Driving your own car vs buses...
 

Hi! My family is driving to Disney in March and staying at POR. I've been hearing that the bus service from this resort is not always the greatest...and to allow 60-90 minutes of travel time to the parks each morning. Really??? That seems crazy. For our last stay (POFQ), we loved the convenience of not having to drive anywhere during the week. But now I'm wondering, would we be better off taking our own car to the parks each morning?

I enjoy the freedom of having a car. Most people will agree that if you have a car, it's easier to drive to all the parks except MK.

No, the buses don't take that long. I would estimate that it takes about 20-30 minutes bus stop to bus stop to get to the parks. But, you do have to include waiting at the bus stop and if you want to be at the park before rope drop. So, maybe it might take close to an hour if you start counting when you leave your room and stop counting when the park opens. Personally, I like to drive everywhere except the MK. I don't drive to the MK because I don't particularly like the Ticket and Transportation Center.

We have rented a car all trips but one. I would never rely on the busses again. I like having the freedom to go where we want, when we want. The busses can be hit or miss sometimes and can take up significant time depending on how busy it is. There is no cost to park since you are staying on property. We also sneak out to Dunkin Donuts sometimes.:scratchin It's just off property. If you don't mind waiting for busses when parks let out or it is busy then use the busses. You can also use the busses for some transportation and the car for other. We definitely prefer to drive and have the control.

If you stayed at POFQ last time and had no problems, it's really not much different from POR since they share busses. So if you were ok last time, you should be ok this time.

(And no I've never had 60-90 min of travel time from any of the resorts, and we almost exclusively use busses...)

Totally agree! :thumbsup2
And, if you travel between resorts (not parks) for meals especially in the evenings, using Disney transportation can be a nightmare.

Personally we love the freedom of driving.

You hear such conflicting stories about Disney Transportation .... I remember one thread on the Resorts board about how awful the buses were at POR and then another DISer jumped in to say they were at POR at the exact same time and thought the buses were wonderful :confused3

We enjoy driving. Even driving to MK doesn't bother us. It gives us more flexibility, and it makes it a ton easier for our ADRs at other resorts.

It's free when you stay on property, so why not I say?! :thumbsup2

If your car is there use it. I love having my car there

We always drive. We love the freedom of not having to stand around and wait for the busses. If you have AAA you can pick up a Diamond Star Parking pass (I was able to get one this year since I bought a park ticket from them, but I was also able to get one for my Dad without buying a ticket, it just depends on who is working when you go into your AAA branch to get one) which allows you to park at the front of the lot at the theme parks. Great for the Animal Kingdom and Epcot. We do normally take the bus to the MK.

I enjoy not having to deal with the traffic and sleep on the bus. If we drive down and have our car, we prefer parking it once at the resort and leaving it there.

:confused3

We generally drive in the mornings and take the bus in the afternoon for some reason. We are usually running late in the mornings so driving is real easy.

Outside of whichever park is nearest to my resort (i.e. epcot to BC) I drive my own car.

the first two years I went to disney my children where small. I hated dealing with the strollers and buses, especially at the end of the night. guest were down right nasty when I didn't have my kids out of the stroller the nanosecond the bus rolled up, buses always seemed to take at least 30 mins. I hate waiting 30 mins for a ride let alone a bus. LOL.

anyhoo, we love driving. It opened up tons more eating options since now we can go resort to resort quickly, we've found disney extremely easy to get around (have yet to get stuck in heavy traffic) and now that we've been so often we've explored outside the park.

No car, no trip is my motto.

Argh you guys keep me on the fence about renting a car for Christmas! And please tell me more about the AAA thing! What if we did not book through them?

It really seems to depend on the individual AAA office. Some will give them out to any member who asks. Others will only give them out with a purchase (park tickets or package).

We drive TO WDW on occasion. But we don't drive IN WDW. We park it and forget it for the duration. DH says he does enough driving at home- he doesn't want to have to contend with it on vacation too. We've never had a problem with the buses. We may take a taxi back to our resort at night if we've been dining at another resort. (And since we would probably have enjoyed a beverage or two during the evening, we couldn't have driven our car anyway).