there is a single pull through, but everything is managable for entrance.

There are also two places to disconnect a tow car or take your golf cart out of a pick-up. They are both on the main road in, just down from the bus stops, so no need to block a loop road to do this.

As for the Magic Kingdom underground tour, we paid $80 each in October (and got a 20% discount on top of that for using the Chase Disney card). Great if you don' know a lot about Disney but I felt like I knew more than the tour guide!

Ft Wilderness has changed over the years since my first stay in the 70's, but the changes are really subtle. Aside from River Country being closed (:-( it still looks the same. Which, by the way, is a good thing!

[Toronto_Guy]

Originally Posted by Distantdrummer

Can you be more specific as to what you need the golf cart for? Is it just to be used in the campground? Where exactly do you ride in it to?
Where do you store it when you are away from it?
Is there a loading (unloading) platform at the campground to offload the carts or must you bring ramps?
Any fees or special rules for bringing your own cart?

Are Chip & Dale the only Dis-characters to be found at the campground ever?
Are reservations close-ended or can you always stay extra days if you choose? If you can, do you have to move to another site?

thanks

I was just at Fort Wilderness from Nov 9th till 23rd, 2009. I was in the 2100 loop, which is pretty central.

On the issue of golf carts; unless mobility is an issue for you, they aren't really necessary. From where I was, the boat dock was a 10 minute walk, and the main bus terminal (where you catch a ride to the parks) was also a ten minute walk.

Even doing a relatively short 30 minute run required me to retrace my steps on the paths/trails just to put distance on my run.

My wife doesn't work out, and she had no issue with the walking, even though between the two of us we were dealing with my five month old and my 3 year old and only one stroller between them. ;-)

I actually enjoy exercise, but short of having a physical disability, nothing about the park REQUIRES you to have a golf cart to get around and enjoy it. If you want to explore at a quicker pace than walking affords, bring or rent a bicycle.

As for reservations, they can be extended provided that there are openings. When we got there, my wife wanted to extend our stay by a few days so she enquired about it. There would have been no issue with us doing so. However, after 5 days of Disney we decided that 10 days of Disney was going to be more than enough for us on this trip.

Chip and Dale are the only characters that you will find at the free events. We did the Mickey's Backyard BBQ, and my daughter got to dance with Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, etc. Unless you want to line up for pictures with the characters in the parks, the best way to see them is to book a meal at one of the restaurants that features a character meet and greet. We booked these in advance, but I heard from a few other people that they were able to make reservations on the day of, due to other cancellations.

[nynick52]

IMHO, the best character dinner and overall food experience is Chef Mickey's at the Contemporary Resort. We were there in early October and called for reservations while there. It was booked for the entire trip. We went over one evening and did a walkup and were seated in about 20 minutes (kids are long grown!).

Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Pluto, Goofy all come around to the tables in about a 5 minute rotation (every 5 a character comes out). Perfect for us big kids. The Monorail passes overhead (the restaurant is one floor down in the hotel).

When the kids were young, there was a fabulous waiter there who would entertain by writing stories upside down with the kids. We asked for him every year;sadly, he passed away about 10 years ago.

Here are some pics from our October visit there:

Camping at Ft Wilderness 10-09 - a set on Flickr

[Minnie's Mate]

Originally Posted by nynick52

I have been attending the parks since 1976 and have never not been admitted due to capacity issues, let alone been told sorry, come back tomorrow.

It is during the holidays/peak periods of the year that they fill to capacity. This capacity is set by the fire marshall.

At Christmas 1996 we entered the Magic Kingdom during Early Entry but one of my coworkers that was staying off property was turned away at 10:30 AM (regular entry that morning was 9:00 AM). During Christmas '04 we didn't get to do everything we wanted at the Magic Kingdom so we went back at the end of the day that we were at the Animal Kingdom to do those attractions. We were told by the bus driver that the Magic Kingdom had reached capacity early in the morning that day, but they should be allowing more guest by that time of day. Guest will leave in the middle of the afternoon for naps, etc., and Disney keeps track of those numbers so they can allow new guest to enter. However, we were told at the gate that day that we could enter because we were staying on property. We heard the same cast member tell one group that was ahead of us that they couldn't enter.

During our Christmas '05 we left for the Disney Studios from the Swan's boat dock at 8:15 AM and heard the boat captain say that we were lucky to be staying at property with guaranteed entry privileges because they were expecting to close to the non-Disney resort guest at 9:00. In other words they were expecting so many guests that they weren't going to allow non-Disney guest into the Studios. He said this was based on attendance the day before when they closed to non-Disney guest at 9:30 AM.

