Using busess while staying at Buena Vista Palace

[seashoreCM]

Personally I found it to be more frustrating when a lot of the offsite guests would be getting on the Resort Monorail going to the Transportation & Ticket Center after having dinner at the Contemporary, because there have been a lot of times when it caused long line ups and meant waiting for two or three Resort Monorail's to arrive until we could get on. Now incase you or anyone else asks how did I know they were getting off at the TTC, I would always see a lot of guests who got off and started walking down the ramp. However I will say maybe some of them were also getting on the Epcot Monorail.

Don't forget, offsite guests going to Magic Kingdom, and then eating at Chef Mickey's (or eating at Chef Mickey's and then going to MK) are supposed to park at the TTC and use the monorail as opposed to park at the Contemporary!

 

[joelkfla]

I just happened to read on The DIS somewhere (more than 2 months ago) that most of the buses leaving Downtown Disney early in the morning went to Port Orleans. I have not observed it.

I can only guess that the intent was not to provide regular DtD-resort service that early and repositioning the buses for their next runs was optimum if resort-DtD buses went from DtD to POR/POFQ (and to just a few other resorts) next.

The general strategy being: long run full (resort to park AM) short run empty (park to resort AM) long run full short run empty, etc.

You guess correctly!

After dropping off at DTD in the a.m., the buses are going to a nearby resort to pick up guests for a park (or back to DTD).

 

[Lewisc]

The OP is staying at the Buena Vista Palace. Bus service from DTD, particularly in the morning, is poor. Bus service from your hotel is good. Transfer at a park. Take the MK bus (to the TTC) if you want to go to a MK resort for a meal. Take the DHS bus if you want to go to an EPCOT area resort for a meal.

You have an early morning ADR, before buses from your resort will be running to a theme park. Take a taxi. Drive. Buena Vista Palace doesn't offer DME. Renting a car to get from MCO may make sense.

At that hour bus service from DTD will be very unreliable. Walking to SSR and then waiting for a bus will waste too much time early in the morning.

 

[goofy4tink]

Just speculating here but maybe the problem is worse at SSR because it is within walking distance of DTD, making it a transportation hub for off-site guests. Want to go to Epcot? Walk to SSR and take the Epcot bus. AK? Walk to SSR and take the AK bus. No matter which park you want to go to there is a bus at SSR to take you there. Only those headed to MK would board the CR bus, only those going to Epcot or DHS would take the BC bus, etc. so that divides the traffic up a bit.

As I posted earlier I haven't stayed at SSR so I haven't seen this for myself. I'm just repeating what I have read on the DVC forums posted by SSR guests whose nearest bus stop was whichever one was getting overloaded with folks coming over from DTD.

Since Disney has posted signs recommending that people headed to a park from DTD take the POR bus, I assume (hope!) they are running enough buses on those routes to handle the additional passenger load of the DTD hotel guests. Or maybe they just put the signs up to try to placate SSR owners but did nothing else.

That is absolutely the issue for SSR!! I'm sure there aren't hundreds of non-WDW resort guests heading to SSR each morning in order to get to a park more quickly, but I'm sure there are some. I don't get it though...by the time you walk over to SSR, wait for their bus to come and then get to the desired park it may have been just about the same amount of time taking their own hotel shuttle.

During my recent stays at the Contemporary my family and I stopped taking the bus to Downtown Disney because we got tired of always waiting for it to arrive both going there and going back, so instead we took our car which is a lot faster. Plus their bus also shares with the Polynesian and sometimes the Grand Floridian, so there would be guests on who were staying at those resorts and you couldn't tell who was staying offsite and using it just to arrive at the Magic Kingdom.

Personally I found it to be more frustrating when a lot of the offsite guests would be getting on the Resort Monorail going to the Transportation & Ticket Center after having dinner at the Contemporary, because there have been a lot of times when it caused long line ups and meant waiting for two or three Resort Monorail's to arrive until we could get on. Now incase you or anyone else asks how did I know they were getting off at the TTC, I would always see a lot of guests who got off and started walking down the ramp. However I will say maybe some of them were also getting on the Epcot Monorail.

It is always faster to drive to DTD...from anywhere on Disney property!! The first time we drove, I was amazed at how close DTD is to BW.

My question to you...if someone is eating at the CR and they need to get back to the TTC in order to get to their correctly parked car, how do you suggest they get there if they don't use the Resort mononrail line??? They would have to walk back to the MK, wait for the Express monorail to come and then go to TTC....seems a bit convoluted.
Disney intends those eating/shopping/doing whatever at the MK resorts to use the Resort monorail loop to get to and fro...that's the point of a Resort line.
If they aren't allowed to park at the TTC, and then head to the CR to eat, then they are going to have to be allowed to self park at the CR. Can't have it both ways.

 

[Lewisc]

Guests dining at the Contemporary are certainly entitled to use the resort monorail in order to go to the TTC. So are guests who are just "visiting" the Contemporary (shopping).

Would it make you happier if they took the resort monorail around to the MK then took the express monorail to the TTC. The guest would waste a lot of time but it wouldn't solve your wait.

Would you rather they parked at the Contemporary?

You don't get to complain when people park at the Contemporary then complain when people who park at the TTC want to use Disney transportation to get to their car.

You can't walk to the TTC from the Contemporary.

Why don't you write to Disney? Suggest the restaurants and shops located in the Contemporary be limited to registered guests of the Contemporary (and Bay Lake Towers). That would solve your problem.

Personally I found it to be more frustrating when a lot of the offsite guests would be getting on the Resort Monorail going to the Transportation & Ticket Center after having dinner at the Contemporary, because there have been a lot of times when it caused long line ups and meant waiting for two or three Resort Monorail's to arrive until we could get on. Now incase you or anyone else asks how did I know they were getting off at the TTC, I would always see a lot of guests who got off and started walking down the ramp. However I will say maybe some of them were also getting on the Epcot Monorail.

 

[CR Resort Fan 4 Life]

My question to you...if someone is eating at the CR and they need to get back to the TTC in order to get to their correctly parked car, how do you suggest they get there if they don't use the Resort mononrail line??? They would have to walk back to the MK, wait for the Express monorail to come and then go to TTC....seems a bit convoluted.
Disney intends those eating/shopping/doing whatever at the MK resorts to use the Resort monorail loop to get to and fro...that's the point of a Resort line.
If they aren't allowed to park at the TTC, and then head to the CR to eat, then they are going to have to be allowed to self park at the CR. Can't have it both ways.

I agree that if they are dining at the Contemporary and are parked at the TTC then they have no choice to take the Resort Monorail when getting back there. Now in my previously reply all I said was it's more frustrating having to wait for multiple Resort Monorails because during the prime time hours it's those guests that cause the longer wait times. However I never said they shouldn't be allowed to get on.