Give yourself enough time with transportation

jnemo

Earning My Ears
Joined
Jul 21, 2008
we are at the Grand Floridian now. Having a wonderful trip but have a word of advice. Twice we have almost missed our reservation because of transportation. Remember if you have a scooter and two are ahead of you, you will have to wait for the next bus. Yesterday we left Epcot at 12:45 for a 2:20 reservation at Tiffins in Animal Kingdom. I sent the kids ahead and we did make our reservation. The cast members have been great loading/unloading the scooters.
 
I've been cautioning everyone on the transportation with or without a scooter. We went to WDW twice this year and the transportation was awful. 20-30 minutes between buses, everything packed, and a lot of re-routing because there is so much road construction. It was easily taking almost an hour anywhere.
 
Buses were so bad when we went last year, this year we are just skipping it and renting a car, even though we are staying on site. We have a very limited time in the parks, and need to go back for naps. Not worth wasting hours a day on the buses
 
The worst experience we had was getting from CBR to DTD (as it was in 2014). We were at the bus stop with well over an hour to spare, but while bus after bus came along, there wasn't a single one for DTD. Drivers kept saying they'd put in a call for us. Finally, after over 40 minutes of waiting a bus finally came - but it was half full (clearly diverted as we were located at CBR's first bus stop on the loop). We then got stuck in horrendous traffic. I got more and more depressed as we sat at a standstill watching the hands on my watch ticking round.

We should have got off at the first stop (Market Place) and walked over because on hindsight the 5 minute walk would have been preferable to the further 20 minutes stuck on the bus!!!!

We were a good 40 minutes late for our reservation at Raglan Road, but luckily they kept our reservation (and we weren't charged) even though we still had to wait nearly half an hour for a table. Because of the stress and the lateness and DD having had a major meltdown on the bus before I was able to get her off it, I could have happily just got back on the first bus and returned to CBR! I didn't like our table or the food or the noise or the atmosphere (or DD's continuous grizzling) and it was by far the worst evening I've ever had - and that's saying something!!

And yes, I could have driven over instead of waiting for the bus, but this was during the biggest upheaval of digging up all the car parks at DTD and we would have been stuck in traffic whatever form of transport we'd used.
 
How much time do you all suggest we leave for transportation? My biggest concern is getting from PoP to our 8:55a reservation at 'Ohana. MIL has an ECV and I have a manual chair.
Thanks!
 
How much time do you all suggest we leave for transportation? My biggest concern is getting from PoP to our 8:55a reservation at 'Ohana. MIL has an ECV and I have a manual chair.
Thanks!

You will have to go from Pop to either Disney Springs or one of the Parks to catch a bus to Poly. So, I personally would allow *at least* 90 minutes. And that still might be tight.
 
We had really bad experiences in terms of wait times too this week. It's possible we just missed the bus but it was basically every bus and we always had 30 minute waits, buses were frequently packed and standing room only no matter what time of day it was. Usually with dining reservations I find if you are very nice and apologetic when you get there they usually will get you in the restaurant anyway. Our last few trips the buses were great so maybe it was just extra crowded this week.
 


You will have to go from Pop to either Disney Springs or one of the Parks to catch a bus to Poly. So, I personally would allow *at least* 90 minutes. And that still might be tight.

I don't think they run buses to DS that early in the morning! The best way to get from Pop to the Poly would be to get a bus to MK and then take the resort monorail round. We did a resort hop on the monorail on our last afternoon a couple of months ago, getting on at the Contemporary. I think the TTS was the first stop followed by the Poly, with GFV being the last one in the loop before coming back to MK.

I would suggest that you want to be at the bus stop at Pop by 7.30am latest. Buses to MK at that time of the morning are pretty much continuous.
 
I don't think they run buses to DS that early in the morning! The best way to get from Pop to the Poly would be to get a bus to MK and then take the resort monorail round. We did a resort hop on the monorail on our last afternoon a couple of months ago, getting on at the Contemporary. I think the TTS was the first stop followed by the Poly, with GFV being the last one in the loop before coming back to MK.

I would suggest that you want to be at the bus stop at Pop by 7.30am latest. Buses to MK at that time of the morning are pretty much continuous.
Agreed , DS would be my last choice for a transfer point unless you planning on spending time there before heading to another resort. MK would be the best park since the commute time to Poly would be the shortest.
 
Keep in mind Disney advises you allow 90 minutes to make it to an ADR during more normal times of the year. If the parks are super busy, and there are known long wait times for the buses, I would stretch that out to 2 hours. You can always look around the resort or do a little shopping in their stores.
 
We were a good 40 minutes late for our reservation at Raglan Road, but luckily they kept our reservation (and we weren't charged) even though we still had to wait nearly half an hour for a table.

For any Raglan Road people, book through open table instead of Disney. They have way more time slots, they don't charge the fee, and you can lot in to your account and change things while on the bus.
 
We were there between 11-27 and 12-4 and had two scooters to deal with at the same time. Only once did we have to separate.

Other than leaving the park at closing times we experienced 15 minute waits on the average. We stayed at All Star Sports. I was very pleased about the bus transportation.

Sometimes, it's timing. We did every extra magic morning hour that we could do and it really helped on bus times. Taking an afternoon break from the parks we waited the longest for bus transportation.
 

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