Taking away from the magic?

[Anna114]

AMEN

Have a magical day,
Anna

Nothing can ever take away from the magic, magic is what you make of it.

 

[tdelano]

I think that using the bus system instead of the rental does add to the magic! I love being picked up at the airport, dropped off at the hotel and not having to give a thought to finding streets, dealing with traffic whatever. When we are at Disney World we feel like we have completly escaped from the real world and part of that is the total relaxation of no driving! Actually, we have even talked about how that is one of the things we like BEST about Disney! Of course, we do take advantage of monorail, boats and walking whenever possible.

 

[Deesknee]

I like taking the rental car to the parks. I love seeing the WDW arch at the toll booths. We always stay onsite now, so no charge. We usually go to crossroads at the end of the day to eat. It's easy for me though, DH does all the driving. He doesn't mind.

 

[SammieG]

omg I could never call taking the buses "magical".
Magical to me is being able to arrive and leave when you want to, to be able to listen to your Disney CD all the way back to the apartment and to get your own seat, without being squished up against sweaty smelly bodies!
Also, with driving you get to see the perspective of WdW..and where everything is.. and thinking.. hey.. that looks fun.. lets go there!

 

[Pluto's Honey]

We have never been but wondering about driving or rodong. We will have our car and we are staying on site. I guess some days we will and others we wont. We will be at MK until 2 a, on 2 nights...will it still be crowed on the busses at that time?

 

[Robo]

We will be at MK until 2 a, on 2 nights...will it still be crowed on the busses at that time?

Not at 2am.

But why doesn't anyone say WHICH RESORT?

That can make a HUGE difference in whether a bus will be LOADED and lines backed up or NOT.

I'll name names!

All Star and POP will have FULL buses nearly every day of the year.
Premium Resorts, rarely have backed-up bus queues.
Mid-priced, not too bad.

I have made many trips (couple of dozen in the last 20 years) to WDW and had varying results with the busses.
But I would never bother to rent a car because of it.

I love to spend money at Disney on "Disney stuff" but paying to rent a car is not a necessity (or even a convenience) for me.

Nearly everyone has his favorite "bus story" (I have MANY, from not-so-pleasant to a few GREAT ones), but I find don't NEED a car for the kind of Disney trips (long and leisurely) I make.

I HAVE had 3 trips where we rented a car.
We drove to "Celebration" for dining and shopping a couple of times, but otherwise, I left it in the parking lot at the resort BECAUSE...

"Where did we park the car last night?"
"Oh yeah, I think its over there..."
Pile into car
Drive the car to the park
Stop at the parking gate (show pass)
follow the "waving CMs" to your space
locate where to board the tram
wait for the tram
get on the tram "watch your head and step" BANG -doh!
tram pulls out
(Oh my gosh... WHICH ROW did we park at? Oh OK, everybody remember "Dopey 2")
ride the tram
tram makes next stop for pick-up
more tram riding 'til front gate (unless MK, then TTC, etc.)
"watch your head and step" BANG -doh!
get off tram
mix into all the folks exiting the busses
wait for "security check"
locate everyone's tickets, scan fingers (sometimes several times)
and -AT LAST- enter the park.

MAGIC!!

Time to leave the park...
read the above list "sdrawkcab".

Nope, don't need the car, but if anyone DOES... enjoy the gas prices!

 

[lillygator]

for us - the bus rides are so not magical!

 

[HappyLawyer]

for us - the bus rides are so not magical!

I so agree, we normally stay offsite, but if i stay onsite, i like the idea of leaving the park, getting in my car and going, now if it were the train thing, i am having a brain freeze ok i got it now the monorail that might be different, somewhat magical but a bus ride is not a thrill to me, but hey if you have small kids and they are like wow a disney bus, wow, then it can be magical for them. To each his own.

 

[jdkdorn]

For me I like to have a car to get supplies and to get to the more distant parks. We were going to go using magical express this June but I was able to get and SUV for $140 for 8 days. I couldn't pass up the deal especially since we have a 1-bedroom and we are doing Hoop de doo revue. I heard that it is easier to drive to fort wilderness. I figure the convenience of having a car available is worth the $140

Thanks

Judy

 

[Robo]

we are doing Hoop de doo revue. I heard that it is easier to drive to fort wilderness.

