Monorail closure for March!

[KerryCM]

I am staying at the Grand right now and it is not bad at all. The monorail closes from 11:30 to 6pm. There are busses running to the Poly and the Grand and they are running every 5-7 minutes. Yes, it can be a pain, but I am here and having a wonderful time celebrating my 40th anniversary. The monorail is in need of repairs and that is what they are doing. If it is going to ruin your vacation, stay somewhere else or wait until construction is done. In the grand scheme of things, this is a very small inconvience.

 

[Debrn]

It would be nice if Disney notified people in case we wanted to change resorts, instead of hearing it through the boards

 

[Aliceacc]

We're already paid in full, so I don't want to pay a penalty on top of all of this. Thanks for the suggestion, though. We've stayed at the BC, but wanted a monorail resort this time.

Oh, I would be pretty vocal about the fact that I did NOT expect to pay a penalty of any sort. After all, what you paid for was that access to the parks, NOT a bus ride. Disney is the one who changed the rules this time, not you, and they should make it right.

I would NOT pay Grand Floridian prices to have to take a bus.

 

[Sandisw]

I am staying at the Grand right now and it is not bad at all. The monorail closes from 11:30 to 6pm. There are busses running to the Poly and the Grand and they are running every 5-7 minutes. Yes, it can be a pain, but I am here and having a wonderful time celebrating my 40th anniversary. The monorail is in need of repairs and that is what they are doing. If it is going to ruin your vacation, stay somewhere else or wait until construction is done. In the grand scheme of things, this is a very small inconvience.

Glad to hear that its not the worst situation and that you have found a way to make it work! Happy anniversary.

Unfortunately, things happen and while I know I would certainly be disappointed if I had planned a trip to one of these resorts only to find I had to modify my plans, there isn't any thing you can do other than think about making a change.

Hope those that are impacted by this find that things are not as bad as it could be.

 

[rentayenta]

I would be livid if I booked a monorail resort for this timeframe.

Me too especially if I booked it specifically for use of the Monorail and had little kids.


Hope it goes smoothly for everyone.

 

[MHTeacher]

StitchKingdom is reporting an end date of March 17th.

That's good to know! Thanks for that info.

 

[volleygirl]

So I'm confused, the monorail is available during earlier than 11:30 and later than 6?

 

[TLSnell1981]

. After voicing my comments, they really didn't seem to care. I picked a monorail resort for the monorail transportation and couldn't use it half the time. It seems to be a problem that is just getting worse as time goes on.

Nope, they couldn't care less. It's now the norm for Disney.

However in this case at least WDW let everyone staying at the Contemporary/Bay Lake Tower, Polynesian & Grand Floridian in advance of what's going on. This way those guests could change plan ahead or even switch resorts if this becomes to much of a problem for them. While I do feel for those guests that are choosing to stay at those resorts during this time and not switch, at least the Resort Monorail will be up running again and I would take that over it closing because of something un-expected like it breaking down again.

This started today. Not exactly much notice. We are traveling in May, hopefully we won't be affected. We're DVC and it would be VERY difficult to change and impossible to cancel.

 

[gottaluvPluto]

I don't understand why they pick the month March to do this rehab. I would think Jan. or Feb. would have been better months to schedule this.

I personally am not happy about this. First, the poly pool is not running to it's fullest and now you don't get the full use of the monorail. Why two rehabs at a one resort? When you stay at a resort for transportation and the pool and don't get the full experience is just wrong. I am paying a lot of money for something that I'm not going to get to truly use. I also can't change resorts because the other resorts are full.

For people who say take the bus, we hate the Disney bus transportation at the Poly. You have to share a bus with all these resorts and it just never works for us. The monorail was a lot faster than the bus!

Now that I vented, does anyone know if the Poly hotel has to share a bus with the three resorts? If it does, Disney needs to change it to no sharing.

 

[disneyfanjan]

I am LIVID!!! We're paying full price to stay at the Grand Floridian in 3 weeks. Staying for 12 nights. We have young kids and the whole point of this extravagance was the monorail. My DH is going to hit the roof!!!

I don't blame you! We can't afford to stay at the monorail resorts and I have often wished we could so our grandchildren could go back and nap. That would be the only reason to spend the money and if it turned out that the monorail was not running, I'd be sooo upset. Although Disney does try to accommodate with buses, it would be nice if they could give you something off the bill. Hopefully, they will be done with it when you get there.

