Disney’s Fort Wilderness, Florida - April 30th to May 4th, 2023

We’ve been to Disney World a few times before, but we’ve never stayed at the campground before. We know some people come to just camp and not go into the theme parks at all. Now we understand why. Fort Wilderness is truly an RV resort with everything you need for a great time camping. The campground is clean, with all the amenities. The bathhouses are spotless with showers and laundry facilities in every loop. There are swimming pools, playgrounds, tennis courts, bike rentals, golf cart rentals, and a horse barn. Scheduled activities include crafts, campfire sing-alongs, and Disney classic movies. A beach and marina are on the adjacent lake, along with fishing.

The weather was a little nasty on Sunday during our drive from Encore Miami Everglades to Fort Wilderness Campground at Disney World. We drove through a couple of severe thunderstorms. The heavy rain and lightning didn’t last long each time, but the strong winds did. We had 20 mph winds with gusts up to 40 mph during most of the drive. However, by the time we reached Fort Wilderness in the late afternoon, the sun came out and the winds died down. That allowed us to explore the campground a little bit before our dinner reservations at the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Review at Pioneer Hall in the campground.

After the prices we paid for camp sites in the Florida Keys, the price of the Fort Wilderness camp sites didn’t seem that unreasonable. Since Red Tail is less than 25 feet long, we were able to book a tent/pop-up site, the cheapest type of site in the campground, for less than $100 per night, during the week. However, once you add in all the fees and taxes, it was more like $120 per night. Disney makes figuring out the exact price rather hard, because they don’t keep a detailed bill in your account, just the total, which includes any park tickets or other reservations, like the Hoop-dee-doo Review, that you may have added to your plans. And if you look up the prices of the camp sites, it varies not only by the type of site, but also by the time of year along with whether it is a weekend or weekday.

The camp sites are well spaced apart from one another. It feels more like a state park than a private campground. Most of the sites are full hook ups. The tent/pop-up sites only have electric and water, no sewer hookups. Unfortunately, there is no dump station at Fort Wilderness. We read somewhere that Disney will allow you to dump your tanks at an open full hook up site, but that may be hard to find. Our toilet cassette is only five gallons. Even though we typically only it use it after dark and first thing in the morning, we dump it about every two or three days. We’ll see if we can make it last the five days we are here. We’re not sure how Disney feels about us dumping the cassette at the bathhouse.

The campground is huge. Our camp site was about a fifteen minute walk from Pioneer Hall. The Outpost near the campground entrance, is about a 15 to 20 minute walk in the opposite direction. However, the paved walking paths are beautiful. There are three different bus routes just for the campground. However, we did not use them, as we preferred to walk.

We lucked out on the weather. The forecast called for highs in the mid 80’s with temperatures dropping into the 60’s at night. That meant that we did not need to run our noisy air conditioner at all. It is so much more peaceful to fall asleep to the sound of crickets and listening to an owl hooting in the distance, with a breeze bringing fresh cool air in through the open, screened windows of Red Tail. And we did not have an issue with bugs getting in like we did our first night in the Everglades (Everglades National Park, Florida - April 13th to 17th, 2023).

Monday we had a park reservation for Animal Kingdom along with dinner reservations for Boma at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. If you’ve never been to Disney World before, the place is huge. To get between each of the many resorts and the various different theme parks, you need to either drive your own vehicle or take one of the many free Disney buses. The distances are too long to walk and there are only busy roads, so we would not recommend riding a bike either. The buses seem to run pretty frequently. In general, there are buses that run from each of the resorts to each of the theme parks. Most of the theme park buses from the campground leave from the Outpost, except for the Magic Kingdom bus which leaves from Pioneer Hall. Even to get from the Animal Kingdom theme park to the Animal Kingdom Lodge for dinner, we needed to take a bus. In order to get back to Fort Wilderness, we had to take a bus back to Animal Kingdom theme park to catch the bus back to Fort Wilderness. Thankfully, even though we had late dinner reservations, we had enough time to get back to catch the Fort Wilderness bus before it stopped running. Generally, the buses stop running an hour after the theme park closes.

