Bus from MK last week

[scanmom]

We were at MK last week, and waited until about an hour after the park closed to go catch the bus back to CSR. When we got to the bus station, there was a line from the far end of the station (away from MK),all the way to the sign that tells which resort is at which # station. Well, apparently the monorail to the TTC had a problem and was down for awhile. When we were fighting our way to our bus stop (#15), we heard the CM telling all these people in this horrific line that the monorail was now operational, and that the ferry was running as well. Most of the people in the line just stayed in the line instead of going to catch the ferry or monorail. What really irked me and DH (and everyone else we noticed),was that ALL the buses were re-routed to take all these people to the TTC. NONE of the buses were picking up guests waiting to go to their resorts. All the bays in the bus station were full of people. Probably 3-4 busfulls of people were waiting for EACH resort! I counted 18 buses go by, and pick up people for the TTC before any came for any of the resorts. And that is just the ones I actually counted. There were more than that. I understand that things happen, and adjustments have to be made, but this was just not right. I think more people in that line should have been told that the HAVE to go to the TTC on the ferry or monorail. And, I think that maybe 5 buses should have been used for them, and the rest still be used for resort guests. One of the big reasons we stayed onsite was for the service to and from the parks. I hope Disney figures out that this was not a good way to handle this.

 

[goofy4tink]

Disney does not do a good job of moving people when the monorail goes down. I know that last summer, we were at Epcot and found the monorail to be non-functioning. You should have seen the lines of people for the bus to take them over to the TTC!!! Had to be well over a thousand people there!! I can't remember which bus we took but it wasn't that one. We got to the TTC and found a huge number of people waiting for the ferry. So, we walked over to the Polynesian to take their boat..yep, had to be about 75 people over there. All in all, it took us 2 hrs to get from Epcot to MK!!

 

[sam_gordon]

My first reaction would be for the resort bus to make a quick stop at TTC then go on to the assigned resort.

If I was a guest trying to get to TTC and the monorail was down, I'd try the ferry direct to TTC or the boat to Poly and then walk to TTC.

I could understand if someone was in line for a bus to get to TTC and they announced the monorail was now working, instead of getting out of line (that presumably I'm making progress in) and being at the back of the line for the monorail, I'd stay with the busses.

 

[seashoreCM]

Same problem happens at the monorail station each night when parking lot guests crowd onto the resort monorail trains.

It might have been a good idea to keep the park open longer at the last minute if both the ferry and monorail had been out of service (if it happened that soon).

The proportion of buses going to the parking lot (TTC) should have been significantly decreased once the monorail was running again except that getting the word to the bus dispatcher would have been slow.

 

[chartle]

Crowd control can be very difficult especially if there was a breakdown and people are already upset.

I'm trying to imagine what exactly was happening, but the coordinator on the ground may have thought it was better to get the TTC people out of the area as quick as possible and not try to force them to move to another line for the ferry or monorail.

Families could get split up, people who don't have clue on what they are doing move to the ferry line even though they want to get back to POP and now are yelling at a CM to get them back to POP from the TTC, etc.

I was in charge, with other parents as backup, of moving a small band group, 52, around WDW last year. Sometimes its better to stay put and wait versus moving.

Its easy to look back and come up with better scenarios, but its still comes back to one person using whatever experience they have to get through the problem.

This is not like parade crowd control that they do twice a day every day. Every breakdown situation is different and yes they can have procedures in place, but sometimes you have to think on your feet and sometimes you are wrong.

 

[scanmom]

it could have/should have been handled better. There were many CM's directing people to correct lines, and they should have sent the TTC people, at least the last half of the line, over to the ferry or the now-working monorail. The ferry was never down. They were running at least 2 ferries (I saw 2, there may have been more),and the ferry line was not empty by any means, but certainly not overflowing (when I saw it). I believe the TTC guests would have gotten back to the TTC a lot quicker if they had been directed to the ferry/monorail. And then, the buses would have been able to be used for resort guests. Like I said before, my main complaint was that ALL the buses were being used for TTC guests, and NONE were taking resort guests back "home". I felt like resort guests were slighted. The whole area was really crowded, but the CM's were friendly and really kept people from going to the wrong line. But, I do know that after the monorail was working, the CM's continued letting TTC guests get in the bus line rather than redirecting them to ferries/monorail. I saw this myself, and I didn't really understand why CM's would let guests do this, or why a guest would WANT to take a bus rather than the others.

 

[zulemara]

it could have/should have been handled better. There were many CM's directing people to correct lines, and they should have sent the TTC people, at least the last half of the line, over to the ferry or the now-working monorail. The ferry was never down. They were running at least 2 ferries (I saw 2, there may have been more),and the ferry line was not empty by any means, but certainly not overflowing (when I saw it). I believe the TTC guests would have gotten back to the TTC a lot quicker if they had been directed to the ferry/monorail. And then, the buses would have been able to be used for resort guests. Like I said before, my main complaint was that ALL the buses were being used for TTC guests, and NONE were taking resort guests back "home". I felt like resort guests were slighted. The whole area was really crowded, but the CM's were friendly and really kept people from going to the wrong line. But, I do know that after the monorail was working, the CM's continued letting TTC guests get in the bus line rather than redirecting them to ferries/monorail. I saw this myself, and I didn't really understand why CM's would let guests do this, or why a guest would WANT to take a bus rather than the others.

It's all about crowd psychology. You can tell people what is best and they won't trust you or they will question you. People look at the Ferry queue and don't even understand at one point you are going to get on the next ferry. Some people, for whatever reason, would rather wait in line for a bus that holds what? 60ish people(sorry don't have an exact number) instead of going to the Ferry that holds 600. Heck people come over to the transportation booth when everything is running normally and want to take a bus to TTC instead of the other 2 options.

As for when EPCOT is down, that shouldn't affect the boats at the Poly unless resort rail is also down.

No matter how ya look at it, things get difficult when rails go down even for 5 minutes. Personally this is why I feel that although an expansion would be nice, it could never be relied on as a primary transportation method.