Clermont, FL to Lake Buena Vista, FL

15.1 mi / 11.6 mph / 68 ft. climbing
Home: The Campsites at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort

Despite Walt Disney’s interest in innovative transportation and planned communities, the roads through his World in 2025 have been designed solely to move vehicular traffic between the four parks and dozens of resorts as efficiently as possible. So our route to get us into the center of The Most Magical Place on Earth surprisingly required us to pedal through the least bike-friendly area we’ve gone through in Florida.

Our first several miles, on the western edge of the Disney domain, were fairly peaceful because we could ride on brand-new roads through still-incomplete developments. I’m sure there is some story explaining why this huge area right next to an enormous tourist draw was undeveloped until the 2020s, but I don’t know it!
Rett rode her bike to Walt Disney World! A passing driver gave a honk of support to share in our excitement in this moment.
Hey Walt, I know you like your sky-vehicles for moving people around, but maybe you could have thrown in a shoulder or bike lane down here on Earth?

But despite my concern of riding 10 miles of busy, shoulderless roads filled with frustrated dads trying to get their whining kids to see Anna and Elsa, everyone was actually very cool and chill. Including the Disney bus drivers, who (unlike many bus drivers) must be trained to give cyclists space and respect, which is especially remarkable since it seems unlikely that they would ever encounter any other cyclists braving these roads!

This was somewhat confirmed at the entrance gate of Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort Campground, where Ron, upon seeing our approach from a distance, had been excitedly telling his coworker that we were a living example of a dream he had long dreamt (but sadly never gotten a chance to execute). And he said that we were the first touring cyclists he’d ever seen arrive at his campground.

Fort Wilderness is an enormous campground, with some 800 campsites. But it only has two loops for tent camping, and we wanted one of the 21 sites in Loop 1500, due to its central location. There is no advanced site-selection, so when the clerk at registration poked around his computer and said that he would be able to get us into Loop 1500, it felt a bit like winning a lottery. Particularly since we would be settling in there for 8 nights, the longest we’ve ever pitched our tent anywhere.

It’s also the most-expensive place we’ve pitched our tent, at $110/night, but that’s cheaper than many other times of year here, and more importantly, less than half the price of the cheapest indoor Disney Resort. We would be spending 5 days in the theme parks, so staying on-property was really the only option for us, since it allowed us to use the Disney bus (and boat!) system; riding our bikes back and forth to the gates of the Magic Kingdom from 15 miles away wasn’t really an option.

We still had to wait for a site to become available, and then, because it’s Disney, cleaned (they literally wash down the picnic table, and rake and then leaf-blow debris from the gravel tent pad). So we checked out the two camp stores (their food selection was similar to the National Park stores in Glacier or Yellowstone, plenty of calories, a bit of bread/pasta/peanut butter staples, but mostly snacks, and frozen broccoli as the lone fruit/vegetable), and then got lunch from the restaurant at the north end of the campground (1.5 miles from the entrance at the south end!)

Just as we were winding up and arriving to the 1500 loop to scout it out, we got our notification that our site was available! 1521 would be our home for the next week-plus, and although it was in the center of the loop, it was large and still reasonably-private, and close to the bathrooms. And at least for our $110 we had electric, and a water spigot, so we thought carefully about our layout and moved the picnic table right against the power pole, and pitched the tent as close as possible.

Then, I headed back out on my own for a 16 mile round-trip to Winn-Dixie and Target, to pick up a week’s worth of groceries (while we could have survived on the camp store food and meals at the parks, Rett was making us fancy-sandwiches for money-saving lunches, and it was worth it to not pay inflated park prices for junk calories). But with our long stay, we also splurged on two somewhat-opposed items: a disposable cooler, and an electric heater! The former was more just for food storage, since our week would be endured under an unusual chill that the heater would hopefully help mitigate. And at just $25, it wouldn’t be hard for it to make itself worth it.

Settled in at Site 1521 at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Campsites.
A rather Disney-looking sunset from our campsite.
Campsite decoration is apparently a big part of the culture at Fort Wilderness, and while we didn’t see a ton of examples, this site a couple spots down from us was absolutely packed with lit Christmas blow-ups; this is just a small fraction of them, they must have had at least 50 packed within their site! It was a joy to walk past it every time we went to the bathroom.

