A question about transportation

[goofyernmost]

Drive everywhere including the Magic Kingdom. Faster, more convenient, and no one dictates your schedule.

AK to DD is about the farthest 2 points from each other and thats only about 20-25 minutes unless theres a lot of traffic.

WDW is very easy to negotiate, there are signs everywhere, and even if you make a wrong turn all roads lead back to Disney.

Absolutely

 

[kymom99]

This is incorrect. There is some form of transportation that will allow you to get from park to park without transferring (except for travel to/from the MK, which requires a transfer at the TTC).

DHS <--> Epcot (Main Entrance): Bus
DHS <--> Epcot (International Gateway: Boat or walk
DHS <--> AK: Bus
Epcot <--> AK: Bus
Epcot <--> MK: Monorail w/ change at the TTC
DHS <--> MK (TTC): Bus
AK <--> MK (TTC): Bus

There is no direct resort-to-resort transportation (with the exception of among the monorail resorts, CR-WL/FW via boat, and among the Epcot resorts) and no park-to-DTD transportation.

So if I walk out of Epcot I can find a bus stop marked AK? Been there 4 times. Only rode busses. Never seen this. TTC is not a park. And I'm not talking about the monorail.

Not to be snippy or anything...just sayin'!

 

[redrosesix]

Plus the bus ride from Magic Kingdom to All Star Resorts took 30 minutes vs the 10 minute it took us to drive there the next day.

Holy Crow! if your van can get you from the all stars to MK in 10 minutes I want to get one just like it

Not sure if this was mentioned before in your other thread, but there is no bus transportation between parks.

There has always been bus transportation between the parks when we were there - did they stop this?

You REALLY need an Unofficial Guide.

Driving is faster except for driving to the Magic Kingdom. However, the nightmare of waiting at the MK for a bus or boat at closing will have you wishing you'd driven.

I'd allow about an hour to park hop, but I've done it in less. It also depends on what you're talking about...do you mean from exit to entrance or from the far end of one park to the parking spot in the next?

I would NEVER, EVER hop just to eat. Sounds fun at home but turns into a major pain when there. You didn't say you were planning that, but loads of newbies do...and it's just a bad idea.

I agree with most of this, except I have an older child ie. too old to be carried - we've never waited more than 10 minutes for a bus at park closing (perhaps because we're there at a busy time of the year) so waiting for the bus is about the same for us as waiting for the parking tram.

Park hopping just to eat would be such a drag - I'll bet those newbies cancel those ADR's after the very first attempt

 

[livndisney]

So if I walk out of Epcot I can find a bus stop marked AK? Been there 4 times. Only rode busses. Never seen this. TTC is not a park. And I'm not talking about the monorail.

Not to be snippy or anything...just sayin'!

Saw one yesterday. And a bus at Studios marked Epcot and another one marked TTC. Been this way for years.

You can get from park to park with the exception of MK. Mk to another park requires a trip to the TTC. Buses to the other parks are available at the TTC in the same parking lot as the Shades of Green and Lynx buses.

 

[livndisney]

Holy Crow! if your van can get you from the all stars to MK in 10 minutes I want to get one just like it

I won't say 10 minutes, but we have watched the 3pm parade on Main Street, rode the boat to the TTC hopped in the car and were "home" by 4pm.

 

[figment_jii]

There should have been since Boardwalk Inn is a resort. You just have to get off at the resort and walk to the Boardwalk area.

And there is park to park busses. There is no resort to resort OR DTD to parks transportation.

From Epcot there are no buses that run to the five Epcot area resorts (Yacht, Beach, Boardwalk, Swan, and Dolphin). It is assumed that guests staying at these resorts can just walk into Epcot via International Gateway.

I am not sure, but I don't think there are buses to DHS from these five resorts either because they can be accessed via the Friendship boats.

There are buses that run to Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom from Epcot. I did not see a bus sign for Magic Kingdom, but my photos are from 2009 (things might have changed).

 

[goofy4tink]

Not sure if this was mentioned before in your other thread, but there is no bus transportation between parks. CMs are very helpful if you want to know the best way to go between parks. Don't make the mistake we made on our last trip. We took a bus from our resort to Epcot in an effort to get to the Boardwalk. We were planning to transfer to a Boardwalk bus from Epcot, because the Epcot bus got there first (we were going to take Epcot or HS). We had parkhoppers, but our traveling companions did not and we had already been to a different park that day so they could not cut thru the park to the International Gateway. There was no bus to the Boardwalk from Epcot. It was very frustrating. I think we ended up taking the boat to HS and on to the Boardwalk from there. We wasted a lot of time on that little outing.

Also, my DH would not let me drive to DTD because he swore parking would be bad, but it wasn't. We took the bus there and coming back we took the boat to POFQ then caught a bus to the park we wanted to visit. We had stayed at FQ on our last trip and I wanted to visit again anyway, so it worked out. If we drove, I probably wouldn't have gotten to go there, so it's all good.

