Rent a car or not

[DisneyOma]

We tend to drive to WDW. We rarely drive once on property, for many reasons.

While WDW has really good signage on property, so many people just can't handle driving down there and do the craziest things, like stop in the middle to take a photo, go from the left lane all the way across to the right to make a turn, and once, a guy missed an exit and drove up over the embankment, and almost hit the bus we were on. I'd rather be in a big bus than in another car when the whackadoodles are out and about.

We go in August, and I'd rather get on a bus with AC than have to stand outside my car while I let it cool down by running the AC.

The long, crazy lines of cars at park closing - and the whackadoodles that make their own lanes to try to cut by others. (I have a not so DIS word for them, but it wouldn't make it past censoring)

We stay at Pop Century, and have had great luck with the bus system. And once, we jumped on an Art of Animation bus, and had a pretty walk across the lake back to Pop Century.

Finding a parking spot at the resort - not always easy. At least not at Pop Century, for anything close to your building. Doing that twice a day? No thank you.

 

[angierae]

I am firmly in the "no car" camp. In 2013 we flew into Orlando for a different event Friday-Sunday and I was never so happy as I was on Sunday afternoon when we dropped our rental car off at the Swolphin and hopped on a bus.

Part of vacation to me is not having to drive and navigate and worry about parking.

 

[CinderellaElla]

My husband and I drive to Disney World (we live in FL). Our decision to use our car or not in Disney depends on which resort we are staying at and, sometimes, which park we're going to. We stay at Pop Century a lot and, in general, we love their bus transportation system. It's because they only have 1 local bus stop, instead of 4 like other resorts have. In my experience, I end up waiting longer for a bus at the resorts that have more than 1 bus stop. If you're staying a resort that has more than 1 bus stop, I say rent a car. You'll save time. If your staying at a resort that has only 1 local stop, I'd say consider just using bus transportation.
Side note: We love using our car to go to EPCOT if we are going first thing in the morning, regardless of where we are staying. We have found that if we get to EPCOT about 45 minutes before it opens, that we get a pretty close parking spot and don't need to take the tram. Once when we went in early october, we got to epcot 45 minutes early and were the first people in one of the entry lines! We even took a picture! LOL!
So basically I'm saying, consider where you are staying and when you are staying