Basic Laws of Navigation in Fort Wilderness
Getting around Fort Wilderness is not as easy as it was back in the day, but I suppose it’s a bit safer as there is little guest automobile traffic. You can no longer drive your car around to explore (and there’s no place to park anyway), the trams are gone, and the train has long, long vanished (sad face).
So your options for moving about are:
- golf cart (best option!) – rent or bring your own
- walk (another great option) – can be a long or rainy walk, sometimes
your royal pumpkin carriage (oops, left it at home)- Fort Wilderness bus (meh)
- bike – rent or bring your own
Each of these options seem straightforward, but it’s so much easier to know the real ropes before you go. So read on, we’ll have a little quiz at the end.
golf Carts in fort wilderness
Yes, walking is healthy, and we will do a whole lot of that anyway. But a golf cart is the best way to travel in Fort Wilderness. If you don’t bring one or rent one, you are going to have some serious golf cart envy when you arrive. And jealousy is a very bad thing – did you see what happened to Queen Guilhidle? The golf cart will enable you not only to jettison from place to place quickly (and park), but to tour the loops and look at/judge other campers and their decorated sites. This is one of the most important things you will do in Fort Wilderness around the Fourth of July, Halloween, and Christmas.
If you have a golf cart and a giant Toy Hauler, then by all means bring it. You can park it in your campsite. And you’re done.
renting a golf cart from fort wilderness
For the rest of us, the easiest option is to rent from Disney’s Golf Cart Rentals in Fort Wilderness (located at the Outpost entrance. But you have to do this ahead of time because they often fill up weeks in advance. The other ornery part here is that you can’t reserve and pay online – you have to call. Like a flashback to the Reagan years. The number to call is (407) 824-2742. You will likely be on hold during this call – maybe 10 to 30 minutes. And to top it off, the hold music will be Disney music, but it’s very scratchy and old sounding. You may find yourself wondering if you’re on hold with Papa Bammer’s Hillside Country Campground or something and not Disney.
And yet, you will persist.
The rental price of the cart (4-seater) is $59 per day. You can pick it up at 1 pm and are to return it by 11 am the next day.
Renting a golf cart from an outside company
There is one other option, and that is to rent from an outside company. Once upon a time, this was a fabulous choice, but Disney has made it a royal pain in the rear by not officially allowing the outside vendors to deliver the carts. There are various ways to get around this, which typically involve some manner of picking up the cart yourself (and borrowing their trailer). Here is a very popular company that rent carts, at lower prices than Disney:
Golf Cart Rentals Orlando – Rates start at $285 per week. 407-557-2775.
BUses in fort wilderness (disney transportation)
There are three lines that run through Fort Wilderness: Orange, Yellow, and Purple. You will save yourself at least some of the typical bus frustration if you can memorize their different paths a bit, and it’s really quite straightforward. Here’s a little hint that works for me. Looking at the map, you will see the Settlement Area and the boat launch at the top end. At the bottom end is the Outpost Depot and the entrance to Fort Wilderness. By putting the route colors in alphabetical order, we have POY (Purple-Orange-Yellow). Purple will be on the left outside, followed by orange running down the middle, and yellow on the right outside.
The buses come to each stop about every 15-20 minutes. They start around 6:30 in the morning, and run very late – usually until the last Disney Springs bus arrives at the campground way, way after midnight. Note that these late night buses can be quite crowded.
Orange
Starts at Settlement Depot, and goes to Outpost Depot, and through the 600-700 and the 1000-1300 campsite areas. Also goes to the Meadows (campfire, Meadows pool, bike barn, arcade, Meadows trading post, canoe rental).
Yellow
Starts at Settlement Depot, and goes to Outpost Depot, and through the 100-500 and 1000-1300 campsite areas. Also goes to the Meadows (campfire, Meadows pool, bike barn, arcade, Meadows trading post, canoe rental).
Purple
Starts at Settlement Depot, and goes to Outpost Dept, and also through the 200-2800 campsite areas (which include the cabins) and the quiet pool. The purple line does not go by the Meadows pool. (Many of us have learned this the hard way.)
traveling the campground by bike
Fort Wilderness is probably one of the most awesome places to bike in Central Florida – it’s large, safe, and has a mixture of interesting places to explore. At first glance, biking seems to be the ideal way to get around. But there is one major caveat. It rains just about every day in Central Florida (maybe multiple times a day). It often storms in Central Florida, and these storms can quickly appear out of nowhere (but then go away just as quickly). So, biking is a very good plan for getting around and exploring, but maybe only some of the time.
There are nice large, wide lighted paths throughout Fort Wilderness that most people use for biking – know that they are shared with people walking, as well as golf carts in some areas. An official bike trail runs around the perimeter of Fort Wilderness, and also connects Fort Wilderness with Wilderness Lodge (one mile long) – but parts of it may be closed in parts of 2019-2021 due to construction of the new resort. There are also a few off-road dirt trails that some like to explore as well, although some of these lead into the thicket (yay, I used a Bambi word). One of my favorite trails is not a trail at all, but rather just riding through the various loops with their ever-changing scenery as campers come and go.
If it is too big of a hassle to bring your own bike, the Bike Barn at Fort Wilderness (now located in the Meadows area) rents them or $9 an hour or $18 for a day. The Bike Barn is open from 9 pm til 5 pm daily.
ON FOOT
Fort Wilderness is an absolutely amazing place to easily get in 20,000 steps a day – whether they be walking steps or running steps. Be forewarned – the journey can be quite long, depending on the starting place and destination. In July and August, it’s twice as long.
Here are some estimated walking times in Fort Wilderness:
Loop 400 to Pioneer Hall – 3 minutes
Loop 400 to Meadow Trading Post – 10 minutes
Loop 800 to Pioneer all – 8 minutes
Loop 2300 to Pioneer Hall – 30 minutes
Around outer loop of Fort Wilderness – 70 minutes
FORt WILDERNESS Transportation True/False Quiz
So, get out a piece of paper and write your princess/prince name at the top, and number from 1 to 10. Write down true or false for each of the following.
- Dogs are allowed on golf carts in Fort Wilderness. (True or False?)
- You can reserve Disney golf carts online up to one year in advance. (True or False?)
- The bus on the purple line is the only one that goes to the quiet pool. (True or False?)
- The best bus line to take to Loop 1500 is the orange one. (True or False?)
- It is generally faster to get to the Magic Kingdom by boat than it is by bus. (True or False?)
- POY stands for Pink On Yellow. (True or False?)
- Bike Rental at the Bike Barn is $18 per day. (True or False?)
- Fort Wilderness internal buses stop running around 11 pm (True or False?)
- The Settlement Area is the area closest to the boat launch to the Magic Kingdom (True or False?)
- There is a nice walking trail that you can use to get to the Magic Kingdom from Fort Wilderness (True or False?)
Quiz Answers
The even numbers were false; the odd numbers true.
If you got a few wrong, there’s still time to review.
