Wedding Chapel transportation ?

[MiaSRN62]

Hello,
This is my first post on the Wedding boards.
I am the mother of a hopefully soon-to-be Disney bride. My daughter got engaged in WDW and is now starting to plan her wedding. She is not a registered DISer so I am asking on her behalf. She has been reading through the threads here though. We are both enjoying reading all we can.

We are looking at a Wishes package--around 50 guests is what we are thinking so far--but still in preliminary phases of planning.
My question is this....do we need to charter a bus to get everyone to the Chapel ? How accessible is it ? Or can we park at the GF and walk over ? I've been to WDW at least 50 times, but never saw the Chapel up close so have no idea. I have been searching the Disney Wedding website for information and I thought I read it's inaccessible--but now can't find that information again ?
My daughter and I are hoping to actually contact Disney in the next 6-8 weeks and get the ball rolling. Thanks for any advice.

 

[MiaSRN62]

I was hoping someone knew the answer ? I've had 68 "views" ?

Does anyone know if there is a parking lot that we can drive to for the Wedding Chapel ? I'm am just trying to figure out if we need to budget in a motor coach/bus or if we can drive ourselves to the Chapel ? Thanks to anyone who might know the answer !

 

[Dis1992]

There is a very nice parking lot in front of the wedding pavillion with around 100 spots for wedding guests only. It was just redone and actually looks very nice. If you are at the Grand Floridain, it is about a 5 minute walk from the pool area.

 

[MiaSRN62]

Thank you DIS1992 !!!!! BIG help !

 

[DisneyDudet]

Welcome to Dis! To address your concerns about how many view you have vs how many responses you've gotten... Don't be alarmed. Some ppl will view it thinking you are asking a different question. It's easier to be as specific as possible in your topic line so that wouldn't happen. Someone will be along soon, I'm sure, that had experience with it.

I, too, was wondering about parking/transport too. My guests may not be WDW resort guests, so they won't be able to hop onto WDW Transport. Is there a designated parking lot for the WP? Will they give them a certain amount of time to park?

 

[MiaSRN62]

Thank you DisneyDudet for the welcome to the Wedding boards.....
I just posted another question in regard to min room requirements. I'm finding 50 nights a possible deal breaker. I can't force guests to stay on property---and so many are local enough to be able to drive there and back. I thought I had read and studied up on as much possible. I feel now, that planning this wedding is dependent on booking WDW rooms ---I had family/friends that were looking in to renting a condo off site. This could blow our plans.

But I've always found the advice and info on DIS is the best.....so waiting for a reply. I was going to fly in to FL in March to book this with my daughter. Certainly not going to go to those lengths if we're required to book the equivalent of 50 room nights.

 

[DisneyDudet]

Welcome to Dis! To address your concerns about how many view you have vs how many responses you've gotten... Don't be alarmed. Some ppl will view it thinking you are asking a different question. It's easier to be as specific as possible in your topic line so that wouldn't happen. Someone will be along soon, I'm sure, that had experience with it.

I, too, was wondering about parking/transport too. My guests may not be WDW resort guests, so they won't be able to hop onto WDW Transport. Is there a designated parking lot for the WP? Will they give them a certain amount of time to park?

 

[DisneyDudet]

Thank you DisneyDudet for the welcome to the Wedding boards.....
I just posted another question in regard to min room requirements. I'm finding 50 nights a possible deal breaker. I can't force guests to stay on property---and so many are local enough to be able to drive there and back. I thought I had read and studied up on as much possible. I feel now, that planning this wedding is dependent on booking WDW rooms ---I had family/friends that were looking in to renting a condo off site. This could blow our plans.

But I've always found the advice and info on DIS is the best.....so waiting for a reply. I was going to fly in to FL in March to book this with my daughter. Certainly not going to go to those lengths if we're required to book the equivalent of 50 room nights.

From what I understand with the room block, the amount of nights stay can be also used by the bride, groom and family (as along as they are guests). Some couples stay at WDW for their honeymoon to help.

I am not 100% on that, but that's what I understand.

 

[MiaSRN62]

From what I understand with the room block, the amount of nights stay can be also used by the bride, groom and family (as along as they are guests). Some couples stay at WDW for their honeymoon to help.

I am not 100% on that, but that's what I understand.

