Do Disney busses get a bad rap?

[Bruggok]

WDW busses are erratic and I believe that is the crux of the problem. Last 4 trips in the past 2 years I have seen 20 min or less no matter what time of day (great), long line at park open/close (not great but expected), and waited 30+ min midday at AK to go to AKL and missed ADR (bad). If WDW can implement a bus queue monitor, maybe a way for guests to indicate where they want to go at what time, so they can anticipate increased load and surge busses there, complaints will drop a lot.

 

[Mrs.AMC]

It's annoying to wait for buses these days when you know Disney has the IT in place to be able to send buses to where they are needed, but I can see how this is challenging during the day. How can you predict which families will need to go from X resort to Y park? However, there is no excuse for waiting an hour or longer at park closing. Disney KNOWS when those parks close, knows how many people are going to need transportation and from where. No excuses.

Have you met Disney's IT?

 

[Mrs.AMC]

I have gone 5 times in the past 20 years or so, and I would say that the bus service is getting somewhat worse over the years. The worst was my 2019 trip, but that might have been a function of the resort we were at, CBR. It was a resort with multiple internal stops, and we were one of the last stops so very frequently full busses would just pass by our stop. Plus the skyliner had just opened so we would see multitudes of Epcot and HS with no one in them since they hadn't figured out the balance. I wanted to yell, "Just change to an MK bus, damn it!". One morning we waited nearly an hour for a bus to MK. When I stayed at OKW in 2016, which also had lots of internal stops, I had no problems at all, and I was pleasantly surprised because I had heard a lot of complaints about the busses. The best overall bus experiences I have had were at resorts with only one bus station and a preferred room. I am specifically thinking of AOA. I never waited more than 10 minutes for a bus that whole trip.

Ironically, crowds have gone up massively over those same 5 years with 2019 likely a peak, just prior to Covid shut downs. Coincidence? I suspect not.

 

[Anna131517]

I have nothing against the buses themselves. My problem was with the wait times and lack of buses leading to overcrowding or longer waits. This was from person experience in April.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Etiquette on the bus could be explained by frequency of usage in public transit sorta like knowing the norms and all. But their bus service itself? Nah that is Disney being Disney. We've waited an eternity in 2011 too it's hardly that we're not understanding of city living/public transit.

We never waited more than 5 mins for a bus at Universal a few weeks back taking it from Endless Summer to CityWalk and back again even at park close when there was just a flood gates of people going back to Endless Summer. Their property itself is smaller but it was very routine frequent bus service.

We just had a DISer friend's wedding at Disney. So wedding was supposed to be at 5:30am due to park opening. At 5:30 us guests at the last bus stop (there were 3 one at a Value, one at a Mod, and one at a Deluxe) had still not been picked up (pick up time was 5am sharp). No one inside AKL knew a dang thing about us 25+ guests just waiting outside in the wee hours of the morning, they were clueless. Bus got a flat tire, okay that's not Disney's issue itself but there wasn't even communication about it leaving all of us guests wondering if we'd miss the wedding and this was the only way you could get to the wedding was the bus at one of the three resorts.

Then for the dessert party the next evening in Epcot the bride is waiting at AKL for a bus to get to Epcot, her friend had been waiting for 45 mins...they opted for Uber.

Disney has in the past advised to leave 90mins when using their transportation to get from point A to point B. I'm all fine with that but someone's experience back home in terms of usage of public transit isn't really related to waiting vs. not waiting and there are places where you will not be waiting forever for a bus to arrive, it's more like a Disney thing in terms of this.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

if the majority of my trips had me waiting 45-60 minutes on a regular basis, I would probably just start renting a car.

We always rent a car. On our 2017 trip we always drove even though we were staying at All-Stars, even driving to AK. But you're going to have instances where you need to either take a rideshare or use Disney's transportation.

For example parking at the TTC to get to MK, a bus will take you to the gates in that case but even if you're not using a bus because you're not on site or at a Disney hotel at that moment and just going from the TTC you need to take the monorail or the ferry.

If you want to go to resorts for shopping, perusing or dining you are going to have a high chance of using Disney's transportation because you can and many have been turned away without an ADR (mobile ordering hasn't been enough in places). Parking at resorts Disney doesn't really allow for that much any more. Not all resorts are serviced by a monorail, boat or skyliner.

Quite frankly I'd love it if we could just drive our car to each place including the resorts (although I find TTC to be convenient when we're doing an Epcot and MK together day and it is nice to be able to hop on the monorail to go to Poly for example or Riviera on the Skyliner) but Disney doesn't really allow for that. In that respects it's not on the guest. We were offsite for this trip and we drove every day and parked the car in their parking lots but we also still had to use Disney's transportation. Bus we did not use with exception to the wedding day.

The friendship boats over to Boardwalk included in this because they can take a while as well.

 

[Lilsia]

We always rent a car. On our 2017 trip we always drove even though we were staying at All-Stars, even driving to AK. But you're going to have instances where you need to either take a rideshare or use Disney's transportation.

For example parking at the TTC to get to MK, a bus will take you to the gates in that case but even if you're not using a bus because you're not on site or at a Disney hotel at that moment and just going from the TTC you need to take the monorail or the ferry.

If you want to go to resorts for shopping, perusing or dining you are going to have a high chance of using Disney's transportation because you can and many have been turned away without an ADR (mobile ordering hasn't been enough in places). Parking at resorts Disney doesn't really allow for that much any more. Not all resorts are serviced by a monorail, boat or skyliner.

Quite frankly I'd love it if we could just drive our car to each place including the resorts (although I find TTC to be convenient when we're doing an Epcot and MK together day and it is nice to be able to hop on the monorail to go to Poly for example or Riviera on the Skyliner) but Disney doesn't really allow for that. In that respects it's not on the guest. We were offsite for this trip and we drove every day and parked the car in their parking lots but we also still had to use Disney's transportation. Bus we did not use with exception to the wedding day.

The friendship boats over to Boardwalk included in this because they can take a while as well.

Yeah, you can thank those other guest for trying to cheat the system as the reason why you can't just drive and park at the resorts now. Same reason why they got rid of the busses from the parks to and from Disney Springs. I get that some people like driving and that is great. I like WDW because I don't have to worry about driving.

 

[Karnor00]

Currently waiting 45 minutes for an AKL to Epcot bus which hasn’t arrived.

But the biggest issue for me is the timetable screen behind me saying the next bus is due in 1 minute. It’s been saying that the entire time I’ve been here. Well except for the brief minute when it told me to board the nonexistent bus.

It’s 2022. It really shouldn’t be hard for Disney to track their buses and get a reasonably accurate arrival time. Uber seem to manage it just fine for all the Uber drivers and users.

And this isn’t a one off. The timetable screen has been a work of fiction the whole week I’ve been here.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

No one likes to wait 30-40 minutes for a bus and then have to stand. Not even those of us who use public transportation daily like that.

It doesn't always happen at WDW, in fact it is pretty seldom unless you're doing park openings/closings every day, but the times it does happen outweigh all the times it doesn't.

even so, I'm not about to drive myself around WDW. Bus it is

 

[MIChessGuy]

I was there last week and did not experience any unusual wait times. But then again, my bus trips were mainly for park-hopping purposes. From what I've read elsewhere, a lot of bus-related aggravation relates to those resorts that have multiple/shared stops, and Disney Springs is probably not a barrel of laughs either. But for my purposes, moving around between parks at generally non-peak times, I have found the bus service to be reasonable.