Disney Transportation or Car Rental?

[PA_Dave]

We are taking a family vacation soon, and will be flying into Orlando.

Our vacation is 7 days, and booked through AAA travel, and includes towncar transfers to and from the airport.

I am considering deleting the car service and renting a car at the airport.

An important budget consideration is having the option to eat meals outside the resorts and parks, as well as not having to rely on Disney transportation to get between the resort (Pop Century) and the parks.

I like the IDEA of having a car, but what are the realities of disney transportation as compared to driving/parking?

Thank You!

Dave

 

[lclark0621]

We have not rented a car in Disney in a LONG time.

It is easier to get to the parks using Disney's transportation.

Also there are SO many options to eat in Disney World. We never leave property.

 

[Snoozan]

We always rent a car and use it around Disney for everywhere but MK. Of course, we're early birds to the parks so we can park at least at close as the bus stops. We like to be able to come and go when we please and not have to wait for busses. We especially like the car as we tend to go to DD in the evenings and it's much quicker than taking the bus. We don't leave Disney once we're on the "grounds" so we don't use it to eat off-site as we find there's plenty to do/eat when at Disney.

 

[mochabean]

We always rent a car, and probably use it more than the busses for transport to the parks. We like to eat at a lot of the resorts, and the biggest problem with Disney transportation is that it's at least an hour or more ordeal to get from one resort to another. And if you want to eat cheap (off property) then you really need a car.

Although I will say that Pop is one of the best-located resorts as far as bus transport goes. It's centrally located such that the trip to any one of the parks doesn't take too long (as opposed to the trip from the All Stars to MK which is about 20 minutes or more.)

 

[aec]

we rent a car and use it for everything except MK. Came in handy last trip when I dropped my camera on the concrete at AK and we drove over to walmart to buy a new one!

 

[CherCrazy]

We have done it both ways and by far prefer to have a car at our disposal. We just stayed at SSR in November, and thought that the bus would be easy to use that time of year...not so!!

The wait for Mears shuttle from the airport was over an hour. We took a cab instead. The waits for the Disney buses inside the resort were awful. It seemed that our bus was always last no matter where we were going.

Another thing that I didn't realize until last trip was that you can't go directly from the parks to DTD. You have to go to a resort first, then take a bus to DTD. That trip in itself was exhausting.

Take the car!!

 

[Carrieberry]

We are renting a car for the enitre 8 days we will be there next week. It was cheaper than the towncar. We signed up for Emerald Aisle thrugh National and got a great coupon for $20 off and an intermediate car for 8 days came to $113.14. The towncar would have cost us $120 with tips. This way we can take our time and get to our resort and back to the airport at our own leisure. Also, we will probably use Disney Transportation the entire time we are there, but since it was cheaper, we just decided to rent. It would be even a better deal if we wanted to eat off property. We might use the car to go to DD like the other poster said, but other than that we will just park it!

 

[Mickeyfaniam]

I agree with the other posters above that rent a car. We do too but in addition to using it for DTD and getting to other resorts, we use it for the water parks too. We don't always change when leaving the water park and its better getting into our own car than a bus when we're still wearing our bathing suits...sometimes still wet. Its also quicker than the round about route we would have to go through on the bus. And the last time I was there at WDW we had a car but we took a bus to AK....when we came out we waitied 45 minutes for the bus and then when it finally came we had to go make other stops before going back to the hotel. We lost so much time. So our next trip we'll probably use the car for AK too.

 

[disneymom1]

We used to take a towncar but had a few bad experiences waiting over a half hour for a Disney bus. We found that most of the time, using the discounts listed on the mousesavers.com website, we could rent a compact or intermediate car for about the same amount of money as the towncar. Th

Driving to the parks is really no problem at all. I agree with some of the other posts that the most convenient way to get to MK is by Disney transportation, because if you drive to the parking lot, you will need to take the boat or the monorail which slows things down. The fastest (and most comfortable) way to get to the other parks is by car.

If you want to go to a restaurant at another hotel (we like Chef Mickey's at the Comtemporary), there is no direct transportation in most cases. Also, the busses to Downtown Disney make all 3 stops at DD with waits at each stop, so the bus ride is especially long.

We too like to eat at least some of our meals outside the parks, partially to save money and partially because we get sick of Disney food after a while. You can definately find reasonable restaurants off disney property and save lots of money. We also like having the car because we can stop at a grocery store and buy snacks and breakfast food for our room (fruit, cereal, etc). This saves us a lot of money as well.

 

[sue1013]

We never rent a car. The first couple times we went to WDW we did and it sat in the lot for a week. We enjoy having someone else drive us around on vacation. I spend enough time in a car at home the break from that is nice. And I always go to other resorts for dinner, never ever did it take anywhere near an hour. If you are only going for a short time and every minute counts then you may want a car. Or if you cannot stand to wait then you should get a car. When I go on vacation it is vacation (not in a rush every minute) to me that is not vacation.