MONORAIL CLOSURE - What a BUMMER!

[morethananyonex]

Unfortunately it is never guaranteed that the monorail will be up and running. It dose break down every so often. So if you are looking for an 100% guarantee that it will be up and running whenever you want it, then you are going to have to keep looking. Everything at WDW is subject to change and availability. They do not guarantee a single thing. I wonder too why you didn't just hop in a cab to get from the Contemporary to the Poly, if you needed to get there quickly. It couldn't cost more than $10. Using Disney transportation to get from one resort to another is never speedy, not even by monorail. I have to add too that if you are stopping the park bus drivers and asking them how to get from A to B, then you are keeping them from doing their job. I know if I was trying to get on a bus, and someone ahead of me was preventing that because they wanted to have a long conversation with the bus driver, I would be kind of ticked.

Bolded is me, that's just not true. Getting between the monorail resorts is very quick when it's running, and a big part of the appeal of those 3 resorts. CR to Poly would take 10-15 minutes when everything is running properly. We know, as we did this for many meals a few weeks ago.

The lack of monorail is a huge inconvenience when you're trying to get between those 3 resorts. We got to compare our transport times on the weekend and for breakfasts when the monorail was open to the weekday for dinner when it was not. It does not even come close, when the monorail works it is very fast.

 

[maxiesmom]

Bolded is me, that's just not true. Getting between the monorail resorts is very quick when it's running, and a big part of the appeal of those 3 resorts. CR to Poly would take 10-15 minutes when everything is running properly. We know, as we did this for many meals a few weeks ago.

The lack of monorail is a huge inconvenience when you're trying to get between those 3 resorts. We got to compare our transport times on the weekend and for breakfasts when the monorail was open to the weekday for dinner when it was not. It does not even come close, when the monorail works it is very fast.

Umm no, the monorail is not always quick. During my trip in December it took over 20 minutes to get from the Magic Kingdom to the Contemporary. Traffic was held up. Maybe I shouldn't have said it is never speedy, but it is for sure not always speedy.

I also don't think it is ridiculous to suggest someone use a cab, when the transportation is not up to par. Taking a cab would have gotten that poster where they needed to be much quicker when it became obvious the monorail was not running as it should. Even when the monorail is running I have found it smart to keep an extra $20 on me, just in case we run into a transportation hiccup.

 

[Mazzy]

Can anyone please tell me the dates the monorail will be on restricted hours. We go in May and wondering if it will affect us. Thanks

 

[Donut23]

Umm no, the monorail is not always quick. During my trip in December it took over 20 minutes to get from the Magic Kingdom to the Contemporary. Traffic was held up. Maybe I shouldn't have said it is never speedy, but it is for sure not always speedy.

I also don't think it is ridiculous to suggest someone use a cab, when the transportation is not up to par. Taking a cab would have gotten that poster where they needed to be much quicker when it became obvious the monorail was not running as it should. Even when the monorail is running I have found it smart to keep an extra $20 on me, just in case we run into a transportation hiccup.

Remember the days when that $20 in your pocket was never needed. When Disney budgets enabled maintenance to keep things humming vs. crisis repairs. When monorail car failures were not daily happenings. When they didn't need the spur line to run the little emergency engine down when monorail cars were not fixable. When monorail cars were replaced at 20 years of use as manufacturers recommended vs. the extra 15 years ontop of the 20 they are doing now.

Now add the years of neglect to the towers because of diminishing maintenance budgets. So sad. Maintenance on site know where this philosophy will lead.

Sorry. For the price you pay at a monorail resort there is absolutely no reason to expect anything but complete monorail service. They ran for 40 years without problem. Oh yea. That was concurrent with 40 years of having $$$$$ in the budget for preventative maintenance. Hummmmm.

DH is a CASTMEMBER. Some of his colleagues have taken Disney trips recently. 100% of them have returned to say it's no longer worth it...and that's with CASTMEMBER discounts! ---especially monorail resorts.

I prefer the days where there was no need for the $20 in my pocket. But hey, Disney is only breaking $$$$$ records each quarter. They wouldn't want to share some of that with their Cinderella park ----- WDW. They prefer now to pay attention to the Orient and South America.


