Just back - Opinions and Observations

[FlipHipster]

Thanks for the report, glad the WDW leg of your trip turned around. Also glad to hear that FP+ is getting better. I've been playing with the latest version of the mobile app they released around 6/24 and it's a definite improvement but haven't had the chance to play with FP's yet.

I agree about the transportation, we always have a car with us but I wanted to move onsite so I wouldn't have to load everyone up and drive to the parks every morning. However we are driving more and more every trip anyway. It's just easier and way quicker especially if you want to resort hop. The buses are very inconsistent and the monorail is limited. The boats are usually pretty good unless the boat parade is on the lake or the pirate's cruise is getting ready to board. Stuff you don't think about when you decide to hop on the boat...

 

[jenrose66]

Most times we shared with Swan and Dolphin, but from DTD, all 5 shared 1 bus. It was ridiculous.

I agree. We were at Yacht Club in April 2013 and we stopped at BW/BC/Dolphin/Swan and Yacht Club. This was done for MK and DtD and AK. It was terrible.

 

[mouseclick1]

The bus situation is one of the reasons we split our stay between the Boardwalk and Bay Lake Tower. We were able to walk to three of the parks, and only needed the bus for our day at AK. We skipped DTD all together this time because I really don't find it that interesting anymore.

 

[mom2rtk]

The bus situation is one of the reasons we split our stay between the Boardwalk and Bay Lake Tower. We were able to walk to three of the parks, and only needed the bus for our day at AK. We skipped DTD all together this time because I really don't find it that interesting anymore.

We usually skip DTD on trips when we don't have a car. On the odd occasion we are driving through with a car, we always stop and spend some time so we have our fix in and can skip it again next time.

 

[AndreaA]

For our last trip we took taxis to virtually every destination. It was just SO much less stress for a really nominal fee since most places are fairly close together. We did often use the boat back to WL from MK but with a double stroller and two 4 year olds (at the time) wrangling everything onto a bus as we'd done the previous trip was just not worth the savings.

 

[Aurora0427]

OK, so I was very much against FP+ from the onset. Here is my opinion of both after 10 days in the world. MB's we had a bunch of issues with the first 2 days. Nobody's tickets were tied to the bands. After the 2nd day, that was resolved, except for the occasional blue light getting into the park, but that happened before MB's as well, so no surprise. No real advantage over the cards, other than everybody has to wear their own. I think it's kind of silly to expect a young child to want to wear one for an extended period of time, but it is what it is. FP+ - I'll break it down simply. In theory, idea is OK, but the number needs to increase (especially in Magic Kingdom), and tiering needs to go away. We never had problems with our FP+ not working. The MDE app at times was fast and fantastic, and at other times was slow and inaccurate. It would allow us to change a FP, then we'd go check and it wouldn't show up. That was annoying. Biggest problem of all - The kiosks. We never waited less than 10 minutes to get access to one to make 4th selection and so on. If they moved this over to the app (and got the app working the way it should), then it would be great. But what is the point of standing in line to get something that is supposed to let you avoid standing in line? I found that the best way to make use of FP+ was to pick out the most popular selections first thing in the morning, then choose rides like Haunted Mansion, Peter Pan, Pooh, Jungle Cruise, Pirates for later in the day. The FP return time never seemed to be more than 30 minutes later for those. Problem is, rides that never had lines before (It's A Small World, Pirates, Imagination, Carousel, Teacups) all have lines now. And rides that had shorter waits of around 20-30 minutes, now have waits of 40-60 minutes. So, there are definitely bugs to work out. Most CM's seemed happy to help. We ran into some fantastic ones, and we ran into some miserable ones. Bottom line - It's not nearly as bad as I feared, and there is great potential for the system, but there's much work to do. Parks - Magic Kingdom and Epcot had it's typical share of walls up. Lots of cracks in pavement at MK, but other than that, the park looked good. Downtown Disney - Avoid at all costs. Only having the 1 bus stop has created a disaster area at the Marketplace bus stop. It's not worth the trip. Tour Groups were everywhere, but were pretty well behaved. Seems like some rules have been put in place for them. Universal was a different story. They were obnoxious, rude and disrespectful there. Thumbs up to Disney for whatever they have done to improve this problem. Transportation - We stayed at the Boardwalk and it was awful. We waited 30, 40, even 60 minutes for a bus. Most times it was standing because they picked up at Yacht and Beach first. Loved the resort but will never stay there again because of the bus issues. I'll post a separate report on food in the restaurant section.

