Adventures in Camping: Park review

Showing posts with label Park review. Show all posts

Monday, March 14, 2022

Tent on Wheels at DISNEY Park n' Drive: Fort Wilderness Campground

Know before you go - a park drive thru video

(Breaking this one into multiple videos, based on the site types)

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Preferred: Loops 100, 200, 300

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Premium: Loops 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900, 1000, 1100, 1200, 1300, 1400

Loops 400, 500, 1400

Loops 1200, 1300

Loops 1100, 1000, 900

Loop 800, 700, 600

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Full Hook-ups: Loops 1600, 1700, 1800, 1900

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Tent/Pop-ups: Loops 1500, 2000, 2100 (RV)

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Cabins: Loops 2200, 2300, 2400, 2500, 2600, 2700, 2800

Loops 2200, 2400, 2600

Loops 2300, 2500

Loops 2700, 2800

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We were in Premium Loop 500, site #539: easy enough to back into (as long as the campers across the way don't have their golf carts in the way). The pad was cut short side-to-side at the front because of an electrical junction box, and because of that the picnic table was at the back of our side, almost un-usable due to our slide outs. The foliage around the site makes it incredibly private, even though you're so close to your neighbors - it really felt very 'jungle-like' from the views out our back window and was a very quiet site thanks to all that landscaping. We had two days with torrential rain and our side flooded, but that (the massive rain) is really uncommon, and the park _is_ built on a swamp after all. The site has great morning and afternoon shade, but gets the full brunt of the mid-day sun.

I notified the park about the flooding situation and they immediately remedied it by having us move a few sites down, same loop, to #544. This one was easy to back into as well, and had the full width paved (since there was no electrical box in the way). It backs up to one of the main roads on the right side of the park, so your back windows will give you a view of the traffic driving by (and that means there's a fair bit of intermittent road noise during the day). Across that road is the dog park and a playground, so plenty of people watching - and a great spot if you're brought your furry friend along. This site is much larger than 539 - there's more space between you and your neighbors, too.

Premium loop 500, Buffalo Bend, was a great location close to the internal bus stop and a short distance from the marina with the option for dining, shopping, or catching a boat to the Magic Kingdom. You're also not far from the Meadows recreation area with the swimming pool, arcade, Chuck Wagon, campfire sing-a-long, and nightly outdoor movies. The loop shares a comfort station (bathhouse/laundry) with loop 400, and these two sites are on the opposite side of that are, so it's a bit of a walk if you're planning to use those facilities, but the tradeoff is that you're closer to the entrance of the loop so the bus stop, playground, and dog park are a much shorter walk.

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Curious about what we did on our Disney trip? Be sure to check out Tent on Wheels at DISNEY!

Sunday, March 13, 2022

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!

Thursday, March 3, 2022

Tent on Wheels at DISNEY Camping at Fort Wilderness: We have arrived!

In the "before times" pre-Covid-19, RDB and I would plan a week long vacation cruising out of Galveston and down to the Caribbean, but with the cruise industry heavily regulating health and safety measures, we needed to switch vacation plans. No big deal, we'll just go camping for a week. But where?

A high school friend of mine, Heather, has been a vacation planner specializing in Disney for a long time now, and when I mentioned that we were looking for a 'replacement' trip for my birthday, she naturally suggested Disney.... and then asked me if I knew that Disney had a resort campground?

Well. Down the rabbit hole I went!

Artwork: Mary Blaire

Fort Wilderness isn't just a campground. It is a way of life! I know, that sounds cheesy, but after 10 days on property, enjoying all the fun and friends, I really can see where there are so many FaceBook pages devoted to this type of camping vacation.

We used the digital check-in via the My Disney Experience App (trust me, you'll want to download this!), notifying the Fort that we'd arrive early - about 11am - and received a text with our campsite number well before that (yeah!). We drove onto property and stopped at the guard shack (where the attendant referred to me, with a bow, as "Your Highness!" *giggle*) We had the option to bypass the main check-in area and go straight to our site, or stop to chat with someone. We opted to stop and chat since we've never been on property before and could use a map!

Carl checked us in, gave us a map, took down Mr. Polo's name (a friend who was staying with us for a few nights). Like I've done for our camping hosts in state parks, I handed him a small gift of chocolates with a thank you note. In turn, he grabbed a roll of Mickey stickers, said "How many do you want!?" and handed us several. Let the fun begin!

We settled into our premium site, number 539 in Buffalo Bend loop. First thing we noticed was how close together all of the campers in this loop are - but with the way that the park has built up the landscaping between each site, once you're settled in, you really don't notice how close you are. And for us, we have 7 days in the parks, so we're not planning to hang out outside the camper much.

We hit the ground running from the moment we arrived - off to grab lunch at a local spot (with great food, but poor service) and then back to the campground to pick up the golf cart we reserved and get settled into our site.

So, the eternal debate at Fort Wilderness: to rent a golf cart or not. Ask out on the Facebook groups and you'll get people who are "definitely yes" and others who are "never needed it." FOMO got the best of me, so a few short weeks before the trip I asked Heather to see if we could rent one from the campground, knowing that we may not be able to. Great news - we were able to get a cart for a portion of the trip, and even better news, when we picked it up and asked if we could extend the reservation thru the full trip, they were able to accommodate!

RDB drove it back to our site and I immediately started putting decorations on it! (They all look the same in the golf cart parking lots, this would make it easier to find after a long park day.... and to be honest, y'all know me - I like to have fun!)

It was in the middle of decorating the golf cart that I got a call from a local Florida number; I picked it up and it was one of the cast members at the front desk asking if we were in our site right now, they had a gift to drop by!

And what a gift it was!! Carl, who had checked us in earlier in the morning, came by in a golf cart and handed us a goodie bag filled with everything we'd need to make s'mores at the community campfire, along with a beautiful Fort Wilderness photo frame, a Disney Pin, and a note from the campground GM, Bill Thompson, welcoming us to the resort and wishing me a happy birthday!

In the world of Disney-speak: I got Pixie Dusted!!

This was the beginning of what would become an incredibly memorable week, exhausting ourselves at the parks, enjoying Disney dining at its finest, resting at the campground, "looping" and hiding things for the Scavenger Hunt, visiting some off-property sites on our non-park days. I mean, even doing laundry at Fort Wilderness is an experience!

I'll write up more about staying at Fort Wilderness, but right now, as Robin Hood once sang, all I can think is: “Oh-de-lolly, oh-de-lolly, golly what a day!”