Ahh, killer! I was hoping the OP would come back and update with their personal experience and opinions.
But in case there are others reading this thread, I'd like to chime in my thoughts about our experience there (in Feb of this year). It was our first ever trip to WDW (we're DL vets) and we did a split stay at AKL and the Cabins.
In a nutshell: we loved it from the minute we arrived and were sad to go. I'm going back to WDW already next month (with my parents and grandma. my mom went with us in Feb to the AKL portion of the trip) and only but for the fact I'll be without my kids am I not super sad to not be staying at the cabins.
The campground is so clean and beautiful. It's it's own little world totally separate from the parks but clean and well kept as to typical Disney standards. The cabins had three total complaints from me- all relatively minor.
A) Our cabin wasn't level. I could tell, but no big deal
B) The cabins are getting a bit rough around the edges (literally edges of things scratched up).
C) Lack of of a queen sized bed. This is probably more than a minor complain but we did ok for 5 nights. Me and DH opted to sleep in the murphy bed and put the kids in the bedroom for more privacy/sanity.
If they refurbed and could add a queen bed I'd have no complaints at all. Even with those minor things, and sleeping in a murphy bed it was still fairly comfortable. We had plenty of space. We didn't bring food/get groceries (just ended up not needed as we were on the
DDP) except for milk and the multipack of cereals from the store and stock up on some DDP snacks. For one family, one bathroom was enough.
We rented a golf cart. We didn't request loop 2100, we requested 2800 (and got it). Since we had a cart, we figured be closer to the bus transportation worked just as well as being close to everything else (esp since we only did DTD, DHS, and MK on our days there).
There was so much to do. We did *most* but certainly not all. We (all 5) did the archery experience, and we loved it! My daughters are 8 and they were able to enjoy it as did myself and my husband. I think the price was pretty decent for the length of time of the activity too ($25/person).
Me and my son (almost 13 when we went) did the horse trail ride. It was the one thing that actually disappointed me. This was his 2nd horse trail ride ever and he had fun, but the Dis standards were a bit annoying and the trail pretty boring and completely flat. I am not a big horse riding person but I've done trail rides before (let's say every few years) and I've never had to spent all my time and effort keeping the horse directly behind the horsebutt in front of me. I would *only* recommend this activity for those who are very scared of horses but want to try riding or those who have done it no more than once before (otherwise like me it was just boring). It was $45/person and not worth the $90 we spent, IMO, though my son enjoyed it (I could have let him go by himself). Might be an activity where you let your child do it alone if that's at all possible.
We did the pony rides ($5/per child) for children under 80 lbs IIRC. My daughters loved it, and we loved seeing Cinderella's ponies. We checked out the Horse Barn and mini-museum and the show/pull horses are just awesome.
We did the Chip and Dale's singalong (but not the movie) and we did roasting marshmallows and the kids had so much fun.
We did the wagon ride, fun, esp since is not very expensive ($8 adults/$5 kids)
The little girls also did the pool party and enjoyed that too. All three did hit the arcade a few times, and my daughters loved hula hooping themselves to death each time we went by the Trail's End.
We even made some time for them to just play on the playgrounds/swings.
Lastly, my daughter's were "taugh" how to fish (free of charge) by one of the activity CMs there. They had a blast and caught 4 fish.
We didn't get to the Electrical Water Pageant, fireworks on the beach OR canoes like I hoped. NEXT time!
All the CMS we dealt with were very friendly. The restaurants were all very good, we did the Hoop Dee Doo (LOVED it), ate dinner and breakfast at the Trail's End (was better than breakfast at The Wave and dinner was very good). And we had a pizza from Trail's to Go and also a few QS meals from the Meadows. The pizza was "ok/good" and not great, but for what you got for two QS meals it was a good value.
I was worried about the lack of a "big" QS place, but between the Trai's to Go and Meadows it wasn't an issue. We did find it easy to hit up The Contempo at the Contemporary on the way back from MK one evening.
We had a blast! If (when) my whole family gets to go back to WDW I'm pretty sure we'll have to do a split stay again and do the Cabins as one of the places we stay. And I'm getting pretty spoiled on the Deluxe resorts
but to ME for what it was, Ft Wilderness felt pretty close to a deluxe (not in oppulance but in terms of things to do and grounds and location)
...even if you have kids, because you know what, you can relax and not worry about them screaming and jumping around disturbing people around you because there isn't anyone attached to you!!
