News Round Up 2016

Could you imagine this...

It's 11:30 AM, you have a dining reservation or a fastpass starting at 1PM. MDE will push a notification to you advising that the next bus (arriving in 20 minutes) will get you to your reservation on time.

That would be so fantastic.

EDIT: Or you can tell the app when you want to be notified (1 hour in advance, 2 hours in advance, etc)...though thinking about it, I'm not so sure the busses run on any kind of constant/reliable schedule. Especially if they just send the busses where they need them the most.

well, most of the resorts now have those signs with the time estimate for when the next bus to each park is due to arrive ... so they should have some idea and they could use averages, etc. to know when to notify people and they should know if/when there are delays and push that to people to give themselves extra time, etc.
 
well, most of the resorts now have those signs with the time estimate for when the next bus to each park is due to arrive ... so they should have some idea and they could use averages, etc. to know when to notify people and they should know if/when there are delays and push that to people to give themselves extra time, etc.
They were testing the bus arrival times on the app a while back. A CM would stand with an iPad at the bus depot and check for accuracy. It was having some problems and I haven't heard anything about it continuing testing. This could very well lead up to that.
 

well, most of the resorts now have those signs with the time estimate for when the next bus to each park is due to arrive ... so they should have some idea and they could use averages, etc. to know when to notify people and they should know if/when there are delays and push that to people to give themselves extra time, etc.

Those were largely ineffective when I first saw them...hopefully they were working the kinks out.

They continually just kept changing/climbing as you stood there...

It was always 6 minutes till the Epcot bus got there ;)
 
Bus boards are up at Pop but last post about them on the Pop thread they still weren't working. At this rate I'm hoping they'll be working when I'm there in Nov. They've been up at least 2 months.
 
I mean apps like Uber have the location of the taxi. Surely, Disney can create a similar app showing where the buses are. It is just a matter of putting some form of GPS device on the buses.
 
I mean apps like Uber have the location of the taxi. Surely, Disney can create a similar app showing where the buses are. It is just a matter of putting some form of GPS device on the buses.

The Disney buses were GPS integrated in 2001-2002...

It took decades and tons of money to produce the highly imperfect system you have now
 
News

D23 Tickets now available
Anyone know how quickly the sorcerer's tickets sold out? I forgot about D23 tickets going on sale today and was going to try to get one just for the heck of it. If I had been successful, I wouldn't have actually purchased one.
 
Those were largely ineffective when I first saw them...hopefully they were working the kinks out.

They continually just kept changing/climbing as you stood there...

It was always 6 minutes till the Epcot bus got there ;)

On our trip in April we were watching the monitor at Saratoga waiting for the Hollywood Studios bus. 8 mins, 9 mins, 10 mins, 11 mins. Then all of a sudden it dropped to 1 min and the bus pulled in. Kinda useless.
 
On our trip in April we were watching the monitor at Saratoga waiting for the Hollywood Studios bus. 8 mins, 9 mins, 10 mins, 11 mins. Then all of a sudden it dropped to 1 min and the bus pulled in. Kinda useless.

Same Time...same thing at old key west...

It actually was detrimental...climbing for a half hour...then dropping to a null Value as the bus pulled in.

"Sure...I've got 10 minutes to go to the bathroom...or the bus is actually behind the bushes...either works"
 
The problem I see with times until a bus arrives it the mass rush that it might cause. If you find out the bus is only 10 min away, and 100 other families do too... You get there and have to wait for the next bus, or just decide to get there early defeating the purpose of notifying you that a bus is nearly there.

On busy days it's not uncommon to get to a bus stop right as one is leaving and still not be able to get on the next bus (our worst was leaving MK at close, arrived as a bus was closing it's doors and we weren't able to get on for two more buses, so we were on the 4th bus we saw from when we got to the stop).

So I don't see the buses being added to the app as a good thing. I think it won't get better until they are all fully automated and they are able to increase the frequency of buses both overall and when there is higher demand.
 
They were testing the bus arrival times on the app a while back. A CM would stand with an iPad at the bus depot and check for accuracy. It was having some problems and I haven't heard anything about it continuing testing. This could very well lead up to that.

During our mid/late June trip we saw Cast Members at the bus stops at Caribbean Beach holding an iPad. I was preoccupied with my fiancee's nephew most of the time, otherwise I would have asked what they were doing. I did hear one of the CM's ask an older couple (both in ECV's) what resort they were going to and then said, "Ok, we'll get a bus for you". Not sure if this is a scripted response or if she was literally going into the system to request a bus for their destination.

Also, I'm not sure if she asked the couple in the ECV's specifically so she could notify the bus driver that 2 ECV's would be boarding the bus. Not sure if a driver really needs that notification, but I guess it could be a nice to know if you have people sitting in the ECV/wheelchair seats.
 
The Disney buses were GPS integrated in 2001-2002...

It took decades and tons of money to produce the highly imperfect system you have now

I guess I just never use buses at Disney any more, I just Uber from place to place. More convenient and faster. Yea it may cost me like a few more bucks, but worth it.
 












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