 

[Mynamewastaken]

I would be bull. We stayed at the Poly last week and it was AWESOME having the monorail. We took the bus to AK, DTD, and HS and waited FOREVER. They were every 25 minutes and on the return trips we had to stop at the Contemporary before it got to the POLY. Our ride from DTD to Poly was well over an hour- it SUCKED.

 

[padawans]

I am staying at the Grand right now and it is not bad at all. The monorail closes from 11:30 to 6pm. There are busses running to the Poly and the Grand and they are running every 5-7 minutes. Yes, it can be a pain, but I am here and having a wonderful time celebrating my 40th anniversary. The monorail is in need of repairs and that is what they are doing. If it is going to ruin your vacation, stay somewhere else or wait until construction is done. In the grand scheme of things, this is a very small inconvience.

I'm glad to see you are having a great time, and have a good attitude.

We have had 3 10 day stays at the Poly. Normally during the course of our stay there will be one time when we want to take the monorail and its having some problems. I have seen people throw hissy fits over this. Your vacation is what you make of it. Disney is building a new resort, the monorail needs repairs. I agree people should stay elsewhere if they think its going to ruin their vacation.

 

[padawans]

I would be bull. We stayed at the Poly last week and it was AWESOME having the monorail. We took the bus to AK, DTD, and HS and waited FOREVER. They were every 25 minutes and on the return trips we had to stop at the Contemporary before it got to the POLY. Our ride from DTD to Poly was well over an hour- it SUCKED.

If you ever stay at the Poly again. You can take the ttc bus. It doesn't make any stops.

 

[gottaluvPluto]

I'm glad to see you are having a great time, and have a good attitude.

We have had 3 10 day stays at the Poly. Normally during the course of our stay there will be one time when we want to take the monorail and its having some problems. I have seen people throw hissy fits over this. Your vacation is what you make of it. Disney is building a new resort, the monorail needs repairs. I agree people should stay elsewhere if they think its going to ruin their vacation.

I don't think it will truly ruin anyones vacation. However, people aren't getting what they paid for and that is what really bites. Plus, the bus system at the Poly is not good at all.

 

[ethanwa]

I would be so pissed off. We just got back from a 14 day stay there with two small children. It costed us a buttload of money and part of that was for the monorail, especially for the mid-day breaks with the kids.

And for all of you saying "take the bus, take the boat" then I say "good luck with a double stroller, it sucks!".

I feel bad for you folks.

Ethan

 

[vdub322]

I am LIVID!!! We're paying full price to stay at the Grand Floridian in 3 weeks. Staying for 12 nights. We have young kids and the whole point of this extravagance was the monorail. My DH is going to hit the roof!!!

Well hopefully the reported end date of 3/17 is accurate, and then you shouldn't have any problem if you are going in three weeks because that would mean the disruption will end before you get there. Good luck.

 

[sotoalf]

On our trip three weeks ago while lunching at Contempo Cafe, I noticed the express monorail idle by the monorail station. I assumed the express line was closed for repairs. About an hour later the monorail was again operational.

Although by no means a Disney fan, I'm not sure what WDW could have done to mitigate the situation other than waive cancellation fees. It's quite possible that the rickety monorail system has serious flaws that required shutting it down. Remember: it's already under strain thanks to MH events.

 

[pmaurer74]

So I'm confused, the monorail is available during earlier than 11:30 and later than 6?

Yes it is running in the morning and the evening. Last night I saw at least 5 MK buses in about 20 minutes arrive.

 

[pmaurer74]

I was told yesterday by a transportation person that the monorail will be down from 11:30-6 for the next 2 weeks. There will be a tons of buses as well as the ferry. To get to EPCOT you have to take a TTC bus and get on the monorail form the GF anyway. I am happy. Yes we will be inconvenienced with a double stroller but we have a theme park view and the weather will be great except for tomorrow.

 

[jujube]

I understand construction, however, I think Disney should offer some type of compensation to those staying in the monorail resorts during the time that the monorail has limited service- just a couple of meals or something. We all know those resorts cost big bucks. It would be good customer service.
Whenever someone asks about CR, Poly,GF, the most frequent post is something like "It's worth it for the monorail." I've read that construction on the GF DVC is behind schedule. I hope this monorail downtime won't go beyond the time stated. BTW, I'm seeing two different times- 2 weeks and until the end of March.