Friendship Boats Unreliable Summer Afternoons

So I just got back from our family trip to the BCVs. You can’t count on boat transportation in the afternoon in the summer! If there’s lightning somewhere in the vicinity of the Epcot-Boardwalk-DHS boat route, all the boats shut down. And they don’t necessarily let guests know.

One day at 4 pm or so we went out to take the boat to DHS from the YC/BC boat dock. Stormalong Bay at the YC/BC was open (and the skies were cloudy but there didn’t appear to be an imminent storm), but there weren’t any boats at the dock. There were two boats parked at the Boardwalk dock, but they weren’t moving. We waited for a bit with 20-30 other people, while the boats just sat there across the lake.

Me and a few other folks got on the phone to find out what was up….took 5+ minutes on hold to find out boats were shut down and we had to head for a bus. I suggested to the BC front desk that somebody should come out to the dock to tell the people waiting there what’s going on, and basically got the response that nobody has that in their job description. To add insult to injury, as I was leaving the dock, the staff at the YC marina watched us all leave to head to the bus. None of them realized ‘oh, we better tell those guests what’s going on’?

If they’d closed the pool for lightning, it would have been easier to understand what was going on, but there was a long line of people waiting to go down the slide on the shipwreck.

It wasn’t that much of a big deal, but it is making us think twice about staying at the BCVs in the summer. I think we encountered a shut down every time we went DHS, either coming or going.

GrnMtnMan said:

If they’d closed the pool for lightning, it would have been easier to understand what was going on, but there was a long line of people waiting to go down the slide on the shipwreck.

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The criteria for shutting down the pool should be the same as for the boats, in terms of lightning within a certain number of miles. Since the people actually in the area didn't seem to know, are you SURE the people on the phone had the right info?

I get that the boats weren't moving, but perhaps they were getting the all clear (perhaps things *had been* closed before you went out to get the boat?) and starting up engines etc?

bumbershoot said:

The criteria for shutting down the pool should be the same as for the boats, in terms of lightning within a certain number of miles. Since the people actually in the area didn't seem to know, are you SURE the people on the phone had the right info?

I get that the boats weren't moving, but perhaps they were getting the all clear (perhaps things *had been* closed before you went out to get the boat?) and starting up engines etc?

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If the Guest went to the bus stop and got a bus to DHS, then the boats were indeed shut down, or had been shut down immediately before.

This is a valid concern. There should be more communication to Guests about the status of boat service, monorail service, water park status, etc.

IIRC, once upon a time every dock had a cm stationed there. With the cutbacks a few years ago, they were done away with. If Disney can't afford to station a cm at each dock, they should at least put a sign out when the boats are not running. Maybe they should put up monitors as is being done at some resorts for the buses to say when the next boat is expected or not expected.

I would be frustrated too.

Be sure to write Disney and let them know.

It could have just been a wind issue as well. We had planned on using the boat to get from DTD to OKW. Took the bus from BW to DTD, which took forever, then walked all the way over to the boat dock. No boats in sight. We looked around. No signage. Finally saw a boat CM off in the distance. Chased him down, he told us the boats had been suspended due to wind. Um....really? The water was like glass! So who knows...perhaps they saw it on radar and didn't want any boats out on the water when it came in. We had to take a bus to OKW..all in all, it took us close to 2 hrs to get to OKW from BW. Should have just taken a cab.

Same thing happened to us a few years ago. It didn't surprise me much that they were not running the boats, but it did surprise me that they did not feel the need to let anyone know. In our situation it was raining but not thundering anywhere within hearing distance.

bumbershoot said:

The criteria for shutting down the pool should be the same as for the boats, in terms of lightning within a certain number of miles. Since the people actually in the area didn't seem to know, are you SURE the people on the phone had the right info?

I get that the boats weren't moving, but perhaps they were getting the all clear (perhaps things *had been* closed before you went out to get the boat?) and starting up engines etc?

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This was I was thinking as I was waiting for the boat, and is why I called the front desk for direction.

It turned out that storms were about to roll-in...there were bad ones while we were on the bus from the YC to DHS. But we (20-30 guests) didn't know that when we were on the dock waiting (again, because no thunder was heard, no lightning seen, and Stormalong Bay was operating). And nobody from Disney came out to tell us what was going on. I'm guessing the SOP is the assumption that if the boats shut down, there will be one at every dock when the shut down happens, and the boat crews will direct passengers what to do. But when we went there were two boats at the BW and none at the YC/BC.

joelkfla said:

There should be more communication to Guests about the status of boat service, monorail service, water park status, etc.

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This.

For my fist summer trip (which was nice overall), this was a frequent annoyance. I get that they shut things down for safety....no argument there. But there needs to be a better communication system. A sign on the dock, a CM, a twitter account. And not just for transport, but for the pools. There was no way of knowing whether or not the pools were open without personally checking the pool areas.

We had a similar experience last year. We were back at YC for our afternoon break when the skies opened up. We always head for the parks when it rains, so we grabbed our ponchos and headed out. Since it was a torrential downpour, we headed for the boat dock rather than walking. I'm sorry, but we had no idea they'd shut the boats down just for rain (no lightning). We were half way down the dock when the captain finally called over his loudspeaker, "The boats aren't running due to the weather." So we got soaked for nothing. There couldn't be a sign in the lobby, or even at the end of the dock announcing the boat closure?

So we headed for the buses. And waited. And waited. And waited. There was a taxi there that refused to take us to DHS because the fare wasn't high enough. Finally the bus showed up. Luckily we were on the YC side so we got on the bus, but the bus was completely filled. We had no room for anyone waiting on the BC side. It was such a mess.

GrnMtnMan said:

It turned out that storms were about to roll-in...

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aha. So those poor people waiting for the slide would soon be leaving.


You know, communication just doesn't seem to be good with boats. I had a rather similar experience at Universal on one of our first trips. Turns out the info is in the stuff they give you at checkin, but I didn't read it. So we were running from the oncoming storm just at ~5pm winter-season park close, and crossed the bridge in citywalk and got in line for the boat, with everyone else. Waited, waited waited waited. Quite a good bit of time later someone came by and casually (too casually) mentioned that the boats wouldn't run until the lightning threat was gone. By that time it was seriously raining, so we ran up the stairs and into a very cold a/c building. Waited. The storm seemed to be easing and a crowd was growing at the boat dock, so we figured we'd join the crowd.

5-10 minutes later a panicky Team Member came over and told us we could NOT wait at the dock, because the structure was made of metal, and there was still lightning in the area. Holy moly, why did they make it out of metal, and why didn't the TM 30 minutes prior mention that? This TM then mentioned the shuttles, which at the time picked up pretty close by (now they pickup and dropoff at the citywalk parking structure).

Now all this time waiting and getting soaked running to the store...we could have run and gotten soaked just going back to our hotel room. We passed by the path to our hotel while crossing the bridge to get to the boats. Where the shuttles picked up was 1/3 of the way back to the hotel. etc.

That sort of info is actually quite intricate, to newbies, or those who just didn't have reason to know it yet. Very much like "if buses are running from there to there, it means the boats are shut down". That stuff is in depth knowledge. And YES the CMs and TMs need to explain it better, as though everyone were a newbie, not doing something wrong, just not knowing.

I can remember, like, 3 thunderstorms in my adopted home state. I don't remember ANY thunderstorms in my childhood. Although my mom lived in Miami for a couple years of my college time, there's no book of rules that is given to you, and I would go running during thunderstorms. If you don't know, you don't know. And people need to communicate, definitely.