Disney Transportation System Questions!

[CWIPPERMAN]

I know that when we get to WDW, we are supposed to get a "schedule" of the bus times. But, in general, could someone provide some help.

I don't know if it matters where I am staying, but I'm at "All Star Movies".

1. How far before park opening do the busses start running?
2. If you do try to "get to the gate for opening", how long will you have to wait. (In other words....will busses fill to capacity so that you have to wait for the next one)?
3. Approximately how often do they run?
4. If you want to go from one park to the other, do you have to ride the bus for your hotel, or are there separate shuttles that run between parks?
5. Generally speaking, how long is an average trip between parks (if I wanted to schedule 2 parks in one day, am I looking at 1 hour or more for transpotation)?
6. How long after park closing will the busses run?
7. If I go to Downtown Disney at night, will there still be shuttles until everything closes?
8. If I want to check out some of the other hotels while I'm there, will I have to transfer to a "central hub", or will I be able to get there from my hotel?

(I went to WDW 8 years ago, but I was with a large family group - 18 of us -, and we had rented several mini-vans to go to the parks together, so we didn't use the transportation system much)

Thank You in advance for your help.

 

[GAIL HAYDEN]

Hopefully this will answer some of your questions.


One of the nice things about WDW transportation is that it is clean, air conditioned and for the most part - reliable. If your group is going to split up and you're staying on property, everyone will have a way to return to the hotel or meet at a park. It really provides great flexibility.

When it comes to hotel to major park transportation, you can't beat Disney's web of bus, boat and monorail service. Approximately every 20 minutes a transportation vehicle arrives to take you to one of the 4 main magical parks - Magic Kingdom , Disney-MGM Studios, Animal Kingdom and Epcot .

Park transportation begins approximately 1.0 hourprior to that park's opening time and all transportation runs until approximately 1 hour after the parks close (check with Guest Services upon arrival for specific times). You are dropped off close to the park entrance and so no need to wait for a tram/ferry or take a long walk after a tiring day.

WDW transportation is also available to take you to the Water parks and the Downtown Disney Complex. In fact, if you're thinking of having a few at Pleasure Island , why not let Disney do the driving. It should be noted that waits in excess of 20 minutes have been reported at Downtown Disney stops. In addition some guests have been told by hotel personnel that their best bet is to drive themselves to the water parks.

If you plan to golf at a Disney course, complimentary transportation is available from your Disney resort. Check with your Valet Desk upon arrival for details.

If you plan to eat at many of the fine WDW resort restaurants your transportation options become more complex and definitely limiting, especially after 9pm. If leaving from your hotel, you would need to go from there to a park and then catch transportation to the hotel where the restaurant is (Unless you are staying and going to a monorail hotel). Likewise, on the return, you would need to go from the resort to an open park and back to your hotel. Once the hotel-park transportation has closed, you generally will be taken to the Ticket and Transportation (TTC) Hub , then bused to Pleasure Island and then catch a bus (or boat) to your hotel. As you can see, this does take quite a bit of time. A final option would be to pay for a taxi back to your hotel.

 

[Kermit]

You'll be very happy with the transportation at WDW. It's so convenient, and even though people do occasionally have long waits, that doesn't usually happen.

You won't get any kind of schedule that shows when buses are supposed to be somewhere. They run continuously. Disney aims for 20 minutes between buses, but they increase the frequency when lots of people are waiting. In the morning and when the parks close, the buses will come very frequently.

It's not likely that the bus would fill up going to the park if you go first thing to get there as the park opens. Most people like to sleep in. The buses will accomodate a large number of people since they have rails so that you can stand. If there are too many people, your driver should radio for another bus.

There is transportation from each of the parks to the other parks. At MK, you get the monorail to the TTC, then you catch the monorail to Epcot or the bus to MGM or AK. The other parks generally just have buses, but the route between Epcot and MGM is a boat. (It goes from the International Gateway at Epcot to the front gate at MGM.)

Traveling between the parks shouldn't take long, but if you have a PS, you should allow about an hour. Since the buses can be about 20 minutes or so apart, you could theoretically get to the stop as the bus pulls away, and then you'll have to wait for the new bus and allow travel time.

Buses will keep running until everyone is out of the parks, whether it's the main theme parks, DD, or the water parks. If you're one of the very last people to leave, it's possible that you'll be on a "Special" bus that will take all of the last people to their resorts, making multiple stops, but that probably won't happen.

You won't be able to get a bus from your resort to another resort (although if you're staying at a monorail resort, you can ride the monorail to the other monorail resorts). What you'll do is ride to the nearest open park. It's very easy during the day, since all of the buses are running. As the parks start to close, your travel time could increase, but the PI buses will be running until after 2:00.

 

[peg2001]

I stayed at the All Star Movies last November and we used Disney transportation exclusively to get to the parks, Downtown Disney, and other resorts. We always tried to get to the parks at opening. If you are headed to Magic Kingdom, you may not get on the first or second bus as this line seemed to be the longest first thing in the morning. However, the busses came quickly that early as well. Sometimes there were 2 busses side-by-side simulataneously loading.

The only significant wait that I encountered was from Magic Kingdom to Downtown Disney one evening when I waited close to an hour.

The easiest resorts to tour, in my opinion, are the ones connected to Magic Kingdom via monorail or boat. Just take the bus to MK and then hop on the monorail or boat to your destination.

It was a pleasure to not drive the whole time we were there.

Peg

 

[Chip 'n Dale Express]

Pretty much everyone else summed up what I was going to say... Like someone said, there is no "set schedule" for the busses, although information does say they run approx every 20 minutes. For the All-Stars, most busses will run every 10 minutes due to the demand. All-Stars typically get the most frequent busses, however, during rain storms, or other various conditions that would cause unexpected crowds, they might slow down a lil bit.

As for Downtown Disney... for the past month, they had been trying out a new Dispatching system, in an effort to improve service... however... we found that it didn't work as planned. So we're back to being on time scheduled routes. Please bear with us as we try our best to improve service to Downtown Disney... and understand that it's not the drivers fault, they're doing the best they can to get you to your destination as safetly and efficiently as possible.

As for other busses...

Character breakfast busses will typically start at 7:00am.

For the morning rushes, We actually have a large amount of busses staged between Sports and Music that are strictly for All-Stars. They'll get dispatched to an All-Star to pick up for one of the four main theme parks. In addition, if there is a bus coming from the MK area, dropping off at AK... they'll swing over, and pick up for the MK, instead of going back empty. So, this means that in the morning, busses are pretty contiunous.

At night, when crowds are leaving the parks en mass... busses will be pretty continuous into the All Stars, often time double loading. The lines will look long, but we can move people fairly quickly.

 

[Dad of 5]

While I appreciated the plethora of options for transportation provided by Disney, when it gets to be nighttime, you've spent a full day at the parks, you have a herd of tired kids (in my case, 5), and you're at, for example, an Epcot resort and trying to get back "home" to an MK resort (for example, YC to Polynesian), the best and fastest mode of transportation is a taxi.

I presented myself, with that scenario, to one of the valets out front of the YC at about 9:00 one evening last January, and we found ourselves whisked back to the Polynesian in a taxi van that happened to be parked right there.

Sure, we could've waited a while, taken a transfer to DTD or TTC or another park, but the $15 was well worth it just to be done .

Keep that in the back of your mind for late evenings.