Does DVC include airport transfers?

[Tropigal]

We are in the process of purchasing DVC. We are not at Disney but doing it from home.

Does DVC include airport tranfers? Or is it best to rent a car? Are the busses crowded to the parks? We've always had our own car when we've visited before.

 

[MrShiny]

DVC does include Magical Express, which transfers you and your luggage to the resort and back (only some airlines allow luggage checkin on the way back - others you collect it off the bus and checkin at the airport).

ME does take a bit longer than getting a car fro one of the on-airport vendors, but it is of course much cheaper. The buses are nice "luxury" style and usually have a neat video with the characters both ways.

The car decision really depends on where you are staying and what you plan to do. Will you be going to Universal? Will you have time to eat in the room? What are the ages of the people staying.

We often do both - rent a car (perhaps one not big enough for all the people and the luggage, but at least the people alone) and have most of the folks take the bus. That way while the family goes on ME, I can take the car and do a Publix run, pick up tickets, etc.

 

[Tropigal]

We would have between 6 of us to more. Usually 6-7. 4 are kids. We won't do Universal yet...kids are too little.

We would probably need the car so I could run to Publix since we own Orange Lake there too and we like cooking in our rooms. We would need groceries.

It's our first time staying on site at Disney and since we'll be buying DVC now it's way more exciting! Just gonna take a few weeks to go through since we are buying through a re-sale.

 

[jekjones1558]

Many, many DVCers use Magical Express and the Disney transportation system and never rent a car. They order groceries from WeGoShop or GardenGrocer, both of which deliver right to your hotel. They may even have an OwnersLocker to store some non-perishable and cosmetic items between trips and those are also delivered right to your hotel. We always rent a car. The extra freedom it gives us to go off-property to shop and eat, to go to church and to quickly get from one Disney resort to another makes the additional cost okay with us. You can try not renting a car and see how it goes. If you don't like it you can get a free shuttle pick up from anywhere on Disney property by Alamo at the Disney Car Care Center. I tried not having a car for my recent short solo trip and decided that I needed a car. The Alamo pickup and dropoff was great!

 

[marie1981]

For Alamo rental car, you can also pick up your car at the Dolphin hotel.

If you are staying at the BWV or the BC, it is just a short walk to pick up your car !

 

[ccgirl]

For Alamo rental car, you can also pick up your car at the Dolphin hotel.

If you are staying at the BWV or the BC, it is just a short walk to pick up your car !

This is what I would do. At times, especially at the end of the night buses can be very crowded, as in standing room only.

Magical Express is not just a DVC perk. Rather it is for any on site guest.

Congrats on your purchase.

 

[spiceycat]

since most of my time is spend at Disney. then DME works fine for me on those few trips that I do fly.

used wegoshop and was happy with their services. Having someone bring me what I order and only what I ordered is much better on the budget (for me at least). It cut down on my picking up stuff that never got eaten - which when I go to the grocery store have a tendency to do.

the problem is when you share with a value and moderate - and generally you do.

they go to the value then moderate then DVC (or deluxe). picking up is the opposite. so you are last off the DME but first own. think I would have liked the opposite.

 

[DenLo]

The only question not answered by the above posts was the one about how crowded are buses to the parks. That really depends on multiple factors. Where you are staying, where and when you are going and when you are coming back.

I would say at any DVC resort we have not had to stand to go to a park, but we usually go to the parks for rope drops, lunch or an early dinner from the resort.

When returning from the parks at closing, after the parade, or fireworks then you will probably have to stand or at least wait for another bus. We have found that usually the bus rides including internal stops at the DVC resort or neighboring resorts to and from a park are between 10 minutes and 20 minutes. If traffic is bad between EPCOT and Magic Kingdom on World Drive it can increase the drive to 30 minutes.

Buses usually run every 20 minutes, but they get tied up in traffic and their schedule gets messed up. It seems the buses to DTD is the worse at every resort, I seems it always takes 45 to 60 minutes at least coming or going, alway delays there. But for the parks I would recommend that you try riding the buses to see what you think before dismissing them. We stayed at VWL this last trip and that resort has buses and ferry boats that can take you to MK. We have always taken the ferry, but this trip we took the bus. It was only a five minute ride! We couldn't have driven and parked and gotten to the gate in less than 12 minutes, maybe more because MK's parking is at the TTC. Even at AKV I think the bus is quicker for MK than you can drive mainly because you have to park at the TTC. But many of the other parks it's faster to drive but definitely not relaxing.

