Beginning to budget - transportation questions!

[elphie101]

Hello DISBrides! After years of lurking I can finally starting posting here as we begin to plan a DFTW! (Before anyone asks, I have read Carrie's book and listened to the podcast )

We're trying to pencil sketch a budget right now to see what is and isn't possible, and mainly how many people we can afford to have. We REALLY want an Epcot ceremony, so of course the transportation monster has to rear it's ugly (and expensive) head.

We're working with an estimated maximum of 80 guests , so I'm playing around with the motor coaches. I'm hoping for an ADH reception. I'm thinking, hypothetically, that our guests would probably only be in 2 resorts. So tell me if the hypothetical plan would work out or if it's just wishful thinking:

We could have one coach as a round trip from Beach Club to Epcot, then back to Beach Club. We then do several one-ways: one from Pop to Epcot, one from Epcot to ADH, and the finally from ADH back to Pop. I'm thinking people could get themselves from Beach Club to ADH, which I'm sure is probably some social faux pas but the charter is just so. much. money.

Am I crazy? Would DFTW take one look at this idea and make me go charter? I seriously doubt we'll actually have 80 people but since we're in the very beginning stages of planning money-wise I figured we should plan for the worst (or most expensive).

Appreciate the help

 

[lurkyloo]

Disney definitely would prefer it if you just had two chartered motor coaches for 80 people cuz it's easier to figure out. If you could get your guest count down to 55, you could use just one motor coach—how many people are invited, and where are most of them traveling from? That might give an idea of how many will actually attend. (Like if you said 80 was the number of invites and everyone lives in the Midwest or on the West Coast, I'd estimate your actual guest list would shake out to be 50 or fewer.)

 

[elphie101]

Thanks lurkyloo! We're trying our darndest to get it down to 100 invites (working three large Polish, Italian and Irish families) but 90% of our guest list lives up in Boston with us, so we're realistically thinking we'll end up with anywhere from 50-70. I know 100% of them coming is completely unrealistic, but I just figured having 80 people there was the worst possible scenario.

 

[lurkyloo]

We could have one coach as a round trip from Beach Club to Epcot, then back to Beach Club. We then do several one-ways: one from Pop to Epcot, one from Epcot to ADH, and the finally from ADH back to Pop. I'm thinking people could get themselves from Beach Club to ADH, which I'm sure is probably some social faux pas but the charter is just so. much. money.

OK, so, if I'm understanding this plan correctly, after the ceremony, some of your guests would get transported straight from Epcot to ADH, while others would be dropped back at the Beach Club and have to walk all the way to ADH or take a Friendship Boat to the BoardWalk dock and walk from there? I have this mental image of all 80 guests all fighting desperately to get on the one bus that's making a direct trip to ADH as if it's the last escape pod leaving the Death Star....

I'd have to break out my calculator and sit down with the transportation chart in the PassPorter, but it seems like the easiest and most guest-friendly way to do it would be to get one motorcoach and one mini bus that will take everyone into Epcot and everyone over to Atlantic Dance Hall. Whether it's cheaper to do a combo of charters and round trips, or maybe ditch the motorcoach after it drops everyone off at ADH (if possible, though there's that 5-hour minimum) and just keep the mini bus running through the end of the event, well, that's where the calculator comes in...

 

[elphie101]

OK, so, if I'm understanding this plan correctly, after the ceremony, some of your guests would get transported straight from Epcot to ADH, while others would be dropped back at the Beach Club and have to walk all the way to ADH or take a Friendship Boat to the BoardWalk dock and walk from there? I have this mental image of all 80 guests all fighting desperately to get on the one bus that's making a direct trip to ADH as if it's the last escape pod leaving the Death Star....

I'd have to break out my calculator and sit down with the transportation chart in the PassPorter, but it seems like the easiest and most guest-friendly way to do it would be to get one motorcoach and one mini bus that will take everyone into Epcot and everyone over to Atlantic Dance Hall. Whether it's cheaper to do a combo of charters and round trips, or maybe ditch the motorcoach after it drops everyone off at ADH (if possible, though there's that 5-hour minimum) and just keep the mini bus running through the end of the event, well, that's where the calculator comes in...

I realize the whole proposal in the first place is pretty much the opposite of guest friendly, but we're very much in the half-crazed 'can we even afford this?' stage of things. Hopefully we'll find a magic transportation-guest-budget number we can work with!!

 

[lurkyloo]

I remember that stage....

 

[rrali33tt]

Disney definitely would prefer it if you just had two chartered motor coaches for 80 people cuz it's easier to figure out. If you could get your guest count down to 55, you could use just one motor coach—how many people are invited, and where are most of them traveling from? That might give an idea of how many will actually attend. (Like if you said 80 was the number of invites and everyone lives in the Midwest or on the West Coast, I'd estimate your actual guest list would shake out to be 50 or fewer.)

I am inviting 145 people to my wedding , 135 of them live in NY & NJ and will be travelling to Florida. For budgeting purposes I am assuming 100% attendance. So if I have over 110 people , I have to get 3 motorcoaches for whatever minimum hours each? I thought i could just have one motorcoach and since it is a "charter" i could do whatever I wanted with it. For example, at another friends wedding , there was a shuttle pickup at 12 and 1230 for the ceremony. The bus then took the people to the reception. Now it seems like I have to triple my estimate?

