FYI: Transportation Changes Coming!

[mickeysaver]

I just found this on another unofficial Disney website with typically reliable info.

Monorails to no longer operate during Evening Extra Magic Hours
Jul 09, 2011

Beginning on July 11 2011, the Epcot monorail service will stop operation 1 hour after regular park closing, and from August 1 2011, the Magic Kingdom monorail will stop operation 1 hour after regular park closing. This means that in both cases, the monorail will not be able to return guests back to their resorts after evening Extra Magic Hours. Guests will instead be transported by bus and boats where available. Morning Extra Magic Hour service has not been affected. All indications are that this is a permanent change.

This will obviously effect those going to evening EMH, but also will effect those who are drinking, dining, or being entertained at other monorail resorts past the standard 1 hour beyond park closing time. The lack of wheelchair/ecv friendly resort boats will most likely be a problem and will require the use of busses. I post this as a heads up for those that are going to WDW soon and feel the need to make changes in your reservations or plans. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

 

[Trekkie]

Thanks for the eads up, and thanks for posting the information here.

Frankly, I'm not sure I'd go to Disney without the monorail, simply because it's such a vast upgrade over other transportation, when you're traveling with a wheel chair.

Yeah, the buses CAN take wheel chairs. But it's such a big production that I think Mom would be embarrassed. (When we're at Contemporary, and I want to take Mom to AK, I get the car and I drive her there, rather than do the bus thing.)

Fortunately, Mom isn't a night owl, though. Won't affect us. But I could see this having a big effect on other people's enjoyment.

 

[jdb in AZ]

The bus people won't be too thrilled to have even more ECV's along for the ride. DH and I are no longer the night owls we used to be, but this gives us added incentive to be back at the hotel before the monorail stops running.

 

[cmesq61]

The bus people won't be too thrilled to have even more ECV's along for the ride. You can say that again!! I refuse to cut my night short. Time to get a road map and see about getting from MK to the Poly in my ECV w/o Disney transportation!

 

[dclfun]

Well, I'd hate to pay the premium to stay at a monorail resort and have to take a bus back after evening EMH. I wonder about the after-hours special events such as MNSSHP and MVMCP? Will the monorail run then? We've often stayed at one of those resorts JUST for the ease of transportation later in the evening. It's a HUGE hassle for me when I'm already exhausted to go through the w/c tie-down process and to see my service dog Skye getting trampled or hit by people who have no recourse but to stand on an over-crowded bus in the dark. ---Kathy

 

[kaytieeldr]

The bus people won't be too thrilled to have even more ECV's along for the ride. You can say that again!! I refuse to cut my night short. Time to get a road map and see about getting from MK to the Poly in my ECV w/o Disney transportation!

Ferry to the TTC, then ECV to the Polynesian.

You can't go the way the buses do, past the Contemporary, because there are not walkways and it won't be safe to ride in the dark (bus drivers won't expect you, too many careless riders refusing to go single file, etc.). You can't head toward the Grand Floridian because there's a canal in the way.

 

[Zeora]

Well this is depressing. Guess there goes the last of my motivation to try to find a way to stay at the Poly after all. At least the budget is happier with that... *sigh*

 

[disney david]

The bus people won't be too thrilled to have even more ECV's along for the ride. DH and I are no longer the night owls we used to be, but this gives us added incentive to be back at the hotel before the monorail stops running.

I am a bus person and don't mind the ECV or wheel chairs who I am I to give someone a hard time for trying to get to the same place as me I not the mayor of the bus. As long as they get on the bus safe and make it to their destination safe then that all that matters. I always give my sets up for a guest in a wheel chair or if their someone who needs it more then me. I still dont understand why theirs still people out their that will give dirty looks or feel it their duty to say a stupid comment.

The more ECV on the bus the better the bus ride will be.

 

[Trekkie]

The bus people won't be too thrilled to have even more ECV's along for the ride. You can say that again!! I refuse to cut my night short. Time to get a road map and see about getting from MK to the Poly in my ECV w/o Disney transportation!

I doubt that you can.

If you think of the Seven Seas Lagoon as a clock, with MK at 12 o'clock, then there's a break at around 10:00, where there's a parking place for the barges for the boat parade. I don't think there's a path where you can get around it.

And, at around 3:00, there's where the road that goes to Contemporary passes under what I think of as a "boat bridge". (The road passes under a canal, that the boats use to get from Seven Seas lagoon to Bay Lake, so they can get to WL and FW.) And I don't think that that underpass has a sidewalk.

You can walk/wheel from MK to Contemporary. (I've done that. It's pleasant, and often much quicker than the monorail.) But I think that's the only one where you can.

----------

Edit:

Although, I assume that the ferry boat between MK and TTC will still be operating. And the ferry certainly can accommodate whole armies of wheelies. You could take the ferry to TTC, and walk/wheel from TTC to Poly. And I assume you can walk/wheel from Poly to GF.

