Anyone Stay at Ft. Wilderness Cabins on Points?

[herrmannpt]

Anyone ever do this? I know it's the Disney Collection, and we've never done that. I also know the Wilderness Lodge is awesome and right next door. Still, we will have kids 5 and 3 that would love all of the activities at Ft. Wilderness and zipping around on a golf cart for a week would be amazing to them! Not planning on doing too many park days...probably just one at MK. Advice? Good idea or bad use of points? Anyone know how far out you can book the Disney Collection?

 

[DebbieB]

Anyone ever do this? I know it's the Disney Collection, and we've never done that. I also know the Wilderness Lodge is awesome and right next door. Still, we will have kids 5 and 3 that would love all of the activities at Ft. Wilderness and zipping around on a golf cart for a week would be amazing to them! Not planning on doing too many park days...probably just one at MK. Advice? Good idea or bad use of points? Anyone know how far out you can book the Disney Collection?

Keep in mind you will have to pay the $95 fee. They don't charge it for campsites but they do for cabins. Also they become reservation points, so you can't use them for DVC if you cancel.

 

[CarolMN]

Don't worry about "good" or "bad" use of points. If you believe the family will enjoy the cabins for this trip, just do it.

(I don't recommend anyone buy (or rent) DVC points to regularly use them at a non-DVC resort, but you already have your points).

Check out the Camping at Disney World Board for lots of ideas on how to have fun at Ft. Wilderness.

 

[jambo5564]

Its on our list of destinations to get to as well.

 

[ibela]

I think it depends on how many points you have and what size accomodations you typically prefer.

If it were me I'd look at the number of points required at both (I think the $95 is waived for the cabins).

Ex. a Sat-Sat stay in May 2014
Cabin stay on points: 292 points
Cabin stay using cash: $2900
Wilderness Lodge studio on points: 120 points
Wilderness Lodge 1br on points: 255 points

For me, with 2 young kids, I'd probably stay at the WL studio and bank the remainig points for the following year or rent them this year. The difference
(172 points) is basically another week at a studio at Disney and the distance between the WL and Ft Wilderness is short and fairly easy to get around between the 2, especially if you're not worried about park hours etc. However, if you normally get 1br then the points "saved" by staying at WL is much less so in that scenario I'd just get the cabin. If you really want to stay at the cabins and have excess points on hand, might as well just use them however you please.

For our trips we alternate park days with resort days and prefer a change in scenery. This past trip we pool hopped a couple of days and ate meals at some of the other resort restaurants and had an overall great time.

Sorry, I don't think I helped too much...

 

[herrmannpt]

Thanks for the input. I think we'll go for it. I know the kids will love it!

 

[artesian]

Thanks for the input. I think we'll go for it. I know the kids will love it!

We did two years ago and while we liked it probably won't do it again. We are used to to open floor plans of out DVC rooms and felt cramped in the cabin. Storage for us was at a premium and couldn't really ever fully unpack. We ask for a cabin near the quiet pool area which I think is in the 2500's. One other thing was the reliance on the internal buses to get around took some getting used to. The boat to MK was def a highlight for the fam

 

[lovedisney123]

We camped in a tent at FW and enjoyed it and thought about the cabins, but have never done it. With two small kids, I might like it better because the bunk beds are in the bedroom with the double bed, so everyone will be in the same room (and when my kids were little I liked that). There is a bed in the living room so if you don't want them in there with you they can sleep there instead.

The thing that I wouldn't like....and maybe I am wrong, but I do think there is only a double bed for the adults in the bedroom. Not a queen or king. And we are used to a queen, and I love a king, but really do not like the double sized beds.

Also there is no laundry like in the villas. There are places at the campground to do laundry, but not right in your room. And I would miss that.

BUT on the plus side, I think it would be nice to have a porch area, and to have the campfire/movie close by. And the golf carts are fun (we rented one for a day when we were at WL just for fun).

Oh and the other down side (unless they have changed) is that the pools are not themed. And I don't think there is a slide. But it has been about 10 years since we stayed at FW so that may have changed.

Then the one last thing that I considered when I was deciding between the two places (cabins or VWL) was that there is a quick service food place at WL but not at FW. But if you are eating in your cabin that won't be an issue. We usually just keep snacks and breakfast foods in our villas, so the quick service restaurant was a plus for us.

But I will say....if you want to try it....do it when they are little. I really think having the double bed and bunk beds in the one bedroom works much better when they are little. Also they are with you and you can figure out the buses (which are a bit confusing at FW at times). When they are older and you let them go to the parks alone you may not like them trying to figure out the FW buses at least not the first time they go off by themselves (and it will happen at one point, I know right now it is hard to believe, but when we bought into DVC our twins were 7 years old, now they are 20....a lot changes over those years).

This was probably no help at all! Sorry...I tend to do pro/con lists a lot. But anyway, have a wonderful trip!!!!