1 Hour Travel Time?

[MillauFr]

I started reading these boards and it seems like many people recommend to allow for 45 - 60 minutes to travel between some hotels, the parks, and/or downtown Disney. Does it really take that long? I guess I am used to Disneyland where I can stay at a offsite hotel and walk from my hotel room to the front gate in 10 minutes.

Is walking an option? Do they have walking paths? I would prefer not to wait around for buses if there are other options.

 

[maxiesmom]

Disney actually recommends 90 minutes to get from point A to point B using their transportation. And if you hit a traffic snarl it can take that long.

There are very few instances where walking is an option at WDW. For example, you can walk between the Magic Kingdom and the Contemporary resort. But those kinds of scenarios are few and far between. You usually have to use a bus/boat/monorail/car to get around at WDW.

 

[Alesia]

WDW is much bigger than DL. The entire property is roughly the same size as San Francisco.

Generally speaking, estimating an hour when traveling between resorts and parks and 90 minutes when traveling between 2 resorts is a good rule of thumb - it's not going to take that long, but it gives you enough padding in case things take longer than they should.

Walking is sometimes an option. It really just depends on where you are and where you want to be. My advice would be to familiarize yourself with maps of the property. It's much easier to answer specific questions about how to get for one particular place to another.

 

[siskaren]

60 minutes isn't the travel time (well, if you define the travel time as the time you're actually on the bus, monorail, boat, etc. ), it includes waiting for the mode of transportation. Buses (or any other mode of transportation) are unlikely to be sitting there waiting when you walk up.

 

[GaBelle]

Wdw is so spread out...theres no way to walk everywhere you want to go. Yes you can walk some places: Epcot to Hollywood Studios, CR to MK. But really no way to walk from say AK to DTD.

 

[Surfinpiratee]

From people's TR I've been reading, it doesn't seem to take that long. But like someone else said, it's also waiting for the busses, which from what I've read can be like, 15-20 mins

 

[GaBelle]

From people's TR I've been reading, it doesn't seem to take that long. But like someone else said, it's also waiting for the busses, which from what I've read can be like, 15-20 mins

That and if the resort busses are "shared".

 

[Tara]

Yep, it can take a while. The 60-90 minute estimates are sort of "worst case scenarios." Say you arrive at the bus stop and a bus has just pulled away. It might be 20 minutes before another one arrives. (And it could be more if things aren't running smoothly.) Once it arrives, it still has to unload...if there are scooters, this could take a few minutes. And loading can sometimes take a while, too, for the same reasons. Once you're on the bus, the stops depend on where you're going. If you're at a park and going to a resort, that resort could share services with other resorts and you might stop at those first. Factor in waiting for unloading and loading at each stop. For instance, if you're at Animal Kingdom and going to the Grand Floridian, that bus will usually stop at the Contemporary and Polynesian first.

If you're going from resort to resort, you are going to have to transfer somewhere in almost every case, so take the above and double it. (Again, worst case.)

In general, the WDW property is not walkable. In a few areas there are sidewalks along roadways, but not many. Some resorts are positioned so that they are walkable to parks (you can walk from the Contemporary to Magic Kingdom and from the Boardwalk, Beach/Yacht and Swan/Dolphin to Epcot and Studios), but that's it. Some resorts are connected by walkways - you can walk from Grand Floridian to the Polynesian, Animal Kingdom Lodge's Jambo House and Kidani Village, or between the three All-Star resorts. You can also walk from the All-Star Resorts to Blizzard Beach and McDonald's. There is a walkway from Saratoga Springs to Downtown Disney...two, actually, but one is closing for DTD construction.

 

[MillauFr]

it's also waiting for the busses, which from what I've read can be like, 15-20 mins

Sounds good. Do you know if they have apps for your phone telling you when the next bus will show up? In Seattle they have something called One Bus Away and it will tell the number of minutes until the next bus shows up at your stop. The bus schedules are generally useless during rush hour due to traffic.

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

Sounds good. Do you know if they have apps for your phone telling you when the next bus will show up? In Seattle they have something called One Bus Away and it will tell the number of minutes until the next bus shows up at your stop. The bus schedules are generally useless during rush hour due to traffic.

Unfortunately, there's no smartphone app and there are no video screens announcing wait times until buses arrive.*

[* Last year, Disney started a display panel test at the Grand Floridian Resort bus stop with wait times for buses, but I don't know the status of the test or any roll-out plans.]

Unfortunately, the WDW bus system is not as sophisticated as it should be. In theory, you should wait no more than 20 minutes for a bus. Usually, the wait is much less than that. But then you might run into a problem such as a large crowd waiting close to a half hour for a Magic Kingdom bus, while numerous buses to Animal Kingdom and Downtown Disney arrive -- including three buses to Animal Kingdom within five minutes of each other (happened to me on my most recent stay at BWV).

