I visit Disney World every week for my job, and yet, I’m often still humbled by the difficulty of navigating the property.
Fort Wilderness
Traveling between parks, hotels, and Disney Springs often takes wayyy longer than you think it will, and it’s challenging to budget the right amount of time, energy, and resources for those travels. I was recently reminded of this truth when I — a person who literally goes to Disney World for her job — got stranded at Fort Wilderness Resort.
A few weeks back, I visited Fort Wilderness to check out a few things on our news radar — monitoring construction, looking out for holiday season celebrations, yada yada. It’s not often that I get to visit this resort, so when I hopped on the boat from Magic Kingdom, I was gung-ho and ready to go!
Boat to Fort Wilderness
Early in my journey, I discovered a problem. In my excitement to get to the resort, I hadn’t swapped my FuelRod on my way out of Magic Kingdom, and my phone was dying fast. But never fear, I was already planning to hit multiple spots around the property and was sure I’d run into a FuelRod kiosk somewhere.
FuelRod
The first thing you should note about Fort Wilderness is that it has three main areas, all connected by multiple color-coded bus routes. The Settlement is the area closest to the boat dock where you’ll find Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue, Trail’s End Restaurant, a gift shop, the arcade, and Crockett’s Tavern. The lobby and parking lot for Fort Wilderness are on the opposite end of the resort at The Outpost. In the middle, you’ve got a pool and another gift shop at The Meadow. With all these different areas and complex transportation routes, it can be difficult for even seasoned veterans to navigate Fort Wilderness.
Settlement Trading Post
After checking off my to-do list items at The Settlement and scouring the area for a FuelRod station with no luck, I boarded the bus to The Outpost, thinking that for sure there would be a FuelRod station at the lobby (they’re close to or in the lobby at nearly all of the other resorts). I arrived at the lobby only to be told that no, the FuelRod station was in the one area of the resort I hadn’t checked — The Meadow Trading Post. Unfortunately, my phone was now DEAD.
Meadow Swimmin’ Pool
To make matters worse, I was 15 minutes from my check-in time at a dining reservation in Magic Kingdom. Bus and boat rides add up quickly, and cross-resort transportation can take quite a while between the waiting, boarding, and actual ride itself. I was left at The Outpost Bus Depot with a dead phone, relying on the physical maps to get me around, and that’s when I learned another important lesson — even though The Outpost offers buses to the other three Disney World parks, the only way to get to Magic Kingdom is to take a bus or boat from The Settlement area.
Welp, that’s awkward.
Wanting to get to my dining reservation as quickly as possible, I opted to continue traveling with a dead phone, boarding the bus AGAIN to go back to where I started. From there, I got BACK on the boat to Magic Kingdom, arriving at Tony’s Town Square Restaurant 55 minutes late for my dining reservation. But could I check in yet? Nope! Because as a Disney Food Blog reporter, I can’t go into a review with a completely dead phone. We’ve got to get those pics and vids, you guys!
Disney bus
By the time I swapped my FuelRod and charged my phone enough to continue on my day, I was well over an hour late to my reservation. Sadly, I’d far surpassed the check-in window. Thankfully, there was an opening for a party of one to dine, and I got to continue my job, accompanied by moderate levels of stress leftover from my Fort Wilderness adventure.
Bus transportation sign
Throughout this whole chaotic excursion, I learned a very valuable lesson. We often tell people to budget at least an hour when traveling from one area of Disney World property to another. But when it comes to Fort Wilderness? I would advise you to budget two hours! If you need to take multiple forms of transportation or more than one bus route, the time in your day is going to get eaten much faster than you’d expect.
Fort Wilderness bus
Don’t be like me. Charge your phone, plan your transportation wisely, and of course, try your best to be early to your Disney World dining reservations.
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I have made a few comments recently about my experience with keeping my phone charged at Disney. I can tell you right now, I don’t have to worry about it one bit. I am supremely confident that I can go to Disney, booking Lighting lanes, taking photos, using mobile order for my food, checking photo pass, looking at maps and wait times, in other words really using my phone a lot, and not have to charge my phone for at least 2 days. My phone has a 12000 Mah battery. In fact, I can use my phone to charge other people’s devices. It is liberating when you never have to worry about your phone dying. My phone brand is “Ulefone” you really should check them out. They make severy types of ultra large battery phones, some with capacities twice the size of mine. You could probably go almost a week in Disney without charging it with some. Yes they are bulky, but it’s a small price to pay for the freedom from charging all the time. They are also very reasonably priced, not outrageous like a Samsung or Apple. Look into one, you won’t be disappointed.
Which is a good reason why I will never stay at Fort Wilderness!