How reliable is the monorail?

[corgi_monster]

I'm planning my first WDW trip with small kids and would like to stay at a monorail resort for convenience. However, I read in the 2018 Unofficial Guide that the monorails have been very unreliable as of late. Just how bad is the monorail situation?

We will be at the parks for rope drop, take an afternoon break, and leave the parks before 8pm on most nights. Can I expect the monorails to be running during these times?

 

[bryanb]

In two out of my last four trips, the monorail was not available for a few hours when I had hoped to take it. Actual statistics of the monorail's uptime are not public, but it does seem to have operational difficulties more often than I expected for a mode of transportation.

 

[Skywise]

In reality it's not BAD - it's just not 100%. For my last trip it was up the entire time and I had no problem with it - but for the trip before that we had planned to go to Epcot and the monorail went down for about 2 hours at the exact same time we wanted to go to Epcot.

Note that if you're staying at the Polynesian or the GF you can take the resort launch boats over to the MK and if staying at the Contemporary its a short walk to MK.

 

[Happy_2_B]

Just how bad is the monorail situation?

We got home a few days ago- and they were up and running every time we could have used them. That said- we didn't use them, and instead opted to use alternate forms of transportation. We weren't going to (literally) get stuck relying on a monorail trying to enter/leave a park when other modes of transportation that haven't had the same types of reported issues are available.

 

[Dr.Mickey]

They probably will be running at those times. Disney wants them to be running at those times. The problem is...if one goes down, it is a major bottleneck with crowds piling up quickly.

But, if you choose Contemporary as your monorail choice, you can always walk to MK if the monorail goes down, or even if the line just too long. Especially with young kids and a preference toward MK.
It's not a bad walk at all.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

I'm planning my first WDW trip with small kids and would like to stay at a monorail resort for convenience. However, I read in the 2018 Unofficial Guide that the monorails have been very unreliable as of late. Just how bad is the monorail situation?

We will be at the parks for rope drop, take an afternoon break, and leave the parks before 8pm on most nights. Can I expect the monorails to be running during these times?

You'll get passionate responses on both sides.

We are heavy monorail users... sometimes we'll take a loop around for no reason! Most of our trips have been at the monorail resorts. Personally, I cannot think of a single time where a delay or closure impacted us in a materially negative way. Not saying unfortunate closures or maintenance issues don't happen - I know we've been lucky - but our monorail and monorail resort experiences have been .

Note that over the last few years they were doing a lot of maintenance and upgrades. There was a multi-year period where 'odd' hours were common... eg, late day starts, mid-day closures, etc. It was annoying for sure.

But those days are pretty much over, you really haven't seen odd operating hours or planned closures like that in awhile. I've had several 2017 stays at the monorail resorts and hours have been perfectly fine to support our park habits - which often include PPO ADRs and mid-day naps.

One of the 'annoying' aspects of the monorail for us these days is the occasional hot/limited A/C car. When that happens, we'll either move to the next one or just suck it up for the trip. Frankly not much different than any big city subway! ;-)

Just one person's perspective, but hope it helps.

 

[stinkpickle]

The monorail can break down at any time...and it does. I wouldn't rely on it for anything time sensitive.

 

[Klayfish]

I'll sort of take the middle of the fence on this one. I LOVE the monorails, I could ride them just for fun, and sometimes do ride the MK/Epcot one just because I like it (I treat it like a ride). I think some of the reports people have about it are a bit exaggerated and overblown. However, there is no denying that the cars (not the monorail itself, IMO) are old and past their prime. They do go down from time to time.

However, in all of our experience, it's mostly the Express monorail that goes down for whatever reason. The resort monorail, which OP would be using, is far more reliable. When Express is down, we always just jump on the resort one and have never had an issue...ever. Not saying it never goes down at all, but it's never happened to us.

 

[Farro]

9 nights in October at Polynesian, took monorail quite a few times, no issues at all. And I was nervous about it, but it turned out great!

I will say, staying at Beach/Yacht and being able to walk to parks was great and we will be going back for that, but our absolute FAVORITE way to get to/from a park is the Polynesian boat launch to Magic Kingdom. We just loved it!

 

[Shanti]

I'm planning my first WDW trip with small kids and would like to stay at a monorail resort for convenience. However, I read in the 2018 Unofficial Guide that the monorails have been very unreliable as of late. Just how bad is the monorail situation?

We will be at the parks for rope drop, take an afternoon break, and leave the parks before 8pm on most nights. Can I expect the monorails to be running during these times?

Yes. We use the monorail on every trip and have never had a problem with it.

 

[AngiTN]

When it works is great
When it doesn't it's awful. The alternate forms of transportation from the resorts that it services are sorely lacking
Problem is you have no way to predict if you will have a stay with no problems or a stay with a lot
It is an old system and past it's life expectancy. They have updated the computers but the equipment is still old.
I don't think the monorail is a good reason to pick one of the MK resorts myself. I'd pick them for other reasons

We have had it cause is to miss a tour one trip. We got stuck on it more than once.

 

[Micca]

We're big monorail fans but if I had an ADR or FP+ hanging in the balance I'd choose another option(@stinkpickle succinctly stated this above.)

 

[corgi_monster]

Thank you for all your replies. I'm glad to hear it works more often than not!

 

[Tomh]

There have been a lot of reports here on the boards of monorails breaking down, and leaving people stranded. We don't use the monorail a lot, but on the occasions that we have used it, we have never gotten stuck. In general, we do prefer the monorail for getting back to the TTC from MK at park close. While it does have long lines, I find them to be much more manageable than the lines for the ferry, and feel as though we get back to the TTC more quickly.

 

[neverlandsky]

We were stranded on the track for 20 minutes in the evening. Then it started to go again. The good news was that there were barely anyone on there with us. That was the last time we went on it during our trip.