.......and Disney, if you ever listen to us, can you please bring back Lights of Winter for hubby! (On the list of Don't Hold My Breath)

Ok, soap box back under the bed. Rant over.

 

[brockash]

Remember the days when that $20 in your pocket was never needed. When Disney budgets enabled maintenance to keep things humming vs. crisis repairs. When monorail car failures were not daily happenings. When they didn't need the spur line to run the little emergency engine down when monorail cars were not fixable. When monorail cars were replaced at 20 years of use as manufacturers recommended vs. the extra 15 years ontop of the 20 they are doing now.

Now add the years of neglect to the towers because of diminishing maintenance budgets. So sad. Maintenance on site know where this philosophy will lead.

Sorry. For the price you pay at a monorail resort there is absolutely no reason to expect anything but complete monorail service. They ran for 40 years without problem. Oh yea. That was concurrent with 40 years of having $$$$$ in the budget for preventative maintenance. Hummmmm.

DH is a CASTMEMBER. Some of his colleagues have taken Disney trips recently. 100% of them have returned to say it's no longer worth it...and that's with CASTMEMBER discounts! ---especially monorail resorts.

I prefer the days where there was no need for the $20 in my pocket. But hey, Disney is only breaking $$$$$ records each quarter. They wouldn't want to share some of that with their Cinderella park ----- WDW. They prefer now to pay attention to the Orient and South America.

.......and Disney, if you ever listen to us, can you please bring back Lights of Winter for hubby! (On the list of Don't Hold My Breath)

Ok, soap box back under the bed. Rant over.

I know you were mainly just venting, but I completely agree. It's pretty sad that guests staying in "deluxe" resorts paying the price to be on the monorail feel the need to keep even more money handy because of the lack of service and follow through on one of the big selling points of their resort.

 

[caribbeandrifter]

 

[Amy&Dan]

Unfortunately it is never guaranteed that the monorail will be up and running. It dose break down every so often. So if you are looking for an 100% guarantee that it will be up and running whenever you want it, then you are going to have to keep looking. Everything at WDW is subject to change and availability. They do not guarantee a single thing.

I wonder too why you didn't just hop in a cab to get from the Contemporary to the Poly, if you needed to get there quickly. It couldn't cost more than $10. Using Disney transportation to get from one resort to another is never speedy, not even by monorail.

I have to add too that if you are stopping the park bus drivers and asking them how to get from A to B, then you are keeping them from doing their job. I know if I was trying to get on a bus, and someone ahead of me was preventing that because they wanted to have a long conversation with the bus driver, I would be kind of ticked.

I disagree respectfully with what I have bolded. Asking a bus driver how to get from point A to B is their job. It happens all the time, and the drivers are used to it. How else are you supposed to find out?

Occasionally they have cm's at the resort bus stops who are trying to get the right busses to the resort guests via radio but that isn't always the case that they are there. And again, would you consider asking even that person a "taking time away from their job" scenario? And who said anything about a long, time consuming question and answer session? Example: Somebody getting on the bus at Port Orleans to DHS asks the driver as they get on "hey we want to go over to Animal Kingdom later in the day from Studios, how do I do that?" Driver responds "there is a bus directly AK from DHS, its que #x and it will take you right there". That hardly kept anyone in line from making their reservation on time in my opinion.

Frankly I have personally asked drivers questions, and I have seen others do the same probably hundreds of times in our many trips and its never been an issue. I never heard anyone get upset, its part of the drill. As you say, no method of transportation at WDW is all that quick and this may factor into it but its hardly unusual. A bus driver doesn't just drive the busses and if he wasn't there to offer customer service in addition to his/her driving, then they'd have him in a soundproof little cockpit with a do not disturb sign on it.

And to comment on the OP's post, I will add that the right thing to do would be for Disney to deeply discount these rooms. Obviously nothing is 100% guaranteed but honestly this whole thing of its unfair to the starving children of the planet if any of us dare get peeved with Disney over their lack of customer service is getting kind of old on this board.

Bottom line to me is that even with bus service to the TTC, boats to MK, walking to MK from the CR and monorails running some of the time, this monorail closure is not fair unless the rooms are discounted to go in line with the lack of an amenity that is being paid for but not fully offered. And not being communicated to the guest.

