New to FW!!! Questions....

[banfam4]

Wow, what a great board! I love the community here and I see many are regulars offering inside advice. I'm hoping to pick your brain for just a moment. We've never been to WDW or FW. My husband is serving in the Marines (18 years so far) and we're in NC and want to take advantage of going to WDW. I'm from SoCal and grew up going to Disneyland many times. We're thrilled about taking our two young boys to experience WDW and FW for the first time!

I haven't made reservations yet but will be this week. I did a test of dates and did see availability. We'll most likely arrive July 8th, 9th, or 10th and plan to stay about 10 days. We might even stay at FW half the time and the rest of the time at a Disney hotel. We're still planning this out but want to finalize everything this week.

Has anyone noticed which day of the week most people leave, freeing sites to choose from for those checking in? Would checking in on a Friday or Saturday be the day that most people are also checking in?

When we arrive will we get to scope out a site then go back and tell them what site we want? Or is it better to reserve a good spot ahead of time if they even do that? Like I said, I've never been there so I'd have no idea what site we'd want. I'd hope we could pick when we get there though instead of just being given whatever. If choosing a site at arrival are there any tips. Do we arrive at check-in or much earlier to get in line? Do they allow early check-in like hotels do?

Any site recommendations or a loops that you could point us towards? We'll have just our minivan, a large tent, plus a small kiddie tent just for play. We'd like our tents on grass or other surface other than pavement. We like shade. We like some privacy yet we'd like to be fairly close to camp features like the boat to Magic Kingdom, the group campfire, and/or pool. We will not have a pet with us. We do not need electrical/water hookups but it's okay if it has it.

Anyways just some details I'm hoping to piece together. No matter the site we get I'm sure we'll have a great time and we're looking forward to it!!!

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

Sarah

 

[fortcampers]

I don't have much advice on what loops to try to ask for, but we stayed on little bear loop in our fifth wheel camper and it was very close to a comfort station, the sing-a-long and movie and not far from one of the pools. It was a pretty good walk to the boat launch, though. Welcome to the boards here and I hope you get some answers soon! Ft. Wilderness is an awesome campground and our family loved every minute of it. The only thing we would do different there is to rent a golf cart---just for the fun of driving all around the campground!

 

[Shan-man]

I'll answer a couple. I think Sunday is the big day for checking-out. You cannot pick out your own site, it will be assigned to you. You can add a request to your reservation, and popular advice is to request features you want so that the assigner can match you up if your loop/site request cannot accommodated. Chances are, since you are tent camping, you would want to reserve a partial hook-up site, they have large sand (really coquina) pads for setting up a tent. There are two partial loops, 1500 and 2000. And if you want to be close to Fort features, loop 1500 would be a better fit. Neither partial loop is particularly close to the Marina, to far for me to want to walk after a long day in the parks. Bikes, buses, and golf carts are the best options for getting from the partials to the marina.

HIH

 

[banfam4]

Thank you! I was hoping to drive around and pick a site. But at a campground this big I'm sure that wouldn't be good if everyone did that so I can see why they don't allow it. I was just checking out the map of sites you made Shan-man....wow! Hopefully I can use that and put in a good request.

I'll keep checking back if anyone else has any favorite sites they want to recommend. If anyone has any pictures I'd be thrilled to see...but that just might be pushing my request too far. I'll keep searching the posts already on this board too for ideas.

Thanks!
Sarah