A Week in a Fort Wilderness Cabin WITHOUT a Golf Cart?

[Goes4FastPass]

Our buy4get3 stay in a cabin at Fort Wilderness is booked and we reserved a golf cart for the duration of our stay.

Cost quoted when I made the gold cart reservation is $439.88 for a check-in to check-out rental - they consider a 7 night stay to be a 7 day rental so that amounts to $62.84 per day. That's a real chunk of money, at least to me it is.

We rented a golf cart for our last FWcabin stay and used it every day both for gong to the Outpost to catch park busses and the landing to catch boats and for running around Fort Wilderness. We told each other we would always rent a golf cart for future FWcabin stays.

During our stay we regularly saw the Fort Wilderness busses making their way through the campground but the stops seemed to be basically at the 'top' of each cabin loop and it looked like using them would add wait, transfers and aggravation... and extra walking when a vacation with a theme park visit almost every day includes a lot of walking already.

My fellow cabiners, do you rent a golf cart? For some of your stay or all of stay? If you don't, is there a strategy to follow besides know where your bus stop is and use internal busses?

[wdw_bound]

Let me preface this by saying, thus far, we have only stayed at the cabins once. We loved it and plan to do so again - as my DH says it was great not having to worry about the kids just being kids (and thereby disturbing neighbors).

We did not rent a golfcart for the duration of our stay. We did have a car as we drove to WDW. We typically rely on our car to get to all parks except MK, regardless of where we stay, as we have found it much easier than relying on buses. The exception to this is those few times during our trip when we are using a divide and conquer approach.

We rented a cart early in the day of our MNSSHP tickets. We got up early, had breakfast at AK, were back before lunch time, rented the cart, stayed fairly close to home base the rest of the day. DH napped, and after DD did her homework, she, DS and I took the cart for a spin and enjoyed touring FW - played at the marina playground, visited the barns, shopped and the trading post, generally had a good time. That night, I would have gladly paid twice what we did for cart rental for the convenience we enjoyed of stepping off the boat at midnight with one sleeping and one sleepy child and getting straight on our cart to drive directly to our cabin. It was wonderful. The next day, we took it for another spin around the campground before returning it.

The rest of the week, we relied on internal buses to get to the marina for a ride to MK, to get to the trading post and to the Meadows pool. It was fine, but our cabin was almost at the top of the loop, so it wasn't a major hardship. Next time, I might rent a cart for a few more days, but only those I knew I was going to be closer to homebase. In my book, $60+ is a lot of money to leave it parked near a bus shelter all day.

[Kenny1113]

We didn't do a week, we did thur-sun. We did not have a Cart. Actually I dont know if I could justify $60+ either. The internal buses come about every 5 min. The longest walk is from the outpost to the boat to MK.Our cabin was about 1/2 way around the loop.The only time the buses got complicated us when we went to the boardwalk for dinner. Lots of changing buses we allowed for an hour of transport time and we were still late for our ADR. But that would happen even if you had a cart.

[Patricia]

That sure adds on to the cost of accommodations.

The carts are handy, but they charge so much for them. As a comparison, I'm renting a midsize car for 14 days for $326.

If your looking for an alternative, there are outside companies that rent golf carts at a cheaper price. They are not allowed to bring it in to the camp ground, so you would have to meet them in the parking lot, but they let you know exactly when they will be there.

[faline]

I'm sure you could do without. We've stayed in the cabins several times and have never yet rented a gold cart.

[GoinGoofyPlanninThisTrip]

No cart for us either during our week stay years ago. Just allow extra time for all the walking.

Think of what good shape you'll be in after that 7 days! ;)

[SoaringEpcot]

We just got back from a week at the fort, and used an outside company for cart rental. It is A LOT cheaper, PM me if you want the contact information.

[ibrowse17]

We have a done a week with, and a week without a cart. We enjoyed both trips:thumbsup:

[teambricker04]

Gulp! That's a lot of money for a bit of convience!

We have never rented a cart... mostly due to cost, but also our youngest would never sit still in one. We have rented a car, but as someone above said, we also used the boats to MK which was MUCH easier.

We have never waited long for the buses with the exception of the morning of the Marathon when the buses where all screwed up, minor blip really.

I vote for either renting a car or just using the internal transportation. If you skip both you can spend more in the parks!

[jonahbear2006]

we almost rented one and thankfully did NOT. Instead we got 2 nights at the beach club for what we wouldve paid for carts in a week. yikes!!!!

[TheRustyScupper]

1) Sure, you can do it without a cart.
2) But, an off-site rental is far cheaper.
3) Besides, there are other reasons than parks
. . . getting to/from meals
. . . carting to pool and rec areas
. . . simply cruising to see the other sites and campers
. . . cruising to meet people *

* RV'ers and campers tend to be really friendly versus folks who just book a room at a resort. We have "cruised" many times, and just stopped when we saw someone and talked. Far outweighed the price of the cart.

[Goes4FastPass]

We'll be trying another alternative for our upcoming trip.

Thanks to an excellent tip I received from another Intercotee I was able to arrange a rental from an offsite vendor for $247.63 all in for the same period that Fort Wilderness wanted to charge $439.88 - a savings of $192.25

The person I spoke with was 100% organized and pointed out his company's carts meet FW's rules for Golf carts including lights and windshields.

I'll let you all know how it turns out.