For me personally my reason for staying at the Poly years ago was access to the monorail to dine at other monorail resorts and get to MK and Epcot via the monorail. The monorail is not always my favorite mode of Disney transportation which is why I don't typically pony up the money to stay at one, but if I do and its not working, I'd rebook someplace else. And if I had elderly parents and kids in strollers and this came up, via me finding out on a message board, I'd be mad as all get out. It wouldn't ruin my life and I wouldn't think of it as an international crisis but I'd be scrambling and figuring out what I'd need to do to make my trip work and I wouldn't be paying the top dollar to stay at the CR. Which may be the "cheapest" of the monorail resorts but its hardly a cheap place to stay.

Improvements and maintenance do need to happen but I just think that to most this is not acceptable unless they are getting a very deep discount and plenty of advance warning.

 

[conandrob240]

I call BS on those of you responding as if this is no big deal. we are just back from a 4 night GFV stay and it was a major pain. We waited 3 boats to get back to GF from MK at 1pm on a non-crowded day. We had booked our dining plans around the monorail line resorts and had two nights of major hassle and transfers trying to get from GF to Contemporary around 5-6 pm. It was really inconvenient and really crummy that people weren't notified ahead of time. Unacceptable.

 

[Planogirl]

I think that this is a very big deal. We've used the monorail a lot in the past and just thinking about having to deal with this irritates me. Why should people have to pay even more for the inconvenience of using a cab? Besides the monorail was considered a major attraction for DS and I liked to just walk into the monorail and relax back in the day.

Of course Disney has to repair these old vehicles. Are they also working on them overnight? I wonder if they don't actually need to be replaced but I'm glad that Disney is finally repairing all of this even if it's a pain right now.

 

[IsThatYouTigger]

I call BS on those of you responding as if this is no big deal. we are just back from a 4 night GFV stay and it was a major pain. We waited 3 boats to get back to GF from MK at 1pm on a non-crowded day. We had booked our dining plans around the monorail line resorts and had two nights of major hassle and transfers trying to get from GF to Contemporary around 5-6 pm. It was really inconvenient and really crummy that people weren't notified ahead of time. Unacceptable.

That does not sound like fun! DH and I are going towards the tail end of the monorail downtime...We stayed at Boardwalk in October and are going to stay at Wilderness Lodge on our next trip. We are only planning on 1 park day (8 days left on our 10 day non-expiration tickets) and chose Wilderness Lodge since we could boat to and monorail hop the MK resorts during the day for food, drinks, etc. Since we aren't paying the big prices for GF, CR, or Poly I feel really bad making any kind of complaint about this but we did choose WL for the easy access to those resorts. It will be more of an inconvenience but we will make do. Sorry to those of you having to experience this while trying to get to and from the parks during the day!

 

[DVCFan1994]

I was at BLT last week, 2/19 - 2/25.

I used the monorail to get to/from the marathon events without issue. However, when my husband tried to take it to see me finish the 10k it took him 40 minutes at 0530 to go from CR to TTC, due to a switching issue (or so they announced).

On our return trip from the half marathon the power went out on our monorail. Someone in our car made a joke, not noticing there was a monorail CM onboard. We then got an explanation that sometimes an error happens and the easiest thing to do it just shut it off and restart it, like a PC. He then was barraged with questions about the monorail, and the closures. Who knows if he was right, but he said the closures are due to upgrading the system to being fully automated. No human operator required. But there will be a human in the front for people's peace of mind. Didn't have a reason why it had to be done in the middle of the day.

On 2/24 we needed to get from BLT to GF for dinner at Citricos. Earlier in the day we asked the CM manning our bus stop what the best way to do that was. She said that we should walk to MK and take a boat to GF. She said the only bus guaranteed to take us to GF would go to TTC and Poly first, and it could take a while. We knew this to be true because On the previous Friday it took my mom 40 minutes to get from TTC (after Epcot monorail) to CR. So we walked from BLT to MK. Straight to the boat. We get there and the cm at the boat launch says that a bus would be faster because the boat has limited capacity. We were annoyed, but walked to the MK bus depot to get the poly/ GF bus. HUGE line. Cast member there tells us to go take a boat, it will be quicker. I thought my dad, who hates to walk anywhere, was going to have a stroke he was so frustrated. I politely told the man all the advice we had consecutively been given. He laughed. We didn't find it funny. He did call an extra bus to help clear the line. He then explained anyone who tells you to leave your resort to get transportation elsewhere needs to be retrained. That transportation originating at resorts is always a safer bet than anything originating at parks.

