RV PARK REVIEW: Fort Wilderness at Disney, part 1

We left Mouse Mountain this morning at 10:15 to make the short 5 or 6 mile drive to Disney's Fort Wilderness Campground.  I went into the office and was greeted by about 4 cast members (never called employees at Disney resorts) and a woman named Carol helped me with the check-in process.  It went quickly and then she told me our site wasn't quite ready, but was guaranteed by 1:00.  We were directed to park out in the large parking lot and they would call a.s.a.p.  We were welcome to go to one of the theme parks while we waited, but we just parked the RV and I fixed us an early lunch while we played gin rummy.

At 12:45 they called to say we were free to enter the campground and proceed to Loop 400, which was the loop we had requested several months ago when we booked our vacation.  Over the past several years Disney has updated their camping loops.  The Premium Loops (like #400) have all been updated with 50 amp electric and the concrete pads have been made wider and longer to accommodate today's big rigs.  Some of the trees have been cleared away to make room for slides. There is also ample room to park your toad or your large truck if you tow a 5er or a trailer.  The roads in the loops are wide enough to get around easily, but they are all one-way so you do not have to worry about oncoming traffic.  All sites are back-in sites but they are angled so that even backing in our 40 footer was easy.

We got ourselves backed into site #427 and put our Explorer in front of us.  There is a picnic table and BBQ grill at each site, but we don't use them.  We will be eating our meals out for the next 2 weeks.  Bruce connected all of the utilities and we were finished!

We took Annie out for a walk around the loop and I stopped at the Comfort Station to take a couple of photos.  Comfort Station is Disney-talk for Restroom and Laundry.  There is also a USA Today newspaper machine here.

Each loop has access to their own Comfort Station, or if the loops are small there is one station between the 2 small loops.  This is the laundry room at our Comfort Station.  It may seem small, but there are many of these throughout the entire campground.  Here is the ladies restroom, which was sparkly clean.  There is a pay telephone here, but most folks use their cell phone these days.

I have no exact dollar figure on what this campground is charging us per day as we purchased a total package deal and the site fees are included.  However, the rates listed in the Trailer Life Directory show a rate of $57.00 to $116.00 per day.  We are getting an annual pass package rate since we bought the annual passes last June knowing we'd be coming back within a year.   We are also paying $5.00 per day for Annie the Schnauzer.  My guess is our rate is around $100.00 per day, all taxes included.  WOW.....I know that is a lot!   This is the one and only place in our entire country where we will pay that amount of money to "camp".  Normally, we try to use our member parks which are sometimes free or $10.00 a night.  We do that so we can afford to come here for vacations from time to time.  A good trade-off in our opinion.  FYI:  The local KOA's rates list out at $50.00 to $90.00, plus you would then pay $14.00 to park at the theme parks each day you visit.

Fort Wilderness has 799 paved sites with patios and full hook-ups.  They have WiFi for a fee (it should be free).  Our AT&T wireless works fine at our site.  Each site has cable TV service with a good number of channel selections.  There are a lot of amenities here and I'll do a separate post on some of those and call it Part 2.

Until next time.....so long for now!