If you take your own vehicle over to one of the themes parks, the camp site, just like any Disney resort stay, includes a parking pass which saves you the $25 parking fee. In addition to the buses, there are also a couple of other Disney transportation options, such as boats, the monorail, and a cable car. The Skyliner cable car runs between Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and a handful of resorts. There are several boat routes, one of them runs between Magic Kingdom and the Fort Wilderness campground. There are two monorail routes. One is a loop from the Magic Kingdom to the nearby resorts, which are the Comptemporary, the Polynesian, and the Grand Floridian, along with a stop at the Transportation & Ticket Center. The loop has two tracks, with trains running in opposite directions. The one direction stops at all of the resorts. The other direction may only stop at the Transportation & Ticket Center and Magic Kingdom, so pay attention to the signs for the one you want. At the Transportation & Ticket Center, you can transfer to the other monorail, which runs over to Epcot and back. There is also a Minnie Van Service which operates through the Lyft app, but you have to pay for it through Lyft.

We had forgotten how well Disney creates the complete experience, with such an attention to detail. It is still amazing to think about all the design, engineering, and man-hours to build and maintain these environments. Ann first went to Disney as a child with her family, when there was just the Magic Kingdom. Our first experience at Disney as a couple was on our honeymoon, just a few years after Epcot opened. Then we went again as a family, with our kids, 25 years later, when we visited not only Magic Kingdom and Epcot again, but also Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studies, and Disney Springs. Ann was disappointed with Animal Kingdom when she went the first time, probably because she had the wrong expectations. She was hoping for more of an encounter with wild animals than a theme park. She enjoyed it much better this time, now that she knew what to expect. It also seemed like Disney had changed things a little. The Safari ride seemed calmer and more informative about the animals. Years ago, it seemed like the ride was trying to make it exciting, not slowing down to give people a chance to observe the animals.

Overall, we seemed to enjoy Disney more this time around. The previous two visits were in the hot and humid summer (late July and mid June), so back then we were sticky and sweaty all day long. This time, we didn’t even once break a sweat. Another reason is that we had no real agenda. We just strolled around the park, taking in the attractions as we came across them, when the stand-by wait times were not too long. When we were at Disney with the kids, we would plan out the day, trying to make sure we took in all of the attractions and shows. Our family was all so exhausted by the end of each day.

This time, we had a late dinner reservation at Boma, but we were done with what we wanted to see and do in Animal Kingdom well before then. So we rode the bus over to the Animal Kingdom Lodge, arriving an hour before we needed to check in for dinner. We grabbed a drink from the market store and sat outside on a bench at the Arusha Rock Savana Overlook. The overlook, along with many of the guest rooms of the lodge, had views out over an eleven-acre area with many of the African animals. The animals included zebras, giraffes, wildebeast, and more. It was very relaxing just to sit and watch the animals.

During our honeymoon, we stayed in the Contemporary Resort. With our kids, we stayed in the Wilderness Lodge. We much preferred the Wilderness Lodge over the Contemporary. After spending a day on concrete among large crowds of people, with lots of noise, it is nice to have a calm, relaxing atmosphere surrounded by nature to retreat to at night. The campground is even better. However, if we were to come again and not stay at the campground, we might consider the Animal Kingdom Lodge. However, it does not have as much shade as the Wilderness Lodge, so it would not be our first choice in hot weather.

Many of the resorts are worth visiting and seeing. We know the lobby of the Wilderness Lodge and the Animal Kingdom Lodge are both grand and worth a peek as well as the Grand Floridian. They rival the lobbies of historical lodges in some of our national parks. We’re sure some of the other resorts are equally as impressive.

We treated these five days at Disney as a true vacation for us. We know, we’re retired, so every day should be like a vacation. What that meant for us was that we splurged. These five days will probably be the most expensive five days of our whole seven and a half month trip. We only ate breakfast at our camp site. All other meals and food were at Disney restaurants. Ann left her good camera inside Red Tail the whole time, so we only took a few pictures with our cell phones. Well, Ann did make an exception, pulling out her camera to take a picture of the owl perched in a tree above Red Tail. Ann didn’t worry about working on blog posts or videos during our stay. So it was five days of no cooking, no dishes, no worrying about how much we were spending. As a result, we’ll probably end up gaining about ten pounds. A real vacation.