My ceremony is at WP at 5pm then 6pm reception at Boardwalk. I wanted to pick everyone up from the hotel and drop off at ceremony, then take everyone over to BW. Then have resort departures from BW starting at 10pm and every half hour. Most of us will be going to Jellyrolls after.

it seems like I should just let everyone fend for themselves after its over?

 

[lurkyloo]

I thought i could just have one motorcoach and since it is a "charter" i could do whatever I wanted with it. For example, at another friends wedding , there was a shuttle pickup at 12 and 1230 for the ceremony. The bus then took the people to the reception. Now it seems like I have to triple my estimate?

No, that's a good point. If you don't mind having two-thirds of your guests dropped off early, one bus could theoretically make three trips to get folks for the ceremony. But, depending on the distances between points, it could be WAY early—WDW is a huge property to get around at bus speeds.

My ceremony is at WP at 5pm then 6pm reception at Boardwalk. I wanted to pick everyone up from the hotel and drop off at ceremony, then take everyone over to BW. Then have resort departures from BW starting at 10pm and every half hour. Most of us will be going to Jellyrolls after.

Is everyone staying at just one resort? Which resort?

it seems like I should just let everyone fend for themselves after its over?

Some people do this. I think it depends on how Disney-savvy your guests are. There's no resort-to-resort Disney transport, so they'll either have to get a boat to DHS (if it's still open) or a bus to Downtown Disney and change buses for the one to their resort. Or, you know, take a taxi.

 

[rrali33tt]

Is everyone staying at just one resort? Which resort?



Some people do this. I think it depends on how Disney-savvy your guests are. There's no resort-to-resort Disney transport, so they'll either have to get a boat to DHS (if it's still open) or a bus to Downtown Disney and change buses for the one to their resort. Or, you know, take a taxi.

I am blocking rooms at BW, POR and Pop. Obvi the people at Boardwalk dont need transpo, but I don't think many people will stay there so it s POR and Pop. I didn't want them to fend for themselves, but i sure as heck am not paying for 3 buses to take them all back! lol

I am 11 monhts out out but considering we are paying for hte wedding ourselves a solid budget is important so I save enough money each month over the next 11 months (and not give in to the nice new pair of shoes staring at me in the mall all the time LOL). Right now I only budgeted for 1 motorcoach for 8 hours and 5 one way vans . Once it gets closer and I know who is staying where I can adjust it, but tripling would be a lot.

 

[nickipoo2012]

sorry to hijack your thread but does anyone have any idea how many hours limo i would need to book to transport

groom and ushers (5 altogether) from saratoga springs to wedding pavillion

bridal party (9 altogether made up of 5 adults 4 kids) from saratoga springs to wedding pavillion

all wedding guests after the ceremony from wedding pavillion to whitehall room and patio (total 20 people)

bride and groom back to saratoga springs from whitehall room when reception finishes

is this allowed? would i need to book the limo for the whole day? thanks

 

[lurkyloo]

sorry to hijack your thread but does anyone have any idea how many hours limo i would need to book to transport

groom and ushers (5 altogether) from saratoga springs to wedding pavillion

bridal party (9 altogether made up of 5 adults 4 kids) from saratoga springs to wedding pavillion

all wedding guests after the ceremony from wedding pavillion to whitehall room and patio (total 20 people)

bride and groom back to saratoga springs from whitehall room when reception finishes

is this allowed? would i need to book the limo for the whole day? thanks

There are a few ways you could do this. You could charter one limo (holds 8) to make multiple trips for $93/hour with a 3-hour minimum, or make it a standard van (holds 11) and pay $72/hour with a 3-hour minimum.

Or you could get two luxury vans (holds 8) to take the bridal party, groom and ushers to the Wedding Pavilion for $40 one-way (per van), and then have everyone walk from the Wedding Pavilion to the Whitehall Room (it's about 7-10 minutes' walk). Then after the reception you could get a town car to take the bride and groom back to SSR for $30 one-way.

 

[nickipoo2012]

fab thank you so do you pay for the limo only for the time you use it or for the times you would need it from? For example, groom would probably go first at 11 and then our final trip would be when the reception finishes at 6, we wouldnt use the limo for 7 solid hours but would we still need to pay for 7 hours? your book is awesome by the way i bought it as soon as we decided on a disney wedding

 

[lurkyloo]

Glad to help! So the way you pay depends on which type of trip you ask for. If you charter the limo, that means you're paying an hourly rate to keep the limo around as long as you want. But you have to pay for a minimum number of hours (3), so your limo might be sitting around doing nothing for part of your wedding (although that means it's available to take people someplace during the wedding if they need it).

The other way to get a limo is to pay for one-way trips (from A to B) or round trips (from A to B to A again). For certain types of transport, you can add an extra stop on a round trip for just a little bit more money. Page 106 of the book explains this in more detail and shows you all the different prices for one way vs. round trip vs. charter. You can use that chart and a calculator to figure out which combination of transport types and booking type will give you the best value.