Driving to the Parks

[pcotten]

If staying onsite and having a car, is it advantageous to drive ourselves to the parks or we won't save anytime that might spend waiting for the buses to come. How is the traffic over there? Is it crowded on the rows or is it pretty relaxed?

 

[webray]

You will get a lot of mixed reviews.

We usually have the car with..so we drive to the parks.
The parking is easy. There are parking lot attendants that direct you right where to go...all very organized...you pull in, single file order and park where they tell you to. No hunting for a parking spot like at the mall. If you are in the closer lots..you can walk to the entrance of the park if you like..in the farther back lots you hop the parking lot tram and it takes you right up front. Same when you leave...just hope the tram..and it drops you, usually within a couple rows of your cars. The lots are all marked..you just remember what section row you are in and you are good to go. If you don't remember come night time..not a problem either. Security cruises the parking lot all day, and they keep a log of times and what rows were parked at those times. We had a rental car one time..couldn't find it to save our lives...we flagged down security..they asked us what time we arrived in the morning, we told them, and they drove us right to the car..lol. It was great.

Sometimes though..we just take the bus/boat depending on what resort we are staying at. The bus rotations are fairly quick, we have never had to wait long at all.

It is up to you. either way is convenient.

 

[emmabelle]

I would definately take the bus to MK because they drive you up to the park entrance instead of Ticket and Transportation where you would then have to hop a monorail or steamship if you drove yourself.
We drove to the parks the last time we went to Disney because we stayed at CBR and they have to pick up all the other islands before they go to the parks which adds time, plus you have to wait for the bus, and our hotel room was really far from the bus stop. We only waited a max of 15 minutes for the bus, so that wasn't bad. If you go to the parks very early then you aren't parking that much further then where the bus stops are. Later in the day you'll be tramming it in from the parking lot. I personally like the quiet time in the rental after a day at the parks. The last time we were at Disney we were on a bus with a family that kept hitting each other with a plastic bottle, kinda of irritating when your tired.

 

[JayBee]

Never drive. We always go to another park, or head to a resort to sitesee or something. Using the WDW transportation sysem frees you to go and do anything.

 

[Disney Spaz]

To me this is an easy question. If you are going during the hotter months then which would you prefer to get into a hot car that has been closed up all night and will take a while to cool off with the a/c full blast because it is too hot to even think about opening a window or would you prefer to walk to a large cool bus step oon and be dropped off at the front of the enterance. I am not saying that driving is bad in fact during the cooler monthes you can probably get there faster by car but those summer months can make you miserable. I had in-laws from FL show up on my first adult trip with my DS's in July 97' and they insisted that we drive instead of using DTrans. One day stuffed in the back of a minivan with no a/c because those up front felt the breeze was fine and I was ready for divorce court.

 

[KayakDaddy]

My answer would vary depending on the situation (what resort, what park, are you going to park hop, etc).

In general I would use Disney transportation to all of the theme parks, but drive my own car to the water parks. You especially do not want to drive you own car to MK, because you would have to wait in line for the tram, then the monorail or ferry, and then again at the park.