First Time Tenting At Fort Wilderness

[Matthew Berg]

Hello Fellow Disney Fans!

We're planning our 12th trip to Walt Disney World, and this is our first trip to Fort Wilderness.

We're very excited, but I want to be properly prepared. From what I can see, the tent sites are all sand covered.

Does anyone have a tried and proven method for securing tent / tarps / etc into the sand? If you have specific tent pegs that you've purchased, do you have a location / site to purchase them from?

We're coming from Canada, and would prefer to have it purchased and packed before we go!

Thanks!

 

[snowmedic]

The pads aren't really sand, but more of a shell sand mix. Nothing that would hurt your feet walking barefoot on. We use the tent spikes, looks like a long nail with the rope tie on it. You can pick them up at Wally World for about $1 ea. I find that those work better that the yellow plastic stakes or the small aluminum type stakes that some tents and ez-ups come with. Any sporting goods store should carry them.

 

[Matthew Berg]

The pads aren't really sand, but more of a shell sand mix. Nothing that would hurt your feet walking barefoot on. We use the tent spikes, looks like a long nail with the rope tie on it. You can pick them up at Wally World for about $1 ea. I find that those work better that the yellow plastic stakes or the small aluminum type stakes that some tents and ez-ups come with. Any sporting goods store should carry them.

Excellent, thank-you!

 

[bama_ed]

Matthew,

I'm glad you found us!

The tent pads at the Fort are covered in something called coquina which is a granular crushed shell topping. It drains relatively well but does stick to shoes or flip flops when wet like sand does. Regular spikes will work fine. The coquina topping is a few inches at most over a compacted bed of dirt/clay. The last site I had in 100 loop this past March was pretty thin on the coquina side, honestly, with my little pop-up.

Regular tent campers like snowmedic above are good resources for the tent camping experience

Bama Ed

 

[KatDiPaolo]

I'm preparing for a tent camping trip this November and I'll be flying so I thought I'd share what I've come up with so far. I've been tent camping quite a few times but only in the northeastern US so I read up a lot on the challenges of tent camping in Florida. I read a lot of blog posts about tent camping at the fort but a surprising amount don't say anything about the camping itself but instead focus on the activities. There's one review in particular that I thought was helpful which said to use earth anchors like those that you would use on portable canopies or sheds since there can be high winds with the thunderstorms and since I won't quite be clear of Hurricane Season, I'm going to pack a set. I got mine from Harbor Freight ($14.99 for a set of 4). I'm not sure if there's any Harbor Freight stores in Canada but they do ship there and they have a lot of useful things for better prices than I've seen elsewhere (glow in the dark propylene rope, tent stakes in a six pack, screwdrivers for $1, etc). I was also pleasantly surprised when I checked the TSA website and I can throw all my gear in a checked bag including spikes, crowbar, screwdriver because that'll save me 30 or so hours of drive time.

 

[amcc]

I don't tent camp but we stay in a popup in the tent loop so we are always checking out people's sites. One thing we did notice was that during those heavy Florida rains, some tents collapsed because of the weight of the water. You need to make sure that your rain cover, tarp, whatever is angled so that the water flows off of it. Otherwise, it will accumulate quickly and it's very heavy. It happens to us with our awning.

 

[veraletta]

Anyone know which shape of tent is the best to use for heavy Florida rains? We were thinking of dome shape tents for girl scout to use.

 

[Beth from Tennessee]

We had seen online reports of the Fort "sand" not holding on with regular tent stakes, so we bought sand stakes off Amazon just to be safe. They are about $2 per stake right now on Amazon. Figured better safe than sorry since I really didn't want to come back from a day at the parks to find a blown over tent!

 

[Craig Hagan]

I used these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01B28QS8G you don't need to replace all of your stakes with them, just do the corners and if your tent is big, the middles, plus select guy lines for your tent and/or tarp.

The sites are packed sand with crushed shells on top, fantastic drainage in the rain. There are also plenty of trees, so bring lots of rope.
If camping in warmer seasons, bring electric box fans or air conditioners to make your tent comfy. If you are flying, you can have packages shipped to FW a few days ahead of your arrival. We have a dome shaped tent, but, realistically nearly anything which is well anchored with a good tarp covering it should be fine. Do pay attention to the advice above regarding angling your tarp to drain.