 

[Trekkie]

Well, I'd hate to pay the premium to stay at a monorail resort and have to take a bus back after evening EMH. I wonder about the after-hours special events such as MNSSHP and MVMCP? Will the monorail run then? We've often stayed at one of those resorts JUST for the ease of transportation later in the evening. It's a HUGE hassle for me when I'm already exhausted to go through the w/c tie-down process and to see my service dog Skye getting trampled or hit by people who have no recourse but to stand on an over-crowded bus in the dark. ---Kathy

Yeah, I do wonder if this is a smart decision.

Shutting down the monorails saves them how much? They get to send, what, two dozen people home an hour or two earlier?

And surely they'll have to add a few bus drivers, to compensate. Thus reducing their savings further.

And in order to save this money, they're going to make the Disney experience considerably less magical, for a bunch of people who are not only staying in Disney hotels, but they're staying at the most expensive Disney hotels (the ones on the monorail)?

Seems like a false economy, to me. Heck, raise the price for a room at a monorail resort by 10 bucks. Should make up the money dozens of times over.

 

[disney david]

Yeah, I do wonder if this is a smart decision.

Shutting down the monorails saves them how much? They get to send, what, two dozen people home an hour or two earlier?

And surely they'll have to add a few bus drivers, to compensate. Thus reducing their savings further.

And in order to save this money, they're going to make the Disney experience considerably less magical, for a bunch of people who are not only staying in Disney hotels, but they're staying at the most expensive Disney hotels (the ones on the monorail)?

Seems like a false economy, to me.

Sorry to burst everyone bubble but this move really has nothing to do with them trying to save money. It has tovdo with the fact that the monorail cars are getting old and need more down time to perform mentnince. Plus the beams are also getting old and require fixing which require them nit tuning the monorail. So instead of Disney taking the whole monorail system off line for 6 plus months they are just shortening times they run. Yes they will have to bring on more bus drivers and proberly have to buy more buses to handle the extra load. Disney not saving money by doing this if anything it coast them more money and hassale.

 

[Trekkie]

Sorry to burst everyone bubble but this move really has nothing to do with them tryingvto save money.

Thanks for that. I thought things didn't make sense, to me. This sounds a lot more believable.

(Obviously, what they need are some new monorails. Those new ones I've seen pictures of from California look sweet.)

 

[M5ward]

I guess this means that if we stay at a monorail resort we can forget about staying at Epcot for Illuminations. With my husband in an ECV, we would have to navigate out of World Showcase, through Future World, out the front exits, and up to the monorail platform with the masses of other departing vacationers. Since Epcot's regular closing time is 9:00 and Illuminations ends about 9:15, we would have to accomplish this in under 45 minutes. Anyone who uses an ECV knows how slowly you move in crowds.
Sure we can take a bus (which really defeats the purpose of staying at the monorail resort) but with only two or three handicapped spaces per bus, how long are we going to have to wait at closing time?
This is another bad decision on the part of the Disney management team.
I've already e-mailed my complaint to them. I would rather a six month shut down for refurbishment/repairs/maintenance than what looks like a permanent change that will probably lead to the ending of EMH entirely.
This is just another tear in the fabric of the Disney experience.

 

[SueM in MN]

I think everyone needs to look at this in view of many months of posts about monorails not working, long waits on the monorail while something was getting fixed, etc.

We only rode the monorail once on our trip this April, but rode several times during our trip in October. One day while my DH took care of our DD, my DD’s PCA and I rode the bus from our resort to Epcot, then rode the monorail from Epcot to MK. Then, we took the monorail from one MK resort to another. It was raining, which I have heard often causes monorail problems, but during the time before it rained, we had to wait 15 minutes inside the monorail for some unspecified problem. There was a ‘problem’ on each leg of our trip and we actually decided to cut our little tour short because of the problems. We had intended to take the monorail back to TTC, catch the monorail back to Epcot (to get the view of Epcot from the monorail) and then catch a bus from Epcot back to our resort. We ended up walking to MK and then taking the bus from there back to our resort.

I had read a few “monorail problem” threads before our trip, but noticed a lot of similar threads since then.
So, I do think that WDW is doing this because they need to, not because they want to.

I don’t know why they have not made an announcement about whether it is temporary or permanent. Perhaps, they don’t know yet, because they are still evaluating the repairs needed.

 

[Bete]

I guess this means that if we stay at a monorail resort we can forget about staying at Epcot for Illuminations. With my husband in an ECV, we would have to navigate out of World Showcase, through Future World, out the front exits, and up to the monorail platform with the masses of other departing vacationers. Since Epcot's regular closing time is 9:00 and Illuminations ends about 9:15, we would have to accomplish this in under 45 minutes. Anyone who uses an ECV knows how slowly you move in crowds.
Sure we can take a bus (which really defeats the purpose of staying at the monorail resort) but with only two or three handicapped spaces per bus, how long are we going to have to wait at closing time?
This is another bad decision on the part of the Disney management team.
I've already e-mailed my complaint to them. I would rather a six month shut down for refurbishment/repairs/maintenance than what looks like a permanent change that will probably lead to the ending of EMH entirely.
This is just another tear in the fabric of the Disney experience.

is to stay on the Future World side for viewing Illuminations. This area is at the beginning of the World Showcase by the gift shop there near the water. This would save an immense amount of time from any other location for exiting purposes. I feel it's doable from there; it's not easy, but at least it should work.

