WDW bus transportation problems

[dcedwards]

I am posting a thread on the transportation board but know some don't get to that board so wanted to let all of you know.....

The Director of Transportation at WDW called me today about an email that I sent him. I told him that I was reading of problems with the buses getting between parks and hotels. Long waits...no buses...crowded...etc.

He wants to talk with me more. He also wanted information on the web site where he could go to learn more about others experiences.

Now is your chance....let him know what you think. You can either post it here or go to the transportation board. There will be a thread there. I will give him this website address tomorrow and wanted to make sure everyone had a chance to leave a message, if you want to do that.

I've read several posts here on the troubles people have been experiencing. He seems genuinely interested.

Wow, I'm impressed...emails do work with WDW. It only took 4 days after I sent an email to get a phone call. I'll post the essence of our conversation in the next couple of days.

 

[The Edge]

My biggest concern is that the Monorail Deluxe hotels due not have direct transportation to Typhoon Lagoon & Downtown Disney. I must transfer to the TTC first! These are some of the most expensive resorts on property, therefore , they should have the BEST transportation to ALL areas on Disney property.

 

[Poly Pal]

For all the money we all spend on hotels and admission, Disney really should improve the transportation situation. At least extend the monorails from the TTC to the major parks for gosh sakes! I'd go so far to say don't build another park unless a monorail to it fits the budget.

 

[Poly Pal]

Please monitor the use of the "Resort Monorail" at MK closing and limit it to "monorail resort" guests. Those of us who pay a premium to stay in a monorail resort expect to be able to get on the first train into the station rather than fight the crowd going back to the TTC parking lot.

 

[addicted_to_WDW]

I've had nothing but good experiences with WDW transportation. My longest waits have always been at park closing, which is totally understandable IMHO. My longest wait ever was 45 minutes to All Star Sports last May.

I was at WDW last week, and my longest wait from Riverside was about 10 minutes. EVERY time we waited for a bus there were people complaining about how long it was taking. Many many people feel that the bus should always be right there waiting for them, which is unrealistic. I think WDW does a fabulous job of moving people.

I would love for Riverside buses to run independently of the French Quarter buses. Although I didn't have a problem during this past trip, the people at the last Riverside bus stop often had to stand. If I were them I would have walked over to the main depot.

Next trip, September 2001 at PO-Riverside!

 

[Buzz2001]

I agree with addicted_to_WDW

The 3 times I have been to WDW, we have never experienced long wait times for buses. Keep up the good work.

 

[lisapooh]

I have many complaints about poor transportation and treatment as a handicapped guest. I use a Jazzy 1103 power wheelchair by Pride Mobility. This wheelchair is 6 wheeled and the center wheels are the primary wheels. The wheelchair pivots on the center wheels not the back giving it a very small turning radius.

Many drivers are unfamiliar with the chair and its capibilites. Because of their lack of knowledge they tend to be quite rude to the point of yelling at me when I do not follow their instructions to the letter. Only problem is their instructions while great for a rear wheel driven chair leave me in the middle of the bus aisle. They also have no idea where to tiedown the wheelchair and do not want to admit that they don't know. I will try to tell them where the place is in front and they will cut me off with "I know what I'm doing" and proceed to tell me their is no place to tie the wheelchair down from the front. When I tell them where to look they refuse and walk off leaving me in a wheelchair that has been half tied down. They rarely put the passenger seat belt in place. One driver actually told me to just hang on to the sides. Did not tie the chair down at all. Is Disney planning on paying if I am injured and my power wheelchair damaged. I doubt that. They sure didn't when one of the driver ripped the back on my ECV as few years ago. (before w/c) That cost me $300 to replace.

Second problem is the lack of any guide line on the monorail ramps. They are very difficult to line up and the attendents frequently place them at an angle making it even more difficult. A simple white line painted down the center of the ramp would help immensely.

Third is the lack of accessiblity of the boats and ferry. They have never been accessible to me from Ft Wilderness. This leaves me at the mercy of the bus transportation through TTC with the offsite guests. I'd paid for onsite access but I'm not getting it from Ft Wilderness or the Wilderness Lodge. And the ferry, while easy to get on, is impossible to get off because the ramp is too steep. ADA states a ramp should be no steeper that 12 to 1 or a 5% incline. The ferry ramp is far more than this and because of this my front antitip wheels catch and I cannot get off without an able bodied person pushing the powerchair up until my center wheels catch.

