Four years. That’s how long it had been since our last visit with Mickey in 2019. See our posts from that visit: An Oh So Magical Experience, Soarin’ On The Wings Of A Banshee, and Bathing in Bioluminescence & Getting Frozen At Epcot. Being lovers of everything Disney and having visited the parks many times over the years, as soon as we decided to head south instead of west for the 2023-2024 winter, we made reservations for a Premium campsite at Fort Wilderness Campground.

Perhaps we were suffering from mouse withdrawal symptoms. With each passing day and as the date of our reservation neared, our excitement was building with our anticipation of seeing the famous mouse again.

It would be a two hour drive from St. Augustine to Fort Wilderness Campground. Although there was some traffic, especially as we neared Orlando, it was relatively smooth sailing. Being a Saturday, we figured there would be a wait to check in but surprise, surprise when we arrived at Ft. Wilderness around 1:00 pm., there was no wait to check in. Amazing!

Over the years, we had compiled a list of our favorite premium campground sites so several weeks prior to our arrival via an online chat with a Cast Member, we had requested specific sites in the 600 loop. Unfortunately none were available so instead we were assigned to site #1421 on Big Bear Path. Although this loop was a little more difficult to maneuver, our site was decent, backing up to a small stream with some privacy on the passenger side and a lot quieter and less busy than the 600 loop.

Premium campsites accommodate larger RV’s like ours and have a concrete pad up to 18 feet by 60 feet. The daily rate for a Premium Site can vary based on the dates and days of the week of your stay. We selected a week when attendance is lower so therefore the daily rate is less. In our instance, on Saturday, November 25th, the daily rate was $192, then from Sunday through Thursday, it was somewhat cheaper at $173 but then on Saturday, December 1st, it skyrocketed to $243. Selecting a week closer to Christmas would have been much more expensive. Nobody said going to Disney was cheap!

The one downside to our site’s location was that it was further away from things (the stores, restaurant, boat dock and beach, etc.) but we quickly found a solution for that.  After our arrival, we made a reservation for a golf cart ($70 per day) to be picked up on Sunday.

By the way, the cart can only be used within Fort Wilderness and the grounds of Wilderness Lodge. We probably could have rented one from an off site company but it was just easier to rent one at WDW. Unfortunately, because we had procrastinated and it was a very busy time of year, the cart was only available until Thursday, November 30th. Since our departure date was December 2nd, we would be without a cart for a day. A little inconvenient but definitely not a big deal!

No matter how many times we have visited WDW, it always sparks the same conversation between us – did we want to spend a day in one or more of the parks or did we just want to spend our time leisurely riding the transportation to the hotels to see the Christmas decor or did we just want to hang out? Having been to the parks in the past, we knew how totally exhausting it can be with all the walking, usually in the vicinity of 8 – 10 miles! And let’s face it, we’re not as young as we used to be, so with each passing year it becomes even more exhausting!

One good thing was that if we did decide to go into a park, we didn’t need to purchase park tickets. Which is a good thing because tickets are pretty expensive (approximately $200+ per person). Back in 2011, we had bought 2 non-expiring 7-Day Magic Your Way Tickets with Park Hopper Option ($441 each) from Undercover Tourist and believe it or not, we still had two days each remaining on the tickets. Woo hoo, no additional expense!

Since our last visit in 2019 Disney had implemented a lot of changes, too many to detail in this post, but it would require a considerable amount of time to research, ask questions via online chats with Cast Members, etc. to figure out our game plan if we planned on going into a park. On previous visits, we had learned that you really need to be organized so you know what you want to see and what you want to do before going to the parks. Otherwise you can spend a lot of extra time and waste a lot of extra steps.

We did learn prior to our arrival that visitors have to not only have tickets to enter a park but they must also make a reservation for that particular park. And you can’t park hop until after 2:00 p.m. Jeesh, nothing like making a visit more complicated! Note both of these covid era policies were being discontinued as of January 8, 2024.

If we decided not to go to a park, we knew we could still enjoy ourselves just visiting the hotels to see the Christmas decor and riding the transportation as documented in our post, Yes, You Can Truly Have A Relaxing (and Free!) Visit To Walt Disney World!

Regardless of what our decision would be, since we arrived on a Saturday, we thought it made sense to wait until Monday to do anything to avoid the weekend crowds. On that Sunday and our other days of leisure, our time was spent zooming (if you call 10 mph zooming) around in the golf cart checking out the other loops and the beach area.

Oh, my goodness, what unbelievable displays of holiday inflatables, reindeers, Santa, elves, every Disney character you can possibly think of, you name it and rest assured someone had an inflatable for it! Wonder where people store all this stuff? Even deflated, they take up a lot of room! And they are not cheap!

During previous visits, we had ridden our bikes along a trail between the campground and Wilderness Lodge. Wouldn’t it be fun to do that in the golf cart? Sure we thought but that turned out to be the wrong answer! We were on our way along the path when a security guard stopped us, explaining that they were building a new hotel in that area so the bike/walking path was closed until further notice. No way to get to Wilderness Lodge except by car, a shuttle bus or a boat. Drats!

And speaking of the boat, there was more bad news (or so we thought) – it looked as though the boat between Fort Wilderness, Wilderness Lodge and the Contemporary (blue route) had been shut down, apparently due to the pandemic. But eventually, good news – we learned that boat services had resumed their daily runs between these three locations daily, but only after 3 pm.

By the time the weekend was over, we were totally immersed in the magic. On Monday, we were ready to do some exploring. More in our next post…