Camping? At Walt Disney World? Yes, you read that right! Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground allows guests to spend their days in the hustle of the theme parks and then retreat to the “woods” and enjoy a more rustic and relaxed “hotel” experience. But, should you really go camping in Walt Disney World? We recently spent three nights camping in our family’s fifth-wheel travel trailer, and we’re sharing our full review of the Fort Wilderness Resort campground — let’s get to it!

About Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort Campground

Overview

• Hotel Category: Campground
• Price: $85 to $250 per night for campsites, $400-$800+ per night for cabins
• Resort Area: Magic Kingdom Resort Area

Having opened back in November 1971, Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground is one of the original resorts at Walt Disney World. Here, guests can pitch a tent, rent or bring their camper/RV, or stay in one of the newly renovated Wilderness Cabins.

This wilderness retreat has guests embracing the old-time American Frontierland while sleeping comfortably in their own accommodations. Since guests bring their own place to sleep, the campground can be significantly cheaper than other resorts on the property. Each campsite can hold up to 10 guests per site reservation which makes staying here a great option for larger families as most Disney World Resort hotel rooms only accommodate up to 5 guests.

Fort Wilderness Resort Campground has undergone extensive renovations over the years while still maintaining it’s rustic charm. The most recent change to the resort was the complete renovation of all 400+ wilderness cabins.

Of course, it’s worth noting that the resort is built with outdoor adventures in mind, which, understandably, might not be for everyone.

Atmosphere & Theming

Nestled just off Bay Lake, the resort sends guests from the hustle of the theme parks to the serenity of the woods, filled with pine trees, meadow trees, and woodsy nature paths. Over 700 acres of lodging, recreation, and dining which gives you enough to do without even having to step foot into a theme park if you really want a unique Disney vacation. Chip and Dale are the mascots for Fort Wilderness Resort Campground, and many animals such as deer, rabbits, and turkeys call the resort home. Look for them while you make your way around!

Within the expansive resort, there are 7 wilderness cabin loops and 21 campsite loops. If you’re choosing to stay at a campsite, you can choose from 5 different types including:

• Tent/Pop-up Campsite
• Full Hook-Up Campsite
• Preferred Campsite
• Premium Campsite
• Premium Meadow Campsite

The resort is more of an experience than just a place to rest your head at night. Guests embrace the camping community, the abundance of outdoor recreation activities, and the serenity of the Florida outdoors.

Dining Options

One of the main perks of staying at Fort Wilderness Resort Campground is the ability to cook your own food, with access to grills at each campsite and full kitchens in the wilderness cabins and most RVs. However, that doesn’t mean that dining options are not provided. While you won’t find a substantial variety of options here compared to other resorts, some of the most unique Disney World dining experiences reside inside Fort Wilderness.

Quick Service Options:

• The Chuck Wagon
• Meadows Snack Bar
• Trail’s End Restaurant

Table Service Options:

• Crockett’s Tavern
• Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue – A Dinner Show

Amenities & Recreation

Fort Wilderness Resort Campground is unique not only because of the lodging options but also the recreation options! There are quite a few things to do that you won’t find anywhere else on Disney property. This includes:

• Meadows Swimmin’ Pool
• Wilderness Swimmin’ Pool
• Davey Crockett’s Arcade
• Daniel Boone’s Arcade
• Four Playgrounds
• Basketball, Tetherball, Shuffleboard, Pool Tables, Table Tennis
• Tennis/Pickleball Courts
• Chip and Dale’s Campfire Sing-a-Long
• Clementine Beach
• Fishing
• Bike Rentals
• Canoe/Kayak Rentals
• Fort Wilderness Archery Experience ($)
• Tri-Circle-D Ranch
• Pony Rides ($)
• Horseback Riding ($)
• Gem Mining ($)
• The Wilderness Back Trail Adventure Segway Tour ($)
• Horse Carriage Rides ($)

Note that some resort amenities require advanced reservations, so be sure to check the Walt Disney World website for details and availability.

Transportation Options

Due to its size, Fort Wilderness offers complimentary transportation to the theme parks and Disney Springs AND internal transportation for guests to get around the resort.

