Do Disney busses get a bad rap?

[Boopuff]

I was reading posts of people complaining about the bus service. I wonder if peoples opinions are based upon their own experiences with busses in general. If, for example, you live in a large urban area, ride the city busses frequently, you would, I'm guessing, understand the busses do not magically appear and you have to wait. If, on the other hand, you live in a rural, small town area and do not ever use busses, you may wonder why it takes so long. Just a thought....

 

[SteveH]

Partially yes but unlike fixed route city bus service, Disney should be able to predict peak demand times and adjust quicker when you have 3 bus loads of people waiting from MK to XYZ resort. Disney has the data and they should have the IT ability (oh wait we all know how bad Disney IT is - my bad). The bus issues of today are also impacted by available bus drivers, but more than anything is Disney isn't spending the money to overcome the problems.

 

[Rm4OneMore]

I used to think so, but not so much anymore. We tried to rope drop Blizzard Beach last summer. The first bus picked us up at our resort in an acceptable amount of time then dropped us off at the Animal Kingdom transfer. After spending the first 30 minutes without seeing a bus for Blizzard Beach, we chalked it up to cast shortages due to the covid layoffs. Hoewver, after spending an hour plus at the transfer watching empty buses pull up to empty turn styles, sit for 5-10 minutes, then leave again empty while our line was extended beyond the turnstiles, I started to second guess that hypothesis. Finally, the bus driver of an empty bus at an empty turnstile got off the bus, asked us when the last time we saw a bus was (we hadn't seen any to that point), took pity on us, picked most of us up, and called dispatch to send another bus for the rest. He was instantly the hero of the day and, I'm certain, received an above average number of cast compliments.

 

[_19disnA]

Some people seem to think the Disney bus system is their personal valet and get miffed if they aren't instantly taken to their destination. Disney busses circulate between the various resorts and parks and are not on a set schedule like you would find for public transportation in a city. When we were last there found it worked fine. Yes, sometimes we would walk up and the bus had just left but other times a bus was just pulling in to pickup passengers. When we stayed at the Contemporary, there was often a Disney employee with a radio standing at the waiting area in the morning calling for additional busses to a specific park if there were larger then expected crowds. Thought it worked fine.

At peak times when parks are closing (for example), there will clearly be a large number of people trying to take whatever transportation is available..........monorail/bus/boat. Typically you will have to wait longer just because of the large numbers of people all exiting at the same time. I think you wait far longer AT the park when in line for specific popular rides, but it seems like people like to bash the transportation system. For the daily volume of people they are handling, I found they did a good job.

 

[gregskellington]

I live in a city with public transport and use it and firmly believe Disney's terrible transportation reputation is fully deserved.

 

[gorkt]

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.

 

[Her Dotness]

We haven't city bus service in the St. Louis suburb where we live but simply hate riding the bus at WDW because DH can roll his powerchair up the ramp onto the monorail and turn it off. No holding things up for everyone else by having to have him and his chair belted in place half a dozen ways.

That's why we nearly always stay at a monorail resort or one with boat service. Disney buses are a pain to deal with when you're in a chair.

 

[georgina]

Some people who think we shouldn’t complain probably haven’t waited over an hour for a bus after a party or park closing. I have, more than once. There is an obvious difference between waiting and hour for a ride and waiting an hour for a bus at midnight. MK is the only park open that late on party nights, it’s not like they have 4 parks to cover. You would think Disney could plan for park closing and have enough available, but they don’t. We always rent a car at Disney, and more often stay offsite now.

 

[Lilsia]

I only use the buses when I go to WDW, meaning that I don't rent a car. That is part of the reason why I go. I don't have to worry about anything when I am there. I don't get stresses trying to find my way back to the resort late at night, in the dark or worry about all of the other tourists trying to do the same. Sometimes you get lucky and the bus shows up right when you get there and sometimes you lose the bus lottery. It all evens out in the end. Life is stressful enough that I am not going to let something like waiting longer for a bus to affect me. Sitting at the bus stop all day is still a million times better then being at work.

I think that people used to be a lot more patient then they are now. You can actually see people's agitation grow the longer they wait. And it doesn't even take that long, 10 minutes and people start to freak out. On more then one occasion I have heard people start to complain about how they have been waiting "almost a half an hour" and I look at the time and it's been less then 15 minutes since they got there. In 30 years of visits with, I don't even know how many nights that I have stayed, I can say that I have waited more then 40 minutes maybe 4-5 times at most. Every other time has been 30 minutes or less. Maybe I am just lucky but I know that even I would have my limit. If the majority of my trips had me waiting 45-60 minutes on a regular basis, I would probably just start renting a car. But luckily, that has not happened.

 

[gharter]

It depends what resort you are staying at.
We usually stay at 1 of 2 resorts. One has the buses arrive about every 10-15 minutes. The other can be 20-40 minutes between buses.
We have watched other resorts had 3 buses come to their stop while we waited for a bus.
However, even with those issues, not having to drive, walk through the parking lot still makes the bus a really good option.

 

[seashoreCM]

Which is the resort that "always" has buses every 10-15 minutes? Does it share busws with another resort?

Which is the resort that often has waits of more than 20 minutes and often as long as 50 minutes?

