Drive or bus?

[tlbwriter]

We'll be staying at POR in December and will have our own car. I'm wondering whether it would be best to drive or walk to the parks. I know the UG has a chart showing approximately how long it takes to get from one site to the other, either driving or using park transportation. But does that include average waiting time? Also, if we want to eat dinner at a different resort, will we be able to park there? Any advice is appreciated.

 

[hockey mom]

We drive. I like the freedom of coming and going when I want. You can park at any of the resorts- just tell the guard you have dining reservations.

 

[golfgal]

Having never really been to Disney I'm not going to be a lot of help, but you are probably better off taking the bus to MK because if you park in the lot, they you have to take the ferry or what ever over to the entrance, so you can either wait in line for a bus or wait in line for the ferry. The bus drops you off at the entrance. I would also take a bus to Epcot. We are probably going to drive to AK and the water parks, but bus everywhere else.

 

[shafke]

We drove to all the parks except MK. It does not pay to drive to MK since once you get there you still need to board a monorail on ferry to get to where the bus would take you. If you get to the other parks early enough you do not even need to take the tram as the gates are well within walking distance.

 

[cocodog]

We syated at POR last week, and part of the beauty of staying onsite for us is not worrying about driving and parking! Yes, sometimes the busses can be a pain, but less so than driving.

 

[jlaspoq]

We stayed at POR over Easter and took the buses everywhere except Ft. Wilderness. It was no problem at all. MK is definitely better by bus - we took the first POR bus to MK on EMH morning and we were first at the turnstiles two days in a row!

 

[Golf4food]

My DW and I stayed at the CBR in March and we drove our car rather than wait for the busses. If you get to the parks early like we do, then you get to park up front anyway, so it isn’t really that much further to walk at all. None of the resorts are so far away as to be a deterrent to driving and the signs are well marked directing you where to go to get to each park. I’d rather be able to leave when we want to leave than be tied to a bus schedule, but others have said the busses run well and the wait times are negligible. If you don’t mind spending a little extra gas on your trip, drive. If you don’t want to use the gas and don’t mind potential wait times for the busses, take those.

As my grandma would say, it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other.

 

[Evil Queen]

We take our car, and usually how we determine to bus it or drive it, we look at the lines for the bus for the park we want to visit.

If it's managable we take the bus, if we don't feel like waiting in line (if there is one), we take the car.

Our last trip in March 2004, we hit all 4 parks. We did the car to MGM and Epcot and bussed it to MK and AK. Our first and last day we took the car. The 2nd and 3rd we took the bus.

 

[tlbwriter]

We stayed at POR over Easter and took the buses everywhere except Ft. Wilderness. It was no problem at all.

That's good to know. I was reading so many horror stories about the buses at POR! I should have mentioned that I don't think we'll be at *any* park when the gate opens, unfortunately. So if we drive, we'll probably be parking in the middle of nowhere.

 

[kakiegirl]

If you are not going to get to the parks early and have to park way out I prefer to take the Bus. We stayed offsite our last visit and it was tiring especially leaving the park having to fight to get on a tram, (people just push in front of you to get a seat) and then the majority of the time the tram drop off was still quit a distance form our car dd was worn out and it was just a hassel. Just my opinion (when we stayed onsite we were at all star movies and had no problems) it was much nicer just to hop on the Air Conditioned bus and ride, even if you have to wait a few minutes for a bus, but we never had to wait more than 10 minutes.