Theme Park Transportation:

• Boat Transportation from the Settlement Marina to Magic Kingdom, Disney’s Contemporary Resort, and Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
• Bus Transportation from the Outpost to EPCOT, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Disney Springs, and Disney’s waterparks

Resort Transportation:

• Disney Bus Transportation – Orange Line, Purple Line, Yellow Line from the Outpost to the Settlement
• Golf Carts available for purchase
• Bike Rentals available

Our Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort Campground Review

I grew up going to Fort Wilderness Campground, and I will always have a sense of nostalgia and fond memories at this resort. That said, the resort has undergone some significant renovations throughout the past decade, some for the better and some…well…not so much.

For this review, we spent three nights in June in our family’s 40ft fifth-wheel RV, spending half our time at Fort Wilderness and half in the theme parks. Here’s what we thought!

The Room

Upon check-in, we were given site number 1113, a Premium campsite in the Possum Path loop. Our campsite was fully paved and had full electricity, water, sewer, and cable hookups. A picnic table and charcoal grill were also provided. The site was pretty easy to back into, which is a massive factor in its likeability, especially with larger RVs. Though Fort Wilderness is settled in the woods, I found our spot to have little shade.

Possum Path is located toward the front of the resort, meaning it is one of the closest loops to the Outpost, but the farthest camping loop from the Settlement. The Meadows Recreation Area is the nearest of the three main areas to Possum Path, where we spent much of our time. A playground was right across from the loop, which was perfect for our toddler. Additionally, an internal bus stop was close by at the entrance of Possum Path. All in all, we found this location to be pretty great!

A comfort station was only a two-minute walk from our campsite and every time we used it we were impressed with the cleanliness. The setup in these is similar to a gym or spa locker room, with toilets and sinks on one side and showers and changing areas on the other. One of the things I like about the comfort stations is the shower stalls, which have actual doors with locks versus curtains like many other public showers.

Cost

While we enjoyed our site location and setup, the campsite cost was steep. This is one of the main complaints from guests at Fort Wilderness over the past few years, and it’s hard to disagree.

This Premium Campsite cost us $201 per night. For perspective, guests can usually book a room at one of Disney’s All-Star Value Resorts for around $175 per night. I can remember a time not long ago when you could book a campsite for around $100 per night, and that was only during the busier seasons.

We had eight people stay at our campsite, which is more than any other Disney resort would allow in one room. This, in addition to the money saved by cooking many meals in our camper, was enough to make the campsite price worth it for this vacation. But, I can see how families of 4 or under may find it hard to justify over $200 per night for a campsite where you still have to clean, cook, and care for yourself.

Food and Drinks

During our trip, we primarily cooked at our campsite. However, we did venture to Trail’s End Restaurant every morning for a coffee and one night for dinner. This quick-service location offers not only individual meals but also family-style meals.

Trail’s End Restaurant

Breakfast

Every morning started with an iced Gold Rush Latte, which is a vanilla latte with caramel. As a coffee snob, the standard Joffrey’s brew at the beverage station just doesn’t cut it for me. This latte was good enough to fill the void, but I still prefer Starbucks in the theme parks.

Dinner

For dinner, we opted for some family-style offerings. Trail’s End offers family-style meals on its menu, but it also has a case of grab-and-go family-style portions of dinner entrees, which is what we chose. Sides are offered by the pound, and we opted for green beans and mac and cheese as our sides. The green beans were surprisingly well seasoned but heavy on the garlic. The mac and cheese is your standard quick-service mac and cheese — good, but not the best. We selected a whole rack of ribs and a pizza for the main entrees. They were flavorful but slightly dry. And, we finished our meal with two loaves of the southern sweet cornbread. Honestly, this was the star of the show. It was sweet, moist, yet savory at the same time.

The full-size cheese pizza, which cost $21.99, was as good as expected. It tasted like the same pizza you would get at any resort quick-service location throughout Disney World.

Overall, we found these options to be an excellent value for a quick meal when you don’t feel like cooking after a long day. Affordability and portion size go a long way at Trail’s End. You won’t find these options anywhere else around Walt Disney World, and it’s a decent barbeque spot.

Crockett’s Tavern

Crockett’s Tavern offers an inside bar and lounge seating and an outdoor walk-up window for to-go drinks. We stopped for one of their most popular drinks, the Moonshine Margarita. At $16.99, you hope you get your money’s worth, and this drink packs a punch. Anyone who enjoys margaritas will enjoy this drink.

