Trip Report: The Cabins at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort

We went to Disney World the week before Thanksgiving and stayed, for the first time, at the Cabins at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort.  We loved our stay here and I can’t wait to share it with you!

First, an overview of the resort for those if you who are not familiar with it.  The resort covers a very large area and is about 2/3 RV campsites, 1/3 individual cabins, and a small section for tent camping.  It is next to the Wilderness Lodge and across the lake from Magic Kingdom.  Here is a map that gives you a general idea:

The brown rectangles on the bottom half of the map are the cabins, and the white rectangles in the top half are the RV spots. Because of the size, this resort is not really walkable.  There are sidewalks in some areas so you could walk to some places if the location of your cabin/RV allows, but personally, the golf cart (which you rent on-site) was a must for us and it’s what the vast majority of people use.  Even if you have your car, the resort is not car-friendly other than the main roads (i.e. getting to and from your cabin/RV).  All of the parking lots on site (pools, stores, restaurants, bus stops, etc) only accommodate golf carts (except for at the main entrance to the resort) so nobody drives their car around.  There is an internal bus system, but you would spend so much time waiting for buses and riding on buses that it makes the golf cart much preferred in my opinion.  The golf cart rental is at the main entrance so you can pick it up upon arrival to the resort.  Most of the carts seat 4 people, but they also have limited number of 6 seaters which are available on a first come first served basis, and cost a little more.  We were lucky that they had one available for us.  Here is our golf cart parked at our cabin.  All of the cabins have a plug right on the front, so it’s really easy to plug in your cart each time you arrive at your cabin.

You should reserve your golf cart in advance, although you don’t pay until you get there.  Many of the RV people bring their own, and you will see that some people even put decorations on them.  Since we were there during the holidays, we saw lots of golf carts with Christmas decor, and even lights!

Another thing I want to mention is that this is the most dog-friendly resort at Disney World.  We saw so many dogs here, both at the cabins and at the RVs.  There is even a dog park on site.

As far as getting to the parks, you can take a bus to all of the parks, and there is also a boat that will take you to Magic Kingdom.  This leads me to another thing that I absolutely loved about this resort.  If you have your car (we did), you can park your car right next to your cabin.  This makes driving to the parks (parking at the parks is free for resort guests) much faster and easier (and during Covid, safer) than taking a bus. I loved having our car right there the whole week.  We drove to Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios, and took the boat to Magic Kingdom.  There is golf cart parking at the bus stops and boat dock.

The resort grounds are beautiful.  There are tons of trees and it feels like you’re camping in the woods, not at a theme park.  There are 2 pools, 2 general stores, a playground, a dog park, pony rides, trail rides, tennis courts, archery, Segways, bike rental, a campfire with movies, a dog park, a restaurant, and the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Review, a dinner show that is temporarily closed due to Covid.

There are 2 stores onsite which have both souvenirs and groceries – the Settlement Trading Post and the Meadow Trading Post.  The Meadow Trading Post (at the center of the resort) is the larger one, and I was surprised by how big the grocery selection was, including frozen items.  The prices were high, however, so if you need more than a few items and have a car, it would be better to drive to a grocery store, which is what we did.  The first night there, we drove to a nearby Publix and stocked up on groceries for the whole week.

Here are a few more pictures of the grounds:

In this photo you can see the golf cart parking area for the boat dock to Magic Kingdom (that’s the lake in the background):

Now for our cabin.  As you can see on the map earlier in the post, there are 7 different loops (roads) that have cabins.  We were on the 2600 loop, which is pretty much right in the middle.  I don’t know if any loop is preferable – they all seem equal to me.  However, cabins that are near the main road, on any loop, are going to have more noise because you will hear cars as they drive by.  Our cabin was not near the main road, so we got lucky in that regard.  Here is the exterior of our cabin:

The view from our patio:

The cabins are all identical and officially sleep 6 people with a queen bed and twin bunk beds in the bedroom, and a queen sleeper sofa (the type with the memory foam mattress) in the living room.

Here is the living/dining/kitchen area with the sleeper sofa.  The kitchen has a full size refrigerator, dishwasher, 2 burner cooktop, and a microwave/oven combo.  We did not use the oven feature on the microwave, but keep in mind that it is pretty small, so a typical size frozen pizza would not fit inside.  We almost bought one at Publix and I’m glad we didn’t.

The bathroom is spacious.  The bath tub is to the right:

The bedroom is a little tight on space:

Like I mentioned earlier, there are a lot of activities available at the resort.  We had a day off from the parks, and my girls chose to do a trail ride. You have to call to make the reservation, you cannot do it online.  You must be 9 years olds, its is 45 minutes long, and costs $55 per person.

When it was time for us to go, we checked in at a little building near the stables (which are near the main entrance to the resort) and the girls got their helmets.

They were very good about keeping all of the parties separated from each other.  We were told to wait at table 4 while we waited for the girls to be assigned their horses.

One of the horses had a Mickey on it:

When it was their turn, they got on their horses.

Like I said, the ride lasted about 45 minutes and took them through the resort.  They are experienced with trail rides, and rated this one as average.  They enjoyed it, but it was nothing spectacular.  I think they would probably do it again if we had time, but I would not call it a must-do.

In summary, these were my favorite things about the cabin and resort:

We were able to park our car right outside of our cabin.

Being able to drive around on the golf cart was a lot of fun.  We often cruised around the resort looking at RVs and their Christmas decorations – some were really elaborate!

I loved having a kitchen.

We were able to keep our distance from others very easily.  I think it is probably the best place to stay during Covid because of all of the outdoor space.  The only time you are indoors is if you go into the stores, or walk into the restaurant to pick up food (the dining room is currently closed).

Being able to take a boat to Magic Kingdom is very handy, since that is the one resort that you can’t easily park your car at. 

Overall, we loved our stay here and will definitely stay here again!

Update: A few months after this trip, we returned to the resort and rented a camper.  You can read a full review of that experience here.