Should we get a rental car or trust WDW busses??

[Snoopygirl]

I'm getting nervous now---we booked the Keys To The Kingdom Tour @ 8:30 and we are staying at CBR. Should we get a rental car or just do the bus/monorail thing?? When I have called and made my PS's, they all say to give yourself an hour to get there if using WDW transportation. Does it really take that long? I keep goind back on forth on this.....please give me any advice/suggestions or whatever you have.

THANKS!!!!

 

[mickeymousefan]

We have driven to WDW the past two years and except for our first night dinner at Chef Mickeys, the car stays in the parking lot the whole time. We have never had an issue with bus transportation. We had a PSB PS for 8:30am on our last trip and caught a 7:30 bus. We were there EARLY and had to wait around to get in. I would leave an hour early just in case, but you shouldn't have a problem.

 

[beccasmom]

We rarely rent a car. We have found that unless we have other side trips planned (to the outlets, SeaWorld, etc.) that the car pretty much stays parked. However, renting a car does make sense for many reasons:

o PS at the resorts. Traveling by bus does take time and usually involves at least one connection. Traveling by car is almost always quicker and reduces stress considerably.
o Shopping – either at the outlets or for groceries. Groceries are much cheaper off-site and it is great fun to shop at the outlets.
o Side trips – to SeaWorld, Universal, etc.
o Situations like yours that involve early reservations. I think you would be ok using the bus (we did for our Keys of the Kingdom tour), but I can understand why you’d like the extra security of a car.

Just one more comment – one of my friends was recently at WDW and had to return her rental car to the airport before she got on her flight. She ran into an accident on one the major roads and yes……missed her flight. She was supposed to leave MCO at 10:00 a.m. and ended up getting home after 11:00 p.m. Moral of the story: Leave plenty of extra time to return your car and/or rent from National/Alamo at Disney and return the car the day before you leave.

 

[missypie]

I am very compulsive when I visit Disney parks...I just HAVE to be first in line at rope drop. Relying on Disney transportion makes me nervious.

This will be our first trip to WDW...we're renting a car. I like the idea of being able to get groceries off site, as we always eat breakfast in our room.

If you check this site and mousesavers, you can use codes to get a great rate at National. However, with that said, I'm hoping that we'll use the car so little that we won't want one on future trips.

 

[Rpsemont]

We ALWAYS rent a car and use it more often than not. HOwever, if it's really only that one thing you're worried about, then maybe just spend the $10-$15 and take a cab. You could always get up and start waiting for a bus at 7:45 and if you don't get one, have them call a cab. It only takes 15 minutes or so to get to MK.

P.S. If you do the cab route, maybe have them drop you at GF instead of TTC. You can just catch the morail from there, and it's probably only $1 more or so.

 

[wdwgoofeeee]

You will have absolutely no problem getting to your 8:30am tour. Disney runs buses starting around 7:00am to get people from the resorts to the various character breakfasts. Although you are not going to a breakfast you can get on the MK character breakfast bus around 7:45am or so and be at the MK in plenty of time for your tour. If that day happens to be an early morning at the MK there will be regular MK buses running at that time anyway.
Don't worry! Disney transportation has you covered!

 

[Tikiman]

We always rent a car. I tried not having a car the first few times and I got tired of not being able to go from one place to another. We use it to go to the water parks in the morning and than over to Downtown Disney than to one of the other resorts for dinner. You could not do that easily with WDW transportation. Also there is no waiting for a bus and it always gives us a place to stash things we might want. I don’t like to carry everything with me for the day so I keep things I might need in the car. I don’t want to have to go back to the room and I don’t want to carry my wet stuff from the water parks to one of the parks or shopping. Also we like to visit other resorts to eat and we park free at all resorts and parks. The only time I don’t use the car is if we can get there by monorail or sometimes we take the bus if we don’t want to drive home from Pleasure Island. Everyone who has gone with us to WDW was so glad we rented a car. I will always enjoy being able to go where I want to go, when I want to go.