Also some DVC members prefer being able to walk to a park from a resort. BWVs and BCVs are walking distance to the International Gateway at Epcot (10 minutes for BCV and 15 for BWVs). They also are walking distance to DHS, probably 20 minutes for a family. But they also have the option of ride a Friendship boat to either park. But those resorts also share their buses with each other and the Swan and Dolphin.

BLT is only a 10 minute walk to MK, but shares it's buses with the Poly, and GF. You also can take the Monorail to Epcot and between the resorts and MK if you want.

AKV is a 5 minute bus ride from Animal Kingdom Park, but there is an internal stop between Kidani Village and Jambo House.

We usually drive to WDW so we always have a car available for use, but we often take the buses because sometimes it's not worth getting into a hot car or taking the trams out to the parking lot to get to the hot car. And after walking around the park all day, I just want to get on an air conditioned bus and be off my feet.

 

[Mtnman44]

The internal bus system can sometimes be a great perk, and often not having to worry about driving and parking seems like it should help add to the vacation fun.

However, in our experience, try as we do to like the bus system, we always seem to have more fun and more time when we rent a car. Usually, we take magic express from the airport and rent a car at some point from one of the locations in WDW. We discovered on our last trip that it was cheaper to rent a car for the whole trip directly from the airport. Pschologically, we felt like we were wasting something by not using Magical Express. In the end, the trip was just better when we had our own car. This also makes spliting the stay among different resorts much more bareable. While parking, etc seems like a pain, it is far easier and faster to drive and park yourself and it also makes getting around to different dinner reservations much easier.

Leaving a park around closing time and/or after parade/fireworks/fantasmic can sometimes be a nightmare on the bus.

 

[twinklebug]

We are in the process of purchasing DVC. We are not at Disney but doing it from home.

Does DVC include airport tranfers? Or is it best to rent a car? Are the busses crowded to the parks? We've always had our own car when we've visited before.

I've never had a need to rent a car when staying onsite. I suppose if I had plans to go to Universal or Seaworld then yes, I'd want one.

Magical Express takes care of getting us and our luggage to/from MCO without problem. It's nice to just walk right to the Disney buses instead of waiting at carousels and then dealing with the car rental and directions.

The Park buses can be crowded. If at the end of the day it looks like our bus is standing room only by the time we board, I'll simply stand back and wait at the front of the line for the next bus. We're on vacation, no hurry and I need to sit or I get vertigo

For groceries I'll often pack the dry goods we're used to in an extra suitcase. For the perishables and liquids, Marge at wegoshop has been wonderful and it quite reasonable. The resort store prices are astronomical, but if all you need is a 1/2 g of milk etc, it might be cheaper to buy a few things there.

I've driven to the parks before when we stayed in the area but offsite. I hate those trams lines to the parking lots, the walk to the car (why are we always on the far end?) and then finally starting our drive. To determine whether driving is faster than the Disney transportation, some people have timed it, others have raced against family members. The results are mixed and there is no definitive answer which way is faster. I just prefer to get on the bus/boat or monorail, close my eyes and enjoy the trip.

 

[JimMIA]

DME is not a perk of DVC, it's a perk of staying in any onsite Disney resort, just like free theme park parking, EMH, etc. It's part of Disney's overall marketing strategy of keeping guests onsite so they'll be basically a captive audience for everything.

Since it's a perk, of course, it could go away at any time, or they might someday decide to charge a modest fee. As a matter of fact, when DME was first introduced, a lot of us thought the "free" part was just to get folks hooked and then they'd start charging -- but they haven't.

We drive up, so it doesn't affect us one way or the other, but it's certainly a big convenience for guests flying in.

 

[tjkraz]

Many people are quite content with Disney bus service. Others will pay extra (car rental) just to avoid it.

We tend to fall into the latter group. I would much rather have a car available rather than relying on buses.

The main issue for me is unpredictability of bus service. Particularly if you have to be somewhere at a specific time such as a dining reservation. A couple years ago we were staying at the Animal Kingdom Villas and had dinner reservations at the Grand Floridian.