Tuesday was our day at Epcot. Our dinner reservations were for the Biergarten in the Germany section of Epcot. Just like Hoop-dee-doo Review, the Biergarten has become a tradition for us. In addition to the authentic German food, there was also a German band playing traditional beer fest songs. Keith was in his happy place again.

Epcot was where we tested out Disney’s Virtual Queue. For some of the more popular attractions, Disney creates a Virtual Queue, where you sign up through the My Disney Experience app, and they will notify you when you need to arrive at the attraction. That was another thing that was different this visit. Almost everything was done through our smart phones. Just about everything is in the My Disney Experience app. All of our reservations were in there. The app had interactive park maps. The most useful thing was showing the current stand-by wait times for all of the attractions. The app notified us a couple of days in advance that there would be a Virtual Queue for the Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind attraction on the day we had an Epcot reservation. The Virtual Queue opened at 7 am, which you could join from the resort (or campground) before arriving at Epcot. Then, for those who didn’t get in the first time, they would open up the Virtual Queue again at 1 pm, when you needed to be inside Epcot to join the queue.

We happened to wake up before 7 am. Keith was not interested in the Guardians of the Galaxy attraction, but Ann was curious, so she signed up for the Virtual Queue. She was a little slow, joining a minute or two after 7 am. She was group 91 in the queue. It first estimated her call back time to be 4 pm. Throughout the day, the estimated call back time varied within the range of 2 pm and 3 pm. Then she got the text message that she could now board. They gave her one hour to get in line. For Guardians of the Galaxy that day, there was no stand by line. There was a line for the Virtual Queue who had been called back and another line for the Lightning Lane pass holders. The Lightning Lane pass, of course, costs extra, but is good for many of the attractions to give you an advantage over the Stand-by Lane. The Lightning Lane can also be purchased for an individual attraction. Ann was notified by the My Experience App throughout the day that she could purchase the Lightning Lane for Guardians of the Galaxy for $15 and get into the ride sooner. To enter the line for the Virtual Queue, you need to scan your park entrance ticket. In Ann’s case, she had her Disney pass in her iPhone wallet app.

It was nice to have so much information in the palm of your hand through the My Experience App. Our biggest complaint is that the app does not recognize the text size setting on our iPhones. The text on the maps was too small for Ann to read without her reading glasses on. And just like Google Maps, when you zoom in, the text does not enlarge and stays the same size. That made using the maps in the app rather hard to use for us old folks. Luckily, paper maps were still available at the park entrance, so we grabbed one. As much as we don’t like wasting paper, it made our lives easier.

To get to Epcot, we took the bus from the Outpost. On the way back, we decided to mix it up. We took the monorail from Epcot over to the Transportation & Ticket Center, then transferred over to the resort monorail and took it to the Magic Kingdom. At Magic Kingdom, we took the boat over to the Fort Wilderness marina. It seems like they’ve changed some of these routes to make them more efficient than the last time we were at Disney. We seem to remember the boat making a loop from Fort Wilderness, to the Wilderness Lodge, then to the Contemporary resort. So if you were going to the Magic Kingdom from Fort Wilderness, you then had to take the monorail from the Contemporary, or make the long walk from the Contemporary to Magic Kingdom. Now the boat goes directly from Fort Wilderness to the Magic Kingdom, right near the entrance to the park and right near the monorail stop. That is much more convenient.

We made it back to Fort Wilderness just in time for the Magic Kingdom fireworks at 9 pm. We sat at the beach, along with many others from the campground, with a wonderful view of the fireworks.

Wednesday was a more relaxing day. The only thing we had scheduled was a 2 pm reservation at The Edison restaurant in Disney Springs along with tickets for the 5:30 pm show of Cirque du Soleil: Drawn to Life, also at Disney Springs. We took our time getting there, riding the boat and monorail again, just for fun. We took the monorail around to the Grand Floridian, where we got off and caught the bus over to Disney Springs.

