What is up with the Monorails?

[mjr0483]

I am in WDW now and the two times I have tried to take the monorail I have been shut out. Is mine and isolated incident or are the monorails exceeded their lifetime or are they poorly maintained?

Last Friday 8/10 we were leaving the MK and the express monorail was broken down. A monorail was just sitting outside the Contemporary and another one at the MK station. So we make or way over to the Resort monorail and 15 minutes later still no monorail to be seen. One finally showed up but never left the station. After another 20 minutes they invited us to take a bus or a ferry over to the TTC.

And again last night after dinner at EPCOT we were heading over to the MK at 8:30PM arrived at the monorail station to wait another 15 minutes for Monorail Black to show up. We didn't make that boarding and were queued up to get on the next one. An announcement came on that they said they were restarting the on-board computer. The monorail went two feet forward and stopped. Then reset the system again, leap two feet forward to stop. It took 4 attempts and another 15 minutes for the monorail to leave the station. Monorail Teal pulled in another 15 minutes later and we boarded, but it never left the station. At 9:40PM again we were invited to take a bus over to the TTC from EPOCT. But now we were at the end of several thousand people trying to board a single bus and who knows how long for us to make it over to the MK. At this point we called the evening dead. So our journey started out at 8:30PM and finally ended at 10:00PM when we reached the exit at the international gateway for the sad walk back to our room.

The Disney commercials are kids running up to characters with big smiles on their faces while reality for me last night was a crying kid wondering why we weren't going to the MK and seeing wishes.

I hate to sound down, but this trip just isn't going very well. And you just want to scream when the CM at the exit gate smiles and says you can catch a bus at the Beach Club, the MK is open to 2AM. SCREEEEEEAM!!!! Just what I want to do, go walk all the way to the bus and wait another 20 minutes for a bus to finally get to the MK at 11PM. No way!

Am I looking at this all wrong or should I be upset? My vision of Disney right now is broken down, with two dead monorails at the MK station.

 

[Aunt Michelle]

I think you sound tired and grumpy (that probably sounds snarky). You've been at WDW for at least a week (8/10 - today), staying at one of the Epcot properties (walked to your room from the International Gateway), and describe two separate instances a week apart with the Monorail. The summation is "Disney ... is broken down."

<shrug> I won't profess to never having transportation issues at Disney - we've waited "forgotten" for a specific park bus, had to reshuffle plans, been late for reservations, missed rope drops... etc. etc. etc. However, those things become part of our memories, our shared laughter about the time we "got stuck," we've met some nice people, and done things we might not have tried if it weren't for these incidents. We keep going back because we always, every single time, find the magic.

 

[mjr0483]

describe two separate instances a week apart with the Monorail. The summation is "Disney ... is broken down."

Agreed a week apart and THE only two times in a week where we attempted to take the Monorail and never went anywhere. And talking to other guests while waiting for the Monorail to move they shared similar experiences this week.

We are staying at the BCV and one of the two washing machines in the laundry room has been broken our entire stay despite several calls to try to get it fixed. And threads on the disboards stating this washing machine has been broken since July.

So the summation is correct. My cash still works and Disney keeps taking it.

 

[mjr0483]

<shrug> I won't profess to never having transportation issues at Disney - we've waited "forgotten" for a specific park bus, had to reshuffle plans, been late for reservations, missed rope drops... etc. etc. etc. However, those things become part of our memories, our shared laughter about the time we "got stuck," we've met some nice people, and done things we might not have tried if it weren't for these incidents. We keep going back because we always, every single time, find the magic.

And why should this be acceptable? It is not like we are running ragged this trip. We sleep in and enjoy leisurely lunches by the pool. Last night dinner at EPCOT was the first time we were in a park that entire day. There should be some reasonable expectation to get you the two miles from EPCOT to the MK. I am sorry but It shouldn't take two hours.

 

[mountdew1]

The monorails are getting old, no doubt about that. One of the reported reasons behind closing them earlier at night was to allow for more time for maintenance of the trains and also the tracks. Having an extended period of time over the last few years where at least one train was out of service for an extended period of time meant that the remaining trains were unable to get their normal downtime.

 

[disneydaughter26]

Nope! I totally agree with you! I love Disney and never thought the magic would be lost...and it still isn't completly, howeverr........

We just back last night from our trip and experienced the same issue we have never had so many issues with transportation as we did on this trip!

We also missed fireworks because the monorail to MK was broken and we took the ferry and by the time we got there we missed pictures on the castle which I've been wanting to see.

Secondly, we were staying at the cabins at fort wilderness. I guess one of the hoopy doo review shows was within the hour, so our bus driver decided to overload the bus! It was ridiculous though! It was around 4 pm, and the bus was already pretty full and the driver just sat there for about five minutes just kept waiting for people to come on. Finally, after about 15 mintues the bus was entirely too crowded (I mean filled to capacity even more than when fireworks let out at night) and the bus broke down twice on our way to the settlement. What made this experience even more horrible for us is we were just going there to refill our mugs!! Imagine a half hour bus ride to get a cup of coffee!!!! Needless to say we were also aggravated that the campground has no sensible place to refill our mugs.....but that is a whole other story which we were not happy about.

So now our last day there we were waiting for magical express @ 5:50 and another couple was also waiting for there's @ 5:20 and it never showed. Disney obviously took care of the problem, and admitted that it was there fault and everything ended up being taken care of, but it was yet another mishap in the transportation system!

And finally, we were partially aware of this before the trips because we are on disboards...but I need to complain about the new monorail times!
We had to take the latest ADR time for 'Ohana which was 9:55 because that was all that was available. We were out of dinner just before 11 and headed over to the monorail to leave. The monorail was closed. Okay, we'll take a ferry back to MK...they're closed also. All the parks are closed, except for of course DTD. So, inorder to get back to fort wilderness (which is extremely close MK & poly) we would have had to take the bus allllllllll the way to DTD, wait for a bus back to Fort Wild, then take another bus from the outpost to our cabin. The amount of time that would have taked at minimum would have been an hour and a half, and that's assuming we wouldn't have a wait time for busses!! Thank the lucky stars that The Luau got out late so they had busses picking people up and taking them back to their resorts instead of the typical bus system or monorail since the monorail CLOSED so early!!!!

I'm sorry you can all say we should have known that the monorails/ferry closed early, but seriously? Not everyone that goes to Disney is a Disney expert the average person is not going to think of every single detail. Had we known that it could have taken potentially 3 hours to get back to Fort Wild from Poly we probably would have skipped our favorite dinner at 'Ohana.


Trust me when I say I am the last person to ever want to complain about Disney, it is my favorite place ever! I tell people all the time it's not just for kids, give it a try! And until this trip, I've never had any disappointments with Disney. I will still be going back, and probably always will because I love it there. I'm just worried that things are going downhill and if it's true I hope it changes quickly.

 

[midge3426]

We had problems last year with the monorail. I think they need a new CEO--the one they have now cannot handle the job.