Day 2

Of the four Disney World parks, we chose Animal Kingdom for our first day. I had been to The Magic Kingdom and Epcot when I was 10 years old, and Rett to those plus Hollywood Studios somewhat more recently, but Animal Kingdom did not yet exist the last time either of us was here. The campground has an internal bus system, but it only comes by every 15-20 minutes, so we just walked the 0.7 miles to the external bus stop (a pattern we’d mostly stick to for the rest of our stay).

Rett ready for a safari in front of the giant central tree of Animal Kingdom.
Animal Kingdom sort of combines a zoo with a theme park, and the “zoo” was really good, with a lot of visible animal activity in reasonably not-sad-looking environments. In addition to these two big gorillas, we witnessed three sisters swinging from the top of a tree all the way down.

I was really impressed by the “Africa” and “Asia” worlds, as Disney had gone against type and built very realistic (not cartoon-y), place-specific environments. They were constructed to look dirty and dilapidated, because that’s what also makes them look real and vibrant and lived-in. I loved the masses of shoddily strung electrical lines overhead. The question is, does experiencing these facsimiles inspire Disney visitors to travel to the real places, or does it make them say “ok, we’ve seen Africa and Asia now, no need to actually cross an ocean to see them”?

“Harambe”, with its scuzzy riverbank and stack of random trash/boxes, presented a level of realism I totally didn’t expect.
When I was in Shimla in India, I wasn’t quite as close to Everest as this building is supposed to be (it contains the line for a roller coaster that winds up that mountain!), but it felt entirely like I had actually been transported back to the Himalayan foothills.

Rett and I both love the ‘Avatar’ movies, and the floating mountains of Pandora are the complete opposite of the realism of the other parts of the park. The scale and detail and creativity of the design were incredible, and the “Flight of Passage” ride was amazing, even though James Cameron would have been pissed at some of the 3D failures.

The Floating Mountains of Pandora. Pretty audacious to even consider building this in the real world.
We rode our bikes (and then took a bus) to Pandora!

This was the sole day with above-normal temperatures of a 16-day stretch, enough to keep the temperature up at 60℉ by bedtime, an unusual evening warmth, but still cool enough that I was wearing my down jacket, and not at all something that would last.

Day 3

It was 42℉ in the 6am dark, when we (well, mostly Rett) were up to get ready for our trip to Hollywood Studios. At this second park, there was much more of the “cartoon-iness” whose absence surprised me at Animal Kingdom. Yes, it would be weird if Toy Story World wasn’t cartoon-y, but even something like the Indiana Jones Stunt Show presented a much more cliched version of Africa than we’d seen yesterday.

I’ve heard about the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror from Rett for years (it’s perhaps one of her biggest family memories from Disney), and even with all that hype, it was still better than I expected! The whole idea of of the rest of the park re-creating Los Angeles in Florida felt a bit strange though…like, I’ve been to the real Hollywood, and it’s not much harder to get to than Florida!

But the prime attraction for both of us was Star Wars, and although that’s an entirely made-up world, it was built with a level of scuffed-up realism that matched Animal Kingdom. And like those “Asia” and “Africa” worlds, part of that realism came from choosing a very narrow and specific environment to recreate (in this case, rocky, dusty, “Galaxy’s Edge” Rebel/Resistance hideouts), rather than jamming together iconic highlights from a literal galaxy of choices.

The Millennium Falcon, hidden in plain sight at this Rebel hideout.
Rett was going for a Rey look with her outfit, but with her ribbed jacket and large hood, she looked more like a female Kylo Ren to me (…which is maybe what Rey was anyway?!) Either way, it a super-badass outfit, especially for someone who rode her bike to the Galaxy’s Edge!
Han Solo and Princess Leia’s daughter lurks in an out-of-the-way corner, hiding from First Order droids.
Is she following the Storm Troopers, or are they clearing a path for their commander?
Kylo Rett drinking 50% of our ~$50 worth of drinks at the Cantina. At least they played “the song” several times while we nursed those valuable drinks in a dark corner of the wretched hive of scum and villainy.

