There are lots of perks that come with staying at Disney World hotels, but there’s one BIG one that’s currently MISSING.
Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
Disney World hotel guests can take advantage of free transportation between the parks and hotels, Early Entry at all four theme parks every day, and fun activities like campfires and crafts. However, if you haven’t been to Disney World in a while, you might not realize that there’s one very important perk that is no longer available.
There is no longer a boat running between Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort & Campgrounds and Disney’s Wilderness Lodge. A while back, you could ride a boat to get from one of these resorts to the other in order to take advantage of all the amenities at each one, but now that service is not available.
UPDATE: Disney announced on September 29th that this perk is finally RETURNING starting on October 1st!
Boats to Fort Wilderness Are Currently Unavailable
So what should you do if you’re at one Wilderness-themed resort and you want to get to the other? You’ve got a few options!
The easiest option is to take the bus instead. Yes, there is a bus that runs directly between these resorts (which is pretty unique for Disney World — other hotels aren’t connected to each other via bus). The Yellow Line bus runs between Fort Wilderness and Wilderness Lodge. It’ll take you between the front entrance of Wilderness Lodge and the Settlement at Fort Wilderness.
Disney bus
If you’re set on boat travel, you can take a boat from one resort to Magic Kingdom, disembark, and then board another boat to your destination (e.g., sail from Wilderness Lodge to Magic Kingdom, disembark, and board the Fort Wilderness boat). This could definitely take a while — likely at least an hour — so keep that in mind if you’re on a time crunch and need to be somewhere quickly, such as if you have restaurant reservations.
Take the boat!
At Magic Kingdom, you’ll need to take the Red Launch to get to Wilderness Lodge or the Green Launch if you’re heading toward Fort Wilderness.
©Disney
Of course, you can always choose to drive between the two resorts if you have your own car, rented a car, or want to use rideshare. Note that it can sometimes be tricky to park at Disney World hotels if you don’t have a reservation for that hotel (either a hotel reservation or a dining reservation). If you have family staying there and you’re visiting them, you can have them give your name to the Cast Members inside, and they’ll pass along the information to the security guard at the parking lot station.
Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
Using Lyft or Uber could solve the parking problem, since they’ll drop you off and parking won’t be an issue at all.
Lyft
If all else fails, don’t forget that you can find directions on the My Disney Experience App. Just search for your destination (using the search feature, which is the little magnifying glass at the bottom of the screen) and click “Get Directions.”
©Disney
Enter your starting point, and directions will pop up!
©Disney
The boat between Wilderness Lodge and Fort Wilderness isn’t the only hotel perk that has gone missing. Remember the days when hotel guests got a free MagicBand every trip?
Get a load of all those MagicBands!
We also can’t forget how convenient (and FREE) Disney’s Magical Express was. The transportation service between the Disney World hotels and the Orlando International Airport was discontinued, and now you’ll need to pay extra to use Mears Connect (the service that replaced it).
Remember Magical Express?
Extra Magic Hours were replaced by Early Theme Park Entry, but Extra Magic Hours used to be longer (generally an hour compared to the 30 minutes you get with Early Entry). However, Early Entry applies to all four theme parks every single day, whereas Extra Magic Hours used to only apply to one or possibly two theme parks each day.
Early Entry signage showing Eligible Resort guests where to go to enter
We’ll be watching for more updates from Disney, so stay tuned to DFB for all the latest news!
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What do you think of this transportation dilemma? Let us know in the comments.
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I swear when I was there in 2019 there was a boat to the contemporary that wasn’t there last summer. I remember taking it to our supercalifragilistic breakfast.
Also evening extra magic hours used to be 2-3 hours for all Disney resort guests – not just deluxe.
One other tip regarding getting to the Contemporary from Wilderness Lodge. Usually the two resorts share busses for HS, DS and AK. They typically run WL > Cont> park/DS. So you can hop on one of those busses at WL to get to the Contemporary. You can use those busses going the other direction, but you’ll make a stop at HS, DS, or AK first, so walking to MK and catching the boat or bus would probably make more sense.
The Epcot bus is usually shared between WL and FW so that’s another option between those two resorts. But seeing as there is a dedicated bus running between the two, 9 times out of 10 that’s probably faster.
Obviously bus routes are subject to change, so always ask the bus driver before you get on.
The Boat between Wilderness and the Campground will truly be missed SMH in disappointment