bus service to/from AoA?

[Jojo h]

How are the busses to the parks from AoA? My kids, 8 and 5, would love this resort for their first Disney trip, but I feel like I've heard horror stories about 1 hour bus trips. Is this true? We plan on spending most of our time at the parks and the kids don't nap anymore so we won't have to come back to the resort midday. We are going in sept if it makes a difference. Thanks for your input!

 

[goofy4tink]

I've seen very few horror stories with buses at AoA. Yes, buses can be crowded. But it's a big resort!
It actually has pretty good bus service. As with all resort buses, you need to plan on plenty of time to get from point A to point B. if you just miss the bus you want, you could wait up to 20+ mins for the next one to arrive.

 

[chelseabun76]

An actual bus trip that took 1 hour? Not including standing and waiting? We never had anything close to that, maybe 20 minutes or so travelling time. We did have to wait a good 20 minutes once or twice for a bus, especially early mornings, but that was known to us ahead of time when making our pre-park adr's so we weren't put off by it.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

I don't know where you may have heard anything about one hour bus trips, but if the bus is moving and on its way to the park it should not take any more than 15-20 minutes to get anywhere unless there is traffic or an accident or something unforeseen going on. If you are including the amount of time spent waiting for the bus it's rare for that to be any longer than 20 minutes (although it does happen) but you have to plan for that at any resort when using the buses.

Good news about AOA is that the resort itself has only one bus stop, so the bus does not have to visit multiple stops within one resort; nor does it share with any other resort.

If you go at park opening and leave at park closing, things will get crowded but that should be expected.

 

[floridagirl61]

Also if you are leaving a park and the POP bus comes first, you can hop on that one and walk to AOA.

 

[bluezy]

We stayed at AoA for 7 nights 2 years ago and never had anything close to a 1 hour bus ride anywhere. In fact, I don't think we ever waited more than about 5-10 minutes for a bus at the resort. And when leaving a park, we had similar wait times. If the line for AoA was long and the line for Pop was short, we'd hop in the Pop line and then just walk back to AoA from there. The only time we had a long wait was one night that we left MK right after Wishes with 30,000 other people -- but we totally expected it then. That was one of the times we took the bus to Pop instead of AoA because the wait was shorter.

I know that I (and I've seen other people say this, too) *allow* an hour for getting from my room to MK (and vice versa) when staying at Pop or AoA. But that includes walking from my room to the bus stop, waiting for a bus, travel time on the bus (which is about 20 minutes to MK) and getting to the gates. It usually takes more like 35-40 minutes total (again,from door-to-door) but I like to make sure we allow time for unexpected delays if we're trying to get to MK by a certain time. Maybe that's where the "1 hour bus trip" idea is coming from.

 

[goofy4tink]

I will say that the one time I came close to missing an ADR was at AoA. I got out to the MK bus stop about 70 mins prior to my ADR...it was at the Polynesian so I allowed some extra time. I just missed the bus...so had to wait 30+ mins for the next one. Now, it was at 7:30, so I knew that I could have a longer wait time (buses earlier than an hour prior to park opening tend to run less frequently. So, it finally came. And then, it was the sloooooowest driver ever. Got to MK and of course, he stopped at one of the furthest stops possible!!! So, off we went to get to the boats....no boats in sight. So, up to the monorail. And of course, it had just left!!! Waited 10 mins and one finally came. And of course, there was an issue. So we sat in a holding pattern for 15 mins!!! Got to the Polynesian about 5 mins after my ADR time.
Same type thing happened going to the GF for dinner at 1900 Park Fare....but that was from a different resort.

 

[buzznina]

If you are leaving MK right after wishes, with thousands of other people, then you will have a good wait for transportation and may take an hour or more total. But if you are only talking about driving time, then no I think the longest may be 20 minutes at the most. I can tell you s horror story of spending 3 hours on the monorail in the middle of the night

 

[Disneylover99]

Bus service is great at AofA! No complaints from me.

 

[goofy friend]

The buses are crowded due to resort size and number of stops, just allow plenty of time and enjoy.

