Drive vs Bus: Who Wins? (WDW property to Port Canaveral)

[MomOTwins]

I think the concern is if there is surge pricing. You can't really guarantee a price with them. It may not be cheaper. Plus, you have to find one that's willing to go all the way out there and come back without a paying fair.

Exactly. Have seen too many horror stories in my cruise social media groups (e.g. 3+ hour waits, $500 surge pricing) to gamble on uber/lyft.

We like to take the bus for the early PAT and to avoid the hassle of managing kids and luggage. Did a rental one time and the kids were miserable waiting ages for the rental agency shuttle. Also, kids of a certain age seem to need a bathroom every 10 minutes, and it was nice that they had bathrooms on the disney bus, as we learned the hard way that you lose a lot of time to detours if you need to keep making restroom stops along the way. We also found the florida toll system a but stressful if you aren’t used to toll roads (we don’t have them where we live) as we kept finding ourselves in the wrong lane.

 

[Akck]

When we were younger we'd go for the savings but now I don't want to drive on vacation. We just have to remember the bus back to Disney doesn't leave until 9a, or slightly after, so we don't hop out of the room at 7a - like we always do.

On our last cruise, we did early walk off and took the bus back to MCO, where we picked up a rental car. The bus left around 8 am and we were at the airport by 9. Early during Covid, we enjoyed the convenience of self-driving and having an A/C environment almost immediately. So we now do a mix of driving and Disney transportation to the parks.

 

[holula]

Also, sometimes the one-way fee to drop off a rental car in PC is rather expensive. We did it once and had to wait over an hour for the stupid rental shuttle to the port. It was probably a fluke, but it has prevented us from dropping off in PC again. We will be taking a rental car and parking at the port for our 4 night cruise and then picking it up to do Orlando afterwards.

I rented a car after the cruise for one day last year and it took around 90 minutes to actually get my rental from the time I left the ship. I won’t be doing that again and would rather pay for port parking

I’ll take the bus if it’s just me. Drive if multiple people. Honestly I’m not worried about PAT and prefer doing things on my own timeline (and have a nice breakfast before the drive.)

 

[GGGT]

Not really in the position to debate as I've not done both.

However, I can speak to our experience last week on our first Disney Cruise. We took Disney Transportation to/from AKL with a group of 12.

I'm glad we did as it was a seamless experience that added to our overall enjoyment. The audible "gasps" from our little ones upon seeing the ship for the first time collectively was priceless.

 

[CampbellzSoup]

bus is awful - inconsistent, slow, and at the end of a long night I don’t need to play games with who they decide to load first and why. Get in my car and go.

 

[NAB]

bus is awful - inconsistent, slow, and at the end of a long night I don’t need to play games with who they decide to load first and why. Get in my car and go.

You mean from the parks yes. Lots of waiting and really packed at times.

 

[LadybugsMum]

I did the DCL bus for our first cruise so we could get a better PAT time and BG. I also preferred to fly and did not want to drive down the day before and stay in a hotel somewhere near the port. It worked out well for us and I got to take a nap instead of driving.

 

[Kerr84]

How does luggage work when you are taking the bus from the port back to WDW? I only see reports about going to the port.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

How does luggage work when you are taking the bus from the port back to WDW? I only see reports about going to the port.

You claim your bags in the terminal, carry them out to the bus, and the driver will place them in the luggage area beneath the bus. At your hotel, the driver will remove your bags from the luggage area (it's best that you are on the driver's shoulder to point out your bags) and you take them inside the hotel to check in.

 

[Husker Mike]

Based on this conversation, I started to look at one-way rentals for our 7 night cruise next summer and was shocked that two one-day one-way rentals were going to cost as much as an 8 day rental out of MCO. It's certainly changing the math that I was working on, and it does make the bus more attractive ... except that we have a full day in Orlando before the cruise and most of a day after the cruise. We're not interested in Disney World; we've been there twice the last two years, and it's now a been-there/done-that at current ticket prices (especially for one day).