I was fortunate that we only needed the monorail twice during down times. Had I been paying for a room I would have been very upset. We did not receive any communication from Disney about the closure. I knew from these boards, and we planned our days accordingly, minimizing monorail use. I still love BLT and the monorail though. I just feel Disney needs clearer communication and better planning to accommodate these types of changes.

 

[flicx]

I call BS on those of you responding as if this is no big deal. we are just back from a 4 night GFV stay and it was a major pain. We waited 3 boats to get back to GF from MK at 1pm on a non-crowded day. We had booked our dining plans around the monorail line resorts and had two nights of major hassle and transfers trying to get from GF to Contemporary around 5-6 pm. It was really inconvenient and really crummy that people weren't notified ahead of time. Unacceptable.

Sorry to hear this. The really sad thing about this is this is supposedly Disney's flagship resort. As far as I am concerned Disney gets an F for not letting the monorail resort customers know it will be down for scheduled maintenance. Very bad business that is borderline dishonest.

 

[mom2rtk]

Sorry to hear this. The really sad thing about this is this is supposedly Disney's flagship resort. As far as I am concerned Disney gets an F for not letting the monorail resort customers know it will be down for scheduled maintenance. Very bad business that is borderline dishonest.

But maybe accounting gives them an A for minimizing cancellations?

 

[flicx]

But maybe accounting gives them an A for minimizing cancellations?

I'll bet they do! "insert Disney is a business and needs to make a profit here comment." AH yes priorities!

 

[jhaig]

Unfortunately it is never guaranteed that the monorail will be up and running. It dose break down every so often. So if you are looking for an 100% guarantee that it will be up and running whenever you want it, then you are going to have to keep looking. Everything at WDW is subject to change and availability. They do not guarantee a single thing. .

I don't mind work being done on the monorail, but why didn't Disney notify their guests? This was not a breakdown. The only 100% guarantee I expect from Disney is that the guest comes first. I don't think that's true anymore. To fleece your guests into paying deluxe prices and not deliver on the perks that a deluxe promises, and not give them adequate notice or an acceptable alternative, or even something to accommodate the guest for an obvious inconvenience, is bad business and totally wrong.

 

[jhaig]

For 600 bucks a night and no monorail service I expect more than paying extra for transportation.

 

[maxiesmom]

I don't mind work being done on the monorail, but why didn't Disney notify their guests? This was not a breakdown. The only 100% guarantee I expect from Disney is that the guest comes first. I don't think that's true anymore. To fleece your guests into paying deluxe prices and not deliver on the perks that a deluxe promises, and not give them adequate notice or an acceptable alternative, or even something to accommodate the guest for an obvious inconvenience, is bad business and totally wrong.

It seems as if they have notified guests, according to other posters they did receive notification. Maybe they missed a few (which would not be good) or maybe people just didn't see the information. At any rate, it seems they could have done a better job communicating the closure.

My point was even when the monorail is in service it has issues. If people are wanting a guarantee that it will be in service whenever they want it, they are going to be disappointed. Disney cannot offer it ever. And that is unfortunately the reality. The monorail is just not totally reliable.

 

[Runnergal]

I looove the monorail and have had amazing experiences staying at all of the monorail resorts. But we were at the CR in November, and cracks were definitely showing in the system. Long waits, overcrowded trains, unexplained delays. It took us an hour and 15 minutes to get from Epcot back to the CR. We had ADRs at the Poly 2 nights and it felt like a hassle getting there. We stayed at the YC during presidents week and just loved it. Easy walk or boat ride to 2 parks, and I never waited more than 5 minutes for buses to and from MK and AK. I won't stay at a monorail resort again until things are improved.

 

[xipetotec]

Just back last week to say, *be mindful of this*.

The monorails do run at the exact hours mentioned, and that's great.

But if you make the mistake of trying to get from Epcot to MK when it's NOT running... prepare for massive and I mean MASSIVE lineups to get onto the ferry from the TTC. In the hot sun... with a wife in a wheelchair ( well okay, that last part was only me ).