*Tent on Wheels at DISNEY* Camping at Fort Wilderness: In Between the Parks

There is so much that we did at Fort Wilderness Campground between our days having fun in the parks, I want to share that here for our blog, too! 

One of the 'must do' items I had on our list for this trip to the campground was the Electric Water Pageant.  It's unique that it's only seen from the shoreline of three resorts (Contemporary, Wilderness Lodge, and Fort Wilderness) and it's just a once a day event.  Really a neat way to cap off the night with a little extra fun!

It's also unique that the Fort is home to Tri-Circle-D Ranch where all the Disney horses are stabled.  Though we didn't sign up for a trail ride (or pony ride if you're a little kiddo), it was still amazing to stop in and see the giant horses (clydesdales, percherons, and Belgians) and gawk at the tack room, the organ carriage, and the incredibly clean stables.  I stopped over to visit on our mid-day break from Animal Kingdom thinking it was kind of fitting to stay with the animal theme for the day!

There are a few shopping and dining opportunities on the campground.  One right in the middle called the Meadows and another down by the marina called the Settlement and Pioneer dining Hall.  Though there wasn't really anything we needed, I still visited both do pin trade (the registers have pin boards out all the time, including a 'mystery' board!).  We also noticed signs around that they was a food truck round up on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings at the Settlement.  

You could get a poncho there, which I can promise you, at some point on your trip, you'll need! We knew it would rain - it being Florida in the spring and all - but I'm not sure anyone was really prepared for the downpours we'd have two days in a row.  RDB and I were nestled comfortably in the camper the night of the first gusher, but we were caught in the middle of a quest for DoleWhip (on a boat heading towards Magic Kingdom, to take the monorail to the Polynesian, to take a bus to Disney Springs for dinner afterwards.... like I said: a quest!)

Needless to say, when we stepped off the boat and had to walk thru ankle deep standing water, we pretty much turned right back around to go back to the camper and change clothes and shoes.... only, when we got to the camper, the situation wasn't much better:

That was about two inches of standing water on the concrete pad in front of our steps (site 539).  At least our shoes were already wet, right?  Ugh.  We had plans to meet up with my friend DJ-Hot-T, and so we changed clothes and shoes, made stepping stones out of our leveling blocks, and drove our truck over to Disney Springs for the evening.  (Though we loved the Disney transportation for the majority of our trip, we wanted a bit more control after the downpour-debacle that was our boat trip.)

Disney Springs was a LOT of fun, and I wrote up a post just about our time over there. 

When RDB and I arrived back at the campsite, our 'front yard' was still flooded, though thankfully we were able to get into the camper again without wading thru water.  (Thank goodness we both had extra pairs of shoes, because the ones we originally were wearing took all night to dry out!).  I had the campground GM's business card from the sweet gift we had received when we first got into the campground, and thought, ya know? You can't fix a problem if you don't know it exists!  So I wrote a quick email around 10pm letting him know about the dire drainage situation in hopes that no other camper would experience what we did.  Sent it off with a few pictures, and off to bed we went.

Bright and early the next morning, *knock*knock*knock*!!  One of the campground managers was at our front door! Well, actually standing back a bit b/c it was still all wet out there, Luis apologized for waking us up (ha!), and for the flooding situation, that this is not what they would want anyone to experience camping with Disney, and asked what our plans were for the day (Epcot).   He said he would be in touch via text with some solutions for us (I had put my phone number in my email to Bill) and sure enough, in the next hour, I heard back from him:

There's a reason Disney teaches classes on it's world class customer service! The Mouse moves FAST to fix things AND goes above and beyond!  RDB and I went over to Epcot for our lunch reservation at Le Cellier (Yes, a second time! Yes, it is that good!  and Yes! My vacation planner Heather is amazing b/c she was able to secure this for us with just two days' notice!) and then we came back to the campground to try and beat the next wave of rain to move our camper.  Well, we didn't beat the rain, but we did at least get moved to a great site (544) - higher ground, indeed!

We spent an afternoon at Hollywood Studios and came back to the campground for the evening, so I jumped on the golf cart to head down to the Meadows Trading Post of postcard stamps and to pin trade.  If you're not aware of pin trading, it's another great kind of side-gig within the Disney parks and resorts. There are boards at the Meadows and Settlement Trading posts, and you'll also find campers on the FaceBook pages who'll post that they're trading as well.

On my way back from dropping off postcards and letters to my team that evening, I drove past a dad and his two kids.  "Hitch Height!" he yelled at me as I passed.  Hitch height? I said to myself.  Why would he say hitch height? I'm not towing anything, I'm on a golf cart! Hitch height. Hitch height.  Hitch HIKE!  OMG, he was looking for a ride back to his site with the kids!!!  I pulled a quick U-turn to come back to where he was and said: "I had to think on that for a moment, you were saying hitch HIKE!  Let me give y'all a ride!"  They gladly jumped on the back of the golf cart and I drove them towards their site.  Went to drop off mail, ended up making a special delivery! I love this campground!

Though our first week at Disney was picture perfect weather, the second week continued to be plagued by bouts of rain and storms; you saw above how crazy flooded it got in our site at one point.  Our last park day, we woke to yet another large storm coming thru - this time with severe weather warnings to boot!  I'm glad we have a comfortable camper with plenty of space when rainy days like this happen, and being able to watch a Disney movie while we waited out the rain still kept us in the "bubble." 

Just like any camping trip, it was over too soon. But the memories we made along this trip, and the fun we had, will be a highlight of our camping stories for years to come!

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Be sure to check out our other posts from Tent On Wheels at DISNEY!