Brevard Youth Sports

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Disney's Fort Wilderness Campground

By Ryan Seeloff

    6/19/08- Here we go.  The long awaited Brevard Youth Sports Campground Review section is set to begin.  We decided to start off this new section with a visit to our family's personal favorite campground, Fort Wilderness Campground at Walt Disney World.  Is this truly camping you may ask?  Well in my opinion camping is what you make it.  At Fort Wilderness you are not staying in a hotel (Yes the cabins and the RV's that campers bring are as nice as most hotel suites) and you have to deal with pretty much the same problems found at a more rustic campground (The weather and bugs).  The difference is the availability of things for your family to do and the price.  Later in the review I will list some of the amenities to be found at Fort Wilderness.  As far as the pricing goes, the prices are comparable to staying in a budget hotel off of Disney property.  This is one of the peak times so the price for this stay of $68.00 is quite a bit higher than we usually pay.  For example when we go back in August we will be paying just over $40.00 for a night.  To get these prices at a hotel in the area you might spend the night swatting roaches and wondering just how clean your sheets really are.  You also would not be able to enjoy all the campground has to offer.   We have stayed at the campground before in tents as well as in the spacious cabins, but this time we were going to break in our new pop up.  With a pop up you have the choice of staying in the single loop of campsites available for tent camping or you may choose to stay in the RV loops.  We chose the tent loop for this visit.  There were two reasons for this.  First was the fact that there are two "comfort stations" within the tent loop and usually there is only a single "comfort station" within the RV loops and we did not want to walk far when it was time for one of the family members to use the facilities.  The second reason was the fact that within the tent loop there seems to be more of an "outdoorsy" feel than in the RV loops.  You can almost believe that you are not within the grips of the Great Mouse.  That is until you hear the drone of the transportation buses on their routes.  The RV loops do have their advantages as they tend to be closer to all of the amenities Fort Wilderness has to offer (More on those throughout the review), they are larger than the tent sites, and have full hook ups for those needing them.  The RV sites do run around $10 more.

    Here is a somewhat abbreviated description of Disney's Fort Wilderness Campground from yours truly.  Located between Disney's Wilderness Lodge and the Osprey Ridge Golf Course, Fort Wilderness is the perfect getaway for those trying to getaway yet not too far away.  With Disney transportation available by bus or boat, campers are able to get the whole Disney experience right from their campsite.  Some of the amenities available throughout the campground are; two swimming pools, multiple basketball and volleyball courts, fishing on your own in several small canals or guided fishing tours on Disney's two big lakes, canoe and kayak rentals for the canals or motorized boats for the lakes, bike rentals, golf cart rentals, horseback trail rides, horse drawn carriages, a petting farm with pony rides, daily activities for the kids, several playgrounds, Wi-Fi access, two arcades filled with games, tennis courts, and I know I am forgetting a few.  Two fully stocked camp stores will keep emptying your pockets should you forget any necessities during your trip.  There are several dining options available within the campground.  Pioneer Hall  is a short bike, bus, or golf cart ride away and you can find the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue, Trail's End Restaurant, and Crockett's Tavern here.  Mickey's Backyard BBQ is also located nearby.  Next to the Meadow Swimming Pool is the Meadow Snack Bar where pizza and sandwiches are available during the day.  With a hop into a bus or a leap onto a boat you can experience any of the other Disney dining wonders without getting in your vehicle.  Of course getting off of Disney property to eat can save some $$$, but if this is your only trip to see the mouse you might as well eat his cheese!  Staying at the campground also allows visitors the opportunity to fix their own meals at their campsite as each campsite is equipped with a charcoal grill.  Now one of the greatest amenities at Fort Wilderness is the nightly (weather permitting) Chip 'n Dale's Campfire Sing-A-Long located next to the Bike Barn.  Two campfire rings are lit in the evening to provide campers the chance to torch marshmallows Disney style.  If you don't feel like bringing your own then Mickey will gladly provide you with the essential S'more ingredients from a small snack bar which also sells popcorn, hot dogs, drinks, and a few other snacks.  After a few songs performed on a stage located between the fire pits a Disney movie will be shown.  Now be warned that by the time the movie is over it will usually be past 10:00, so make sure you are prepared for some tired junior campers in your cabin, RV, or tent.  I will sometimes take the family over to Fort Wilderness just for some marshmallow roasting and we usually never make it through the movie.  Just what else does Fort Wilderness offer?  Well they have recently redone all of the Comfort Stations (Bath houses/ laundry facilities), which makes Mom happy.  The sites while not exactly private are roomy enough to spread out and enjoy yourself.  Most sites back up to other sites or are in sight of other loops, but there are many that back up to nothing at all.  If this is your only trip to Disney then I would personally recommend staying in one of the hotels on property and getting your full Disney on, but if you have been to the parks before and would like to relax then Fort Wilderness could be just what the vacation doctor ordered.  I know on this single night trip we did not plan on going to a single park (Our Seasonal Passes are on Block Out Days anyway) and only wanted to enjoy the campground and relax for the time we were there.  Well read on with the review of our trip below and feel free to email us with any questions you may have about Fort Wilderness.

