Downtown Disney Nightmare

[RebeccaB]

My apologies if this is in the wrong place...I wasn't quite sure where to post! (Plus it turned out ridiculously long...) I just wanted to share my near breakdown to help others avoid it.
The last evening of our trip, we decided to head for Downtown Disney bc the smallish one wanted a special souvie from DD. We took the boat from POFQ...which was the BEST part of this whole debaucle. My knee was completely out of whack and I seriously couldn't even bend it without cringing in pain, but by golly I was suckin it up for the kiddos sake. We hit Once Upon a Toy, the Lego store, and that frackin gigantic World of Mickey or whatever it's called. DD couldn't find anything she wanted and started stressing. We went back to Once Upon a Toy, where I finally couldn't stand the pain from my knee anymore. I sat outside waiting for the hub and DD to come out. Finally, they found me and told me they were headed to T-Rex to build a dinosaur. I told em I was just going to catch a bus back to our room. OMG...worst.decision.EVER. I should have just walked back to the boat launch. Shoulda woulda coulda....

Here comes the nightmare. It seemed like I walked forever to get to the busstop to begin with. When I got there, 1/2 of entire Walt Disney World seemed to be standing there. There was a gentleman directing people to the correct busstop, my busstop was No 1!!! I was standing by No. 1!!! Yay...no more walking!!! Seems like the rest of the human mass was waiting for the All Star busses..that line was snaking all the way from busstop No. 7 to No. 1. Those poor saps...I thought. HA.
I was the only person waiting for the POFQ bus. Yay, again!! Here comes a bus! Well, not mine. Here comes another bus! Yet again, not mine. My spirit began to sag...as bus after bus after bus went by. By this time, there were at least 100 ppl who had joined me waiting for POFQ bus. No line, just everyone standing around en mass. I decided to make a game of it and guess what, EVERY SINGLE OTHER RESORT BUS came and went. After about 1/2 hour I decided I was just going to hoof it back to the boatlaunch, even tho my knee pain almost had me crying at this point. But what, could it be, yay.....OUR BUS!!!
Holy cow it was like a freaken herd of bulls cramming onto the bus...mothers with young children screaming at people w/out children that they should wait for another bus bc they didn't have kids to get in bed, rah, rah and rah...people shoving each other...I was almost knocked over. I did finally get on and got a seat thank God bc I seriously would have just sat on the floor at this point, I was in so much pain.
Finally, we are moving, hooray! Wait,what the....where the heck r we going?? Oh joy, the OTHER side of Downtown Disney...the name escapes me. Where, there are about 150 people in line for the bus there as well. We stop, and the busdriver leaves. DUDE??? Wait, here comes a new driver. Yay, shift change! So we sit there for another 10 minutes while they do the bus inspection and whatnot. Meanwhile, people in the line outside are FREAKING OUT at the busdriver who tells them another bus is coming soon. Ha, yah right.
At last, we are en route! Woohoo! We drive right by POFQ. I stare forelornly at the sign as it disappears into the night. I was crying. Not kidding. I felt as tho I was having some sort of breakdown. Yep, for the first time in our trip, the bus went to POR first. Every single stop. I was the only person left, and at the last stop a group of people got on, asking if he was headed to Downtown Disney...the driver says "Sure thing, that's my next stop". I silently panicked....praying he wouldn't forget to bring me to POFQ.
Well, I did finally get dropped off, a full two hours after I first got to the busstop. I was starving at this point, but headed straight to the room, hobbling like a freaken 99 yo.
Guess who beat me back to the room by an hour!! Yep, hubs and dd had made it to T-Rex, built a dinosaur, hopped back on the boat, got back to the room, went to the cafeteria, got dinner, came back to the room and ate it.
Next time Ima take the damned boat.

 

[larryz]

Ah, so sorry for the extra pain and suffering you experienced, but did the driver share any juicy rumors with you?

 

[THERESA522]

Oh, so sorry!