We arrived at Disney Springs before noon. We are not big shoppers, so we just mainly enjoyed walking around the shops and restaurants. However, the Ghirardelli Soda Fountain pulled us in. We had their chocolate fudge sundaes when we were in San Francisco a year earlier (California Zephyr: Denver to San Francisco - Jan 17th to 21st, 2022). Since our planned main meal for the day was a 2 pm, we decided a chocolate fudge sundae would be perfect for lunch. Luckily, the sundaes at Disney Springs were smaller than the ones we had in San Francisco so we didn’t spoil our appetites for our meal at 2 pm, well, not too much anyway.

We strolled past the Cirque du Soleil tent and over along the greenway along the waterway, strolling all the way over to the golf course. It wasn’t until we tried to return to the Disney Springs area that we realized our mistake. We had gone out the employee entrance and the security guard would not let us back in. We had to take a long walk around, touring through a large parking lot and parking garage, to get back to one of the few security entrances to Disney Springs.

After our 2 pm meal, we decided to go on a short boat ride. There are boats that transport people to the nearby resorts. This time we purposely exited Disney Springs, but not before asking where the closest security entrance was. It was not far from the boat dock. We took the boat to the Saratoga Springs Resort, the closest resort to Disney Springs, and walked back along the waterfront, across the water from Disney Springs. It was a very pleasant boat ride and walk. Other boats will take you further up the Sassagoula River, with the furthest one being Port Orleans Resort - Riverside.

Cirque du Soleil did not disappoint. They never do. We’ve seen several of their shows before. They are all amazing. Having a daughter involved in the performing arts, we understand how much work and talent goes into those types of acts. Cirque du Soleil always seems to hire the best of the best and presents their acts with some wonderful story telling and artistry.

Thursday we visited Hollywood Studios. Before leaving the campground in the morning, we noticed one of the sites in the full hook-up loop next to ours was unoccupied. So we hauled our toilet cassette over and dumped it. We were doing pretty good about using the campground bathhouse more than normal and probably could have made it to our next campground before dumping, but we felt better dumping it more often.

While we were hanging out at our camp site that morning, we discovered the reason for the owls hanging out in the tree across from our site. There was an owl nest. We could make out two young juveniles in the nest. They were almost the size of the adults, but fuzzier.

When we reached Hollywood Studios and saw all the Star Wars fans, we realized what day it was. May the 4th. May the Fourth be with you! Needless to say the crowds were a little heavier on Thursday, compared to the other parks earlier in the week, especially in the Star Wars area of Hollywood Studios. This was our first time seeing the Star Wars area, as it wasn’t built yet the last time we were here. The environment was stunning, with such an attention to detail that Disney seems to do well. However, due to the long lines, we didn’t do any of the Star Wars attractions.

For dinner, we had reservations at the 50’s Prime Time Café. This was another return visit. When we visited with our kids over a dozen years ago, we signed up for the meal plan, since we were celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. So we booked a different restaurant every night. The 50’s Prime Time Café was our family’s favorite. It wasn’t so much because of the food, but the atmosphere and our sassy waitress who acted like our mom from the 50’s. By the end of the meal, she had us all laughing so hard we were crying. Our family still remembers that wonderful time. We sent a picture of the two of us in the restaurant to our kids, with no context. Our daughter immediately responded, recognizing the place, and referenced one of the funny aspects of our family’s visit.

Reminiscing about our memories of Disney was probably the best part of our visit this time around. With no children with us, kiddy rides no longer had any appeal. Thrill rides were not that enticing to us old folks any more either. Instead, we enjoyed just walking around, taking in the sights and sounds, along with seeing some of the shows or calmer attractions. Oh, and eating lots of food, probably more than we should have. We left with smiles on our faces all the same. And staying in Fort Wilderness was our favorite place to stay at Disney World. It was like escaping to a state park every evening.

Check out our related video: Disney’s Fort Wilderness, Florida

(Ann)