Fort Wilderness vs. Wilderness Lodge

Disney's Fort Wilderness Campground Resort holds a magical spot in many RVers' minds as THE ultimate campground destination. Its reputation transcends almost any other campground in America.  But, what if you want to go to Walt Disney World Resort without a camper in tow? Should you rent an RV and stay at the Fort, or should you stay in a resort hotel?

Since we love everything about the "wilderness" theme, we decided to have a little smackdown between the campground and its sister resort hotel, the Wilderness Lodge. Is one cheaper? More convenient? More magical than the other? Let's take a look.

Option #1: Renting an RV and Staying at Fort Wilderness Campground

For a couple of years, our family was been lucky enough to leave New Jersey's cold, grey winter behind and head off to the Florida sunshine for appearances at Tampa's RV SuperShow. We opted to add in a few days at Disney, and thus, a tradition was born. This year, even through we weren't planning to attend the SuperShow, we just couldn't get Disney off our minds.

For our first Disney stay back in 2017, we ran the numbers and realized we could rent a Class C motorhome from Lazydays and book a Premium Site at Fort Wilderness for around the same cost as renting a hotel room at a Disney Resort. Since we wanted to experience the famous Fort Wilderness magic for ourselves, this seemed like the best choices for these reasons:

We knew an RV would give our family of 5 more space than a hotel room.

The campground offers more even more room by extending the living space far outside of the RV's walls.

Jeremy had fond memories of camping at Fort Wilderness as a kid, and he wanted to take our boys.

As a family, we enjoy the campground experience more than the hotel experience.

We really wanted to rent a Class C to see how we liked it. (Plus, we were moving from Tampa to Orlando, so it was nice to have a home on wheels that we could use at both locations.)

Ultimately, we paid $225 per night for the Class C rental and about $150 a night for Premium Site at the Fort for a total of $375-400 per night. You can read all about that rental experience here.

This worked really well for us and we rented from Lazydays again in 2018. However, this year we knew we weren't doing the Tampa leg of the trip. We realized we could go straight to Disney from the airport and wouldn't even need a car. Instead of hauling a rental into Fort Wilderness ourselves, we loved the idea of just showing up at the campground to find a rental already onsite for us.

Since we had already heard amazing things about Meacham's RV Rental, it was an easy decision to rent from them. They have a wide variety of trailers to select from, and not only do they haul them to Fort Wilderness, they also do all of the campsite setup (including the awning, hoses, TV, and even your camp chairs and outdoor rug).

We opted to rent their biggest travel trailer, the Jayco 32TSBH, a 37-38 ft. triple slide bunkhouse. We rented it for six nights and paid approximately $215 per night. It's important to note that Meacham's charges less per night as you add more nights. So, a three-night rental of the same RV would have been more like $355 per night. Since we paid in advance, we even received a free golf cart rental delivered with the RV. In total, we paid $215 a night for the RV, plus $160 a night for a Premium Site for a total of $375.

So, would we do it again? Absolutely. Our site was gorgeous. The price was a bit lower than other Disney onsite resorts, especially for a room with space for five. Plus, Meacham's was just as awesome as we had heard. We loved that we could pick out the exact trailer we wanted to rent. They bring a lot of experience to the plate, and they are even a Disney-preferred rental company. Also,