Resort "Convenience Factor" Analysis

[CaptainAmerica]

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.

Discuss.

 

[TYTY]

Wow!!! You had a lot of downtime

 

[midwestdee]

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.

View attachment 651790

View attachment 651791

Discuss.

Well, I’m glad we’re staying at POFQ in June. My engineer DH will be impressed by your analysis. I can’t wait to show him.

 

[DisneyCowgirl]

I love this!

 

[shosh1530]

I'm completely fascinated by this analysis. The sprawl factor seems to be quite large as I see POFQ and POR have much disparity. This gives me a lot of food for thought because POR was our top resort choice!

 

[DisneyCowgirl]

Well, I’m glad we’re staying at POFQ in June. My engineer DH will be impressed by your analysis. I can’t wait to show him.

POFQ is the only resort where I had good experience with the buses. There's only one stop, and they ran efficiently the whole time we were there. Plus the resort has no "sprawl penalty" so it's not a long walk to the bus stop from your room.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I'm completely fascinated by this analysis. The sprawl factor seems to be quite large as I see POFQ and POR have much disparity. This gives me a lot of food for thought because POR was our top resort choice!

Biggest thing you can do to avoid the sprawl penalty would be to rent a car and drive everywhere except for the Magic Kingdom. The large, spread-out resorts tend to have many small parking lots sprinkled throughout rather than large central lots, making them among the most convenient resorts for those who drive themselves.

 

[snikki]

Love this.

My favorite transportation has been at BC and BW. I mean you can’t beat the efficiency of that walk. POFQ is a close second. The one bus stop is amazing.

Next trip we are trying out CSR. It’s pretty low on your list but we use the busses as rest time too.

No surprise the deluxes top the list. And finally nice to see some AKL comparisons. Most people say it’s so far out of the way and a pain transportation wise but it’s really not completely true.

 

[bbeagle]

I like the analysis. I have a few tweeks.

1. Yes, going back to the resort during the day is something that people do on some resorts to some parks. But, for example, If I'm at a monorail resort, I've never gone to Animal Kingdom, taken an HOUR to go back and forth to the hotel room for a mid-day break then go back. Animal Kingdom closes earlier as well. So I'd think for THAT park you'd take into account only ONE trip there and back, not two.

The numbers at the monorail resorts and the Wilderness lodge would improve over the rest of the resorts.

2. Why include Disney Springs? And the MCO? Just include MK, EP, HS and AK.

3. A 'bad trip' is one done on a bus, so there should be an additional 'bad experience' penalty involved when taking a bus. Alternatively, walking should be given a bonus as there are no lines to wait in for transportation.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

1. Yes, going back to the resort during the day is something that people do on some resorts to some parks. But, for example, If I'm at a monorail resort, I've never gone to Animal Kingdom, taken an HOUR to go back and forth to the hotel room for a mid-day break then go back. Animal Kingdom closes earlier as well. So I'd think for THAT park you'd take into account only ONE trip there and back, not two.

Animal Kingdom-break-Animal Kingdom isn't common. Animal Kingdom-break-Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom-break-Epcot, and Animal Kingdom-break-Hollywood Studios are extremely common.

The numbers at the monorail resorts and the Wilderness lodge would improve over the rest of the resorts.

Not really. The thing that brings the monorail resorts down is primarily Epcot.

2. Why include Disney Springs? And the MCO? Just include MK, EP, HS and AK.

The vast majority of guests need to get to and from the airport, and a significant minority of guests visit Disney Springs.

As it stands, Disney Springs represents approximately 6% of the score. It's hardly a determining factor.

3. A 'bad trip' is one done on a bus, so there should be some additional penalty involved when taking a bus. Alternatively, walking should be given a bonus as there are no lines to wait in for transportation.

I disagree with penalizing busses. 30 minutes on the monorail is much worse than 15 minutes on a bus. In either scenario, I'm not having fun and just trying to get wherever I'm going. Plus, it's not like buses are the only thing that get lines. There are lines for the monorail and boats, too. Skyliner is the only line that is very hard to get "stuck" in, but Skyliner is also the most sensitive to weather and it can be an absolute disaster waiting for a Caribbean Beach or Riviera bus during a storm.

I could be persuaded to give a bonus to walking, but it would only further boost Yacht/Beach/Boardwalk, which are already at the top so it wouldn't change the order much.

 

[bbeagle]

I disagree with penalizing busses. 30 minutes on the monorail is much worse than 15 minutes on a bus. In either scenario, I'm not having fun and just trying to get wherever I'm going. Plus, it's not like buses are the only thing that get lines.

I could be persuaded to give a bonus to walking, but it would only further boost Yacht/Beach/Boardwalk, which are already at the top so it wouldn't change the order much.

I guess I'm different. I put Saratoga Springs, All-Star resorts, and Caribbean Beach (pre-skyliner) in the same 'uggghh' I hate the transportation - there are ONLY buses.

The Epcot resorts where I can walk, ride the Skyliner or take a boat - or the Monorail resorts where I can walk, ride the monorail or take a boat make me 'feel better' about the transportation.

