no fancy pants trip reporting here, but I thought I'd share our experiences from our first trip at Ft. Wilderness 
who: my family! all 5 of us .. me, DH, DS (20), DS (14), and DD (8)
when: October 4-10, 2010. Our oldest had class on Monday - Wednesday, so he joined us late Wednesday evening. Since our flight landed late Monday evening and we were going to be in the parks all day Tuesday, we opted to save a little money and stay at Pop Century for the first 2 nights of the trip. We love it there, and had a nice stay.
transportation: Allegiant Air. dirt cheap fares made it cheaper for four of us to fly than to drive from Kentucky. We rented a car (used Alamo at the Dolphin, was upgraded to a Jeep Wrangler ) one day to go to Publix & the outlet mall. Other than that, we relied on WDW transport. Seemed to work well. I didn't really miss not having a car. My thoughts might be different if we had done all four parks. We only went to Epcot and MK.
Our Ft. Wilderness experience: AWESOME!
we checked in Wednesday morning, and as I hoped .. our cabin was ready. We were originally assigned to 2665, but it was on a corner backing up the road with very few trees, we asked if it was possible to be moved. Thankfully, it was and the second cabin was in a much better location/setting. We stayed in 2129. I'd stay in the 2100 loop again in a heartbeat -- it's very convenient to everything (I'm sure you all already knew that, though. LOL!). After check-in, we went back to Pop, loaded up our stuff, and headed over to Publix for supplies. At that point I wasn't sure if it was cheaper to have our own food or take advantage of free dining
I did enough research here to know that the savings from renting a cart from Kenny is significant if you rent more than 4 or 5 nights, so we didn't rent from him this time. We rented from Disney for 3 nights. (we chose not to rent one for Thursday, as we would be at the parks all day. no need to spend the $$) We LOVED having the cart -- it was probably the kids' favorite memory. It was so much fun checking out all the different sites and decorations.
We did the campfire twice - Wednesday and Saturday. We had a MUCH better experience on Wednesday because the crowds were so much smaller. I'm curious if the show ever changes? We thought it was cute, but it was the same exact show both nights. We did several of the other activities with our DD - she got a kick out of having a schedule to follow. LOL. I was very happy to see the Electric Water Parade, brought back memories from when we used to watch it at the Contemporary when DD was a baby.
We ate most of our meals in the cabin or in the parks .. but we did get the Giddyap & Go. Twice. Holy cow is that chicken yummy!
I have 2 questions (for now):
- does anyone know why all the emergency personnel were at the cabin pool on Saturday?
- do things run differently at Ft. Wilderness than other resorts? I know if I call the front desk at Pop, I get CRO. I got the impression when I called from our cabin that I spoke to someone actually at Ft. Wilderness. Our mousekeeper (and the others on our loop) remained the same all week. Overall, it just seemed like the Fort was more self contained than other resorts.
I think that's all ... we loved it and intend to return next year!
who: my family! all 5 of us .. me, DH, DS (20), DS (14), and DD (8)
when: October 4-10, 2010. Our oldest had class on Monday - Wednesday, so he joined us late Wednesday evening. Since our flight landed late Monday evening and we were going to be in the parks all day Tuesday, we opted to save a little money and stay at Pop Century for the first 2 nights of the trip. We love it there, and had a nice stay.
transportation: Allegiant Air. dirt cheap fares made it cheaper for four of us to fly than to drive from Kentucky. We rented a car (used Alamo at the Dolphin, was upgraded to a Jeep Wrangler
) one day to go to Publix & the outlet mall. Other than that, we relied on WDW transport. Seemed to work well. I didn't really miss not having a car. My thoughts might be different if we had done all four parks. We only went to Epcot and MK. Our Ft. Wilderness experience: AWESOME!
we checked in Wednesday morning, and as I hoped .. our cabin was ready. We were originally assigned to 2665, but it was on a corner backing up the road with very few trees, we asked if it was possible to be moved. Thankfully, it was and the second cabin was in a much better location/setting. We stayed in 2129. I'd stay in the 2100 loop again in a heartbeat -- it's very convenient to everything (I'm sure you all already knew that, though. LOL!). After check-in, we went back to Pop, loaded up our stuff, and headed over to Publix for supplies. At that point I wasn't sure if it was cheaper to have our own food or take advantage of free dining
I did enough research here to know that the savings from renting a cart from Kenny is significant if you rent more than 4 or 5 nights, so we didn't rent from him this time. We rented from Disney for 3 nights. (we chose not to rent one for Thursday, as we would be at the parks all day. no need to spend the $$) We LOVED having the cart -- it was probably the kids' favorite memory. It was so much fun checking out all the different sites and decorations.
We did the campfire twice - Wednesday and Saturday. We had a MUCH better experience on Wednesday because the crowds were so much smaller. I'm curious if the show ever changes? We thought it was cute, but it was the same exact show both nights. We did several of the other activities with our DD - she got a kick out of having a schedule to follow. LOL. I was very happy to see the Electric Water Parade, brought back memories from when we used to watch it at the Contemporary when DD was a baby.
We ate most of our meals in the cabin or in the parks .. but we did get the Giddyap & Go. Twice. Holy cow is that chicken yummy!
I have 2 questions (for now):
- does anyone know why all the emergency personnel were at the cabin pool on Saturday?
- do things run differently at Ft. Wilderness than other resorts? I know if I call the front desk at Pop, I get CRO. I got the impression when I called from our cabin that I spoke to someone actually at Ft. Wilderness. Our mousekeeper (and the others on our loop) remained the same all week. Overall, it just seemed like the Fort was more self contained than other resorts.
I think that's all ... we loved it and intend to return next year!
GOOD JOB on the 75 bucks..
