Wait time for boat from WL to MK???

[wdwthanksgiving]

we are planning a trip to wdw from nov 17-21 (leaving the day before thanksgiving). we have never stayed at the wilderness lodge. we will have 2 children in strollers and one 4 yr old. how long is the wait during busy times for the boat? can you stroll onto the boat instead of having to hold the baby and fold the stroller? any helpful information is appreciated!
we keep trying to decide between the wilderness lodge and beach club -- just so hard to pay so much more for the beach club (we need 3 rooms) - yikes!
thanks!

 

[Sue M]

We've never had a long wait for MK boat. We've stayed 3 times. We do go in low season.
There are 2 types of boats that go from WL to MK. One is small (motor launch) and you can't wheel on strollers, the other is a larger boat (motor cruizer) with inside seating that you can wheel in strollers.
http://allears.net/pl/transveh.htm

 

[mirage0306]

The longest wait we had was first thing in the morning--8:15 or so. I think we waited around 20 minutes. It wasn't too bad. The rest of the time, there was a boat there when we walked up, or there was a very short wait.

 

[iloveeeyore]

We waited about 30 minutes a few years ago...had to wait for the second boat because the first was full. This was during spring break on an evening after dinner trying to go back to MK for parade and fireworks. Also, leaving the park at closing that night, the line for the boat snaked all the way through the dock area. We took the bus instead and were one of two families using the bus. We used the bus the rest of the trip. We never waited more than 5 minutes for a bus, and the ride itself was less than 5 minutes. It was great!

You will have to fold the stroller on all of the buses and about half of the boats.

 

[CTH3]

We were there in May last year for a week. We never waited less than 15 minutes and more often it was 20-25 minutes. Needless to say this is in part just luck (we might have happened to walk onto the dock as a boat was arriving...but never did.)

When you add to the 20 minute wait the 10 minute boat ride (a pleasant enough 10 minutes, but still 10 minutes), and another 5 to 10 minutes to disembark (depending on your fellow passengers) it would consistently take us between 30 and 45 minutes to get from the WL to the MK (or back).

Perhaps we were spoiled by staying at a monorail resort on our previous visit, but this was pretty frustrating for us--made more so because the MK was right there--I mean, we could see it--we just couldn't get to it in less than half an hour.

BTW, the buses were about the same.

Transportation is one of the main reasons we probably won't be staying at the WL again. Not much point in staying at a MK resort if you're 45 minutes from the MK, we figure.

 

[scootch]

We found the bus to be faster than the monorail(when we stayed at Cont). It only goes to and from WL so it has a really quick turn around time. We occasionally took the boat, but most often took the bus.