Staying at Animal Kingdom until closing, making it for Homecoming at 830 pm - doable?

[peacefrogdog]

Hoping to stay at AK until it closes at 6 pm. We are staying at Bay Lake Tower. If using Disney buses, it is reasonable to think we will have time to return to the room to freshen up a bit, before going to Homecoming for an 830 pm reservation? The MDE app quotes 45 min to take bus from AK to BLT, and then 45 min bus from BLT to the restaurant. Do those bus commute times seem accurate?

 

[kylenne]

45 minutes between AK and BLT sounds overly conservative to me, but even so, this timing would be uncomfortably tight to me. DS buses don't run nearly as frequently as the buses to the parks and traffic on the way there is always worse during the prime dinner hours at DS, even during the week. If it were me I would just take a rideshare from BLT.

 

[Mikey15]

I think between

walk from front of park to bus stop, wait for bus, bus ride, walk to room,
then
walk to bus stop, wait for bus, bus ride, security, walk to restaurant

90 minutes total sounds high but it might not be crazy far off when you consider the walks and security.

 

[We’reAllMadHere]

I’d go straight from AK to DS personally. I also wouldn’t be surprised if AK’s closing time got changed to 7.

 

[lorimt]

We had the same reservation in January. I think we were in line for FOP which made us leave the park a little after 6:00 and we rode the bus to SSR and walked to DS. We were almost 30 minutes late for our reservation but they didn’t seem to mind. It was very stressful though.

 

[ncc1701]

As others have said bases to Disney Springs aren't as frequent. If you were using a rideshare I would say you should be able to do it.

 

[sam_gordon]

Park closes at 6.
Walk from wherever in park to bus: 10 minutes
Wait for bus: 15 minutes
Bus to BLT: 20 minutes
Get to room, change clothes, freshen up, back to bus stop: 30 minutes
Wait for bus: 20 minutes
Bus to HS: 20 minutes
Walk to restaurant: 10 minutes
Arrive at restaurant: 8:05

SHOULD be doable I would think. What can mess you up is how long it takes to wait for the busses. Of course, it should be easy to pivot to a ride share if you find you're running behind.

 

[tofubeast]

I'd take the bus back to the hotel. See where you are time-wise and then consider a ride share to DS.

 

[jimmymc]

It's possible if you get good bus timing. I would take the park bus back to BLT, freshen up, then see how much time you have. If it's less than an hour, I would take a rideshare over to Disney Springs.

 

[elvispursley]

I’d take the bus back to BLT but would strongly recommend doing a ride share to DS. Not sure about BLT, but when we were at YC, our bus to DS was already full and then it did the milk run to BC, BWI, and then it was probably a food 45 minutes to get to the bus drop off at DA due to the horrific traffic (and this was in Sep on a week night). Personally, it would cause me too much stress and anxiety