papbillx3, "best" is tricky and really depends on how you define it.
Fort Wilderness at Disney is absolutely stunning. It's well wooded and may sites have decent privacy between them (not all- there are some better than others and a few stinkers here or there). There are 4 categories of sites-
partial hookups (for tents + pop-up trailers),
full hookups (which are the farthest from most amentities),
preferred (which are smaller but closest to the boat marina), and
premium (which area typically the largest and closest to the store + pool).
Once at Fort Wilderness, you get the convenience of the Disney's
free transportation system (busses, boats, and monorail). Using it, you can get to all parts of Disney (except maybe the mini-golf places). It's not always the quickest and we typically plan for an hour to get to things. Additionally, Fort Wilderness is a little more than a mile from front to back and you can't drive your vehicle to most internal things (not the pool, store, or marina). They have internal busses, but this adds extra time for moving about. Alternatively, bikes or renting a golf cart are helpful.
The downside to Fort Wilderness is the
excessive price. Figure $100-150/night or more. Also factor in the availability- it can be very hard to get into at some times of the year. Believe it or not, people use travel agents to get reservations (and help plan their entire Disney vacation). There's no cost to you for the travel agent and I have a couple of friends who are fairly Disney dedicated and know the Fort quite well. Hit me up if you want names + phone numbers. I get nothing by sharing their info.
I have a longer post about Fort Wilderness here:
Camping at Disney World’s Fort Wilderness | Learn To RV
And a friend's blog has a good post on it (actually one of the travel agents that I recommend):
https://letsplanwdw.com/2016/08/15/d...erness-primer/
All other off-property options will likely require you to pay $20/day for parking at the theme parks. Factor that into cost if you look outside of the Fort.
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If you're a
Thousand Trails member, the TT Orlando park (with a Clermont address) is decent and quite convenient to getting to Disney. There's a back way that avoids most of 192 which is where the worst traffic is between TTO and DW. I stay here the most as it's $0/night once I pay my membership dues.
This is a sprawling park that is hopping in the winter and fairly empty in the summer. Most of the time, they don't have planned activities after April or so. I know, in the winter, that it often loses water but I don't think I've encountered that in the summer. Might be worth adding water to your tank.
Most of the sites are pretty open in more of a RV park like setting. The snowbirds love it because there are no trees to block their satellite or fall on their rigs and parking has less obstacles.
There is 1 wooded section (D) that we love but 50amp spots can be hard to come by back there. Sadly, 50amp trumps woods for us.
There are 2 pools, a not-great playground, and pickle ball courts. They're talking about adding a R/C track, but I doubt it'll be there by the time you get there. Shopping and whatnot are nearby.
If I understand correctly, it's expensive to stay without a membership.
I have an older review of it here:
Thousand Trails Orlando – camping near Disney | Learn To RV
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There are a few
Encore parks in the area. I've stayed at 2 of them. If you're a Thousand Trails member and have added on the
Trails Collection program, you can likely use that to stay for $0/night at these.
The first is
Tropical Palms RV Resort. This is a combination of RV park and park model/"cabins" (which all match in color-scheme and design). In fact, I'm there now. It's super close to getting to Disney. I'd almost venture to guess it's the closest but we haven't actually driven into Disney from here (we've been prepping for getting a new rig this past weekend).
The sites range from "elite" which are fully-paved pull thrus. These can be a little snug for parking a truck and camper in line- especially for us big rigs. I am not crazy for these as they're fairly snug with your front-side neighbor. But it's close to their pool, splash pad, and playground. We're in the back area where the spots aren't paved, but we're under a nice shade tree and have plenty of yard in front of us between us and the camper to our front. Some of the spots back here can be short, so make sure you talk to them about rig length.
It's also close to shopping and surrounding amenities. Plus, it's within walking distance to Funtown in case you want some "down home" fun. Their huge swing is a good time- I've done it twice and my daughter did it once with me.
I don't know nightly rates, but this likely would be my first choice if I was paying and not staying at Disney's Fort Wilderness.
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The next Encore park is
Lake Magic. I actually really like this park. We've found the spots that we have been in are fairly spacious. There are 2 nice pools. I was here in the summer back in 2014 and it was absolutely barren and devoid of people. It was almost disconcerting. We also had an ant incident (it can happen anywhere in Florida); we now spray down tires, jacks, cables, hoses with bug killer when we setup.
There are back-in and pull-thru spots. The spot we had back in January was huge. It was a great yard to let the kids play in. Not any shade, though.
Staying here, you can use the same back-way into Disney to avoid most of 192. It's all mental, but Disney feels like a much shorter drive than the Thousand Trails Orlando park. It's only a couple of miles difference, but it's a mental thing for me.
I know we only paid $135 for the week, the summer that we were here. I think I saw that they would occasionally run specials for $99 for the week. But that was a good 4-5 years ago.
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The last Encore park is
Sherwood Forest. It's still fairly close to get to Disney, but I haven't heard great things nor have I stayed there.
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There's also a city park in Orlando called
Bill Frederick Park at Turkey Lake. This is a 39 site campground. Some sites have sewer, some sites don't. It's absolutely beautiful, though. Very wooded and some of the sites are absolutely HUGE. It's very convenient to
Universal Studios but not quite as much with Disney. To get to Disney, you have to drive down I-4 which can be hit or miss with stop+go traffic. But, it's cheap- like $20/night cheap and very beautiful. Supposedly there was a pool in the park, but it was closed during our stay (in February).
Because of the location, I'm not sure I'd use it for a Disney vacation. The traffic and drive would likely wear me out- especially after a long day at the park.
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There is also a state park called
Lake Louisa State Park that I've heard good things about. It's further up 27 from Thousand Trails Orlando, so I think you'd have a little bit of a drive to get to Disney but traffic should be fairly predictable.
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