Resort Buses - Inside Story

[M-I-C-K-E-Y]

When my family made its trip in August, lodging at POR, we had "so-so" luck with the bus system. The evening pickup at the MK, Epcot and AK were "hit and miss" (in terms of lines and waits) but MGM was absolutely terrible. In specific, the other bus stops were mostly deserted, but the shared POR/POFQ stop was absolutely jammed with folks, every night we were there.

Our last evening at MGM, there was a gent doing his best to load the buses at our stop - - he was the only person out there, and that he was at our stop only was a tip off that something wasn't quite right. He was the transportation manager at MGM and I had the opportunity to discuss the situation with him. The following information was offered (and if you all have heard this in the past, please accept my apoligies):

Each resort actually pays for a number of buses, which is determined by their own tracking of guest numbers and some other undefined variables. It sounded like they back charge the resorts for the buses, and only order what they determine is needed. The numbers vary, depending on the season and resort capacity.

Looking around the deserted MGM bus stops, and the continual backlog of people waiting at our stop, I was left to wonder whether the PO staff was either very inefficient at estimating their needs or whether major corners were being cut. It was just our opinion, but none of the other resorts with similar overall room capacities had anywhere need the wait that we did...regardless of what the transportation manager tried to "spin" the situation.

He indicated that in the future they plan to begin running an intelligent transportation system, that would give them a running number of bus capacity and present GPS locations at all times, all tracked from their traffic center. Also, there would be more flexibility in regard to shifting buses to areas of high need, such as that pesky stop POR/POFQ stop at MGM!

Overall, it seems like the definitely have some grey areas to work on, but Disney is on track to improve the overall bus situation. Keep those fingers crossed!

 

[MidgeD79]

Thanks for the info. I will be at POR for Dec 7,8,9 by myself. Since I'm there for such a short time, I hope I don't spend too much time on the busses.

 

[kapoof]

that was nice to be able to talk to someone at the top about this. i just don't get why por and pofq each can't have their own buses? i wanted to stay at pofq but won't because of the stories i have heard about this very problem!

 

[CleveRocks]

that was nice to be able to talk to someone at the top about this. i just don't get why por and pofq each can't have their own buses? i wanted to stay at pofq but won't because of the stories i have heard about this very problem!

I stayed at POFQ November 4-10 and had no problems with the buses. One of the reasons I chose POFQ over POR was the buses. I DEFINITELY had it better than the folks at POR. At MK after Wishes, for example, where there are separate stops for POFQ and POR (right next to each other), the POFQ line was okay, but the POR line was spilling out way past the switchbacks. Many people in our line were POR people who decided to get in our much shorter line and then walk to POR from POFQ or take the boat to POR from POFQ.

Also, heading to parks, most of the time our bus never even went to POR. About two times, our bus headed only to POR's main stop. Only once did we stop at each stop at POR before heading for a park.

 

[kapoof]

cleverocks..thats good to know..sounds like disney is working on this. pofq looks like such a pretty resort. we are going to the bc in jan but maybe next time we will try pofq!

 

[seashoreCM]

Not an acceptable excuse IMHO. Please tell me that is a fairy tale.

Even after hearing that spiel guests who have considerable written (quantitative) evidence of abysmal bus service should feel free to approach Guest Services and expect extra pixie dust for other aspects of their vacation.

A few years ago there was talk of a computerized bus dispatching system called "Magic On Demand". I am now assuming that insufficient technology or excessive cost prevented full installation of that. But to inhibit manual dispatching of buses because of budgeting at individual resorts is a move in the very opposite direction and a deliberate attempt to worsen the guest experience.

Disney hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/disney.htm

PM me for another explanation of "funny money transactions" which the description presented by the OP is about.

 

[M-I-C-K-E-Y]

Glad to see that the OP has been useful. The gent I spoke with also mentioned that they will be able to see the present capacity of each bus at any given time, enabling better "on the fly" re-routing. There would be "on and off" sensor at both doors. Now, I cannot say with certainty that he wasn't simply telling us what we wanted to hear. However, he did seem to open up a bit as we waited for the next bus, and seemed genuinly excited about future technology that is expected to be rolled out on the buses.

As far as POR, we were there during the free DDP time in mid August, and it was at full capacity. With that said, the bus times were reasonable, with the notable exception of at MGM following Fantasmic on both evenings we were there.

 

[mommytoe]

I stayed at POFQ November 4-10 and had no problems with the buses. One of the reasons I chose POFQ over POR was the buses. I DEFINITELY had it better than the folks at POR. At MK after Wishes, for example, where there are separate stops for POFQ and POR (right next to each other), the POFQ line was okay, but the POR line was spilling out way past the switchbacks. Many people in our line were POR people who decided to get in our much shorter line and then walk to POR from POFQ or take the boat to POR from POFQ.

