How early is early?
I was just responding to a post that my last visit was when people were booking campsites they didn't intend to keep just so they could make FP. Hopefully, that's in the past, but back then you really had to book almost a year in advance to get a lengthy stay. Is that the case now?
Wombat,
"It depends".
Seriously, on when you want to stay there.
The holiday and special event periods outside of summer book up well over a year in advance. The Fort allows booking at 499 nights/500 days from ARRIVAL with a max of 30 days per reservation. Halloween, Thanksgiving weekend, and Christmas-New Years time all book up pretty much when the 500d window opens or soon thereafter. In early January is the WDW Marathon weekend which books up over a year in advance. And there is usually a race in February too (Princess iirc).
So point is if you're a snowbird type of guest (who comes south to Florida for several months during late fall - winter then you need to book at the 500 window or close to it. It's just a reservation and you pay a deposit. You can always cancel it and get your money back. Summer time it's not as hard to book a site (other than around July 4) so then you don't have to book at 500d - a year or 9 months might be enough.
WDW has implemented stupid algorithms in its reservation system to make it difficult to add/drop nights easily. So sometimes a 2nd reservation (consecutive, same type, etc.) is necessary. And the whole FP thing frustrates all of us.
Bama Ed
PS - lots more RV'rs and campers than when the Fort opened in 1971 and expanded in 1976-77. Other than a few sites added as infill, the Fort has not expanded. That means fixed supply, increasing demand, leading to higher prices and resulting in reservations made further in advance. It is what it is.
PPS - although I noticed this past year pre-covid that during holiday times there was usually limited availability (didn't look for 30 days) in the highest priced category Premium Meadows. So the Full, Preferred, and Premium sites fill up before the Meadows do. No surprise, right?