But I guess your original post was 'convenience' factor, and I like your analysis. It's probably spot-on for convenience, which is what you are after, but not the 'cool' or 'vacation' factor I'm thinking of. Riding the monorail through Epcot is much more interesting than seeing cars while on a bus. Riding a boat and slowly watching the sights, riding the Skyliner and seeing things from a different perspective is part of the 'thrill' of a vacation. It doesn't 'feel' as much of a burden as a bus looking at cars in traffic. The bus rides are just painful to me and my family. The 'we're taking the monorail today' and my kids are excited on the entire trip. It's new, it's as fun as transportation can be, it's Disney.

I guess if there was a resort where the only means of travel was on a horse-drawn Cinderella's pumpkin carriage through rolling hills and forests but each trip took 1 hour, I'd sign up for that immediately!

 

[brockash]

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.

View attachment 651790

View attachment 651791

Discuss.

I'm not sure why you would give a penalty to the values... they only have 1 bus stop and are generally smaller in size than many of the other resorts. It shocks me that anyone would think AKL is more convenient in terms of transportation than any values. We've stayed at both and hands down values are more convenient and have faster transportation time than AKL.

Having stayed at many Disney resorts most of which multiple times....we wouldn't rate the convenience/transportation of resorts the way you did.

For us AKL, SS, OKW, Fort Wilderness, CS, and certainly before the skyliner definitely CBR (now it's iffy depending on weather) would rank in the very bottom for us.

 

[brockash]

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.

View attachment 651790

View attachment 651791

Discuss.

I'm not sure why you would give a penalty to the values... they only have 1 bus stop and are generally smaller in size than many of the other resorts. It shocks me that anyone would think AKL is more convenient in terms of transportation than any values. We've stayed at both and hands down values are more convenient and have faster transportation time than AKL.

Having stayed at many Disney resorts most of which multiple times....we wouldn't rate the convenience/transportation of resorts the way you did.

For us the following would rank at the very bottom in terms of convenience/transportation.

AKL
SS
OKW
FW
CS
Certainly CBR before the skyliner and even now it's iffy depending on weather.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I'm not sure why you would give a penalty to the values... they only have 1 bus stop and are generally smaller in size than many of the other resorts. It shocks me that anyone would think AKL is more convenient in terms of transportation than any values. We've stayed at both and hands down values are more convenient and have faster transportation time than AKL.

Having stayed at many Disney resorts most of which multiple times....we wouldn't rate the convenience/transportation of resorts the way you did.

For us the following would rank at the very bottom in terms of convenience/transportation.

AKL
SS
OKW
FW
CS
Certainly CBR before the skyliner and even now it's iffy depending on weather.

Did you even read what I wrote? I didn't list my personal ranking, I did math and posted what the math spit out. Even without the penalty, nothing is going to rank the All Stars anywhere near the top of the list.

 

[brockash]

Did you even read what I wrote? I didn't list my personal ranking, I did math and posted what the math spit out. Even without the penalty, nothing is going to rank the All Stars anywhere near the top of the list.

In our real life experience using only Disney transportation AKL in terms of numbers/minutes would never be able to outrank any value. I don't know how you got your math to "spit out" AKL being so high, but you asked us to discuss and from our real life experience; the values (any value) has always been less time and more convenient in terms of busing than AKL with the exception of going to/from AK.

 

[maggnanimouse]

I'm feeling very justified in having splurged on a Riviera stay in November of this year .

 

[tigerlilly]

This is really interesting stuff. Based on where we have stayed (never stayed at Riviera nor have we stayed more then one night at All Stars) and our real life experience I think the math plays out pretty well. In January we were able to do three resorts...SSR, Poly and AKL Kidani. AKL Kidani the bus transport was on par time wise (maybe even a bit better) then the Poly to Epcot. We walked from MK to Poly *yes we are crazy and like walking lol* so we never did the Resort loop monorail transport. SSR had the multiple internal stops which as you note definitely adds to the amount of time in transport.

In all the resorts we have stayed GF was the least desirable outside of the MK travel time. The resort itself was amazing but travel time not so much.

Thanks for your math!!

 

[dizneedoll]

This seems like a very good use of your work time.

 

[Wendysofftoneverland]

Wow, interesting analysis. For me having stroller-aged kids, though, convenience isn't just how fast you can get from place to place. For us, it is much more convenient to take the Fort Wilderness boat back from MK and leisurely walk all the way back to the campsite with the kids asleep in the stroller versus getting 2 sleeping kids and a folded stroller with all our stuff on/off the bus.

We spend a good chunk of time at the resort, so convenience of getting around the resort is a consideration. SSR was great, but it was more walking than when we had a CBR pirate room.

 

[DJFan88]

I was surprised to see WL so high. Waiting for boat to MK… ok, but the bussing to Epcot and DHS…. Run if you see your bus because you won’t see another one for awhile, until it makes the trip back and forth is how it felt and also stopped at Contemporary and maybe Ft Wild. Of all my resort stays ( including values , AK and most mods) this was our worst transportation wise, although a beautiful resort.
I realize this was a math thing, just my opinion from staying there.