Hopefully, some will report on how this all works once it begins. Also, we can hope that some will post hints that may help once this gets started.

I know it's not fun, but maybe, renting a car or bringing your own car during this time period may end up being a better answer. Finally, it may be better to use a portable transport wheelchair if possible and then it can be folded up like a stroller. Heck, you can even do a taxi if need be.

I sure don't want to be part of an accident just because the monorail needs maintenance work done. I'd rather be safe than sorry.

We should know shortly how bad this will be and then you can make some alternate plans if necessary.

 

[disney david]

here a good article about why their doing the changes


http://www.orlandosentinel.com/the-daily-disney/os-disney-world-monorail-hours-20110711,0,1288947.story

 

[book_junkie]

We stayed at the Poly last year (Mom and I) on her dream trip- she has mobility issues, and the monorail to the MK and Epcot and then the short hop to our room in Tahiti was a blessing. She can't handle the crowding on buses, and gets tired easily, so we rented a car and used it for the other parks and when we wanted to hop. If this was happening for this year, we'd definitely be changing our reservations to a non-monorail resort- there's no way I'd be paying the extra money for the reduced service.

As it is, with this change, she's already concerned about getting back to WL or the TTC after the Halloween Party, which we already have tickets for. I know the article says that they're going to evaluate it closer to time, and we're in the last group of party go-ers, not the first, but it's enough to have her worried.... And we're not even dealing with ECVs like we would be with my Dad...

 

[mickeysaver]

Don't get me wrong, I certainly see lots of room for improvement in respect to the current state of monorail condition and function. I am hopeful that they will get the monorail all fixed up and ready to run better again. I just wanted to bring this issue to you folks because my first thought was how inconvenient this would be if it had happened to me over the course of several of our trips where there was at least one, if not two, ECV users in our party. We didn't have kids in the mix then, so we were very happy and active night owls. This would have certainly put kinks in my plans and ticked me off had this happened to me. OMG, just to think how much this would have messed up our trip last year in early August.

Good luck to all of you. If you find that this does cause you to reconsider your choices, please let Disney know why your plans changed. They need to realize that they really shouldn't haul off and make these sorts of changes without more notice, unless there is some sort of emergent need for serious maintence, and if so just tell us that. Even better, if possible, duct tape and bubble gum the boo boo's until say January when the crowds drop. Shut the whole darn thing down, make the repairs, offer deals to those staying at the monorail resorts. If you are already booked, get a $250, $500, or $1000 gift card based on your room level and/or length of stay. For those that are going to be booking, offer a lowered Deluxe Room rate, like what the WL charges, since you won't have the Monorail perk available to you. But, at the very least, let your guests know in advance so they can plan around this, don't just spring it on them when they arrive!

 

[pampam]

I guess this means that if we stay at a monorail resort we can forget about staying at Epcot for Illuminations. With my husband in an ECV, we would have to navigate out of World Showcase, through Future World, out the front exits, and up to the monorail platform with the masses of other departing vacationers. Since Epcot's regular closing time is 9:00 and Illuminations ends about 9:15, we would have to accomplish this in under 45 minutes. Anyone who uses an ECV knows how slowly you move in crowds.
Sure we can take a bus (which really defeats the purpose of staying at the monorail resort) but with only two or three handicapped spaces per bus, how long are we going to have to wait at closing time?
This is another bad decision on the part of the Disney management team.
I've already e-mailed my complaint to them. I would rather a six month shut down for refurbishment/repairs/maintenance than what looks like a permanent change that will probably lead to the ending of EMH entirely.
This is just another tear in the fabric of the Disney experience.

Actually, its surprisingly quick to exit after illuminations. Make sure you are watching from the WC sections near the gift shops, closest to the exit. (The view is great from there.)
Exit with the masses. It only takes 10-15 minutes max. Everyone else is as anxious as you to leave, and the crowd moves quickly and smoothly. Once through the turnstiles leave the masses exiting, and go up a short ramp to the elevator. It's well marked. You only have a short wait. Should be back at the Poly before you know it. You don't have 45 minutes to get to the Poly. You have 45 minutes to get on the monorail, so even if you miss the first 1 or 2 (which you won't) you still have plenty of time to get back to the Poly.

 

[disney david]

I don't know if anyone saw the post by a very nice Disney bus driver letting us know the epcot bus changes to handle the closing of the monorail. Looks like the ttc and contemporary will share a bus then poly and grand will share their own bus. He did say which stop will be first but I wood say contemporary will be first ten ttc and for the other bus that goes to poly I would say poly first then grand. He posted the stop number and the changes try are making so if you get a chance look over at the transportion forum he also says which bus they are moving to make room like the dhs bus is moving to the charter bus lot and the wl bus will move to where the dhs bus was. Thought this help put some people at ease that their not going to put all three resorts on one bus. Just follow the directional signs they have been updated with the new info and I an sure they will have more cms out their helping point you in the right direction.

Here is the link wanted to give him credit because he always keeps us up to date on bus changes.


http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2757259