Cabins at Ft. Wilderness

[COSteph]

I booked a cabin at Ft. Wilderness for our upcoming vacation (30 days from today!!!!). My party includes Me, my daughter, my son, my mom, and my dad. My dad is disabled and will be using a scooter the entire time we are there. Me and my children are disabled as well, just not to the extent we cant walk a little, so I have rented a scooter for us to share. My question is, will this be a problem in getting on the buses and using any Disney transportation getting to and from the parks? How long will it take?

Another question I have, is do we need to rent a golf cart to get around the property? can we get to the camp sites from the cabins without going on the highway?

Sorry for all the questions, just never stayed here before and freaking out a little about the situation with my dad, my kids and myself. This is the first family vacation in 5 years, since me and their dad divorced and I want to make it the best, most memorable vacation I can cause they deserve it.

Thanks!!!

 

[Hopefully]

You will get better information about the Cabins and the Fort in general in the camping forum here on the DIS.
https://www.disboards.com/forums/camping-at-disney-world.24/

Also there are great, kind folks on the disABILITIES forum here that can answer those type questions as well.
https://www.disboards.com/forums/disabilities.20/

I can take a stab at some.
One, how old are your son and daughter. Disney rules and offsite vendor rules generally do not allow anyone under 18 to drive a scooter. Disney boats, buses and monorails are accessible to scooters. The buses can usually only carry a maximum of 2 per bus. So if someone is ahead of you you will have to wait for the next bus if you want to stay together.
You will need to request/book an accessible Cabin to be able to get the scooters inside to charge and stay out of the weather overnight. They have a ramp. All other Cabins have stairs in.
The Cabins are part of the campgrounds. You do not need to go on the highway to get around the campground.
Scooters will not fit on the golf carts. Whether you need one or not is personal preference. There is an efficient internal bus system, which would work better for your family with scooters. The golf carts can not leave the campground grounds.

 

[PatMcDuck]

Your situation worries me just a little bit. We stayed in the cabins last year. I have not been inside a HC cabin of course. I also do not know the extent of your families disabilities and mobility issues. Are the HC cabins much bigger? The regular ones are very very tight. The one BR has a queen bed (I think?) and bunk beds. We had trouble with the bunks because the bottom bed has no headroom at all. My special needs adult son slept there and could not sit up, he had to roll out and really watch his head. (he is not able to climb to a top bunk). The HC must be much bigger in the bathroom, I also assume...

You also will need to transfer from the local busses to the park busses, and with a limit of 2 scooters per bus, if you have 3 in your group, that could be time consuming. We avoided this using a golf cart, but we only had 3 people plus the foldable WC (actually a large Convaid chair). But the golf cart adds $70/day to the cost to stay there. We LOVED using the golf cart, used it every day to get to busses, boats, coffee and food runs, to get to the restaurants, even to bring the laundry back and forth.

My husband camps, and he loved the cabins and Fort Wilderness. I like hotels, so it was less of a hit with me, but some things about it I did love. The only think I did not like was the actual CABIN, lol. I loved Fort Wilderness.

 

[tobikaye]

The HC Cabins are a bit wider than the non-HC cabins. Basically, the hallway is a bit wider to be able to park the mobility device(s). A scooter maneuvering around inside would not be easy, especially in the bedroom.

There are side walks on the main roads of the campground, but not within the individual loops. There are very few golf carts that can carry 1 mobility device so if you have 2, the EVC users would still need to take a bus or drive on the side walk. The decision is an individual one, but we like them for hanging out at the resort. If we are not doing a lot of down time at the resort, we usually only get one for a day or so.

Most WDW buses can take 2 mobility devices that do not fold up. So, if there is not someone already waiting, either you will need to split up or wait for the next bus. This can add some time to your wait to get on buses. I do not remember the timing for the internal buses at FW, but the average is about every 20 minutes for buses between parks and resorts.

For MK, you will need to take the bus to the Settlement (marina) and take a boat to MK. There are two types of boats, the smaller one is not accessible for an EVC. The smaller ones are more in use for the rotation between FW-CR-WL, but do occasionally go between FW and MK. (An option would be to take the bus from the settlement to WL and then take a bus to MK, but that can add in some time as well.)

For the other parks, you take the bus to the Outpost (entrance) to catch the bus to the parks.