What a great report! Love hearing your observations. ITA regarding the line situation- we noticed back in February that attractions that normally had small waits were now long waits. Same attractions you noted. Good info regarding Boardwalk. It's the next hotel I want to try. We may do a split stay with one of the monorail resorts so we can do EPCOT and DHS, and not have to deal with the bus situation to MK and AK. When we stayed at Beach and YC I noticed how terrible the bus situation was.

 

[NYDisGuy]

It's true, even in July heat we all walk around in track suits constantly saying "Fuhgettaboutit" all the time. Oh and yes, we're all in the mob.

LOL Add another one to the list with the Brazillian tour groups. Those terrible New Yorkers always ruin people's vacations

 

[lugnut33]

What they should think about is the money not being spent at DTD. I can't imagine going there once and wanting to go back with the current condition it's in, and unless you take a taxi.

We went to DTD last Feb. while staying at AKL and the only we will go this time is because we can take the boat from Old Key West. Otherwise, DTD would have been off the list because it took us over an hour from AKL.... direct!.

SOA, did you do any park hopping? If yes, were you able to get FP+ in each park?

 

[think-like-tink]

DTD is losing its appeal for us. We went twice and the bus was awful. We waited for a bus to AKL for about 45 minutes. That was our longest wait the whole trip.

 

[BethA]

Taking a cab to and from DTD is well worth the money.

Have reservations for cirque this Friday. Any idea how much a cab is from contemporary? Sounds like that is our best bet.

 

[SoonerSean]

Disney bus service is all too often disrespectful to Guests.

It is simply unconscionable to make Guests wait far more than the expected 20 minutes for a bus. EVER.

Any one Bus route is limited to so few Resorts that it defies logic when a bus does not appear after 20 minutes. Sure, there can be bottle necks at the Parks and/or Downtown Disney, but this should encourage a knowing Dispatcher to…..dispatch buses to a Resort when there is a bottleneck at the Parks/DTD.

Adding insult to injury, when a bus for a different Park pulls into a Resort and sees countless people waiting for a particular Park or two, it again defies logic that these bus drivers do not notify their Dispatchers. Matter of fact, after experiencing one of these moments myself, one bus driver had the audacity to say they could not communicate with a Dispatcher to deliver such a message.

Moreover, when there is such a long line at any one Resort, that same bus driver could notify the Dispatcher so that an additional bus can be sent. Why? Because we have all seen a few families left behind when the bus finally arrives and reaches capacity before every family can get aboard a bus.

Disney effectively requires Guests from their hotels to use buses to/from the Parks & DTD (or we could use cars and clog the parking lots). So I'll say it again, it is unconscionable that there are so many issues with Guests experiencing bus schedules that fail to meet the 20 minute expectation that Disney promises - this is most outrageous during the morning hours when guests are anxious to ride rides and spend money.

I'll be blunt, when I have a bad start to my day (like waiting 45 minutes or more for a bus), I am far less likely to spend extra money in the Parks. From a cost/benefit analysis, Disney should want to get each and every Guest to the Parks as soon as possible. Putting more buses in-route to pick-up Guests in the morning is in the best interest of Disney.

Having Guests wait more than the promised 20 minutes is unconscionable and is a money loser for Disney. Disney should do everything it possibly can to make certain this never happens. EVER.

And please, nobody should suggest that this is an uncommon occurrence. Far too many people have at least one bad bus experience per trip to Disney. Even assuming that every family stays for 10-days, this means at least a 10% failure rate for delivering buses at the 20-minute intervals promised by Disney. This simply shows that Disney transportation is disrespectful to Guests.

Just imagine if any other portion of your trip had a 10% (or worse) failure rate. Imagine if your favorite attraction was broken or closed for maintenance 10% of the time, or a restaurant had you wait for your ADR for more than 45 minutes 10% of the time, or your Magic Band failed to work 10% of the time, or Cast Members were rude 10% of the time….Disney would do something about it.

So I wonder why Disney does so little to improve the constant failure of their transportation system, particularly when there is money riding on any improvements.