I still use city buses quite often and even used city buses getting to and from the airport back at home on my last Disney trip.

 

[MillauFr]

I live in a city with public transport and use it and firmly believe Disney's terrible transportation reputation is fully deserved.

Agreed. Our public transport in Seattle is far better than anything at WDW. We never have to wait more than 5 or 10 minutes for a train to show up at the subway station by our house.

 

[Smugpugmug]

I think it's a mixture of yes and no. I agree with a lot of what has been said here already - a lot of people feel like the Disney busses are their personal valets and get frustrated when they don't show up right away. I'm guilty of it too in the moment. I would still rather be on the bus than drive to the parks each day. I've had good and bad experiences with the busses, but I don't think they're worse than public transportation that I used when I lived in Germany where it was 100% expected that the bus/train would be late by 20-30 minutes every time. I also agree that Disney should be able to anticipate demand and send busses accordingly but I am fully aware that there is a driver shortage right now so that may be something they're unable to do at the moment.

I do think it does vary by resort in terms of the busses. I had the best experience with the busses at All Star Music - never waited more than 5 minutes as busses were constantly flooding into the resort. The worst resort for busses was AKL. I stayed there last week and while we had some luck where we got on the bus right away, the majority of the time we waited 20-30 minutes for the bus. On our second HS day we waited 40 minutes for the bus when trying to return to the resort. It was very disheartening to see 3 Polynesian and 3 Fort Wilderness busses pass by without a single AKL one.

 

[Lilsia]

Which is the resort that "always" has buses every 10-15 minutes? Does it share busws with another resort?

Which is the resort that often has waits of more than 20 minutes and often as long as 50 minutes?

I still use city buses quite often and even used city buses getting to and from the airport back at home on my last Disney trip.

None of them. LOL this is one of those situations that "the other buses are always there but we have to wait". It is like you always picking the slowest check out line. The rest of them can't all be faster and yet everyone still complains. LOL

 

[leebee]

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.

 

[artesian]

I'm in the camp of never relying on the buses due to the fact they are wildly inconsistent. I get it's a supply demand issue at times but for the love of God if a park is closing it befuddles me why you can't have more than one waiting and another queuing shortly after. EP is the only park I still use the bus consistently and after a couple drinks around the world I do appreciate not having to worry getting back to my resort.

 

[loves to dive]

I've been going to WDW for almost 40 years and always drive down and always park my car and don't get in it again until I leave. I use Disney transportation for everything. I have taken an Uber twice when I've had late night dining reservations at a resort other than the one I was staying at but otherwise I use the buses, the boats and the monorail. I've always said the buses are the buses are the buses. I've had good and bad service no matter where I've stayed and I've stayed at just about every resort on property. The only time I've really waited a long time was coming back from DS but I don't go there but maybe once every 2 or 3 years so no big deal. My son went to UGA and he has always said the WDW buses are much better than those and UGA is a huge university with IT coming out the wazoo. We do have public transportation here but the few times I've taken it, it takes much longer than the Disney buses.

 

[xipotec]

I am an admitted snob when it comes to transportation….

We used WDW transport exclusively during the first few years. It was very convenient and took very little time. Staying at the deluxes during that time defined what the high end experience should look like.

THEN

Slowly the monorails became more and more crowded…..needing to wait a few trains to just get on without being squeezed in a packed car…..and of course, people had no sense of space and would shove you into a corner just to get on THAT train , evwn though another was coming (with the stroller also that was obviously never going to fit)

The buses were the same, once easy to get a seat, suddenly you had to stand and hold on for dear life many times…..it got that bad… not to mention , once again, the people having conversations the people in the car NEXT to the bus could hear, kids , unsupervised, and doing downright dangerous stuff….and the drunks from EPCOT….The buses at WDW were way worse then any city bus I had been on…..

So we started doing Lyft, we budget for it every trip. Direct door to door service, no hassles. More importantly, its MUCH faster….and time saved not being aggravated is the point of a vacation.

Like I said…..transportation snob, but I blame WDW for that.

 

[Mrs.AMC]

Yes and no.
I have never lived in a location with city bus service. So I have zero experience with using public transportation of any sort.
I don't think Disney bus service is all bad just because I don't have experience with public transportation
I think Disney bus service's rap is more luck of the guest than anything else.
If you have the misfortunate timing of approaching a bus stop just to see the back end of a bus half the time you are going to have a lot more waits than someone who approaches the same stop 2 min before you. Same trip, same stop, same day, totally different bus experience.
For a free service it's not awful. Nor is it perfect. Nor will it ever please everyone

 

[frannn]

I haven't taken buses at home in NY in a while, so can't compare. But...my main gripe with the WDW busses is when the skyliner shuts down due to storms in Epcot. Just this week this happened. We had to walk/run to the opposite end of the park in the pouring rain, complete with lightning. Once we arrived at the bus stop, the line for Pop/AoA was combined and extended far out from the shelter of the bus stop. There were no signs or designated CMs to advise that the line was for Pop, so we ran past it looking for our stop and then had to run all the way back to the end of the now much longer line. Then it was at least 30 min more before any bus came for Pop which was closing time by then, plus MK had closed early for a CM party. We paid a decent amount extra for a skyliner resort- plus WDW has the data. Why can't they do a better job with this?