 

[dansdad]

The buses are crowded due to resort size and number of stops, just allow plenty of time and enjoy.

There's only one stop at AoA.

 

[Disneylover99]

The buses are crowded due to resort size and number of stops, just allow plenty of time and enjoy.

There is only one bus stop at AofA and it doesn't share with other resorts, so there is only one stop and then you're off to the park.

 

[ariane37]

We thought the bus service at AoA was one of the best experiences we'd had up to that point! Having only one bus stop was a plus as well as actually having a roped-off "line". We were only there 3 nights but never had overly long waits. As a matter of fact, it's pretty rare I see complaints about the AoA bus service on here

 

[MakiraMarlena]

I missed an ADR once at Beach Club because the bus took forever to arrive and when it got there it was already nearly full. and then an argument broke out about who was going to be able to get on the bus and who had to wait for the next one. That stuff can end up happening at any resort.

 

[mylittlebuttercup]

We stayed there in November over marathon weekend/Jersey week/end of F&W festival, so it was definitely a busier time. Buses for the most part were great. We often got a bus with minimal/no wait and waited maybe twenty minutes at the most one time (and that was the exception, not the rule.)

This is a little off-topic, but my worst bus experience was actually at a deluxe (Poly.) Between having to share buses with Grand Floridian and at least one super long wait, I was less than impressed. Luckily, we could use the monorail/boat for Epcot and MK and didn't have to use the buses there that often. I actually feel like the values do a better job with busing since it is their only method of transportation.

 

[mylittlebuttercup]

I will say that the one time I came close to missing an ADR was at AoA. I got out to the MK bus stop about 70 mins prior to my ADR...it was at the Polynesian so I allowed some extra time. I just missed the bus...so had to wait 30+ mins for the next one. Now, it was at 7:30, so I knew that I could have a longer wait time (buses earlier than an hour prior to park opening tend to run less frequently. So, it finally came. And then, it was the sloooooowest driver ever. Got to MK and of course, he stopped at one of the furthest stops possible!!! So, off we went to get to the boats....no boats in sight. So, up to the monorail. And of course, it had just left!!! Waited 10 mins and one finally came. And of course, there was an issue. So we sat in a holding pattern for 15 mins!!! Got to the Polynesian about 5 mins after my ADR time.
Same type thing happened going to the GF for dinner at 1900 Park Fare....but that was from a different resort.

This could happen at any resort. The more changing of transportation that is needed, the more opportunity for something to go wrong. Traveling resort to resort (instead of resort to park), people should allot much more time than they think they need because of that or just take a cab.

 

[mylittlebuttercup]

The buses are crowded due to resort size and number of stops, just allow plenty of time and enjoy.

This is completely untrue. There is only one stop at AoA, and the buses aren't usually THAT crowded. And at peak times when there are more people in line than usual, they will often send back-to-back buses to keep the lines moving.

 

[buzznina]

Not to mention a LOT of folks just lose track of time and may exaggerate the wait time. One example is when we went against our own rule and left MK after wishes and the line was very loooooong. We were there about 10 minutes and a family comes up and asks the people behind us how long they have been waiting and the lady just started going off that it has been about 30 minutes and not 1 bus has come and on and on. Well, within 30 minutes we were at the front of the line with another bus coming(the 5th one). After listening to this lady all this time, I turned to my DW and said how impressed I was that it only took a bit over 30 minutes for us to get on a bus considering how many people there was. I made sure it was load enough for the lady to hear it.

 

[Terra Nova guy]

I found the buses at AoA to be better (in terms of wait time) than CBR and POR. I also prefer only 1 bus stop at AoA as opposed to multiple stops at CBR and POR. I foR (I found it sometimes took longer to get off the POR & CBR resort than the actual travel time to the park). Obviously at peak times, any resort bus is going to be crowded and you will most likely wait to get on the bus.

 

[Magic Band Defender]

We've stayed at AoA twice. The waits leaving AoA were great; I don't think we waited more than about 7 minutes. The waits on the way back were not always as good-we hopped the Pop bus once. But that still wasn't worse than our Movies stay, when all 3 All Stars shared a bus the entire time.