Thank you. The bride and groom were going to stay about 4 nights...maybe 5. But I'm reading about anywhere from minimum of 25-50 night blocks. That's the issue. We're also DVC....so had hoped to put some guests up via our points. I will somehow have to get a commitment from guests that they need to book a certain amount of nights on property. I find that a tad awkward to ask of them ? It's like a stipulation and many planned offsite ? Touchy I think to ask of guests who are traveling (some), thousands of miles to FL.
I appreciate your help VERY much

 

[bradleyjess]

I think the minimum you must guarantee to get the free night is 25, but you can forego the room block altogether if you don't think you'll be able to fill the block. Your guests just wont have discounted rooms.

That's what I did since most of our guests are local and my wedding is small.

Also, since you're DVC, those rooms booked through DVC also count toward your minimum. You'd just give Disney those reservation numbers.

Hope that helps!

 

[princesswendy720]

I think the minimum you must guarantee to get the free night is 25, but you can forego the room block altogether if you don't think you'll be able to fill the block. Your guests just wont have discounted rooms.

That's what I did since most of our guests are local and my wedding is small.

Also, since you're DVC, those rooms booked through DVC also count toward your minimum. You'd just give Disney those reservation numbers.

Hope that helps!

This is correct. The room block is different than the minimum stay requirement. You don't have to do a room block, but you'll have to guarantee a minimum number of nights in a Disney hotel (as PP mentioned, DVC reservations count).

 

[itsmebabygi]

In regard to the parking situation, although there js a parking lot, my mother got lost and kept winding up at GF when we were on our way to the planning session. It is an area that might be difficult to find for people that aren't used to driving in Disney. Plus there isn't a real address that people can just plug into a GPS. I wouldn't want to stress about not having people there on time. If its a possibility to book a charter, I would do it, even though it isn't completely necessary.

 

[DixieBelle]

We were kind of in the same boat with our planning. There is parking at the pavilion, but whether it will be available to your guests that day is kind of a question. Also, there is always the possibility that someone will get lost, or be unable to find a spot if the lot is full. For about 50 people, you would only need one bus. We had everyone meet at the hotel for "pictures"about 30 minutes before the bus was scheduled. We also scheduled the bus to be 15 minutes late. Between the pics and the bus delay, everybody was there on time to get on the bus and arrive at the ceremony happy and ready to start.

Unless the rules have changed recently, you do not have to have a room block. When we were planning, a vast majority of our guests were staying at shades of green, which is not a resort that counts as "disney lodging". Everything was okay.

 

[MiaSRN62]

Thank you. You all have been a huge help ! Another question....can the guests park at the GF (valet) and walk to the Wedding Chapel. Or is it incapable of being accessed by walking through the lobby of the GF to the back ?

We meet with a Disney wedding consultant on March 5

 

["Cinder" Ella's Mom]

You can walk through the GF to the wedding chapel. When my BFF got married there, the GF had a few golf carts and shuttled elderly guests over from GF, but it is walkable.

 

[mb187143]

We had a similar sized event with 59 guests. We used the WP and had our reception at the Grand Floridian. Unless all of your guest are staying at the same hotel, I do not recommend the motor coach for transportation. They will charge you the charter price and it was over $1000 for our events when you considered the charter started 2 hours before our event to accommodate 3 stops at the hotels. We used the luxury vans from the hotel and it cost about $250 total.

The WP is an easy walk from the GF, and DFTW recommended our guests park at the grand rather than the WP so their cars would be closer to the reception space and more easily reached at the end of the night. The WP and the ballrooms at the GF are on opposite ends of the GF Resort. Our guests walked from the WP to the GF convention center (where the ballrooms are) and it took them about 10 minutes at a very casual pace.

We had many guests who booked through their DVC and those rooms were easily added to our room block. We also had about 20 guests stay offsite, and still ended up with 89 nights in our room block. It adds up fast. You can absolutely skip the block though.

 

[MiaSRN62]

Thanks so much Cinder ella's mom and mb187143 ! Big help with that information ! The ballroom at the GF is one of the venues we are interested in. But I'm sure it's popular. We shall see soon.....about 38 more days we'll be able to sit down with someone.

 

[mb187143]

There are multiple ballrooms at the grand Floridian, and they can be sub-divided and will be sized appropriate to your guest count we used St. Augustine AB for 59 guests and it was perfect. We used the Whitehall room and patio for our pre-reception and our guests loved it. Hopefully you can see these venues when you go for a visit!

 

[MiaSRN62]

There are multiple ballrooms at the grand Floridian, and they can be sub-divided and will be sized appropriate to your guest count we used St. Augustine AB for 59 guests and it was perfect. We used the Whitehall room and patio for our pre-reception and our guests loved it. Hopefully you can see these venues when you go for a visit!

I think they told us we can see 3-4 of our choice---so I will ask for these for sure. Thank you.