Disney Transportation or car?

[bjkj]

Hi everyone!

We are heading down to FW at the end of the week. I can't believe it's finally here!!!

We will be at the parks for 5 days and hoping around. We will spend the mornings at the parks, come back to chill out and head to the parks for fireworks at night. We have a rental car.

My question - should we take the car to hop to the parks or Disney transportation? Or is the transportation better at some parks than others?

Here's what we are doing:

Sat - morn, epcot eve, spectro magic parade
Sun - morn, magic kingdom eve, hoop dee doo and campfire
Mon - morn, mgm and eve mgm (or downtown)
Tue - Magic Kingdom and eve Wishes cruise
Wed - Animal Kingdom and eve Magic Kingdom (EMH)

As you can see, we have several trips to Magic Kingdom. Would the boat be better? Please help all of you FW vets! I haven't been since the 70's and was way to young to drive then! Plus there was only one park!

Thanks is advance for opinions and advice! Disney World, here we come!!!

 

[campingcorgi]

Do not drive to the MK. You'll be looking for a boat or a monorail if you do and it will take longer than the FW boat.

Bus to Epcot takes you nice and close, bus to MGM is a little further out than the parking lot tram. I really only drive to the water parks--don't like to ride the bus wet and it takes much longer to get back than your own car. Parking is pretty tight at Downtown Disney and if you go to Pleasure Island you may want Disney to be the designated driver

I'd try the bus Saturday morning to Epcot and if you are happy with that then try it again to MGM and Animal Kingdom. If you don't like it then drive to them.

Have fun planning!! Maybe we'll see you there--we will check in on Friday and out on Sunday.

 

[bjkj]

Campingcorgi,

Thanks for the reply. Sorry, but I'm kind of confused. What did you mean by "Don't drive to MK. You'll be looking for a boat or monorail if you do?"

Also, I forgot to ask how much time to allow for travel to and from the parks. We'd like to be there at the openings.

Thanks again!

 

[ftwildernessguy]

If you drive to MK, you will park at the TTC and have to take either the ferry or the monorail to MK. If you take the launch from FW, it will take you directly to MK.

 

[campingcorgi]

Sorry I wasn't clear. Take a car to MK and you'll have to park in their big lot and get over to the TTC (do they run trams? I forget) and then wait in another line for the big ferry or the monorail. If you catch the boat from FW it will take you right up close to just in front of the entrance gates. From anywhere I allow 1 hour--it may take less but you can never tell if you've just missed the bus or boat. Allow an hour and you won't feel rushed and you often be surprised that it takes so little time.

 

[hatchmo]

Our preferred way is for sure use the boat to Magic Kingdom and Epcot, catching a monorail at Magic Kingdom and transferring to anothr monorail to Epcot. We use our car to go to MGM and Animal Kingdom and Downtown Disney. Our expreience has been that the car is the quickest way to get to AK and MGM. Its kind of a thing of personal preference and you won't go wrong no matter how you get to the parks. Expect it to take some time, whatever you do.

 

[hatchmo]

Our preferred way is for sure use the boat to Magic Kingdom and Epcot, catching a monorail at Magic Kingdom and transferring to anothr monorail to Epcot. We use our car to go to MGM and Animal Kingdom and Downtown Disney. Our expreience has been that the car is the quickest way to get to AK and MGM. Its kind of a thing of personal preference and you won't go wrong no matter how you get to the parks. Expect it to take some time, whatever you do. Come to think of it, the car is the quickest route to Epcot, its just that we enjoy the boat and monorail route.

 

[Memph1s]

We drive everywhere except to MK. It is just faster to drive and it allows us to carry extra gear, food and drinks in the car so we can do just about anything at any time. Disney transportation is great to have as a back up in case someone wants to go back early or go to a different park.

 

[stillh2o]

We use the boat to Magic Kingdom and Epcot, catching a hotel monorail at Magic Kingdom and transferring at the TTC for the monorail to Epcot. If we are at Epoct we just walk to MGM. We just take a bus to AK. We just leave our car parked the whole time we our staying at FW. If you use the Disney transportation system count on about 1 hour each way.

 

[bjkj]

Thanks everyone! I have a much better idea of what to do!

So, here's what it sounds like is best (please correct me if I'm wrong).

Boat to MK
Boat then Monorail to Epcot
Car to AK, MGM and DTD (or Disney Trans)

Allow 30 - 60 minutes for travel time. Is 30 minutes enough for MK?

