WDW Bus Changes This Week!

[ztbz]

Well, I waited a few days before I posted this, but I am surprise that it’s not come up yet.

Disney has made some major changes to its Bus System. Two of the Hubs, Animal Kingdom and the Disney Studios were Merge into the three remaining Hubs. The Epcot Hub now runs the Animal Kingdom and the Downtown Disney Hub now runs the Disney Hollywood Studios. Disney is doing this in another cost cutting move design to shrink the overall bus system. Unfortunately for Disney and its management it hasn’t work, as there have been allot of major complaints from the guest, mostly from the Downtown Disney Hub about Slow service, The routes are now much Longer sometimes taking up to two hours to do with 8 legs into the route.

But there is a weird side-affect its now a little easier to get from Disney Hollywood Studios to Downtown Disney all you have to do is to get on the bus at the Studios and it will eventually end up at Downtown Disney (after stopping at a Disney Resort first). So make sure you allow more time to get around at WDW, there are other changes too, but there are too many to list, at least not at this time anyway.

[fla4fun]

I'm a little confused . . .Does this mean that you have to go through DTD to go to and from your resort and DHS? Do you change buses?

I read a post recently about changes to bus transportation, but it implied that the way the buses were being dispatched and routed was changing, but nothing about combining routes. A big advantage to staying in the Epcot resorts area was the ability to easily reach any resort by going to DHS and catching a bus. Anyone with some recent experience?

[seashoreCM]

No, your resort still has direct service to Disney Hollywood Studios.

The difference is that going from Studios to Downtown Disney, when you do the required connection at a resort, the wait for the bus to DTD is often negligible because the same bus you took from Studios to the connection point goes to DTD next.

But the above is not meant to be advertised. It is just coincidental because of the routings, and may change again any time.

[ztbz]

Here is a List of Routes that I did that started at Downtown Disney, Now this doesnt mean that the routes will do this all the time, best bet is to ask the bus driver when getting on one of these bus routes, they should be able to tell you whether or not they will eventually get to downtown disney (The driver has to be working at downtown disney).

Downtown Disney = DTD.
Disney Hollywood Studios = Studios.
Animal Kingdom = AK.

Pop Centry (POP): DTD to POP to Studios to POP to DTD.
Charibean Beach (CBR): DTD to CBR to Studios to CBR to DTD.
Port Orleans (Port): DTD to Port to Studios to Port to DTD.
All Star Resorts (AS): DTD to AS to Studios to AS to DTD.

Note: only the above routes are the one that I know do this so if the resort is not listed, its either it doesnt go to DTD or I havent driven the route yet.

One Note: I drove one route to Animal Kingdom that went on to Downtown Disney and that is the Fort Wilderness route from the Outpost stop (Not Wilderness Lodge).

Fort Wilderness (Fort): DTD to Fort to AK to Fort to DTD.

I was told that the Magic Kingdom does not share the routes so if your at the Magic Kingdom you will still have to Change buses at a Disney Resort.

As Far as Epcot goes, I havent driven any routes that went to Epcot so its likely going to be you will have to go to a resort as well.

Park to Park routes will still not go to Downtown Disney.

What this does is it wil save you the time that normaly you would have to get off at a Resort and wait between 20 to 30 mins for the next route to come and pick you up. What it does not do is take you directly from the Studios or in the case of the one route at AK to Downtown Disney directly.

[Disneykidz]

This is confusing to me. Anyone know if the unofficial guide will be updating their transportation times chart to reflect all this soon? I'm hoping it will make it into their next printed book, but will they post updates on their website?

[ztbz]

You will not find this info in any official or unofficial guides, plus this is only a week old, Sorry this is only based on my experiince driving the disney buses, if you get confused I can't help you.

[Disneykidz]

Originally Posted by ztbz

You will not find this info in any official or unofficial guides, plus this is only a week old, Sorry this is only based on my experiince driving the disney buses, if you get confused I can't help you.

I'm glad you posted. It's not confusing if I stop to think about it.

I just like the handy format the unofficial guide which is basically a chart showing how long it takes in minutes to get from one wdw spot to another using disney transportation and using a car. I"m confident they'll update time estimates in the print version of their book. I was just looking at their site and I don't think updated info will appear there--seems to focus more on touring plans.

[fla4fun]

Originally Posted by Disneykidz

I'm glad you posted. It's not confusing if I stop to think about it.

I just like the handy format the unofficial guide which is basically a chart showing how long it takes in minutes to get from one wdw spot to another using disney transportation and using a car. I"m confident they'll update time estimates in the print version of their book. I was just looking at their site and I don't think updated info will appear there--seems to focus more on touring plans.

Isn't the whole point of these changes to make the bus system more fluid, so they can redirect buses at a moment's notice? I would think that would make it very difficult to put anything in print involving the buses other than maybe writing that a bus would come approximately xx number of minutes.

Personally, I prefer buses that are on a set route and schedule and stay on that route and schedule throughout the day. Nothing worse than getting on a bus, realizing you've forgotten something, and then your bus gets re-routed so you have to change buses to get back where you started. But if it helps with backlogs during the peak times of day, I'm all about change.

[simzac]

I don't see where this is a big change at all. Buses will still go from the resorts to a park or DTD, then back to a resort. No buses will go from a park to DTD. This is how the system has worked for sometime. The reason I see for complaints from guests is that the resorts are running at near 100% capacity year round, thus causing an overload on the transportation system. Having your own car is always an option. JMO

[ztbz]

Personally, I prefer buses that are on a set route and schedule and stay on that route and schedule throughout the day.

I also prefer this too. but Disney would have to have more buses and more drivers to do it the old way.

Nothing worse than getting on a bus, realizing you've forgotten something, and then your bus gets re-routed so you have to change buses to get back where you started.

This is the BIG Disadvantage to this new system and Disney is getting alot of complanits on it too.

The other problem is that, the buses also follow one another doing the same route, so you could see a bus pull into a Load Zone follow by another bus then another before one comes for you and the route that you want.

[spiceycat]

the bus driver use to change drivers at DTD - did you ride other buses doing different times - to verify this change?

if when you were checking - was it all the same time (then it could easily be their break - when they change drivers)

looks like they are listening. several of us have complainted about being on the DTD bus going back to our resort when the bus got rerouted.

one time got left at DTD for hours - because the bus was rerouted.

sounds like now the DTD bus and Studio bus are the same and will NOT be rerouted. this is great news!

[CarolA]

Maybe it's just me, but generally the DIS whines louder and harder then anyone So if I don't see whining on here I just don't worry about a change.

And I don't get the difference. I know that buses have not always followed a route that was exactly the same. For example I took a Bus to DTD in the morning, but it was not returning to the resort it was going someplace else after dropping me off and this was several years ago.

[Jenna45]

We just got back on Friday, from Music and we saw this several times were the buses would end up arriving twice at the same time, many times, the other change we saw ( which is maybe not new) is that the drivers were getting codes from people which redirected the buses, like we were dropped at MK and that bus was changing to BC and when we were dropped at DHS it changed to POP and another time we were coming back from AK and that changed to EPCOT.... So it is a little screwy but overall some of the waits seemed to decrease while our waits at DHS and AK seemed to be the longest

Originally Posted by ztbz

I also prefer this too. but Disney would have to have more buses and more drivers to do it the old way.



This is the BIG Disadvantage to this new system and Disney is getting alot of complanits on it too.

The other problem is that, the buses also follow one another doing the same route, so you could see a bus pull into a Load Zone follow by another bus then another before one comes for you and the route that you want.