I didn't get up at 5:45 to be at the back of the line (bus vent)

[stargazertechie]

So we are staying at AKL... And this is the firs major issue I have had with transportation there.


AK has AM EMH this morning. We got to the bus stop at 6:30. By 7:00 we had seen 3 MK buses, 2 Epcot buses, 3 Blizzard Beach/DHS buses, and not a single bus for AK.

All but 3 of these buses left empty- only one offered to call dispatch and see where our bus was, and none offered to call and see if they could change routes.

Needless to say, I am tired, crabby, and at the back of the RD pack. Had I been at any other resort, we would have missed RD completely.


Sorry for the rant- I needed to get it off my chest.

 

[magicaldisney]

I'm assuming you are at Jambo, not Kidani. If so, I wonder if the buses were filled after picking up everyone at Kidani, which is the first bus stop. If that's the case, it lends credibility to staying at Kidani because it is the first stop to the parks. Sorry you're day didn't have the greatest start, but look at it this way.....you could be me sitting here at my laptop, waiting to walk out the door to go to work!!

 

[goofy4tink]

That is highly unusual, unless the park was opened at 7am. Buses start running at 6:30, to all parks. These park buses tend to come much less frequently than 'regular' park buses do. The regular buses start running that hour before park opening. So, if you are doing a park with EMHs, that means 8am opening...with buses running regularly by 7/7:15. Those buses should be coming every 10-15 mins. The buses running earlier, at 6:30, run only about every 15-20 mins...much less frequently.

At 6:30, you should have seen buses to all 4 parks...then no more buses to MK, Epcot, DHS until closer to 7 (maybe as early as 6:45 but not any earlier). Buses running to AK shoulld have started being more frequent by 7am, with buses running to those other parks still running every 20 mins or so. AK buses should have been arriving every 10-15 mins from 7am until park opening.

Seeing more than 2 buses to any park, between 6:30 and 7am is really out of the ordinary. I sure wish I had run into that situation on my past few trips...I had to wait almost 25 mins for the bus after watching the previous one drive away at 6:30!!!

Hopefully, your situation was an aberration.

 

[ancestry]

When this happens to us -- i.e. buses to every park except the one that we want - after waiting for 20 minutes we approach the next bus driver and ask him to call dispatch. We usually stand there watching him with one foot on his bus step until we are assured that he has actually placed the call. I don't assume that the bus driver will call on his own accord without us asking.

 

[goofy4tink]

When this happens to us -- i.e. buses to every park except the one that we want - after waiting for 20 minutes we approach the next bus driver and ask him to call dispatch. We usually stand there watching him with one foot on his bus step until we are assured that he has actually placed the call. I don't assume that the bus driver will call on his own accord without us asking.

That's what I do as well...I just stick my head in and ask if he knows when the bus to xyz is coming....that I've been there for close to 30 mins and no buses there so far. But....keep in mind, the vast majority of people that say this to the bus drivers have, in all reality, only been standing there for 15 mins. They want a bus to drive up just as they get to the bus stop..no wait is good. Not saying that is the case here...but I have, myself, seen it happen way to often to not mention.

 

[kaytieeldr]

All but 3 of these buses left empty- only one offered to call dispatch and see where our bus was, and none offered to call and see if they could change routes.

They can't. Even empty, that bus has to drive to its assigned destination park. From there, it's scheduled to proceed to yet another location, with or without passengers. Especially if there were guests waiting to get to that bus's next stop, then they'd be stranded...

 

[stargazertechie]

They can't. Even empty, that bus has to drive to its assigned destination park. From there, it's scheduled to proceed to yet another location, with or without passengers. Especially if there were guests waiting to get to that bus's next stop, then they'd be stranded...

Then obviously things have changed, or i was exceptionally lucky in the past. Normally I'm at the bus stop by 6:20 regardless of opening time (yes, even for a 9AM opening). In the past if the bus was empty, the driver would offer to take me to my park of choice. Face it- 6:30 buses are all character buses that end up driving folks to breakfast ADRs.


And if a bus is scheduled to go from AKL to DHS at 6:30 am, and instead it goes from AKL to DAK, nobody is getting stranded anywhere.

 

[BillyBuff]

The same thing happened to us on our 9/4 - 9/9 stay at the AKL (Jambo House)

We waited and waited for buses but nothing came! I know they said buses run every 15min-20min but we waited for almost an hour! Many buses came for the other parks and most of the time they were back to back like 2 buses showing up at the same time to go to the same park!

For example we waited for an hour on 9/6 from AKL to Magic Kingdom at 5:45 PM until a bus finally showed up at 6:45 PM. There was no EMH on that day except for the morning at EPCOT.

I figure this is because AKL is the most furthest away from all the parks except for Animal Kingdom?

 

[dudspizza]

This is one of the reasons I don't care for resorts that have multiple bus stops. POR has 4 stops and it always seems like buses stop at the main stop first and if they are full they other stops are skipped. Our last trip we had a full bus from the main stop, yet the driver still made the loop and the people at every stop simply looked at the packed bus and shook their head.....

Disney needs to do a better job of starting at different stops and making sure more buses are running to those resorts to meet demand.... many times they have a dispatcher sitting near the main entrance, but that person can't see how many people are at the outer right stops....

Duds

 

[joelkfla]

Then obviously things have changed,

Yep.

