The Sarsaparilla Times #3: Fort Wilderness is the Most Underrated Gem at Walt Disney World

Happy Trails partner!

Amidst the fireworks and the thrills of the latest attraction at Walt Disney World, there is a resort that guests have been calling home for decades, and it sits at the end of Bay Lake, just a short ferry ride from the Magic Kingdom.

Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground is a dream of rustic tranquility that allows guests to get back to nature via do it yourself camping, or by renting one of the resort's cabins. Amidst the glamor of Magic Kingdom where the multiple lands have adventure, fantasy, the frontier, and dreams about tomorrow, Fort Wilderness sits as one of the last unspoiled places of imagination in the whole forty-three square miles of the Walt Disney Resort.

Where else could guests check in at ‘the outpost’ and then find the lobby of the resort in the open air with a store named Meadow Trading Post. This is not your typical hotel that offers spa treatments, and chic pampering. This is a whole new world.

Since Magic Kingdom opened in 1971, Fort Wilderness was one of those original resorts that welcomed guests to stay while visiting. It was here at Fort Wilderness that the first Disney water park opened, River Country. To this day, a stagecoach from the old west might be seen, with carriage rides available for guests to enjoy.

Only at Fort Wilderness will morning guests on their way to the buses or ferry rides, potentially be held up by the traffic of a passing trail ride, taking guests out for their first experience at horseback riding. Glancing at the back of the Meadow Trading Post, you might even see kids standing on the dock and living their dream of fishing at what could only be a view in time to the old fishing hole of days gone by.

This is Fort Wilderness. Here at the resort guests can enjoy and relax in the luxury of the latest in RV decadence or spend the time roughing it in a family tent. In the age of high-rise towers, when luxury living, comforts of home, and glamping dominate social media, Fort Wilderness offers a quiet reminder that vacation highlights can come from the smaller thrills that are found in resorts, such as Fort Wilderness.

Millions wait for hours to meet Mickey on Main Street and the Princesses in Fantasyland, but did you know at the Chip n Dale Campfire guests are led by a cowboy singing the classic campfire songs that everyone knows, while feasting on marshmallows freshly prepared on the bonfire. Between wolfing down sugary treats and singing, guests will also be entertained as Chip and Dale themselves circulate throughout the audience. The festivities end with guests watching a Disney film on the big screen under the stars.

Simply magical!

That is the heart of Fort Wilderness. There is magic to be found in this immersive experience. Here guests can enter and stay for weeks or come for an hour and leave as they wish. The level of storytelling within the resort is so detailed that every visit will teach you something new when you walk the grounds.

If you have watched the famous ‘Mickey’s Trailer’ or laughed at the antics of Don Knotts and Tim Conway in ‘The Apple Dumpling Gang’ you will fall under the spell that is Fort Wilderness. From the Meadow Trading Post at the center of the resort, to the Settlement Trading Post at the marina, guests can read the wanted signs posted looking for outlaws in the area. You might even keep your eyes open to see if you spot Bart Allen so you can turn him in for the $250 reward for cattle rustling.

Decades have passed since the first guest checked into Fort Wilderness. Spending habits and interests have changed, and River Country is a memory that is slowly being forgotten by older generations. In the shadow of Pioneer Hall, where ‘Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue’ still entertains guests with the sing along western dinner theatre, is Lakeshore Lodge, the latest Disney Vacation Club hotel to join Bay Lake, and soon to open in the next couple of years.

Trailers that were for rent on Fleetwood Pass thirty years ago are cabins on Peacock Pass, and though I stayed at a Disney trailer on the Tumbleweed Turn loop in 1984, you will not find any cabins on this present-day camping loop.

Fort Wilderness is now a Disney Vacation Club resort too. Time forces places and people to adapt and so must Fort Wilderness. It’s not the first time that the resort will change, and it won’t be the last. Afterall, at one point in its life, guests could ride a train throughout Fort Wilderness. Even I don’t remember that.

The power that time has over everything is incredible. Each day the Colorado River cuts into the Grand Canyon making the surrounding canyon walls just a little deeper. Thanks to continental forces, Mount Everest is higher now than when Edmund Hillary first climbed it with Tenzing Norgay. Just because time has changed things, doesn’t mean the magic and wonder is lost. Lakeshore Lodge will not ruin Fort Wilderness. The new hotel may alter sight lines, but the magic of Fort Wilderness will always be present for those to seek it out.  

In the rush to rope drop, and the race for the latest popcorn bucket or Lightning Lane entrance, many guests miss out on the best resort in all of Walt Disney World property. As much as my love for Walt Disney World is attached to millions of memories that my family made over twenty years of staying at this resort, my greatest memory is when my grandmother came with us on a trip in 1997.

It was my father, brother John, me, and her. We were all on the beach well after dark waiting for the arrival of the Electrical Water Pageant. The nighttime show is something we never miss, and it was something that my grandmother enjoyed too. While standing on the beach, grandma mentioned to my dad that he should go back to the garage and get us some chairs to sit on. She was thinking of our family cottage, and while we joked about her memory failing her, and grandma laughed along too, I realized why this moment is one of the best moments of staying at Fort Wilderness.

My grandmother had been to Fort Wilderness a couple of times before, but I believe in that moment on the beach that night she asked my dad to go get chairs from the garage because as we stood in the cover of the star-filled sky, she felt like we were at home. How many times can one say that their hotel stay felt like being at home? I cannot recall anywhere else, but Fort Wilderness.

Grandma knew that night in March of 1997, something we have all felt, and I am sure many others have too. Fort Wilderness truly welcomes one home.