Christmas time at Wilderness Lodge was AMAZING!! But my god the transportation......

[brightmango]

Just finished up a trip to WDW and had a split stay. 4 nights at AKV and 4 nights at BRV. I loved both resorts, but something about Wilderness Lodge is just extra special at Christmas time.

I had read on this forum previously about WL transportation woes. Seemed to be a 50/50 split of people that have had no problems and people that have had problems, particularly with the buses. Unfortunately, we were in the latter camp.

Owners at WL, what gives??? In our very short 4 days we experienced buses that never showed up, had the ETA keep getting pushed back 10-15 minutes regularly, inconsistent bus timing, packed bus queues from the parks. Boats were a bit more reliable. I was ready to buy a contract, but man did we waste a lot of time just trying to get from place to place.

To be clear I loved our stay there. Great resort! Just want to hear from owners about recent experiences. I would've chalked it up to bad luck if I hadn't read previous comments about the same issues.

 

[davidhr]

Just checked out. For us the buses were consistent, but the time to get to your destination was worse than usual. Also felt that more routes are shared with the FW now. Sharing with the contemporary is already pretty bad, but the FW takes forever.

 

[muppets3d]

I always ride the boat to MK, but I have experienced long waits for buses to other destinations at Wilderness Lodge as well. I don't think these large resorts should be sharing buses as a general rule.

 

[crazycatlady]

We got home last week from a stay at CC. We had some of the same problems we had at a previous December
trip to GF, which was mainly long wait times and packed buses to get back to the resort from parks. Between sharing buses with Contemporary/FW and the people who leave the parks by Disney transportation to see the
deluxe resorts decorated for Christmas, the buses were not efficient.

I personally think that the monorail resorts and WL should not share buses after Thanksgiving. There are just too many people who want to see the decorations at these resorts and since they don't allow cars to drive in without dining reservations or resort reservation, the only way to get there is by monorail or bus. The Boardwalk resorts can be walked to from Epcot, so they don't have the same issue.

 

[Brian Noble]

We had a long weekend at CCV in October, with no rental car. Transportation was fine. I have no idea why it is variable, but itwas fine for us.

 

[brightmango]

We got home last week from a stay at CC. We had some of the same problems we had at a previous December
trip to GF, which was mainly long wait times and packed buses to get back to the resort from parks. Between sharing buses with Contemporary/FW and the people who leave the parks by Disney transportation to see the
deluxe resorts decorated for Christmas, the buses were not efficient.

I personally think that the monorail resorts and WL should not share buses after Thanksgiving. There are just too many people who want to see the decorations at these resorts and since they don't allow cars to drive in without dining reservations or resort reservation, the only way to get there is by monorail or bus. The Boardwalk resorts can be walked to from Epcot, so they don't have the same issue.

Very good point. Generally speaking, the shear number of people wanting to go to WL during the Christmas season is drastically higher than normal. This would explain the increased demand for the buses to get there.

 

[fla4fun]

We stayed at the FW Cabins in early November and went to WL a few times. The transportation was great. I have stayed at WL around holidays though and I would have to agree that they need dedicated transportation to accommodate the extra foot traffic. I would not be surprised if people were using Lodge transport to connect to the Fort to see their decorations as well.

 

[Wedgeout]

Loved each WL resort stay. So far busses have been as good as anywhere else. It’s the resort sharing that sucks. I’m ok with FW/WL, but not with Contemporary. What a waste of my time to go all that way before a park. (AK Kidani/Jambo is pretty darn good bus service).

 

[Pens Fan]

We had no issues with the busses when we were there in October for 6 nights. When we were back in early December, however, we had a few issues but nothing too bad. (Boats were great both trip, never waited more than 10 minutes for one.) I agree with the previous posters that they shouldn't be sharing busses during December. This year might have been a bit worse with the Grand Floridian not having their gingerbread house. I don't know if that made Wilderness Lodge more popular for resort hoppers, but that lobby was a zoo most days - more so than I remembered in years past. We also had one night when there was a bad thunderstorm and the boats, monorail and skyliner all shut down. That was a cluster and a half but chalked that up to bad weather.

 

[RanDIZ]

Spent the first week of Dec splitting CCV and AKV. This year was definitely our worst CCV stay. I won’t complain about the ongoing construction because we knew about that going into it. But it still added to the madness. The transportation all around was not like it used to be. It seemed like there were less boats and they took a lot longer than in the past. Also, still not a fan of bus sharing with Contemporary. And to top it off, the entire resort was awoken by the fire alarm in the early am hours. Regardless, CCV and AKV are still our favs at Christmas time.

 

[crazycatlady]

We had no issues with the busses when we were there in October for 6 nights. When we were back in early December, however, we had a few issues but nothing too bad. (Boats were great both trip, never waited more than 10 minutes for one.) I agree with the previous posters that they shouldn't be sharing busses during December. This year might have been a bit worse with the Grand Floridian not having their gingerbread house. I don't know if that made Wilderness Lodge more popular for resort hoppers, but that lobby was a zoo most days - more so than I remembered in years past. We also had one night when there was a bad thunderstorm and the boats, monorail and skyliner all shut down. That was a cluster and a half but chalked that up to bad weather.

I agree and mentioned to my DH that the lobby seemed more crowded than other Decembers and wondered if some of the usual GF gingerbread chaos ended up there instead.

 

[Girlstar30]

Boats were def better mid december and agree with the bus sharing. The fw bus sharing annoyed me more, that took forever.

 

[Coastie]

We were there the 2nd week of December and had a few issues with the buses, however, the boat transportation, especially during the MVMCP was horrible. We had to leave 2 hours early for O'Hana rest before our MVMCP. Further, we found out through the bus driver, that after 10:30AM buses are shared with BLT and Contemporary. Then sometime in the evening the buses were changed back to dedicated direct routes to parks and Disney Springs. Sometimes it was actually faster for us to take the later bus to BLT/Contemporary and walk to MK.

 

[Girlstar30]

We were there the 2nd week of December and had a few issues with the buses, however, the boat transportation, especially during the MVMCP was horrible. We had to leave 2 hours early for O'Hana rest before our MVMCP. Further, we found out through the bus driver, that after 10:30AM buses are shared with BLT and Contemporary. Then sometime in the evening the buses were changed back to dedicated direct routes to parks and Disney Springs. Sometimes it was actually faster for us to take the later bus to BLT/Contemporary and walk to MK.

I was there during that time too and yes the bus was faster than boat! And with the wind blowing they had trouble bringing the boat to the dock, it was pretty funny to watch, also a lot of new people training.