 

[mrsclark]

DH and I always go in September and I am not sure if it is because it is the "low" season that perhaps less buses are running, but in the last two years, we generally waited 15-45 minutes for a bus. The worst wait at BC seems to be for MK (40+ minute wait for MK has happened to us at least twice in the last two years), so we always allow PLENTY of time to wait for a bus when figuring out when we should leave for an ADR, for example. If we get somewhere early or walk up just as a bus is arriving then that is a bonus!

 

[DebbieB]

It once took me 1 hour 15 min between AKV Kidani and Fort Wilderness, late afternoon. Bus to MK (waited a long time), got to MK, just missed the boat to FW.

 

[Alesia]

Sounds good. Do you know if they have apps for your phone telling you when the next bus will show up? In Seattle they have something called One Bus Away and it will tell the number of minutes until the next bus shows up at your stop. The bus schedules are generally useless during rush hour due to traffic.

Buses run continually every 20 to 30 minutes.

 

[MillauFr]

Unfortunately, there's no smartphone app and there are no video screens announcing wait times until buses arrive.

Thanks for the info. I guess Disney just needs to get on the ball and develop one. If a couple of my fellow grad students at the University of Washington could develop the OneBusAway app I don't see why Disney couldn't do the same.

 

[Jestocost]

Thanks for the info. I guess Disney just needs to get on the ball and develop one. If a couple of my fellow grad students at the University of Washington could develop the OneBusAway app I don't see why Disney couldn't do the same.

Scout around these boards for posts about the various Disney IT endeavors and you may start to understand.

 

[MillauFr]

Scout around these boards for posts about the various Disney IT endeavors and you may start to understand.

So in other words their IT department isn't a well oiled machine like Google or Amazon? I think I'll give my former classmate a call. She is a professor at Georgia Tech now. She has expanded the transit information app from Seattle to Atlanta and Tampa. Maybe she could pump Disney for some research funding and get some grad students to help out Disney.

 

[Tara]

So in other words their IT department isn't a well oiled machine like Google or Amazon? I think I'll give my former classmate a call. She is a professor at Georgia Tech now. She has expanded the transit information app from Seattle to Atlanta and Tampa. Maybe she could pump Disney for some research funding and get some grad students to help out Disney.

I'm guessing if it were something Disney wanted to make run better, it would. It's a free transportation system and works fairly well given the parameters. Their dollars are better spent in other improvements, IMO.

 

[Alesia]

So in other words their IT department isn't a well oiled machine like Google or Amazon? I think I'll give my former classmate a call. She is a professor at Georgia Tech now. She has expanded the transit information app from Seattle to Atlanta and Tampa. Maybe she could pump Disney for some research funding and get some grad students to help out Disney.

I doubt that Disney is eager to spend a lot of money on complicating something that already runs pretty smoothly.

 

[MillauFr]

I doubt that Disney is eager to spend a lot of money on complicating something that already runs pretty smoothly.

Providing transit information does not take much money.

Running smoothly? 30 minutes to travel 3 miles? I could almost walk that fast. Only 1 bus every 20 minutes? I guess it depends on your perspective. If the transit agencies in Seattle only ran buses every 20 minutes and didn't offer any apps to let you know when the bus was going to show up the CEO would be fired. I am used to having an express bus show up 1 block from my house every 7 to 8 minutes and only take 25 minutes to travel 7 miles from my house to downtown. During rush hours the bus is even faster.

If Disney had better planning when designing the resort it would have taken no more than 10 - 15 minutes from any hotel room to the front gate at any of the parks.

 

[sam_gordon]

Providing transit information does not take much money.

Running smoothly? 30 minutes to travel 3 miles? I could almost walk that fast. Only 1 bus every 20 minutes? I guess it depends on your perspective. If the transit agencies in Seattle only ran buses every 20 minutes and didn't offer any apps to let you know when the bus was going to show up the CEO would be fired. I am used to having an express bus show up 1 block from my house every 7 to 8 minutes and only take 25 minutes to travel 7 miles from my house to downtown. During rush hours the bus is even faster.

If Disney had better planning when designing the resort it would have taken no more than 10 - 15 minutes from any hotel room to the front gate at any of the parks.

While your intentions are good, I think your expectations are too high. A city bus system (as I understand it) is going to get you from point A to point B using the same route (sometimes with intermediate stops, sometimes not-Express). If you want to go from point A to point C, that would require a transfer.

At Disney, you'll have five busses serving point A... one to each of the parks, and one to DTD.

Also, the dispatchers might change a bus's route as it pulls up to a resort. Let's say the driver has been going POR to AK all day. They decide they need another bus to service MK & CS. They'll change the route.

While I appreciate wanting an app to help say when the next bus is, and the fact that cities are already doing it, Disney is not a city, and the busses don't operate like city busses.