Our recent stay in a cabin at Disney World Fort Wilderness Resort was a bit of a welcome surprise. The property covers a lot of ground and has plenty of amenities. The size of it makes transportation a bit of a pain at times. I covered the cabins themselves in a previous post. Today’s post will cover the transportation and amenities you’ll find at Fort Wilderness.
While not an amenity, per se, it’s worth noting that the cabins aren’t the only lodging options at Fort Wilderness. You can also camp, whether it’s with a tent or an RV. The campsites are mostly screened with bushes and trees. They also include standard amenities like water, power and picnic tables.
Dining
There are a number of dining options at Fort Wilderness, including a few you might consider even if you’re not staying in the cabins or campsites:
- Trail’s End Restaurant (I’ll cover our meal there separately): Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
- Chuck Wagon: Food truck that roams property.
- P&J’s Southern Takeout
- Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue (heard great things, never been)
- Mickey’s Backyard BBQ (character dinner)
Supplies
You’ll find two “Trading Posts” at Fort Wilderness. Along with stuffed animals and other souvenirs you’ll find fairly well-stocked grocery stores. I’d prefer to see you order groceries from Amazon Prime Now and save a bunch of money like we did. They make delivery easy. But, the Trading Posts make it easy to pick up sunscreen, soda or a frozen pizza.
The Best Part Of Fort Wilderness
This sort of falls under transportation, but it was really our kids’ favorite part of our stay. Fort Wilderness has golf carts for rent. It’s not cheap (and kids aren’t allowed to drive unless they’re older) but it’s a ton of fun zipping around property on your own golf cart. And, it was pretty obvious a few people brought their own special golf carts with them. Who knew campers had so much fun? The only downside is that a golf cart will set you back $60 a day. You can time it in such a way where you get extra time based on when you pick-up and drop-off.
Transportation
Transportation is both the best and worst part of Fort Wilderness. It’s located in relatively close proximity to the Magic Kingdom. That means a short drive if you have your own car. Fort Wilderness also has its own bus routes throughout the property. These can help you get to the front of the resort to catch buses to the parks. The property buses also carry you to the boat launch. You’ll find a pretty full golf cart parking lot there as well. From the boat launch you can take the ferry boat to Magic Kingdom. It’s a fun ride during the day but gets a bit more special at night with the Electrical Light Pageant.
We tried a variety of different transportation options to and from Fort Wilderness. My least favorite was the bus network departing Magic Kingdom. You’ll board a bus that’s headed for Wilderness Lodge. Once the bus stops at Wilderness Lodge it shoots over to Fort Wilderness. However, this bus only stops at the “back” of the property, somewhat near the boat launch. If you don’t park near there (we didn’t the first night), you’ll need to take another bus to the bus stop closest to your cabin. If you stay late in the Magic Kingdom, this ride can take a long time with sleepy kids.
Amenities
If you’re not headed to the parks you’ll find plenty of things to do around Fort Wilderness. The pool area was under renovation during our visit but looks quite fun.
You’ll also find horse stables where you can meet the animals and head out for a ride.
There’s also basketball courts, jogging tracks, archery, playgrounds, boat rentals, fishing, an arcade and a small beach area.
In the evenings you’ll also find Chip ‘N’ Dale’s Campfire Sing-A-Long. This is a free activity, though you can buy supplies to roast marshmallows and make s’mores. After the sing-a-long you can also stay for a free outdoor movie.
Hidden Mickeys At Fort Wilderness Sing-A-Long
The Final Two Pennies
Fort Wilderness is a delightful place to stay. The only downside I can see (other than the bus back from Magic Kingdom) is trying to decide between all of the activities and heading to one of the parks. If you transplanted Fort Wilderness somewhere else other than beside the happiest place on earth, you could have a vacation without even stepping foot off the campgrounds.
NOTE: We weren’t there at Christmas. 🙂
This is just a brief write-up on the various activities and transportation options. Disney’s website also has plenty of info. If you missed my review of the Cabins at Fort Wilderness, you can find it here. Stay tuned for a quick write-up on dinner at Trail’s End Restaurant.
The post Disney World Fort Wilderness: Transportation & Amenities was published first on Pizza in Motion
4 comments
About six years ago, we camped at Fort Wilderness in my mother-in-law’s RV. At that time, it was $120 a night to camp during peak Easter week. My kids had fun, camp bathrooms were nicer than your average camping bathrooms, but I probably wouldn’t do it again. I’d rather pay the extra money to stay at the hotel.
We’ve done take-out at Trail’s End a couple times and it was affordable and delicious, maybe around $30 for my family of 5 to eat.
One year we splurged on Hoop-Dee-Doo, and the food was good as well as the show, but I didn’t love it. I know I’m in the minority. I thought it was pricey, but I’m glad we did it once. It’s not something I’d do every trip.
Shannon, thanks for weighing in! Hoop-Dee-Doo is on our list for the future. I’m not really much of a camper, so I don’t think we’ll see a review from me on that anytime soon. 🙂
[…] of Disney World, Ed from Pizza in Motion wrote about his recent stay at Fort Wilderness. This Disney resort has a special place in my heart as it was the first place on property we ever […]
[…] who joined while he and his family RV’d through the country. On this leg, they were staying at Disney’s Fort Wilderness for around a month. Sure, even Amazon delivers to Disney World, so living in an RV, or maybe a tiny […]