Some children are obsessed with the idea of camping. They want to sleep under the stars, fight off wild animals by starting a fire, and generally “rough it”. Parents who may not share this enthusiasm for camping often try to distract their children by allowing them to “camp” in the backyard or sleep over at a friend’s house instead. Did you know that Disney World offers fully functional campgrounds for you, your children, and even the family dog?

Despite these detractions from the pure camping experience, Disney Fort Wilderness Resort is well worth the money they charge for you to camp there. Unlike traditional campsites, Disney also offers cable television, air conditioning, and even high speed Internet. The campsite is set upon some truly beautiful land: a forest full of pine trees, water canals, and hiking trails that look like the real thing. There are even deer, rabbits, and ducks wandering around the campgrounds.

Camping at Disney World has several advantages. First of all, it is completely safe. You won’t encounter bears or other wild animals in the middle of the night, nor will you run into strangers living in the woods for nefarious purposes. So the kids will get the camping experience they desire while you have peace of mind. It also has modern conveniences, so you will not have to find places to use the bathroom or use tree leaves as toilet paper.

The campsites are situated in a forest full of pine and cypress trees and there are log cabins or other rustic-looking buildings on site. Camping at Disney is also safer than camping at a traditional campsite. There are no dangerous wild animals at Fort Wilderness Resort; you will never have to start a fire to scare away wolves, bears, or other predators. The only other people you will encounter are other paying guests, and Disney staff is located on the campgrounds in case of emergency.

Camping activities include hiking, exploring, fishing, and swimming, but if you tire of these, there is still plenty to do. Fort Wilderness offers horse and wagon rides and archery ranges in addition to traditional camping activities, and every evening a Disney movie is screened on the campsite. However, if you get tired of camping, Disney offers complimentary transportation for resort guests to each of its theme parks.

As a Disney World Resort guest, you are also entitled to complimentary transportation to and from all Disney Theme Park locations. In addition to the Magic Kingdom and Epcot Center, you and your children could visit the Animal Kingdom or any of the Disney World Water Parks.

The campsite is located close to Disney World itself, and Disney offers complimentary transportation between the campsite and all areas of the Disney World Theme Park, including the Magic Kingdom, Epcot Center, Animal Kingdom, and Water Parks.

In short, if you are looking for a camping experience to complement your vacation, Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort may be the place for you and your family. You can experience camping with modern conveniences, explore Disney World, and find plenty to do on your vacation. There are private bathroom and shower facilities on site, as well as laundry facilities. Some campsites are being renovated this year; check with Disney for availability.

While you’re in the area, you may want to explore some of the other camping opportunities in Florida.

Everyone who has mothered a little girl knows that you can’t help but aim high. Mummy’s little princess is, after all, going to grow up and marry a prince and live happily ever after. Thankfully, you can count on most of us ejecting Disney-style fantasies from our philosophy by the time we get jaded by the cooperative qualities of most woodland animals. But if you’re in business, you appear to have a license to Wish Upon a Star.

Pontin’s, a chain of British holiday camps were recently purchased by the Britannia Hotel Group. Now, I possibly need to take a detour at this point, because the ‘Holiday Camp’ is a concept that’s going to need explaining to many of our non-British readers. A holiday camp is a simple enough arrangement of permanent caravans and chalets, with extensive activity centres, swimming pools and entertainment. It’s sort of a like a cruise ship you can escape from, only more unbearably kitsch and family orientated. St Lucia holidays they most positively are not. Anyway, Alex Langsam, owner of the Britannia Hotel Group and now Pontin’s thinks he knows how to go about changing this image. He doesn’t.

Mr Langsam’s plan is to emulate the Disney resorts. The idea is to be able to give the British families the Florida holidays experience. The beauty, for him, of the Disneyworld experience is that “the adults enjoy it as much as the kids”. The idea that a chain as painfully British as red phoneboxes and tea drinking can emulate anything within a multinational, multi-billion dollar American media empire is just comical. They may as well pretend they’re offering Jamaica holidays by serving meat pies with jerk spice. Langsam’s idea is that there will be costumed reps along the lines of their ‘cast members’. Now, quite where this small time holiday resort is going to get a full troop of paradeable characters from for their 25 million GBP is beyond me. Presumably, they’ll just end up licensing someone else’s. Dreamworks are always willing to climb into bed with potential partners, but they’ll be a poor choice consider the characters (rather than the movies) are widely reviled by adults. But this apple is rotten to the core anyway: the mascots may be new, but the Bluecoats will stay.

If your lucky enough to have been to Disney World you will know that they have a ride in the Animal Kingdom known as Kilimanjaro Safari that is of course supposed to be based on the real thing. However does it really compare or is it just a badly made ride that is there for the people who are interested in animals but not going on a safari.

The ride itself is very good as it feels like a real safari so it is very cool if you cannot afford to gety over to Africa for the real thing. It has the real animals like the lions, elephants and zebra that you would expect to see on a real safari. There are many negatvies to the ride itself. The person driving you around is very cheesy indeed and although they do give you a lot of really useful information on the animals you can often tell they have to repeat themselves many times during the course of the day.

It of course does not compare to the real thing but are Disney not looking to compare but to show a glimpse of the real thing. All Disney are tyring to do is giving a bit of a taster when it comes to going on a safari. They are tying to show people the amazing parts of Africa that you never hear about on the news and attempting to inspire people to visit the real place.

So why don’t you actually go after a real Safari holiday by taking a going on one of those Kenya Holidays. Of course you could also go on one of those Namibia Holidays or even Zambia Holidays.

It really is up to you, if you don’t want to see the real Africa then just go to a theme park with a safari ride!