I very much agree with this. When we were at the Contemporary this past November we went down early one morning for a ride to DHS. It was almost 40 minutes before a bus finally came and when it did - those of us waiting filled it to capacity and left a long line of folks behinds us. It's my understanding that the bus was also supposed to hit the Polynesian and Floridian (I may be wrong there but we did drive right by them but couldn't stop due to the crowds so it was certainly the most inefficient route to take to leave the resort area).

Now while we were waiting and the line was building four FOUR (4!!!!) buses came and left marked Animal Kingdom. One would pull up and load 2-3 people and drive off. A few minutes later another would come and pick up 4-5 more. Same with DTD where THREE (3) buses came and went - picking up no one by the way - while we waited for that lone DHS bus.

That no one was communicating with bus central was amazing to me. Clearly whoever laid out the schedule just blew it and no one seemed to care.

 

[SoonerSean]

For our last trip we took taxis to virtually every destination. It was just SO much less stress for a really nominal fee since most places are fairly close together. We did often use the boat back to WL from MK but with a double stroller and two 4 year olds (at the time) wrangling everything onto a bus as we'd done the previous trip was just not worth the savings.

We did this one year when we were at the Coronado Resort. The bus stop by us - near the main building - was always overflowing. We looked one morning at the taxi line a few hundred yards away and then looked at one another and without saying a word... headed that way. It wasn't that expensive.

We also learned that you wanted to go to Bus Stop #2 because that was actually the first stop the buses made after entering the resort. So we remembered that when we stayed there a couple of years later and specifically asked for a room in a Casitas near that stop. Walk over - be one of the first ones on the bus - watch it fill up before it ever gets to Stop #1.

 

[NYDisGuy]

Have reservations for cirque this Friday. Any idea how much a cab is from contemporary? Sounds like that is our best bet.

It's probably going to be around $20 with tip, maybe a little more if rates increased. That's one way, if you are using them on the way back try to get a business card and call them when you want to leave.

 

[sonofanarchy]

SOA, did you do any park hopping? If yes, were you able to get FP+ in each park?

We did, but never even attempted getting more FP. The lines at the kiosks got absolutely absurd the later in the day it got.

I wanted to touch on the post someone made about the lack of FP kiosks in Frontierland. I agree with this 100%. Not only are they a hike away, but they are in the exact same space as the restrooms and ATM in Adventureland. It was chaos in that area.

I had an interesting chat with a DVC agent at one of the booths. Even he agreed, he doesn't quite understand what Disney has been thinking with many of the decisions they are making lately.

One other thing I forgot to add - I called to check on 2015 rates at the Grand Floridian. Heck, there are issues, but we still had a blast. It's still WDW. Anyways, rack rate for July in a standard garden view room was $610 per night with tax.

 

[sonofanarchy]

It's probably going to be around $20 with tip, maybe a little more if rates increased. That's one way, if you are using them on the way back try to get a business card and call them when you want to leave.

If traffic in the area is the same, it will be more than that. I have never seen so much traffic on property as we did last week.

 

[surferdave]

I had an interesting chat with a DVC agent at one of the booths.

You didn't have to go very far to find one of those, did you?

 

[MKMomma]

I very much agree with this. When we were at the Contemporary this past November we went down early one morning for a ride to DHS. It was almost 40 minutes before a bus finally came and when it did - those of us waiting filled it to capacity and left a long line of folks behinds us. It's my understanding that the bus was also supposed to hit the Polynesian and Floridian (I may be wrong there but we did drive right by them but couldn't stop due to the crowds so it was certainly the most inefficient route to take to leave the resort area).

Most of the buses have to drive past the Poly and TTC. That is the only way to get out of the MK area, unless you are heading left to POR, FW, POFQ, OKW or SSR.

 

[over50visits]

For our last trip we took taxis to virtually every destination. It was just SO much less stress for a really nominal fee since most places are fairly close together. We did often use the boat back to WL from MK but with a double stroller and two 4 year olds (at the time) wrangling everything onto a bus as we'd done the previous trip was just not worth the savings.

Can you give an example of a taxi fare between a hotel and a theme park?

 

[jade1]

I got in one of the those roundabout thingies in Boston back in March and I'm still trying to get out of it!

First roundabout I ever encountered was in Australia-try doing it where you go left around instead and sitting in the right front seat to drive, bout peed my pants.

 

[sonofanarchy]

You didn't have to go very far to find one of those, did you?

LOL - Nope.