I live in Florida. We went camping, in a tent, for the first time ever at the Fort in August in 2014. I thought I was going to die.
We had air conditioning. We had fans. We almost went home.
I am returning to the Fort this year; in a cabin.
Do absolutely what you want to do, but Bama_Ed is so, so right. No matter how many ways you want to spin it (I've camped when it was 90 degrees outside, I don't wear makeup, I have experience with Florida heat, whatever) know that before I went in August, I did all that too and I still thought I was nearly going to die when we tried it.
However, the campground was full of people; lots of other "near death" partakers like us. I'll tell you this, I'll never do it again. Never. There's nowhere to go to escape from the heat. No one here is telling you NOT to go, we're just telling you that be prepared, the best you can be, for something you've never had the experience with. We spent most of our days in the pool and just trying to cook outside made me nearly pass out. We used the water hose CONSTANTLY to keep ourselves cool. I know you're in a pop-up, but we were in a really large tent with air conditioning and I just hope that AC unit can keep that pop up nice and cool or else I fear you'll run into the same fate as us. We never slept in because by 9am, the AC unit couldn't keep up with the rising heat and we started cooking inside the tent; so we had to get out.
I did not enjoy using the comfort stations. They were clean, don't get me wrong, but having to wake up and RUN to pee across the loop in my PJ's was not a good way to start my morning. I would only shower at night so I could have some privacy. I longed for a private bath so, so much since I was so miserable. As soon as we got home, my husband and I locked ourselves in the bathroom for a good 2 hours.
The people in the big RV's looked pretty happy and comfortable. I felt stupid for not renting one of those (I didn't know you could at the time) and instead spending money on camping gear when I KNOW I don't like to camp, but I was trying to appease my husband (he too no longer likes tent camping). Perhaps, that would be an option. Maybe a middle ground, per se, between the cabin and the popup. Maybe you won't save $2,000, but maybe you'd save $1,000 and know you're going to be comfortable over saving the $2,000 and hoping you'll be comfortable.
No matter what you decide to do, you're 100% right that it's your vacation and your money and you're free to do whatever you want and you have to decide what's best for you and your family. For mine, we'll never do anything less than a cabin in the summer months and we'll consider renting an RV in the other months.
