Downtown Disney Travel Woes

[Stacy's a freak]

Can anyone give me a good update - and continue to update the board - with Downtown Disney travel situations? We are going only to US in July and we are excited about it. But I had a little tear drop this weekend thinking that we will be so close to WDW and will not be going. I am content that we are saving money by going to US and I don't want to go while there is so much construction. BUT! If we could get away for a few hours to DTD, that would be fantastic. I was thinking of us driving over on a Monday night in later July for dinner and wandering around. Since we have 4 nights and 3 full days at US, we can spare the time. But how awful might the traffic be at say 7 p.m. on a Monday night in the summer? Should we even try it? Note that we will likely be sardines - the 6 of us in a Dodge Charger.

 

[kbelle8995]

Read Kathy's latest DTD update. It looks like a mess driving over there right now. They are finishing some things. But there is still some construction especially road construction. I think that if you find parking its fine. But getting there and getting to that parking, that's another story?

It would be better on Monday night than on the weekend. But I am in the habit of just going really early or not bothering. I've heard that things have improved but can still be challenging.

 

[Stacy's a freak]

Thanks for the tip. I checked out Kathy's blog but since I'm not very familiar with driving there it didn't help me much. I have only been to DTD on busses so even though I can visualize the layout of the stores and locations of east side and west side, I am not able to place the roads she mentions. I'll keep looking online for pictures from a bird's eye view to get an idea of how this construction has impacted the shopping and dining areas so see if braving the construction on the roads will be worth it.

 

[*NikkiBell*]

In addition to Kathy's blog, Pete just talked about his experience on yesterday's show.

From personal experience, I can tell you that things are improving quite a bit. However, the nighttime is the most crowded and will continue to be. Your best bet is to go early in the morning from opening and leave no later than 2:30. This is when it really starts to pick up both in peak and off-peak times of the year. The walls are spread back a bit more which alleviates some of the congestion, but it still exists especially when transitioning from the Marketplace area to the West Side. With this being said, going earlier in the day rather than at night will make all the difference.