    Our trip started out with a small problem as we noticed that once we loaded our new golf cart (Purchased with Fort Wilderness in mind) the pop up could not reach under the tailgate to connect with the hitch.  After trying out our other hitch (Which stuck out further, but was too low to the ground) without success we unloaded the golf cart and went on with our trip (The hitch problem has now been solved).  Now the reason for purchasing the golf cart was to save money whenever we visit Fort Wilderness.  You can rent golf carts for just over $45.00 per day if you reserve one before they run out (They had run out today).  We arrived at Fort Wilderness expecting the usual Disney check in craziness, but we lucked out and had no one in front of us.  Once we backed up into our site (Notice Dad's poor parking job in the first photo below) and unhooked the pop up we had it set up, unpacked, and had the air cranking.  We also set up a new screen room over the campsite picnic table.  The screen room was purchased on sale at Kmart for only $49 and it was a breeze to put up.  There is an awning and attached screen room on our pop up, but we did not use them on this trip.  We also did not bring our big camp stove on this trip since Ethan has been wanting to go the charcoal route for awhile.  After setting up the campsite it was time for a short split up for the family.  Mom and the kids headed over to the smaller of the two pools located within Fort Wilderness (It is also the closest to the tent loop).  I on the other hand headed off to the nearest Walgreen's in search of some cough medicine for myself.  Being the "I can get around Disney quicker than anyone" smarty pants that I think I am I went what I thought was going to be the quickest way to get off property, but forgot that it was rush hour on a weekday (Insert your best Homer "Doh!" here).  I did manage to make it back to the campground in time to get a phone call from Mom asking me to pick her and the kids up at the pool so they would not have to wait for a bus.  Now back at the campsite it was time to start getting dinner ready.  For this trip Ethan has been begging me to cook out on the charcoal grill and not use our gas stove so it was time to get the grill going.  Not having dealt with little black coals in many many years I was a little unsure how well things would go so we had settled before on going with hotdogs, hamburgers, and baked beans on the grill with some pears for the kids from the cooler (The fridge in the pop up was not cool enough to fill up first).  Can't mess that up right?  Not with Grillmeister Dad on watch.  The food was actually great and my mom drove over from Kissimmee to spend some quality time with her favorite son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren (We are her only son, daughter-in-law- and grandchildren).  A minor thunderstorm moved into the area, but we stayed dry at the screen room covered picnic table.  My mom took off after dinner and we got ready for the rest of the evening.  The kids were really looking forward to roasting some marshmallows at the campfire later and I had a surprise in store for them when we got back from that.  We thought that it might be nice to hop in the Meadow Pool one more time before the campfire and stopped in for a quick dip on our way.  Turns out that we liked the water more than the campfire and movie this time.  Ethan asked if we could build a little fire at the campsite to roast some marshmallows (You are not supposed to burn wood in the supplied grills so lets just say we used something else, or not).  While Mom and the kids headed over to the comfort station for showers and clean clothes I got to work on how we would cook the marshmallows.  Let's just say that it worked out well and I won't have to incriminate myself in any wood burning.  During the gooey bonanza I pulled out the surprise I had told the kids about earlier.  Two sets of eyes got a bit wider when they saw the two containers of Jiffy Pop magically appear from behind my back.  Jiffy Pop can be so hard to find and our Walmart in West Melbourne just happened to have a display of it in an aisle last week so I picked up a half dozen containers for future camping trips.  Needless to say the popcorn was a huge success after cooking it over the fire and sprinkling some white cheddar seasoning all over it.  After the popcorn it was time for the kids to get into bed.  By now the A/C on the pop up had the interior of the little camper very chilly and it was easy to get the kids to wrap up in their sleeping bags for the night.  Mom and I were then able to enjoy some quiet time by the grill/fire and did not get bit by a single bug before heading into the pop up ourselves.  I will say that with the noise from the A/C and the fridge, we could not hear any of the welcome (Assorted bug noises) or not so welcome (Buses running through the campground and campers heading back from the parks) noises associated with camping at Fort Wilderness.  Waking up to an extremely chilly pop up in the morning subjected me to a minor tongue lashing from Mom, but I was so cozy in my sleeping bag that I did not mind the cold or the lecture.  With Mom and the kids off to the comfort station for their morning freshening up I started breakfast.  Once again staying at the campground saved us some money as we were able to eat very well (Scrambled eggs, bacon, and pancakes) for very little right at the campsite instead of spending big $$$ eating the same things at a Disney restaurant.  Once we finished breakfast there was time for a quick dip in the pool before we had to pack everything up for the trip home.  

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