It so happens that this trip we did NOT have a car this time. The only way to get to our destination using Disney transport was to take a bus from AKV to the Magic Kingdom and then take the monorail from MK to the Grand Floridian. Thinking worst case (long wait for bus + bus ride + walk to monorail station + wait for monorail + monorail trip) we left our room about 90 minutes before our reservation time. As it turned out things went pretty smoothly and we arrived about 30 minutes early...and promptly stood around waiting to be seated.

If we'd had a car, we would have departed AKV 20-25 minutes before our dining time and had no trouble getting there.

With a car you can travel from any Point A to Point B on property at will. When you use Disney transport, you have to stick with the routes they run. In my example above, it took a bus AND a monorail trip to get where we needed to go. Generally speaking buses only run between hotels and theme parks so getting from one hotel to another is often a hassle. Disney also does not run buses directly from theme parks to Downtown Disney so bus changes are required there, too.

We've done trips without a car and still had moderately acceptable results. But given the choice between spending our first $200 of mad money on an elaborate meal, round of golf, drinking my way around Epcot or renting a car, I'll take the car rental every single time.

 

[Tropigal]

DME is not a perk of DVC, it's a perk of staying in any onsite Disney resort, just like free theme park parking, EMH, etc

Do we get FREE parking at the parks when staying onsite?

Thanks for all the advice! Our home resort will be Saratoga Springs.

 

[JimMIA]

Do we get FREE parking at the parks when staying onsite?

OOOOOoooops! I misread. YES.

Thanks Sammie!

 

[Sammie]

Yes you get free parking at the theme parks if staying onsite at a Disney resort.

 

[4DisneyAddicts]

DME is not a perk of DVC, it's a perk of staying in any onsite Disney resort, just like free theme park parking, EMH, etc

Do we get FREE parking at the parks when staying onsite?

Thanks for all the advice! Our home resort will be Saratoga Springs.

Yes, parking is free at the parks for resort guests, you get a pass to put in your windshield.

 

[LSchrow]

we always rent a car now (when we stay at the BWV, we rent at the dolphin alamo/national - they are wonderful there!). we don't use it to drive to the parks though, we find WDW transportation faster than going to your car, waiting for the A/C to cool it off, driving to the park, waiting on line to get a spot, parking, getting a tram, and finally entering the park
we use the car to get groceries, eat offsite, go to the outlets and DTD (we prefer the short drive, no waiting and no trams there), etc
just a suggestion.: if you rent at the airport, you can opt for a smaller car if some of your pary takes magical express, and all your luggage goes with them.
or you could rent at alamo/national at the dolphin or car care center, dollar across the street from SSR, or one of the other places near there. then you would not only have the option of renting a smaller car (since one adult can get the groceries while the other watches the kids - they can enjoy the resort or take WDW transportation to a park, where you can meet up with them later, if you would like), you could also rent for fewer days. that can be a big money saver, especially if you are going for over a week, as the daily car rental prices are rather high. lately we've been doing just that: we get a car for a week, doing every we want outside of WDW during that time, then drop the car off. for the next 3-5 days, we do a few days of the dining plan, enjoy our resort, and take WDW trans. it works out perfectly for us

 

[Hopefully]

As far as the Car Rental question, it truly is personal preference.
We have done it all ways; we had our own car, we rented a car, we used a Town Car service and we used DME and a grocery delivery.
We prefer to not rent. We like Disney transportation. And one thing I haven't seen mentioned is I budget for a few resort to resort taxi fares for evening ADR's. It is still way cheaper than a rental car that would sit most of the week.
Not driving is part of our vacation mind set

 

[CarolMN]

We use ME and rely almost entirely on the bus system. SInce we usually stay at the BWV, we only need to use a bus to the MK, AK and DD.

Cabs are plentiful and a great way to avoid the buses if you are in a hurry or are traveling to another resort. In my experience, it takes quite a few cab rides to equal the cost of a car rental.

 

[rocketriter]

We don't like messing with traffic, driving directions and parking lots at WDW, so we use Magical Express and Garden Grocer. On our last trip (a few weeks ago), when we got out of Cirque at DD we could see the crowd from the show overwhelming the bus system, so we stepped out into the parking lot and caught a cab back to BCV. Easy, fast, cheap--what's not to like?