Bus waite

[sally1]

We just returned home from a week at saratogo springs and was disappointed with the bus transporation. No matter what stop we were at we waited for 35 to 45 minutes for the bus. has anyone else had this issue and to you know if it is the same at all DVC Resorts?

 

[Donald is #1]

Hmmm... I stayed at SSR and AKL in May and I only had to wait for buses twice. When I was at SSR, I don't think that I waited longer than 10-15 minutes for any bus. My 2 long waits were when I was at AKL, but those were both bad nights for almost all resorts.

In October, I was at OKW and again we didn't have a problem with the buses. I think that I longest wait was 20 minutes and that only happened once.

 

[Happy Birthday Cat]

Bus transportation seems to be one of the single biggest negative issue at all DVC resorts IMHO. We are BWV owners and the bus transportation is the only thing I don't like about the resort. Some have said its gotten better but I haven't seen it. The poor transportation is one reason we always rent a car and really only use the bus now to go to the MK (not easy to take a car there). Seems like Disney is always working on the transportation situation but it's such a big fleet that I would imagine it is a nightmare.

(I should note that we always go during the busiest times of the year and that could greatly effect my view of transportation at WDW)

HBC

 

[dizzknee3]

Yes, I have had that problem at SSR. I have only stayed there once and we waited a minimum of 30 minutes everytime we went to the bus stop. We either had really bad luck and just missed a bus every time or the bus service was poor.

 

[mamatojon]

This is so interesting to me because we just returned from a stay at SSR, from the 2nd to the 13th - and encountered great bus service. Yet two posts now from people that just returned saying the bus service was horrible. Our longest wait was about 20 minutes, often times we lucked out and just walked on a bus as it was arriving. We went to all four parks, but not Downtown Disney by bus. We never went early in the morning, and rarely left at closing (most times we left in the hour before the park closed) - maybe that has something to do with it?

 

[doconeill]

We stayed at SSR on Dec. 1st-8th. The DTD buses I believe are advertised at 20 minutes, although we had to wait about 30 minutes for one once. Every other time the bus we needed came fairly quickly - but they can be pretty full too. I don't think the park buses run as frequent, except during special times (EMH hours, party events, etc.)

Plus, ANY bus can be delayed for loading of people with wheelchairs or ECVs. ECVs especially when the drivers aren't really familiar with them (I helped a woman park her ECV on the bus), so schedules can get thrown off a bit.

If we're taking the bus, we ALWAYS leave a LOT of time to get where we are going. But we usually rent a car and take that most times.

 

[Anal Annie]

We had terrible bus service for the whole week we were at OKW last August. I thought it was just OKW... Must be the new standard to wait 45-60 minutes to go somewhere! Our worst nightmare was trying to go to dinner at Boma one nite. They said to allow an hour. We allowed 1 1/2 hours because everything was running so slow and were still 15 minutes late! Yep. One hour and 45 minutes that little trip took! Thank goodness Boma is worth it!!

 

[Kathi OD]

We were at OKW in early November (F&W, Jersey Week, Super Soap) and never waited more than 10 minutes for a bus going to any of the parks and not more than 15 coming from the parks back to the resorts. This trip was much better than the last few where we did have a few times where we waited much, much longer.

 

[dizzknee3]

This is so interesting to me because we just returned from a stay at SSR, from the 2nd to the 13th - and encountered great bus service. Yet two posts now from people that just returned saying the bus service was horrible. Our longest wait was about 20 minutes, often times we lucked out and just walked on a bus as it was arriving. We went to all four parks, but not Downtown Disney by bus. We never went early in the morning, and rarely left at closing (most times we left in the hour before the park closed) - maybe that has something to do with it?

I'm sorry, I should have clarified, I did not just return.....I had the long bus waits last december.(first week)

 

[castleri]

When we were at SSR in Sept the longest we waited was 20 minutes for the AK bus. At DTD on return trips we had a couple of times that they were changing bus drivers and taking some buses out of service there so the wait seemed longer than usual but we didn't actually time it. I think it was a matter of bad timing on our part. The change in drivers happened a couple of times at parks also which meant it took a little longer than usual for the bus to get going again while they did their check lists.

 

[Doctor P]

I am not saying that people are lying by any means, but I would like to suggest, based on my own experience, that sometimes your bus wait time can be exaggerated. At some of the resorts that I thought were problems, I put a stop watch to the bus wait time. Twice that, when looking at my watch, I thought my wait time was about 30 minutes, the stop watch told the true tale: 17 minutes in one case and 19 minutes in the other. While I have absolutely no doubt that there are late buses, and I have absolutely no doubt that some of those waits at times can be 45 minutes in some circumstances, I do also think that sometimes we lose track of the time because most people do not check their watch right when they get to the bus stop but rather estimate when they arrived.

 

[dianeschlicht]

I am not saying that people are lying by any means, but I would like to suggest, based on my own experience, that sometimes your bus wait time can be exaggerated. At some of the resorts that I thought were problems, I put a stop watch to the bus wait time. Twice that, when looking at my watch, I thought my wait time was about 30 minutes, the stop watch told the true tale: 17 minutes in one case and 19 minutes in the other. While I have absolutely no doubt that there are late buses, and I have absolutely no doubt that some of those waits at times can be 45 minutes in some circumstances, I do also think that sometimes we lose track of the time because most people do not check their watch right when they get to the bus stop but rather estimate when they arrived.

I'm quite sure you are absolutely correct! The longest wait I can recall is from New Year's Eve day a couple years ago. My DH and DD had to return to OKW because she left her park pass on the coffee table. It took them an hour and 15 minutes to leave Epcot and return to OKW and return again to Epcot. When we met up with them again, DH was sure it had taken 2 hours! Nope, it was an hour and 15 mintues from the time they left us until they found us again inside the park, and at least part of that time was traversing the park. It does skew how you FEEL the time went.

Also, I suspect some who are having long waits are trying to travel during shift changes and/or midday times. Buses do run less frequently around midday, because so few people are actually using the buses then. It makes sense to not run buses if they are constantly empty. Often I have seen buses arrive at a park around 1 or 2 p.m. with 2 or 3 people on it and leave with that same number or less going back to the resort. It seems like a waste of resources to run more buses for fewer people.

We have noticed that shift changes occur about every 4 hours. If you start from the time buses start running, you can usually avoid those shift change times, and we try to do just that.

 

[Jeremy&Susan]

We just got back from SSR as well. We did not have very long waits at all. Sometimes we got lucky and a bus showed up almost when we did and sometimes we just got to the stop as the bus was leaving. Even when we just missed a bus, the wait for the next bus was not over 20-25 minutes TOPS.

We did get on a bus one time that needed to load on a health dis-abled person and that did take quite a bit of time. The bus pretty full to start with and the person in the lark could not manuver very well to get in the right spot. Disney may want to think about a special van to go around and get people with walking issues during high traffic times.

What stop were you using? If you were at the fourth or fifth stop (last) you may have been on the unlucky end of having buses that were full by the time they got to your location and you needed to wait for the next bus?????