 

[doodlebug]

Dang I am so torn on the rental car vs town car too.... It will cost $170.00 for 11 day rental but as I figure it will be at least $80.00 for town car if not $100.00 and then add tip to drive both directions and it could easily be $130+.... We have PS at different hotels so taking Disney Trans could take a long time getting from one resort to another. So am leaning toward just getting the car so we can stop for groceries & snacks, get to PS quickly and anything else... What do you think??

 

[DBC]

We rented a car for the first time this year and found it very liberating.

We stayed at the WL for 2 nights and Swan for 3 and used Disney transportation only twice (WL to MK and Swan to Epcot).

We had problems with the Disney transportation when leaving the parks around closing last time. That'd still be a problem with MK (you have to get to the parking lot still), but getting on the trams at the other parks is much easier than getting on the resort buses.

It was also really easy getting in and out of the airport.

Plus we were able to go off property more (DTD and International Drive) to shop and eat.

I think for the price difference you describe you'll be happy with the options it gives you.

 

[nataliesdaddy]

I'm getting nervous now---we booked the Keys To The Kingdom Tour @ 8:30 and we are staying at CBR. Should we get a rental car or just do the bus/monorail thing?? When I have called and made my PS's, they all say to give yourself an hour to get there if using WDW transportation. Does it really take that long? I keep goind back on forth on this.....please give me any advice/suggestions or whatever you have.

THANKS!!!!

I'd get a rental

 

[Rpsemont]

You will have absolutely no problem getting to your 8:30am tour. Disney runs buses starting around 7:00am to get people from the resorts to the various character breakfasts. Although you are not going to a breakfast you can get on the MK character breakfast bus around 7:45am or so and be at the MK in plenty of time for your tour. If that day happens to be an early morning at the MK there will be regular MK buses running at that time anyway.
Don't worry! Disney transportation has you covered!

While this may be true much of the time, our first trip to WDW we stayed at POR. We were at the bus station at 7:30AM to catch a bus for MK EE (at that time) In the next 1/2 hour no less than 9 busses came by for various parks, but none of them were MK. I thought this was very interesting given the fact that none of the other parks were open! Where we had been almost the first people there, after 1/2 hour there was a real crowd, DD (4) was restless as could be, and all the new people who walked up were staking their place at the curb. I kept having to leave my staked out place to go after DD. I wrote a 2 page letter to WDW when I returned home, I was so frustrated. And we walked over and had them call a cab. Since that trip we have ALWAYS rented a car and used it.

 

[DebbieB]

It's a matter of personal preference. I've done it both ways and prefer the rental car. Especially now that the rates are so cheap, I have a full size with National for $109 total for May 7 to 13.

 

[Mady/Sophiemom]

We have never rented a car at WDW. We have always used a towncar, and used the grocery stop. We have never had a huge problem with the busses, but don't go, at peak times either. The only issue we had, was trying to return to CBR, from Chef Mickey's after MK had closed. We had to transfer at DD, which was a pain, but really no problems. Just took a while. We did get a cab one night to return from Boma, it was raining and we did not feel like going through DD transfers in the rain.

This time however, we are getting a car, but only because I got such a great rate w/ National 8 days/$118.86. If it wasn't so cheap, we'd be doing the towncar again.

 

[smjj]

We have done both and while I can't say I hate the trans. from MCO to Disney, I do not care for it. On several occassions, we were the last dropped off from the airport to our resort and it just seems like we were jammed in like sardines. We have been renting a car the last few times and even though it cost more, the satisfaction of getting there ontime and being able to use it onsite is worth it to us. This last trip we were at OKW at the very back. It was worth it to be able to get into the car, drive to HH eat breakfast, take a bus to wherever we wanted then at the end of the day drive the car back to our room. They have bus stops but they ran about every 20 min. or so and we did use then on several occasions. Another break was being able to go offsite twice to eat and check things out. The last day we drove over to DTD, ate, went to a movie, did some last minute looking around then drove to the airport..smjj