I don't know if it is this way every Christmas, but it seems that it has been a regular happening since we have been going at Christmas every year since '96. We learned how to schedule the parks based on what usually happens with the crowds at that time of year. Also, it pays to be there at gate opening to get ahead of the late sleepers. This has also occurred during Easter Week and sometimes on the 4th of July.

[H2K]

Thanks for the pictures nynick52. We are visiting DW next week 12/4-12/12 and have one breakfast sched. at Chef Mickey. Glad to know you had a great time.

Hank

[nynick52]

Originally Posted by Minnie's Mate

It is during the holidays/peak periods of the year that they fill to capacity. This capacity is set by the fire marshall.

Since this is an outdoor park, there is no 'official capacity', though individual buildings are monitored for maximum capacity. Since Disney is an incorporated county (Reedy Creek) and is not suject to county or local codes (building or otherwise as set up by Walt in the 60's), Disney stops admissions to the Magic Kingdom parking lot at 75,000 and allowing for another 25,000 resort guests by bus, watercraft and Monorail.

As I mentioned, I've been on property during some very busy times, including around Christmas but never on Christmas and never encountered an issue. The bigger question is why anyone would want to be in the park with 100,000 people! We were there in October when Florida was out of school and it was a zoo. Fantasy Land rides had six hour waits with fast pass! I can't imagine the parks at their self-imposed capacity.

I am a Disney Fanatic and always temper my enthusiasm durning park down times.

Nick

[clancy_boy]

Our favorite character meal location (everyone will have their own) is Breakfast with the Characters at Chrystal Palace. We always book late in the morning around 10:30 or 11:00 so it's more like a lunch - we eat at the campsite before 8AM so we can be at the gates early. The characters are great - we did not have our daughter in August of this year but plan a trip soon to get her into the Disney mode - looks like early 2010 for us to go again.

We tried the Lunch with the Pricesses at Norway in EPCOT - found it a little cramped and rushed.

The food is never an issue, always good.

[nynick52]

Crystal Palace is always a great stop. Plus it's been real consistant over the years. Grand Floridian also has great character meals, but is pricey.

You're right though, hard to go wron at Disney!

[clancy_boy]

Just got back from a wonderful 7 day vacation to Disney and Fort Wilderness. This was a first trip for our daughter and seeing it through the eyes of a 6 (soon to be six) year old was magical.

FW set us up in the 200 loop - you can request a loop - not a site - if you press real hard and have a viable reason. I was not willing to pay the $65 a day for a cart and told them so - so I wanted a loop within easy walking distance to the boats to MK. They understood and offered the 100 or 200 which is very near the camp store on that end of the park which was very nice - no driving off site this trip with a kid.

The kennel is still open for now and may be well into next year - the new combined kennel at a central location is near completion - the kennel employees say it will be much nicer but I don't see how. The rate last week was $21 a day - much cheaper than the $45 a day my local vet offered - and the treatment and kennel conditions were much nicer.

We took advantage of the pool, campfire, Chip and Dale show, kids bingo with prizes, bike rides, boat rides and just the fun of this campground. Facilities were great - we had site 230, no pets but Boudreaux was in the camper each night from the kennel (along with many other dogs in the "no pet" loop).

Store prices were very fair - ice was $2 but the same bag at WalMart was $1.98 - bring your own bottled water and sodas as those were not cheap in the campground and not in small sizes. No open fires (too dry) but BBQ's were alowed.

It was hot - June is a busy and hot month - won't do it with a kid in this month again. Parks were fun, we had a Salute pass (DOD or military) for $99 which gave us access to 4 days of parks (non-parkhopper).

Disney is Disney - it's a money drain - but the smiles and the joy of having a kid along for the trip was well worth it. My wife and I went last August together, this time with our new little girl was the best time we have had in a long time.

Going soon???? - PM for some info if you want.

Mike, Tina, and Layla.

[bob34787]

Spend many weekends there. can give you a great travel agent that gives good discounts on sites, I am going this weekend for 65.00 per night with a 40' trailer

[Minnie's Mate]

So glad to hear that you had a great trip...any trip to Disney is a great trip, but when you are with a child...well, it just doesn't get any better. Well, I guess a second honey moon would be up there.

Post some photos of your daughter in her Bibbity-Bobbity-Boo regalia. I bet she and Tina were so cute together. With two boys, we have never had opportunity to do BBB, but I understand they do have a "Prince" package for boys. Our boys wouldn't have had any of that...they are both all boy.