Bus Travel - Crazy Idea?

[Langley23]

Doing some early planning/investigation for our upcoming trip to WDW, aiming for sometime in January 2012 but nothing set in stone. Drove down the past few times from Appleton, WI to our resort (DVC members) and have had pretty good luck so far. Now, we are taking a different group with us (2 Adults and 2, maybe 3 children). Given budget and prices, looking into all options. Amtrak is out due to price and right now no airlines have schedules, let alone pricing, for that far out; I have airfare watchers going and scanning ads from all the carriers in my area for prices and deals.

In the meantime, looking at possibly taking the Greyhound bus down. Less than $200 round trip/person. Never tried this before and not sure if I really want to go there with a new group but I think it would be "fun" to try. Just curious if anyone else has tried this and any thoughts or stories they would like to share.

My biggest concern/area of interest is how to get from Kissimmee bus terminal to our Disney Resort given size of group, 6-7 total if you include my wife and myself. Any ideas on options or costs to get from Kissimmee terminal to probably OKW resort? Just looking for ballpark figures and thoughts.

Thanks!

 

[dishguy1977]

I didn't pay much more than $200/person for flights from Buffalo to Orlando so I can't imagine paying almost that much for a bus and travelling 20+ hours!! The Southwest site says they will be opening there schedule through Jan 6, 2012 at the end of May so the rest of January can't be too far behind that. I would suggest trying to book as soon as the schedule opens up for your dates and you will probably get a fairly decent rate and if it goes down they will give you a credit.

On another note, I have gone the first week of January before and it was great! Christmas decorations and the Osborne lights were still up and we lucked out with beautiful weather. I think the most we waited for a ride was 15 minutes!!

 

[malibuconlee]

Not me personally, and a totally different trip/route...

However a friend recently took a bus from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas. There was a person smoking on the bus and they stopped. Turned out that person was smoking crack cocaine and I can't recall how many but I know at least 2 were arrested for drug possession. They were stopped for several hours during all of this. Drug dogs searching the bus, luggage, etc.

He did take the bus back home and I didn't hear of anything happening on the way home, but not sure it's something I would want to do if I could avoid it.

 

[Langley23]

Thanks! Just trying to get some ideas. I agree that flying would be my preferred way to travel but given travel time to nearest "big" town (Milwaukee), parking fees, luggage fees (but free transportation from MCO to our Disney resort) versus leaving from two blocks from where I work and none of that TSA crud, bus travel was an option that I wanted to check into.

Hopefully Southwest or Frontier will have some good deals, but given group size not looking forward to possibly having to deal with Group Travel services, again.

If anyone else has any recent bus travel stories or information on transportation from bus depot to resort, please feel free to add them on.

Thanks!