I’ve Stayed in Every Disney World Hotel. This Is Why Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground Is Worth It.

I’ve stayed in every Disney World Resort hotel and have some pretty strong opinions about them.

My job takes me to Disney World a lot — and I often stay in Disney World hotels to review the experience. Recently, I stayed at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground. I wasn’t expecting to love this hotel as much as I did, especially considering I’ve stayed in some of the most expensive and luxurious hotels in Disney World. However, Fort Wilderness has a charm that makes it absolutely worth it.

To see a full rundown of Fort Wilderness, you can watch our video right here!

But let’s talk about what makes this hotel worth it.

Theming

Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground is themed around a rustic wilderness escape. The hotel is a 700-acre campsite offering campgrounds and cabins. The campgrounds are considered value for Disney World hotels while the cabins are considered moderate. The entire area has lush vegetation and is surrounded by pine and cypress trees, and you can even catch glimpses of wildlife. While I was there, I saw a turkey!

Fort Wilderness absolutely feels like an escape. The resort has a lot of those Disney touches, and in fact, it’s actually closer to what Disney World felt like when it opened. Many of our readers talk about how the resort feels a lot more like Disney World used to in its first few decades of operation.

When you’re there, it feels like you’re away in a forest, able to camp and have some good old-fashioned family fun. In reality, you are very close to Magic Kingdom and just a short boat ride away from some of your favorite rides.

The resort really manages to walk the line between feeling like rustic wilderness and offering all the amenities and comfort of a Disney resort. If you want to camp, you can camp and have a great outdoors adventure by night — while you explore the Disney World parks during the day. If you’re not as much of an outdoors person, the cabins still offer a surprising amount of space for a fair price compared to some other large hotel rooms around Disney World.

Amenities

Perhaps my favorite thing about staying at Fort Wilderness was the amenities and recreation. Fort Wilderness has a number of amenities that are pretty standard to Disney hotels. For instance, you get access to Disney World transportation, you get to park at the hotel, and you get free parking at the theme parks, you get access to early theme park entry, and you get a lot of Disney touches around the hotel.

The recreation is where Fort Wilderness really stands out from other Disney World hotels though! The recreation offerings at Fort Wilderness are unlike anywhere else. Where you might be able to watch a movie under the stars just like you can at other Disney World hotels, you can also participate in an archery experience, go horseback riding, go on a Segway tour, have a food truck night, and a whole lot more!

To spice up our recent stay at Fort Wilderness, we experienced a lot of the recreation as part of a competition to see who among us got to sleep in a cabin and who had to sleep outside in the campsite. We agreed that between the archery, panning for gold, horseback riding, playing basketball, and more, it was one of the best days we’d had in Disney World in a long time.

Even if you are not staying at Fort Wilderness, the recreational activities are available to other guests as well. So if you want a day that feels like having good old-fashioned fun in the great outdoors, a visit to Fort Wilderness might be in order, even if you aren’t staying there.

Community

One of the most unique aspects of Fort Wilderness is the sense of community that is unlike most other Disney hotels. Many families who visit Fort Wilderness return year after year, and there are traditions exclusive to the hotel that have been created by guests. For instance, it is common to see decorations on people’s campsites, cabins, and even on the golf carts that you can rent or bring.

One of my favorite times to visit Fort Wilderness is around the holiday season when the decorations are all over the resort.  Additionally, the Chip and Dale Campfire Sing-Along is a recreational offering that happens on select nights before the movie under the stars. This sing-along is a cool show and it’s amazing that it’s free to guests at the resort.

Moreover, with camping, there’s a lot of opportunity to make connections with others who are camping near you. Of course, you don’t have to do this, as there is plenty of privacy at Fort Wilderness. However, if you do interact with other guests, you might make a stronger connection than you would by just having a neighboring hotel room.

And not to mention, the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue! This is one of the most popular experiences in all of Disney World. It’s a dinner show that has the Pioneer Hall players taking you through a revue as you eat some delicious, all-you-can-eat food.

Accommodations

All that said, the accommodations themselves might be a way that Fort Wilderness is not worth it to you. This is a campground, and, as campgrounds go, it’s incredibly expensive. Sure, it might be a whole lot cheaper to get a campsite for $100 a night than it is to get another Disney World hotel room, but compared to off-site campgrounds, Fort Wilderness is ridiculously expensive. If the charm of camping is what you’re after and you don’t care much about the Disney vibes, then it’s probably a lot smarter to check out a nearby KOA site.

Most people who camp at Fort Wilderness do so with RVs, trailers, and campers. This is an awesome way to save some money when you’re in Disney World, but again, you can find a lot cheaper places to park and stay in your RV than you can at Fort Wilderness. If you don’t care much for the amenities, community, and proximity to the parks, staying here might not be worth it.

During our recent stay, we checked out one of the cabins – which are actually converted trailers. As such, they have a living space, a full kitchen, a bathroom, and a bedroom that features a queen bed and a bunk bed. The living space also has a sofa bed, so these spaces comfortably sleep six. The cabins are absolutely one of the most private ways to stay in Disney World and they offer a lot of space without fully breaking the bank.

The cabins are priced around the same as a moderate Disney hotel room, which means if you need more space because you have more people, then these cabins could be the right choice for you. On the other hand, they are not the most price-friendly. The All-Star Music Resort family suites are also priced relatively fairly, and you could always look into an Airbnb nearby if you’re going to have your car. Airbnb rentals can often offer way more space than a cabin or family suite in Disney World and sometimes even come with their own pool. Just keep in mind that getting to and from the parks will be a little more difficult than if you had access to Disney transportation.

All in all, I absolutely loved my stay at Fort Wilderness primarily because it felt like an old-fashioned, family fun experience to me. It had a rustic and nostalgic vibe, and the idea of spending some time at this resort in the middle of a hectic park week sounded absolutely amazing. There are many reasons why this hotel is worth it, from the recreation to the community, but it really depends on your travel party. Remember, staying in Disney World always comes at a premium, and maybe those magical vibes and amenities are worth it for you, but maybe they aren’t.

That said, if you are looking for a more relaxing experience or want to try the novelty of camping in Disney World, Fort Wilderness could be the resort to give a try — just make sure you have a day planned to hang out there!

Click here to learn more about Fort Wilderness!

Have you stayed at Fort Wilderness? What did you think? 

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