Shortly after I was telling Rett what I just repeated above (how I thought Disney made an interesting choice to focus on a single planetary environment out of a panoply of worlds/styles), the doors of the creaky Rebel transport ship we were on opened, and we were shoved out into the cavernous, gleaming, sterile cargo bay of a First Order Star Destroyer. It was perhaps my biggest “holy shit!” moment through all of Disney, partly because of that shocking and unexpected transition from one environment to a completely different one. But mostly because Disney literally built an enormous, towering warehouse space for no other reason than to give us that “holy shit” moment, recognizing that despite their video, simulation, and 3D wizardry, the best way to make us feel like we’re actually on a Star Destroyer is to just build a full-size fucking cargo bay! One that we were in for no more than 30 seconds! I thought that surely we would return to it for another part of “the ride” (they couldn’t have built that whole space just for those 30 seconds?!), but, nope!

Kylo Rett and her battalion of Storm Troopers inside the most-impressive space in all of Disney World.
A galaxy away from the dusty and disordered planet we just launched from. On this ride, the workers did the most role-playing (as First Order underlings/bureaucrats) of any ride at Disney.

We liked “Rise of the Resistance” so much we did it a second time, but we chose the “Single Rider” line to theoretically speed things along, but that meant it bypassed the transport ship! And we had the “bad luck” of ending up in the exact same vehicle/route as our first ride.

But we did the other Star Wars ride, Smuggler’s Run, four times! It’s a unique combination of a simulator and cooperative video game (and had a much shorter line!), where the two of us are joined with four others to fly through the galaxy and shoot stuff.

But really, the coolest part is that it’s the ultimate realization of “The Box”. That’s name for the multi-level cardboard refrigerator-box playhouses my dad built for us in the 1980s. And since it was the 80s, the early versions were Star Wars-themed. And since my dad is an electronics guy, he built lighted “control panels” with interactive buttons and knobs and switches to emulate those found on the Millennium Falcon. And since this 2020s attraction is emulating the Millennium Falcon of the 1970s/80s movies, it uses nearly-identical buttons as “The Box”! It was as if Disney took “The Box”, combined it with our childhood imaginations extracted from those endless summer days, and wove them together into a massively-upgraded physical reality! (they do call them “Disney Imagineers” after all!)

Rett piloting the Millennium Falcon. The lever she has her hand on is what you’re told to pull to make the leap to hyperspace, and the connection between the physicality of the motion and the visual of the streaming star-trails felt awesome.
The square blue and white buttons are essentially identical to the red buttons that we would push in our cardboard Millennium Falcon to make it launch into hyperspace!

For our first “ride” we were the pilots, and had no idea what we were doing, crashed all over the place, and our group scored 1100 points (it also had a lengthy delay before letting us out, for which we got FastPasses to skip the line and ride again). The second time, we were the gunners, and had two pilots who didn’t understand English and were far worse than us, but we managed to score 1150 just because Rett and I knew how to mash the buttons to shoot like crazy. For the third run we were the engineers (so at least we got to try all positions!), and Rett was mad that a couple of kids got be be the pilots, but of course kids are good at video games and we scored 3500. Now sucked in and wanting to improve even more, we decided to immediately cycle back for one last run just before the park closed. And we lucked into perfect closure, with a group of fun 30-somethings as our crewmates. I sized them up and said “you guys look like you’ll be good button-mashers”, and the Han Solo of the group hiked his thumb toward his girlfriend and quipped “she’s really good at pushing my buttons, so I’m sure she’ll be good at this too!” He was right, and we landed with a score of 7500, putting a perfect cap on the end of our time in a galaxy far far away.

In this galaxy, the temperature never exceeded the mid-50s, but with tights under my pants, my down jacket, and hat on, I stayed comfortable all day. By the time we arrived back to our campsite, it was 43℉, but our space heater did an impressive job (sitting outside the tent but under the rainfly), raising the internal temperature to 66℉! What an amazing addition to the world of tent camping!


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2 responses to “Clermont, FL to Lake Buena Vista, FL”

  1. Joel Avatar
    Joel

    When I opened the main page I was like ‘Woah, Rett somehow got herself on an actual Star Destroyer’ and then my brain short circuited for a few moments while reality reoriented itself in my head.

    1. neil Avatar
      neil

      Ha, awesome, I’m sure Disney would be glad to know that their ridiculous placemaking expense pays off even in photos. Strangely, we were the only ones in our group wowed enough to even stop for a photo, I guess no one wanted to disobey the First Order toadies herding us to the next room.

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