 

[seashoreCM]

This is one of the reasons I don't care for resorts that have multiple bus stops. POR has 4 stops and it always seems like buses stop at the main stop first and if they are full they other stops are skipped. Our last trip we had a full bus from the main stop, yet the driver still made the loop and the people at every stop simply looked at the packed bus and shook their head.....

Disney needs to do a better job of starting at different stops and making sure more buses are running to those resorts to meet demand.... many times they have a dispatcher sitting near the main entrance, but that person can't see how many people are at the outer right stops....

Duds

This is where you have the driver of the next bus (any destination) radio for another bus to your destination while you stand there with one foot on the step as described above.

Perhaps radioing for another bus should be made a responsibility when a driver leaves guests behind. Then he can open the door and yell out to guests at the next stop when the next bus should come.

On the other hand, transportation systems in major cities have been overwhelmed every so often. A Steelers celebration in Pittsburgh and a Bruins celebration in Boston come to mind when train after train passed riders by at the stations halfway along the line. Now PAT and MBTA, respectively, could have run some trains in empty from the end of the line to stop first in the middle of the line. The disadvantage for those particular systems is that they would collect fewer of the longest zone fares and the train still started from the far end of the line.

 

[joelkfla]

Perhaps radioing for another bus should be made a responsibility when a driver leaves guests behind. Then he can open the door and yell out to guests at the next stop when the next bus should come.

That is the driver's responsibility. Then it's up to the coordinators to decide when to send another bus and where to have it start, so the driver usually has no way of knowing when the next bus will arrive. Like anything else, some coordinators do a better job than others.

Unless the driver can determine for certain that nobody on the bus wants to get off at any of the remaining stops, the bus needs to make all the stops even though it's full.

 

[azdizzymom]

On one of our trips we had eaten at AKL at Bomas. It was about about 9 when we got done and we went to get the bus back to the TTC so we could walk to the Poly. We stood and waited and waited and waited at the empty bus stop watching a few come and go without one saying TTC. Finally we saw a MK bus and decided we would take that to the MK and hop on the boat, monorail or another bus. The driver said the MK is closed ....this was September. We explained what we were doing and he said hop on. The driver radioed in, turned off his display of where going and shuttled us to the door of the Poly!

That is why we love Poly as you can walk to TTC and have access to more bus service. BUT last time we found super cheap rental and did that. Don't think I'd do again without a car but feel for OP waiting for a bus!

 

[goofy4tink]

On one of our trips we had eaten at AKL at Bomas. It was about about 9 when we got done and we went to get the bus back to the TTC so we could walk to the Poly. We stood and waited and waited and waited at the empty bus stop watching a few come and go without one saying TTC. Finally we saw a MK bus and decided we would take that to the MK and hop on the boat, monorail or another bus. The driver said the MK is closed ....this was September. We explained what we were doing and he said hop on. The driver radioed in, turned off his display of where going and shuttled us to the door of the Poly!

That is why we love Poly as you can walk to TTC and have access to more bus service. BUT last time we found super cheap rental and did that. Don't think I'd do again without a car but feel for OP waiting for a bus!

Only issue is that there are no buses that go between AKL and TTC. You would take the bus to MK and then boat or monorail to the Polynesian. There are buses to AK from the TTC, but not from AKL.

 

[Jestocost]

That is why we love Poly as you can walk to TTC and have access to more bus service. BUT last time we found super cheap rental and did that. Don't think I'd do again without a car but feel for OP waiting for a bus!

There is very little Disney bus service at the TTC and no bus service between any Disney resort and the TTC. You would have waited forever for a TTC bus at AKL or at any Disney resort. The only Disney buses at the TTC run to DHS and AK (and maybe the water parks).

 

[famsen]

I have to say that we are DVC owners at AKL and in our many trips staying there, I have found the bus service to be worse than at any other resort.
I especially find it ironic that even though it is closest to AK, the AK buses are the ones most scarce.
We always get a rental car and if the stampede line waiting for buses is too long, we drive our car over to AK or wherever we are heading.
We have made this AKL bus observation on every trip.

 

[BillyBuff]

Plus it varies by the driver because one day the driver will drop-off/pick-up at Jambo while the next day the other driver will go to Kidani first.

This has confused a few people on the bus because they had gotten off at Kidani because earlier in the week the drivers where stopping at Jambo first.

 

[seashoreCM]

Officially, "at park closing" buses don't take guests to that theme park for the purpose of making connections.

But IMHO if the park is closed due to capacity the buses should still take guests there for the purpose of making connections. At these times there are a lot of guests going to resorts for dinner etc. as opposed to going back to their own resorts for the night.

 

[DebbieB]

Plus it varies by the driver because one day the driver will drop-off/pick-up at Jambo while the next day the other driver will go to Kidani first.

This has confused a few people on the bus because they had gotten off at Kidani because earlier in the week the drivers where stopping at Jambo first.

All park busses should stop at Kidani first. Downtown Disney busses should stop at Jambo first.

 

[seashoreCM]

All park busses should stop at Kidani first. Downtown Disney busses should stop at Jambo first.

Then there should be extra buses that arrive empty (no confusion for guests getting off) to serve just the other stop if the regular buses can't pick up everyone.

In an earlier (pre-WDW) lifetime I would sometimes take the subway train a stop or two upstream and cross over so I could get a seat on the train for the long ride home.