Chuck Wagon

The biggest disappointment of our trip when it came to dining was the Chuck Wagon. The offerings are pretty straightforward here with a menu of standard snacks such as Mickey pretzels, ice cream novelties, popcorn, drinks, and s’mores kits for the campfire. We stopped by to fill our refillable popcorn bucket, but, unfortunately, they only sell the pre-boxed popcorn for $5.50. We opted for that and found it stale and flavorless. Next time, we will get our $3 fresh popcorn bucket refill in the parks and bring it with us instead.

Amenities & Recreation

Pool and Playground

During our stay, we spent many hours at the Meadows Recreation Area between the pool and the playground. The pool has one of the smallest moderate resort water slides but is still fun for all ages. The kids’ aquatic area has significantly improved in recent years, adding two kids’ slides, water fountains, and interactive features. But, the pool is not as themed as other resorts. Like other resorts, the pool can get crowded with Fort Wilderness’s demand rising over the past decade. We spent most of our time in the kids’ area, so we didn’t need many lounge chairs. But, it would have been hard to find enough chairs for all of us later in the day due to the crowds.

Chip N’ Dale’s Campfire Sing-a-Long

Chip N’ Dale’s Campfire Sing-a-Long is one of our favorite things about Fort Wilderness, and it didn’t disappoint. A musician starts on stage performing fun family songs such as the Hokey Pokey. Eventually, Chip and Dale make their appearance to dance along with you! Keep in mind there is no official meet and greet with Chip and Dale, but the experience is worth it. The campfires are lit while this is happening, so guests can either dance along or roast marshmallows. After the sing-a-long, the outdoor movie begins. Our movie that night was The Incredibles which is one of our favorites!

Pony Rides

Pony Rides are available for children ages 3 to 9 on a walk-up basis. For $10, your child can take two laps around the path on the pony, with a parent walking with them. Our son did this and loved it! The staff was helpful in explaining how to walk the pony and the rules. As Star Wars fans, we were thrilled that the pony our son got to ride was named Vader.

More Activities

Other recreation activities we participated in were fishing, tetherball, watching the Electrical Water Pageant, and hanging out at the campsite. You can bring chalk, baseballs, and gloves to play catch, bikes, and more to keep you and your family entertained! There is also an unofficial Facebook group, Original Fort Wilderness Scavenger Hunts, that guests put together to add a little extra magic to your stay at the Fort. Guests bring items of all sizes, hide them, and post them in the Facebook group for fellow hunters to find around the resort. This is a fun activity for the whole family and we really enjoyed participating in this unofficial activity during our stay!

Transportation

For our means of transportation around Fort Wilderness, we rented a 6-seater golf cart. This golf cart cost us $90 daily, compared to the 4-seater golf cart which costs $70 per day. We did not use the internal bus transportation on this trip, but we have many times in the past. The internal bus transportation is a fine option and will get guests where they need to go, but it can be lengthy. If you can budget for it, I highly recommend a golf cart. Not only does it make transportation easier, it’s also fun!

To get to the parks, we used external bus transportation to head to Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom. Both buses were prompt and well within the standard 15-minute rotation, and we had the same experiences both leaving and returning to Fort Wilderness.

Overall Fort Wilderness Campground Review

Overall, camping at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Campground is a must-do experience for anyone who enjoys the outdoors. Though the price increases make staying here a bit harder on the wallet, we still feel there are plenty of recreation, dining, and lodging experiences to make the increase worth it. Family fun is the heart of Fort Wilderness, and we have and will continue to create lifelong memories here.

If you are on the fence about Fort Wilderness, try making reservations at the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue! You will get to experience the atmosphere of the Fort without having to stay there, giving you an idea of what it is like!

Stay at Fort Wilderness Campground if…

• You enjoy the outdoors
• You’re traveling with a large party
• You own an RV and want to stay in it during your Disney trip
• You plan on spending a lot of time outside the theme parks and want a resort with lots to do

Skip Fort Wilderness Campground if…

• You don’t enjoy the outdoors
• You want housekeeping
• You will spend most of your time at the theme parks
• You want a small, walkable resort

Comments

Have you been camping at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Campground? Would you consider it? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!