Also, if you have a GPS, it takes a lot of the guesswork out of it.

Um....there are indeed buses from park to park. When at MK (or heading there from another park) you do have to go to the TTC first and then head to MK from there . But all other parks run buses to the other parks.
Did you research the bus system before you went to WDW??? There are seldom buses that run between Epcot and YC/BC/BW and S/D. It would be very unusual for there to be a bus running between them. There is a boat as well as ability to walk. You said you thought you remembered taking the boat to DHS and then from there to BW?? Makes no sense. You have to enter Epcot in order to get to the boats that run to DHS as well as YC/BC, BW and S/D. The boat dock is at the International Gateway. So, perhaps you took the bus to DHS from Epcot and then the boat to BW...that would make sense.
I'm sorry you had so much trouble with the transportation. I wish you had stopped off over on the Transportation Board...so much terrific info there.

 

[goofy4tink]

From Epcot there are no buses that run to the five Epcot area resorts (Yacht, Beach, Boardwalk, Swan, and Dolphin). It is assumed that guests staying at these resorts can just walk into Epcot via International Gateway.

I am not sure, but I don't think there are buses to DHS from these five resorts either because they can be accessed via the Friendship boats.

There are buses that run to Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom from Epcot. I did not see a bus sign for Magic Kingdom, but my photos are from 2009 (things might have changed).

You are 100% on target regarding buses to and from the Epcot resorts to both Epcot and DHS...they just don't run very often. It would be a very unusual situation if there were to be buses running those routes.

In order to get to MK from Epcot, you take the monorail. There are buses to AK and DHS from Epcot. At DHS there are buses to AK, Epcot and the TTC, where you would take either the monorail or ferry to MK. AK has buses to DHS, Epcot, TTC. MK has the monorail or ferry over to the TTC where you can get a bus to DHS or AK and the monorail to Epcot.
It's all very easy.

 

[kymom99]

Well shoot, I'm all backward. I guess I never tried going from AK to Epcot or any of those other possibilities. We usually went back to the room to swim then hopped to another park. Most of my experience is with MK as this is our fav park. Where are the bus stops for connecting parks? Are they beyond the resort stops? Maybe that would be why I never noticed. I wouldn't really have been looking for them. I must have been thinking of the resort to resort thing.

(I'm a little slow picking up on things sometimes. It took me 3 trips to figure out that fastpasses can be used outside the window on the ticket. )

At Epcot we took a bus to HS, not a boat. My bad. The memory gets foggy. When we went from HS to Epcot on SWW we took the boat. My point I guess was that there are some quirks with the transportation system that may surprise you if you try to do something at the spur of the moment.

 

[figment_jii]

Where are the bus stops for connecting parks? Are they beyond the resort stops? Maybe that would be why I never noticed. I wouldn't really have been looking for them. I must have been thinking of the resort to resort thing.

At both Epcot and AK, the park-to-park buses are in the same area as the resort buses. Here are a couple of signs from 2009. The name plates are moveable, so things do change (the stops numbers were different in 2007 from 2009 - based on pictures I have from 2007), but overall, I think the buses for the parks leave from the same general area as the resort buses (except perhaps at MK where the resort buses are at MK and the park buses might be over at the TTC).

Animal Kingdom:

Epcot, Sign 1:

Epcot, Sign 2:

As others have said, the only time I've seen a bus running from Epcot to Magic Kingdom (TTC), was when the monorail from Epcot to the TTC was down.

Sorry, I don't have pictures of the signs at the TTC or DHS.

 

[goofy4tink]

Well shoot, I'm all backward. I guess I never tried going from AK to Epcot or any of those other possibilities. We usually went back to the room to swim then hopped to another park. Most of my experience is with MK as this is our fav park. Where are the bus stops for connecting parks? Are they beyond the resort stops? Maybe that would be why I never noticed. I wouldn't really have been looking for them. I must have been thinking of the resort to resort thing.
(I'm a little slow picking up on things sometimes. It took me 3 trips to figure out that fastpasses can be used outside the window on the ticket. )

At Epcot we took a bus to HS, not a boat. My bad. The memory gets foggy. When we went from HS to Epcot on SWW we took the boat. My point I guess was that there are some quirks with the transportation system that may surprise you if you try to do something at the spur of the moment.

As I said, you have to go to the TTC to get service to the other parks, from MK. Only resort buses stop at the MK bus stops, close to the park entrance. That is why you have never seen any park buses at MK. You need to take either the ferry or monorail over to the TTC.
From there you can get the monorail to Epcot, or a bus to AK or DHS. The TTC is where most offsite buses will drop their passengers off...then they take various Disney transportation to the park they want to go to.