Also, heading to parks, most of the time our bus never even went to POR. About two times, our bus headed only to POR's main stop. Only once did we stop at each stop at POR before heading for a park.

I was there Nov 6 - 11 at POR. We got on/off the bus at the west stop and the bus always showed up empty. We only had a problem if we tried the main stop. Since we had a small child with us we never stayed for the fireworks so never had a problem coming back. The whole week we only had to stand twice on the bus once going (used main stop) and once coming back (both were on our mgm day).

 

[M-I-C-K-E-Y]

It's interesting to hear reports from other times of the year, in regard to the bus service. Disney seems to continually run the numbers and estimate how many buses are needed - it's not just "always five buses from POR to MK, regardless of resort capacity" It reinforces the comment that the transportation manager made, that each resort "orders" buses. That would explain all the times we see those resort employees with clip boards working out at the bus stops. It must be a true logistics nightmare to get the numbers right...and I think we can all agree that (although they try their best) that they definitely do not order the correct number of buses all the time.

 

[ztbz]

A few years ago there was talk of a computerized bus dispatching system called "Magic On Demand". I am now assuming that insufficient technology or excessive cost prevented full installation of that. But to inhibit manual dispatching of buses because of budgeting at individual resorts is a move in the very opposite direction and a deliberate attempt to worsen the guest experience.

Disney is still running the "Magic On Demand" system in the morning and depending upon where you are staying at and which park you are going to will depend on how fast a bus is dispatch to a Location for guest pickup. The new system will be Magic On Demand system that will run all day long once they get it working.

Here is some of the Details of the new computer dispatching system that Disney is in the process of installing on the buses. When you board a bus it will have spiel much like the monorail has and Disney Park Music will be playing when the main spiel is not saying anything. The person who does the Monorail Spiel is also going to be doing the Bus Spiels too. When the bus pulls into a load zone the bus will play announcement spiel outside the bus which basically will have the standard, No Smoking, Eating, Drinking spiel and will also include in the spiel to fold all strollers before boarding the bus and entering only the front entrance etc, The main spiel as the bus goes along on the bus route will require the bus drivers to do the route that Disney wants to be done, so no more short-cuts or extra stops will be allowed without permission. This is why the GPS systems are being install with the Audio Spiel, as well as an automatic people counter so management can keep track of the amount of guest riding or not riding the buses. The counters might help in getting more buses in the budget for each resort.

One note about the counters, I was told that Disney may have buses that have low guest counts go to more resorts then we currently do now, for instance lets say the bus from Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge to Downtown Disney only has a handful of guest on board, Disney could instruct the bus driver to go pick up more guest at Disney All Stars Resorts before going to Downtown Disney, so this is the one disadvantage to the GPS/People counter that some folks may not realize at the moment.

there was a gent doing his best to load the buses at our stop - - he was the only person out there, and that he was at our stop only was a tip off that something wasn't quite right. He was the transportation manager at MGM

One little detail that he didn’t tell you is that all the buses are SHARED with other Disney Resorts. Think of it like a basket full of eggs, each route use to get about 3 to 4 dedicated buses for each route. What Disney did was to instead of keeping those 3 or 4 buses on say one route like the Pop Century route, they instead put the buses all into one basket, then they put the buses from other dedicated routes into the same basket, then they took out or cut a bunch of the eggs (or buses) in a cost cutting move, you see if Disney were to go back to the old system (they won't) they would have to increase the budget and run more buses and hire more bus drivers.

It’s my belief that Disney is going to this system not to improve bus service but to provide somewhat decent bus service to guest for as little costs as possible. Of course they have spent around 30 millions dollars on this system so far and that they have yet to get working. It was suppose to have been running by now this month, but it now looks like summer of next year (2007) will be the earliest it will have been put into operation. They have not even gotten around to training the current bus driver staff yet. Also I have my doubts as to whether this system will work the way Disney Management wants it to work and there will likely be problems on the first day when its put into operation much like what happen at Easter time a few years ago when Disney started with Magic on Demand.

 

[M-I-C-K-E-Y]

Fantastic information - Wow!

 

[M-I-C-K-E-Y]

As per my OP in November 2006, I just read the following:


Disney Bus Schedules from the Resorts

Big changes coming to the Disney bus fleet. The buses are being outfitted with GPS units which will become operational in April, 2007. The buses will have automatic Guest counters to track ridership. The bus marquee will automatically update indicating where its traveling to. Remote cameras will be installed to monitor the busier loading zones in order to better respond to Guest demand.

 

[jimmytammy]

I have often wondered why they didnt have some sorta video surveillance at the stops for that very reason. It seems they have recieved many complaints recently, enough to warrant listening. Im sure it is an expensive venture, but one that hopefully will help alleviate the wait times.