 

[hatchmo]

Counting wait time for the boat, 30 minutes is probably not enough time, unless you get very lucky. If you come back when the parade is over or the park closes, you may have a long wait for a boat because of the crowds. Its still the most relaxing and fun way to do it, though. If you are not familiar with Wilderness Lodge, be sure to get off the boat there at least once and check it out, especially the lobby. The boat stops at Wilderness Lodge before going on to MK about half the time.

 

[SandrA9810]

Well you'll also want to look into how the car rental is working. Are you on a set mileage limit?? Are you driving down here or flying and renting a car at the airport?? If the latter, you might want to take the Disney Magical Express to FW and rent a car right there at disney. And what kind of budget are you on?? Gas is at about $2.75 roughly. (10 cents cheaper up there than it is here, and it's 2.85 most places here).

In any cases, I've become a transportation expert and a driving expert around disney. With gas prices so high, we've come down to almost always disney transportation. And even though it takes a bit longer, you get some down time. Especially with kids around, it'll give them a rest and you don't have to worry about getting lost. All the roads seem to go in a circle and unless you have a map, you can get lost.
Staying at ft wilderness, it's definatly easier to take the boat across from the settlement. The busses and driving are just way to much time to get to the Magic Kingdom.
If you hop between Epcot and MGM, there's a boat that runs between the two. Which also drops you off in the World showcase. So if you wanted, do Future world and magic kingdom one day, taking the monorail between the two. And don't forget to ask the attendant if you can sit up front, only four can sit up front.
Then the next day do MGM and World Showcase, taking the boat between the two. Epcot is huge and can be overwhelming. So spliting it up can be nice and the boat ride is long enough for you to relax the legs. And unless it's cool, try sitting in the back of the boat, it can get stuffy inside with a lot of people. If you plan on watching Fantasmic, try to go on a day with the extra magic hour. It is a lot less crowded and any where is a good seat. Although most the time, the EMH showing is at 10pm, which can be a bit tiring on little ones.

We'll be up there this weekend to go to Typhoon Lagoon. I just hope it doesn't rain again cause you can't get a rain check for a rain check.

 

[SandrA9810]

Plus, when you're driving, there's a lot of cool little things that you miss that you only see when you take disney transportation, especially taking the boats around.

 

[csblackwell]

We just returned from 7 days at FW. The truck didn't move once we dropped the hitch.

Using the Disney transportation was the best thing we did. We waited no more then 10 minutes for the boats, buses or the monorail.

From FW > MK = Nice Boat ride

From FW > MGM = Bus leaves directly from the Settlement Depot in FW(we were in 200)

From FW > Animal Kingdom = Bus leaves directly from the Outpost Depot in FW

From FW > Epcot = We rode the boat to MK, hoped on the monorail to the TTC and then hopped on the monorail to Epcot.

This was our first visit to Disney, so for us, riding the buses, boats and monorail was all apart of the experience.

I hope this helps.

 

[SandrA9810]

CS, you got it down. We spent three days at disney resort hoping and taking disney transportation because our passes were on black out, and we got rained out of TL.
No matter what, you have to ride the full loops of the monorail. Disney just isn't disney without riding the monorail.

 

[sapdaddy]

Disney Transportation is the way to go!! We only moved the truck twice in the ten days we were at FW. Once to go to the grocery store and once to Sea World. The longest we waited was 20 min and it is so much nicer to have someone else drive.

We had my DBIL (wife's brother and his wife) with us for this trip. My DSIL wanted to take a nap so my DBIL rode just for fun the boat to MK, got on the monorail went to Epcot, rode the bus to the Wilderness Lodge and walked back to FW. He loved it.

 

[pgowder]

I just returned from FW yesterday. As other's have said, we parked the car and didn't move it.

We did have a few problems with the Disney transportation. First we got confused between the yellow and orange buses inside FW--but that was our fault.

We had a tour at MK early one morning. We asked several CM's about how to get over there before the park opened. Each one gave us a different story about times and routes. And none of them was how we actually had to get there. Buses and boats do start running early. The boat from FW starts running at 7:20am. But it only goes to the Contemporary. From there we took the Monorail over.

The worse bus is the one to Downtown Disney. Not sure why, but that one took awhile to come to FW each time we took it. Yesterday we waited almost 45 minutes.

But it was so much better than fighting the traffic and getting lost on property. We get lost enough in the parks!

I would recommend using Disney transportation the whole time. In fact, once you set up, drive your car back to the parking lot so you can have more room in your campsite.