Fourth is poor maintenence of lifts. I frequently encounter buses with broken lifts or with no lift at all. I have in the past had to wait through as many as 5 buses to get to a park. That was 5 buses for that park not 5 total buses. This was from DXL last Christmas.
Buses with broken lifts should be pulled from service immediately! I should not even have to deal with them.
And buses without lifts should not be used on routes to resorts with handicapped guests using wheelchairs. I don't pay to be onsite to have to wait twice to 5 times as long to get to a park as an able bodied guest. I get no discounts for being handicapped and I deserve the same level of transportation as an able bodied guest.

Finally drivers who don't care to deal with handicapped guests should not be employed by Disney. I've been lied to bus drivers who didn't want to deal with my wheelchair, I've been ignored by drivers, and I've had drivers who let every able bodied guest on and then tell me there is no room for me wait for the next bus. I am being treated like a second class guest by these drivers. I've complained but nothing is done because I see the same ones over and over trip after trip. And I visit WDW and stay at a resort at least 4 times a year. Get rid of them or don't charge me full freight for a Disney resort because I'm not getting the same level of service as an able bodied guest.

 

[lisapooh]

I don't agree with the Edge that monrail resort guests should have exclusive access to those monorails at close of the day. Resort guests should have use of them as well. Both Ft Wilderness guests and Shades of Green guests have to trek through TTC and should be given access to this easier way to get there. As a handicapped guest is a power wheelchair, I find the resort monorail easier to use as I don't have to drive through a huge mass of people and risk having one of them fall on me. (it has happened) ANd unfortunately water transportion is not accessible to guests in power chairs.

 

[laurenk]

I am arriving in June, and am VERY nervous about transportation to and from DAKL. I have read several posts where people have waited 45 + for buses to and from the parks. We will be there for 9 days, and I feel that if we are paying for a deluxe, we should not have to wait for buses, they should be waiting for us. Especially with the summer hours now being shortened as they have been.

Hey, how did you get WDW to respond to you? I sent an e-mail over 2 weeks ago, about the shortened summer hours and am STILL waiting for a response!!

 

[Randi]

Overall our experience with the buses has been very good. We do have one person in a manual wheelchair and the drivers have been excellent. We did have one incident on the trip in early May that was annoying however. While waiting at the GF bus stop to go to AK, 6 buses for MGM came before we saw a bus for any other park. We were not in a hurry, it was mid-morning and cool where we were sitting. But after 1 hour had gone by and we saw only MGM buses, I started to get annoyed. We didn't see any CM from the GF, no signs other than the old ones about a bus every 20 minutes, etc. Finally an AK bus came, but it was full. The driver apologized and said he would call to dispatch another bus. He did, because not 5 min later, an empty bus arrived. That driver apologized too and told us that the buses now wait to be called. But I couldn't pin him down as to who is responsible for calling. There is no phone for guests to call, so it can't be that. The CMs at the resort are out of sight of the bus stop so it can't be them. The other drivers? It probably will be a good idea, but there seems to be a lack of communication at this time.

 

[2boys'mom]

board from our April trip. Hope this will help.

 

[Michigan]

We had a bus driver open the front doors before boarding my 2 kids in wheelchairs first and then just laugh and say oh well. On our last visit we had to wait for a second bus because there was a wheelchair in front of us. While the first bus was still loading a 2nd bus pulled up and opened his doors out in the street and wouldn't let us on because he said wheelchairs had to board from the sidewalk so we waited 45 minutes for a bus to take us. That was the last time I used the bus during our stay after that I just drove.

 

[Kermit]

For the most part, I've always been happy with the transportation. I don't agree that buses should be waiting for you--that would be impossible. Even if the bus was waiting, you would have to wait until it was time for it to leave. You can't expect fullsize buses to drive around families of 4 all around the place.

The one problem that we noticed on our last trip was that there seemed to be a lot less PO buses at park closing than any other resort, especially the All-Stars. (It's easy to compare to the All-Stars since their stop is next to the PO stop.) Several times we waited while 4 or more All-Star buses came before even one came to PO, and of course there were several bus-loads of people waiting. Some type of monitoring, where CMs could monitor the stops at the parks at closing and could determine which resort needed a bus the most, would really help.

 

[Too Charming]

During our stay at PO-R in April 2001, we had extended wait times, in the morning, in the evening and all throughout the day.

One afternoon I had gotten separated from my group, and decided to go back to the resort so my children could take a nap. I was at the MK, it took me an hour to get a bus, people ahead of me had wait an hour and a half and longer. My children (ages 2, 5, & 10) and I sat on the concrete, while my 2 y/o slept on my lap. The friends that I left at the park so they could finish up their touring, ended up at the bus stop before I left.

Some of the drivers drove entirely too fast for having a bus full of standing people.

If PO-FQ and R are going to continue to share buses, I think more buses need to be sent that way. We were passed over more than once because the buses were too full.

