WESTGATE RIVER RANCH

By Corri Hunt

Westgate River Ranch (WGRR) is another relatively unknown attraction, it is about an hour and twenty minutes south of Orlando. Again, our visit here was not cheap at all but we had a good time, would go back, and we recommend you experience it! We stayed for two nights over Memorial Day Weekend in May 2022 and paid $385 a night for a luxe glamping tent.

They have a primitive camping area that is more affordable and for those that love the great outdoors and real camping. I am…not a camper and do not enjoy any form of “roughing it” in the wilderness so we opted for the lux glamping option here.

Lux Glamping Options: Conestoga Wagon, Luxe Teepee, and Luxury Glamping. These three options are expensive! And thus all come with your own private golfcart to drive around the resort. The golf cart experience was honestly the majority of the fun we had here so I recommend definitely getting one to use. These options range from a nightly cost of $300-$1000 a night. So this is definitely a weekend bucket list item.

Our Glamping tent had its own private bathroom (which is actually very nice with a stand-up shower and private toilet area), king size bed, queen sofa pullout, kitchenette, AC!, porch, your own grill, hammock, breakfast delivered daily (not very good- has banana, apple, and stale cinnamon rolls), bag of ice delivered daily into your porch cooler, and locking door.

Unbeknownst to us though until our arrival, this is literally a tent! It does have a real door and frame with lock, but otherwise you are completely surrounded by a tent. We are talking zip open windows, thin fabric, zero sound barrier, standard tent. This was not obvious on the photos when we booked it online.

Every night, as long as it was not raining, they brought us s’mores kits and lit the main camp fire at 7:30pm.

Bucket list items to make the most of your trip:

o Attend the Saturday night Rodeo (so much fun!)

o Drive the golfcart around and tour the entire property

o Grill your own food one night

o Enjoy s’mores by the fire

o Visit the petting zoo

Recommendations: Bring a noise machine to block out the outside noises, bring some food to grill (we made all sorts of different seasoned chicken wings and loved it), bring some inside entertainment if it rains, make advance reservations at the steakhouse restaurant (it books up in advance but it very good), if you have a sound sensitive child like us then bring noise headphones for the rodeo as it is very loud. Go during the cooler months, because Florida. The rooms do have very good AC and fans though! Bring quarters for the food at the petting zoo.

PROS: The rodeo is a lot of fun, there are tons of activities to do, the petting zoo is great, there are somehow NO MOSQUITOS (I don’t want to know how but just know there are none! I definitely worried about this before going), the glamping rooms have AC and fans, we loved driving the golf cart around the property, you can order room service to your tent, including alcohol! (tent menus below), and the quality family time was nice.

CONS: The rodeo fills up fast (so get there early), the prices are pretty outrageous for camping, the excursions were not the most exciting and also expensive, you cannot access areas outside of your glamping zone (so we were not able to see the teepees or wagons up close), the breakfast they provided was pretty awful, the food is also very expensive. We did the swamp buggy ride excursion and it was pretty boring, apparently he normally takes you through mud and water but it had been so dry there was none of either so we just drove around in the fields.

Excursions/Attractions (all at extra charge): Horseback riding (for age 8+), pony rides for younger children, petting zoo, archery, rodeo, fishing pond, boat ride, swamp buggy ride, jump houses for kids, and an arcade.

FINAL DECISION: If you can splurge and want to experience glamping, then do a night or two in the teepee tents! If you want to do primitive camping with a lot of activity options, this is the place to go.

I give it a 3.5/5 star rating, deductions mostly for the price.