We have just returned from a wonderful week-long stay at the campsites at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Campground. This was the 2nd time that we have stayed at the Fort and it was just as enjoyable as the first. We ran into a couple of situations during our stay when we found ourselves wondering if we could receive a delivery from DoorDash. Read on to find out what we tried to order and if we were successful or not.
Camp in Disney at Fort Wilderness
The campsites at Fort Wilderness Campground are a wonderful place to hang your hats, or in this case, Mickey Ears, during a visit to Disney. We love staying at this resort! Fort Wilderness is a beautifully maintained, full-service campground that offers hundreds of cabins for rent, as well as RV sites and primitive tent sites.
Whatever your camping style is, you can find it at the Fort.
Access to the Campsites is Restricted
One thing that we learned on our last visit to Fort Wilderness is that Disney has several rules in place that are aimed at keeping vehicle traffic in the campground down. You will not find much parking inside the campground for motor vehicles like cars or pickup trucks. There is plenty of parking for golf carts, which is definitely the preferred way to get around.
Disney also runs a network of internal campground buses that run constant loops around the property. You can find bus stops every few hundred feet and take them anywhere you need to go within the campground.
In order to enter Fort Wilderness, every visitor must stop and check in with the security desk. Non-guests can enter the campground, but are not permitted to drive their vehicles back to the campsites. They must park in the lots out front and then take an internal bus back to campsites or other facilities.
DoorDash for Convenience on Vacation
Are you familiar with DoorDash? Similar to other services like UberEats and Instacart, DoorDash is an app-based “fetching service.” For a delivery fee + service fee + tip, you can pull up the DoorDash app at any time pretty much anywhere and order everything from food to toiletries. As soon as you place your order, the app assigns a human (referred to as a “dasher”) to actually head to the store and purchase your items.
You can use this service at home to save time or simply as a convenience. You can also use DoorDash when you are on vacation. Maybe you want to save time or perhaps you don’t have a car to get to a store. No matter what your reason, this app could definitely be helpful when you are away from home.
Popular uses for DoorDash include deliveries of:
- Groceries (many resorts and campers have refrigerators and microwaves)
- Toiletries
- First aid supplies and medicine
- Takeout food and drinks (think beyond pizza delivery!)
Some things to note about DoorDash in general:
- Stores available to choose from will vary based on your location.
- Some stores require minimum orders (you must meet the minimum in order to place the order).
- Sometimes you can order ahead and choose a specific delivery time window. Other times delivery is simply ASAP.
- This is an app-based service and as such, you need to have reliable wifi or cellular service to use it. Download the app ahead of time so that you’re ready to go when you want to order.
The Need for a Vacation DoorDash
We hit the ground running on our first day at Disney. When I say we ran ourselves into the ground that day, I am not exaggerating. We arrived at Magic Kingdom before the park opened (around 7:30 am) and at some point midday we hopped over to Epcot. We walked all over Epcot and enjoyed dinner and fireworks after that. Once Epcot closed (around 9:30 pm), we had to navigate across two monorail rides and a boat ride back to our campsite.
We walked a total of 9.8 miles that day.
We had such a blast and did so many wonderful things!
One very bad thing: I made a total rookie mistake and wore “cute” sneakers instead of “rugged, supportive” sneakers and by the end of that day, both of my feet were basically all blisters on the soles. OUCH!!!!
The next day we woke up and pounded the pavement again for 8 more miles. Guess what felt like absolute hell that night? Yes, my poor feet.
I had packed all kinds of first aid supplies including a variety of bandaids, and also moleskin but I didn’t have any padded blister bandaids at home to pack.
I was desperate for REALLY good bandages but we didn’t have a lot of spare time between the parks and dining reservations, etc. There is no quick way to get anywhere in Orlando. I DECIDED TO DOORDASH AN ORDER OF BLISTER BANDAGES FROM WALGREENS!
Walt Disney World Resort Delivery
I knew that select Disney resorts will accept packages and groceries for guests. They usually charge a small fee to receive these packages and hold them until the guests arrive and/or pick them up. In fact, several years ago we shipped snacks to Disney and paid our package fee and it was a successful experience. (Since I was an amazon Prime member, I was able to ship everything with free delivery to the resort, then paid Disney a package fee.)
Disney and DoorDash
When I pulled up the DoorDash app while in Magic Kingdom, I saw many different places available to order from. Some of these businesses included:
- Walgreens
- CVS
- 7-Eleven
- Circle K
- Wawa
- Racetrac
- TONS of restaurants
Fort Wilderness DoorDash Attempt
So on night 3, we were finishing up at Magic Kingdom and enjoying the castle show. I decided to place an order with DoorDash for some blister care from Walgreens.
I pulled up the app, found the items I wanted, and added them to my cart. Easy.
Next, I located the address for Fort Wilderness in the app. It auto-populated in the address bar.
- Fort Wilderness’s street address is 4510 North Fort Wilderness Trail Lake Buena Vista, Florida 32830-8415.
I added a note on the order page and asked the dasher to leave my order with the front desk in the registration building. I also made sure to include my campsite number in the address so that they front desk would know who the package was for.
I submitted the order, a dasher was assigned to the task and the delivery window was within the hour. All seemed great.
(Or so I thought.)
Fort Wilderness Front Desk Would Not Accept My DoorDash Delivery
Fireworks ended and we made our way out of the park. I checked my app and was happy to see that my dasher was currently at Walgreens and shopping for my items. My blisters felt better already (well, not really, but I knew a little relief was on the way!).
We hopped in the boat back to the Fort and just as we approached the dock, my phone started ringing. It was DoorDash. The driver was at the front desk and they would not accept my delivery and hold it for me! I was so ticked! I had been prepared to be charged by Disney to accept the package, but didn’t think they would flat out refuse to accept it.
Thankfully, we were pulled up to the dock as the dasher called, so we raced from the boat to our site (our campsite was directly next to the marina). We hopped in our truck and met the dasher at the front desk. Crisis averted, and we got our order.
Meet Your Dasher at Fort Wilderness Entrance
To sum up our great DoorDash Fort Wilderness experiment:
- Yes, DoorDash will deliver to Fort Wilderness Campground.
- No, Fort Wilderness will not accept your DoorDash delivery.
- You must be present to accept the delivery in person from your dasher.
- Do not place the order for delivery unless you are physically present at the campground to accept the order. You will need to have a way to get to the entrance of the campground ASAP. Your dasher is not allowed to drive back to your campsite.
- It was great to not have to waste precious vacation time to head off Disney property in search of the items I needed. This seems to be the easiest way to get items from off property.
- It was a bit stressful to have to chase down the order. I’m not sure why Fort Wilderness will accept things like Amazon Fresh orders but not DoorDash orders. Perhaps they do not have the space allocated for storage? No idea. I hope they reconsider this in the future! The delivery apps like DoorDash and Instacart are only gaining in popularity. It would be great if guests could order from anywhere and know that their items would be kept safe by Disney staff until they can pick it up.
Have you ever ordered from a delivery service and had it delivered to a Disney resort? How did it go? Drop us a moment and tell us about your experience!
