Transportation

[lionfan]

We will be staying at All-Star Music in July. Should we use the Disney Shuttle service each day or drive to each park? How crowed are the buses and is there a long wait during the summer months?

 

[goofy4tink]

to the DIS boards!!!
You will find WDW to be pretty crowded during the summer months, as well as hot and hugely humid!! But, I've gone in August and will be going back this August, so how bad can it be??!!
Anyway.....AllStar Music will share the buses with AllStar Sports, and sometimes with Movies. Movies will pretty much have their own bus at park opening/closing, leaving the other two resorts to share. A lot of people use the buses and find it works very well. The buses run every 15-20 mins or so. So, if you get to the bus stop and the bus to MK is just pulling away, don't panic...another will be there soon.
As far as driving to the parks vs taking the bus.....you can do that easily at the majority of the parks. If you are going to MK though, you are much better off using the bus. If you drive, you will have to park at the TTC, then take a tram to the monorail/ferry, then take whichever one to MK...it can be very time consuming. Much better to take the bus that drops you right at the entrance....well, pretty close to the entrance.

If you try to get to parks for park opening, or out of them at park closing,then the buses will be crowded. But, they aren't too bad at the less traveled times of day.

 

[jimmiej]

I'm directionally challenged, so I prefer to use Disney transportation. I've always found it to be timely & efficient, with one exception. I haven't been to Downtown Disney once that I haven't waited longer than normal for a bus. JMO.

 

[goofy4tink]

I'm directionally challenged, so I prefer to use Disney transportation. I've always found it to be timely & efficient, with one exception. I haven't been to Downtown Disney once that I haven't waited longer than normal for a bus. JMO.

Thanks for mentioning that. I have also found the buses to, and from, DTD to be a bit on the less frequent side!!! And it makes no difference what resort I'm staying at. Well, unless you figure that if I'm staying at POP, that's when the buses going to BW seem to be always arriving, but if I'm at BW, it's the POP buses that are more frequent...go figure.

 

[drogerstn]

:...the bus to MK is just pulling away, don't panic...another will be there soon.
As far as driving to the parks vs taking the bus.....you can do that easily at the majority of the parks. If you are going to MK though, you are much better off using the bus. If you drive, you will have to park at the TTC, then take a tram to the monorail/ferry, then take whichever one to MK...it can be very time consuming. Much better to take the bus that drops you right at the entrance....well, pretty close to the entrance.

....

This had been our "policy" during our earlier visits to WDW. However, during our visit last summer (June'06), we visited the MK several times parking our car at TTC. We found this to work out just as good as or better than taking resort bus transportation on several occasions.

The 1st time we did this was because we were out in the car near the MK on an afternoon and planned to visit MK so we didn't bother going back to the resort (POR). Leaving at night wasn't so bad because we could walk to the car after catching a ride to TTC from the MK; the line and wait for a bus back to the resort at park closing was longer than catching the monorail to TTC and then getting our car.

If we plan to visit MK early in the morning and return to the resort mid-day or go to another park, we will probably use the resort bus.

 

[PrincessMinnie28]

If you have the option of a car, I highly recommend using it whenever you can. DBF and I had a rental for our trip in May and I can't even tell you how much time we saved. I am also normally a little rough with directions, but I found it very difficult to get lost... there are signs everywhere on the WDW roads. We didn't even attempt to ride the buses, but we rode the monorail one time because DBF had never been on it before and we both sat there the entire time looking out the window at all the cars going on their merry ways while we were stuck in the snail mobile. Again, if your budget allows, I would suggest getting a car.