AKL bus service

[justhat]

I must be the only one who disagrees, but we stayed at AKL 12/27-12/31 and we had really horrible luck with the transportation, so much so that we were very hesitant to go back there Wednesday (in fact we haven't told my mom what resort we're staying at because we were afraid she wouldn't want to go!). We never waited less than 20 minutes for a bus to go to a park, at any time of the day, and the average time was 25-30 minutes. For EE on NYE, we waited over 45 minutes for a bus to MGM and ended up arriving at MGM at 7:50, 10 minutes before regular park opening, because once a bus did come, it had to stop at AK to pick up people at the parking lot before proceeding to MGM. There were 2 CMs with clipboards out there who knew nothing about when a bus was coming or why it was taking so long, which didn't do much for all the guests who were standing in line since about 6:40am. Also, on 12/30, we had a PS in Bistro de Paris at 6:15, so we went to wait for the Epcot bus from AKL at 5pm. The bus showed up with people on it a little after 6pm and we noticed some didn't get off. Well once we got on we realized it was because they had parked at AK so we had to go there and drop them off. Then we returned to AKL to drop people who got on at AK and then waited to see if anyone else was coming at AKL. We didn't get to Epcot till about 6:40 and then had to walk to France, so we were very, very late for our PS. They seated us, though they were annoyed, and didn't seem to care about our bus situation. We moved to the GF on 12/31 and found the bus service to be much better, with the CM asking where we were going every time we went out to get a bus and one arrived within 5 minutes each time. Since we had read such good reviews about AKL transportation, we were hoping then (and still are) that it was just a fluke and that things will be better this time, but it was sorta scary to think that during the busiest days of the year, we had to wait that long for buses.

 

[TDC Nala]

I've stayed at AKL five times and the only time I had bus problems was on the last trip, over the 4th of July weekend. Had several 30 minute waits for buses (once to Animal Kingdom, and you'd think they could drive that in 10 minutes or less) although one wait was because the bus got into an accident trying to exit Blizzard Beach (it was still there when we rode in on what was probably a backup bus). At Magic Kingdom we watched three Riverside buses come and go before one came for AKL.

Other than that one trip, I've recommended AKL for the bus service, which is direct to most everywhere and does not share with other resorts. The buses home from Pleasure Island have always been pretty quick...


maybe it's a holiday thing.