 

[merbobear]

We had a somewhat similar experience trying to get to DTD from DHS this year! Not nearly as bad as yours, as there was no injury, it just took an insanely long amount of time to get there. It may have been our own fault, as I wasn't exactly sure the best way to get to DTD...we took a boat to Swan/Dolphin, walked through both of the hotels lobbies, and caught a bus. The bus stopped approximately 1000 times! (Maybe closer to 4 or 5). And each stop it just took forever to load passengers on and off. I swore right then that we would never take that route to DTD again!

And your poor dh & dd, were they worried about your whereabouts?

 

[maxiesmom]

Yeah, that pretty much sums up the whole DTD By Bus experience. And part of the reason why I now travel with an extra $20 in my pocket for taxi fare.

The boats are for me a huge perk, and a great reason to stay at POR or POFQ.

 

[RebeccaB]

Ah, so sorry for the extra pain and suffering you experienced, but did the driver share any juicy rumors with you?

No, dang it...I never get the gossipy drivers.

 

[RebeccaB]

And your poor dh & dd, were they worried about your whereabouts?

Dh was starting to get a bit concerned, as he knew how badly my knee was bothering me, plus I had left my cellphone in the room.

 

[DRDISNEYMD]

LOL. These bus incidents keep getting better and better! I experienced a couple of incidents this summer for the first time! DTD buses are known to be a nightmare. Take the boat, seriously -- I don't even mess with DTD buses after 10PM -- we call a car. Sorry about your knee and thanks for sharing!

 

[PSUGuy]

We've always found DTD to be our longest waits, but since the Adventurer's Club closed, we rarely go there.

Bill From PA

 

[disneysnowflake]

Sounds like our experience in November of 2010.
We saw the first showing of Cirque. Bus stop was overflowing. Got on the bus after waiting 35 minutes for one to even show up. Packed in like sardines. We stayed at BLT.
Bus drivers change shifts, and the overstuffed bus sat there for almost 30 minutes before it left.
When we did leave, I'd say there were 3 more busloads of people waiting just for our resort. I guess they only had one bus running between the resort and DTD that night.

DS is planning to spend a lot of time at Disney Quest this trip. I hope we get some pixie dust on the bus situation this time.

 

[maxiesmom]

Sounds like our experience in November of 2010.
We saw the first showing of Cirque. Bus stop was overflowing. Got on the bus after waiting 35 minutes for one to even show up. Packed in like sardines. We stayed at BLT.
Bus drivers change shifts, and the overstuffed bus sat there for almost 30 minutes before it left.
When we did leave, I'd say there were 3 more busloads of people waiting just for our resort. I guess they only had one bus running between the resort and DTD that night.

DS is planning to spend a lot of time at Disney Quest this trip. I hope we get some pixie dust on the bus situation this time.

If you are staying at POFQ don't use the buses, use the boats!!!!! Much faster, and a lot prettier travels, imho.

 

[wdw4rfam]

Yup- can relate. We stayed at POFQ and took the boat both ways, because we know the DD busing is a mess. We drive from OHIO when we go, so we have our van every day, but never drive to the parks. DD is the only time all week we drive- because its aweful!!! No matter what hotel you stay at, the bus sucks to and mostly from DD. (from my experience)

 

[Kay1]

Holy cats! That's a terrible story and still would be even if you weren't in pain. Well, at least you learned something and can laugh about it now.

 

[Bouncin-Tigger]

That is part of the reason we drive. You will never know how great it is to have your car til its closing time with lines everywhere and you are in your room in 15 mins.

 

[Finally08]

Yep, the DTD buses suck!
DD and I were waiting for a bus on an extremely hot June day for the Poly. We waited or an hour...no bus ever came, and the poor thing was ROASTING in the sun. We were on the Pleasure Island side of stops (because we went over there with my family who abandoned us for Disney Quest)...so there were no big crowds waiting with us, but the buses didn't seem to come over there either. Finally we got on a bus for GF because I knew from there I could monorail myself over to Poly that way. It was only us and another family on the bus and they could tell I was pretty frustrated by this time and were talking to me about it (we were so red and sweating, dd was crying....it was not pretty).

