So I had some downtime at work and I decided to attempt to to answer the age-old Walt Disney World debate, "which on-property resorts are the most and least convenient?" I wanted to take as much bias as possible out of the process, and decided to focus strictly on numbers rather than qualitative factors. This analysis doesn't care whether you think the monorail is cooler than a bus, it only cares which one will get you to your destination faster.
The first step was to gather data from a third-party transportation calculator that estimates the transit time from Point A to Point B across Walt Disney World using various modes of transportation. The following assumptions were used when I gathered these times:
- All times are for Disney transportation or walking only. No driving, no Uber, no Lyft, and no taxi.
- If a resort offers a "special" mode of transportation, that transportation must be used. Contemporary to Epcot by bus is faster than Contemporary to Epcot by monorail, but monorail must be used in this analysis.
- If a resort offers multiple special modes of transportation, I chose the faster of the two, e.g. Saratoga Springs boat to Disney Springs versus Saratoga Springs walking to Disney Springs.
- Polynesian Village was calculated twice. Most people who stay there walk to the TTC to take the monorail to Epcot rather than riding the Magic Kingdom Resort Monorail around the loop and transferring trains.
- I did not give any mode of transportation preference over another. Sometimes buses are late, sometimes monorails break down, and sometimes lightning shuts down the Skyliner. I ignored all of that and went with the estimates that came out of the tool.
- I did not make any distinction for different sections of resorts or between hotels and DVC villas that share the same transportation systems. Bay Lake Tower is no different than the Contemporary tower, which is no different than the Contemporary garden wing.
Once I had the list of times from every Point A to every Point B, I had to come up with some way to weight them. For example, being close to Magic Kingdom is much more valuable than being close to Disney Springs, since most people visit Magic Kingdom multiple times in their trip, but Disney Springs only once or not at all. My weighting assumes the following:
- 7-night trip, including Park Hopper.
- Whether park hopping on a given day or not, the hypothetical guest takes a midday break at their resort every afternoon.
- Each day includes four one-way transportation legs. Resort to Park 1, Park 1 to Resort, Resort to Park 2, and Park 2 to Resort.
- 14 "half-days" are broken down as follows:
- 4 Magic Kingdom
- 3 Epcot
- 3 Hollywood Studios
- 2 Animal Kingdom
- 1 Disney Springs
- 1 Off/Resort/Pool
- I also calculated one round-trip to and from Orlando International Airport for each resort.
Finally, I added what I'm calling a "Sprawl Penalty." This is to account for the fact that larger resorts often have multiple bus stops or a long way to walk back to your room after getting off the bus. The penalty was applied to every leg of the trip. For example, if I gave a resort a 5-minute penalty, it means I added 5 minutes to the trip to the morning park, home from the morning park, to the afternoon park, and home from the afternoon park. This is by far the most subjective part of the analysis.
- 5 minute penalty applied to all Value resorts for their size, plus Animal Kingdom Lodge, for having two bus stops
- 10 minute penalty added to all Moderate resorts except POFQ, plus Saratoga Springs and Old Key West
- 15 minute penalty added to Fort Wilderness
Adding all of this up gave me a Total Transit Time for each resort, which I then scaled from 0 to 100 to come up with what I'm calling a "Resort Convenience Factor."
S-tier: Riviera
A-tier: Yacht Club, Beach Club, Boardwalk
B-tier: Wilderness Lodge, Polynesian (walking to TTC), French Quarter, Contemporary, Animal Kingdom Lodge
C-tier: Caribbean Beach, Grand Floridian, Saratoga Springs, Polynesian (monorail to TTC)
D-tier: Art of Animation, Pop Century, All Star Movies, Coronado Springs, All Star Music
F-tier: All Star Sports, Old Key West, Riverside, Fort Wilderness
Key takeaways:
- It's much more important for a resort to have "no bad trips" than it is to have one especially great trip. Contemporary and Grand Floridian have great times to Magic Kingdom, but their trips to Epcot are bad enough to cancel them out, so these resorts end up in the mid-tiers.
- Size matters, a lot. Without the "Sprawl Penalty" (which I acknowledge is totally made up by me and subject to all sorts of valid criticism), Caribbean Beach and Saratoga Springs would come out ahead of all other resorts. But because they're so big, getting through the guard shack onto resort property and getting to your room are significantly different prospects.
- "Cooler" transportation doesn't mean "faster" transportation. I know everyone hates buses, but buses are faster than monorails. They're faster than boats. And, unless you're at Caribbean Beach or Riviera, they're faster than the Skyliner.
- The gap in total transit time between the fastest resort (Riviera) and the slowest resort (Fort Wilderness) is almost 9 hours over the length of the itinerary.
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Discuss.