And then you'll get on a Disney Bus and ride thru Ft. W to Pioneer Hall.

Returning via the same method after the show.

Not a big deal at all, but you can't get directly to or from the Hoop with a car.

 

[jann1033]

we always have a car but never use it..we do go off season but rarely wait for a bus and imo it can get confusing driving around wdw( maybe not if you go every few months but for an occasional or first time visitor) we usually do an initial "oh lets just drive to there" shot, realize it's a mistake to do so and just take the disney trans. the rest of the time...ya'd think we'd learn,,,

the ug has a chart where they researched driving vs disney trans. times and almost every single time the disney trans was as fast or faster. they included everything like getting to your car in the lot etc. which lots of people forget to do when they figure drive time

like i said we go offseason, our last trip we stayed at pop and even though it was heavily booked we usually got on the first bus and it was never packed.( don't remember ever standing, occasionally a few people were but that isn't a problem for us anyway as we don't have little ones.) so also no sweaty bodies to speak of.

i like the buses. husband usually strikes up a conversation with driver if it's kind of empty and we've learned lots of things that way. sometimes it's nice to get to know your fellow riders . really have to say i do think it adds to the trip and the monorail and boats are just fun on their own imo( ok so I'm a hick and we don't have those new fangled things wheres i live )

 

[TooBoyz4us]

I would say it kind of depends where you want to go.

For heading out to the parks, I would say use the buses or monorail.
But for hoping from resort to resort, it can be a real pain with the bus transfers necessary most times.

We are driving to WDW for the first time this year.(Have always flown in the past)
One of our favorite Disney things is the dining.So we are really looking forward to being able to jump in our van and go directly to the different resorts for dinner.
We will probably take some time to explore a few of the resorts we haven't experienced yet as well.

 

[Disneynutbsv]

We always have a rental car! I don't like waiting for the busses. We went from the Magic Kingdom to the Wilderness Lodge. While the trip to the Wilderness Lodge was quick, the way back took 45 minutes of waiting outside. I was very frustrated (and so were others waiting to get back to the MK). Plus my dh likes to just go offsite and drive arund and go onto I-drive and we always do Sea World. We just like it much better.

 

[SarahKate]

Just my 2 cents re: Pop and that they're always packed. We had the opposite experience when we went last month, granted I realize that it's a less busy time of year. We were there 8 days and only had to stand twice, which was fine with me. In the evenings when parks closed, at first I thought "oh great, we'll be waiting forever". It was just the opposite - sometimes there would be THREE Pop busses come all at the same time, so everyone waited got right on. We loved the busses to and from Pop.

The only tricky thing is trying to rely on them to get you to other resorts if you have a dinner there. You truly have to map out how you're going to get there and back and you have to build in more bus/waiting time than just geting from your resort to the parks. We had a meal at the Poly (Ohana)....had to walk from there to the ticket/trans center (it's right next to it), go to MK, and THEN catch a bus back to Pop. It was exhausting after a long day!

As much as I really am satisfied with the bus system there, we will probably rent a car to have at the resort (once we get there....we will still use the Magical Express if it is free) because we'll be taking more day trips outside the parks.

And I totally agree with other posters, I don't think that the bus is really what I'd call MAGICAL. But it's definitely efficient, and nice NOT to have to drive every day!

 

[MommyBoo!]

We flew down for our first two visits and used the buses and they were fine.

We drove down last year and either took the monorail or wlked (MK and Epcot) or took the boat (HDDR). The rest of the time we drove. And we loved it. Now, the main reason was that our youngest was 21 months old and it was great to not have to deal with the stroller on the bus, just drop it in the trunk, plop her in her carseat and go. We didn't have to worry about standing room only. And we got places quicker (except that one time we got lost ). DH loves to drive, especially if it's on vacation.

 

[jann1033]

We had a meal at the Poly (Ohana)....had to walk from there to the ticket/trans center (it's right next to it), go to MK, and THEN catch a bus back to Pop. It was exhausting after a long day!

A

since the poly in on the monorail line you could have taken that to mk and skipped the walk