The driver overheard us and took pity on me and dropped me right off at the Poly.

 

[boydstcher]

Yes I agree. Getting out of DTD is a nightmare so much so that my husband refuses to go there anymore.
I think that boat would be a great alternative if that's an option.

Yeah, that pretty much sums up the whole DTD By Bus experience. And part of the reason why I now travel with an extra $20 in my pocket for taxi fare.

The boats are for me a huge perk, and a great reason to stay at POR or POFQ.

 

[QuirkyBelle]

I know exactly what you mean. I had my own downtown nightmare back in 2003. I was about 14 at the time and my family, including my grandparents, had gone to Disney. One night we were shopping downtown and it was getting kind of late so my grandma, my mom, my sister, and I decided we would head back to the room. My dad on the other hand wanted to hit the Adventurer's Club with my grandfather and two of my sisters stayed with them.

So the four of us got on a bus for the Wilderness Lodge at the Pleasure Island stop, which of course took awhile, though nothing out of the ordinary for downtown. En route to the West Side, a baby on our bus vomited. I still can't believe how much vomit came out of that tiny little baby. It was everywhere. When we got to the West Side, the mom and her baby got off the bus but in doing so the baby ended up spraying vomit on a bunch of people because it kept flailing its arms.

Luckily, no baby vomit ended up on me or my family, but that doesn't mean we didn't have to deal with the smell, which was DISGUSTING! We were just sitting on the bus, waiting for the driver to deal with the mother, dealing with this smell. Eventually, they finally came on and cleaned it up a bit but the smell was still there. Worse, the cleaner they used to mask the smell mixed with it instead and now we were stuck with this sickly sweet concoction of vomit and cleaner that soon had everyone feeling nauseous.

It felt like hours before we finally made it back to the WL and I'm surprised no one else on our bus ended up getting sick, it was that gross a bus ride. It was the best feeling in the world to get off that bus and breathe fresh air again. To add insult to injury, when we got back to our room, everybody else was already there. They'd managed to see a show at the Adventurer's Club, hop on a bus, and get back to the resort about 20 minutes before us - without having to deal with any vomit.

Now I always hate taking a bus downtown since it always brings up memories this awful bus ride.

 

[tink_n_pooh]

We have yet to have a terrible experience with the DTD busses. Once in awhile the waits are long but we have dealt with the same length of waiting at the resorts and parks. There are certainly times when the busses are crowded but they are crowded leaving the parks too.

I can't help but notice that a lot of the stories include personal melt downs, injuries, tired kids, tired adults, and vomit (yuck!)... things that will certainly make any experience seem worse and things that Disney can't control.

 

[maxiesmom]

We have yet to have a terrible experience with the DTD busses. Once in awhile the waits are long but we have dealt with the same length of waiting at the resorts and parks. There are certainly times when the busses are crowded but they are crowded leaving the parks too.

I can't help but notice that a lot of the stories include personal melt downs, injuries, tired kids, tired adults, and vomit (yuck!)... things that will certainly make any experience seem worse and things that Disney can't control.

Well the experience I had with the DTD buses doesn't stick out because of vomit, or my being in pain. I just started humming The Road to Nowhere, because the wait and ride was so long. First you wait for the bus. Then you stop here, then you stop there, and finally you get to your resort a long time after you boarded the bus.

I think that Disney purposely makes the buses to/from DTD less than ideal to keep people who stay off-site from using them, instead of parking and paying in the theme park lots. No proof of it, but it seems fishy that while the transportation from the resorts can have its hiccups from time to time, it is never consistently bad as it is at DTD.

 

[bitohoney]

I've never had a problem with the DTD buses. I do remember waiting a really long time for the GF bus but I really didn't care. I was in lala land just being at WDW! But, I'll be sure to stick with the DTD boat while staying at OKW in December! Cute story but sorry you were in pain!