The boat ride to downtown Disney though was awesome, and they should not change a thing, other than to make sure disable guests are able to use it as well.

We didn't rent a car when we flew into Orlando, we had Tiffany Town Car pick us up, so we needed to use Disney Transportation for every move we made, including getting to our Priority Seatings.

Of course my 2 y/o made serveral bus trips a total nightmare for all who rode with us, and I would like to apologize to anyone who was on the bus with us when she totally wigged out! How embarrassing!

 

[chippmom]

DCEdwards - what email address do we use to send our concerns about Disney transportation?

 

[DocDisney]

The WDW transportation system really is a marvel of efficiency. I have had times though when I wondered if a bus would ever come by--especially annoying when you see buses pass by with 5 or 10 people on them. I'll admit I've had many WDW vacations where I didn't use the buses at all, for this very reason. However, with just a little fine tuning to avoid the usual (and sometimes the unexpected) bottlenecks, the system would be ideal. I would think that some type of feedback system to indicate locations of acute demand would be well within Disney's enormous capabilities.

 

[Kitty 34]

I have been to Disney only around Easter time, one of the busiest times of the year and I had no real problems with the bus service. We were quite impressed at how efficient the buses run! We stayed at All Stars. Buses were always on time, there!

 

[BevS97]

We were at the CBR 2 weeks ago, and took just 4 bus trips, to the MK and back twice. After that we gave up and drove ourselves.

Our first trip was at about 11am, into the MK and we waited upwards of 45 minutes for a bus to arrive. There were plenty of other buses pulling through the stop, but none for MK. When it did arrive it was standing room only.

Returning that evening, about 6pm was fine - no complaints.

The following evening we took the bus to MK about 6pm and had a reasonable wait, but again standing room only - this really isn't safe.
And that night, returning after the fireworks was just unbelievable, the queue for CBR was incredibly long. I think we must have waited for about 10 buses before we finally boarded. None of the other resorts had queue's even half as long, so I don't know where all the CBR guests had mysteriously appeared from.

I don't think we would have managed to do 1/2 as much in our trip, if we had been relying on the bus transportation.

Bev

 

[Terk-1]

I do not complain that often, but this is kinda a touchy subject with me. Although I have had some good experiences with WDW transportation, I have had my share of bad experiences as well. WDW needs to have cb's on all of their buses to the main building. I can't tell you how many times we have asked a bus driver to find out what is taking so long for another bus to come and get the same answer. "It should be coming soon. I don't have anyway of finding out when." Another problem is on EE mornings. The parks (with the exception of AK) open @ 7:30am (sometimes earlier at busier times) on EE days. However, if you ask a bus driver, most tell you it does not open until 8am. That is incorrect. So people are beginning to line up at the bus stops @ 6:30am for a 7:30am opening and on most occassions are waiting around till about 7am for a bus to come. Tack on having to share your bus with other resorts and you can kiss getting there before 7:30am goodbye. Now, ironically enough, there are busses to DTD & TTC starting @ 6:30am. The drivers need to get their story correct. Also, on NYE 2 years ago, I was staying @ DxL. I was forewarned by the desk clerk about NYE and should arrive @ EE. Well, I chose MGM. Well by 7:15am, there was well over 150 of us waiting around and had reached its breaking point. We had all been standing there since 6:30am and had watched at least a dozen busses go by for everywhere else, BUT MGM. With each bus to another WDW location that arrived, the more people just wanted to throw the driver off and bring it to MGM. Finally, they ended up sending a bus, plus one of those that looks like a tractor trailer (still not enough room) to pick us up. Disney Transportation knows how busy the parks get on these kind of days and should be better prepared. Also, I think that DxL should have separate buses to the parks from PO. It becomes aggravating if you have been waiting around for a bus @ PO, then have to spend another 20 minutes or more driving around DxL 5 stops, before getting on the road to the park you want to get to, especially on EE mornings. Also, on EE mornings @ the MK or EPCOT, the shuttle boat to the Contemporary or MK from the WL and the monorails to both of these parks should start earlier. Buses from each of the resorts should be direct to the parks, etc. Just my views.

 

[#1 TITANS FAN]

At Fort Wilderness, they need to go back to running separate Chip and Dale bus routes instead of the combined route. Earlier this month, it took me over 30 minutes twice on extremely crowded buses to get back to my campsite from the Settlement Depot (a distance of only about 3/4 of a mile). This is why I only ate at the Trails End Buffeteria once even though I loved the food and service. The thought even crossed my mind that this was a deliberate strategy to try and coerce you into spending the extra $35 a day on golf cart rentals.