How bad is parking traffic?

[UWGRAD]

There are so many opinions about the merits of self-parking vs. utilizing Disney Transportation, but no one ever really addresses the amount of time spent getting your car parked.

Is accessing the parking lot like sitting in rush hour traffic, or does it move decently? From the time you pull into the main gate at MK, how long until you are actually parked?

 

[Brian Noble]

I've never had a serious wait at any stage in self-parking, but I also arrive either before the park is open, or in mid/late-afternoon. I'm never arriving at the peak time of mid-morning. I generally figure I can be from my car to any turnstile in about 30 minutes, except for MK, which takes about 45.

 

[Uncleromulus]

We always drive to the MK and never had to wait at the gate more than a couple of minutes. Once inside the gate, it's a free flow of traffic right to the area where you park. And the trams are continually running one right after the other. By the way,we generally get to the MK around 8:30-9:00 in the morning.
I can't recall a time in 40+ years of going to WDW where I've ever even thought there was a rush hour load of traffic going to the MK (or any other park for that matter). Not to say it could never happen, but it hasn't happened to us.

 

[DebbieB]

I agree with Brian, I've never had a wait at self parking, even at 8:30am in June. They have a good system for funneling the cars to spaces and the trams run continually. I once timed a trip from OKW parking lot to the turnstiles at MK, it was about 25 minutes in mid-morning. That was using the parking tram and the resort monorail.

 

[PSUGuy]

Getting parked is usually not the issue, it's getting shuttled from your car to the gate and then reversing that later that made a WDW bus fan out of us. We haven't rented a car since 2005 and probably won't unless we want to hit Uni/IOA during a WDW vacation. We'll be sitting on the bus in Uncleromulus's seats.

Bill From PA

 

[disneyba]

As the other posters have stated, getting into a parking spot at MK is never an issue. It is always fast and well-organized. Getting back out, however, can be another matter.

Even though you did not ask about egress from the MK parking lot, it is worth considering too.

If you leave at a non-peak hour, exiting time is about the same as entering time. But if you leave at a peak time, just after park closing for instance, expect the monorail trains, ferries, and trams to be crowded. And the traffic exiting the parking lot gets backed up too. It can indeed look like "rush hour traffic," to use your wording. It will take awhile to get back to your hotel during these times.

Now the Disney bus system also gets clogged up during these busy exit times, but having done it both ways, I would say the bus is still faster than driving.

Hope this helps.

 

[hsmamato2]

we drive,find a space,park,and walk to the gates....no problems at all! IF a tram stops right next to us right then,we sometimes take it,otherwise it's simpler to walk,and it takes about as much time as exiting the bus and walking in