Pop reducing bus service to 1/hour

NWOhiogal

Mouseketeer
Joined
Jun 21, 2018
So apparently starting today, Pop Century is only having busses to Epcot and Hollywood Studios run once an hour, and encouraging people to use the Skyliner instead.

Personally I think it's a bad move because the Skyliner is unreliable, and bad weather and other problems is going to force Pop to scramble to dispatch busses to huge crowds of frustrated, impatient guests who would be furious at wasting time (hours probably) waiting to get to the parks they paid a LOT of money to get to.


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It’s sad. But I think we all new it was going to happen eventually.

I thought it might happen, but I didn't think it would happen before Disney ironed out all the problems the Skyliner has been having.

I guess it's a cost-cutting move, but what's going to happen when the Skyliner unexpectedly goes down and suddenly hundreds of people have no way to get to the parks? Will Disney have busses on standby? If they do, they have to pay for the gas and the drivers, so how is that saving money? And if they don't, how long does it take to get a bus and driver online? An hour? How many busses would you need, considering you don't know how long the Skyliner is going to be down? Do you go with one (cheapest), which means you're going to have HUGE crowds of angry people trying to jam into the ONE bus that shows up? Or do you dispatch three or four, only to have the Skyliner go back up when they're on their way to Pop, which is then a waste of money and resources?

I sure hope Disney has a plan for this, because it has "fustercluck" written all over it.
 
I thought it might happen, but I didn't think it would happen before Disney ironed out all the problems the Skyliner has been having.

I guess it's a cost-cutting move, but what's going to happen when the Skyliner unexpectedly goes down and suddenly hundreds of people have no way to get to the parks? Will Disney have busses on standby? If they do, they have to pay for the gas and the drivers, so how is that saving money? And if they don't, how long does it take to get a bus and driver online? An hour? How many busses would you need, considering you don't know how long the Skyliner is going to be down? Do you go with one (cheapest), which means you're going to have HUGE crowds of angry people trying to jam into the ONE bus that shows up? Or do you dispatch three or four, only to have the Skyliner go back up when they're on their way to Pop, which is then a waste of money and resources?

I sure hope Disney has a plan for this, because it has "fustercluck" written all over it.
And how long does it take to get those buses to Pop when the Skyliner goes down?
 


Buses now running only once per hour from POP to EP and HS. I think we all knew Disney would try and cut back on bus services, but I'm still surprised it's this restrictive. I've also seen a lot of complaints that the Skyliner hasn't been running in time for park opening, so I assume that they'll change that. I know they're coming into slow season, but this is leaving a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths online.

462771
 
I thought it might happen, but I didn't think it would happen before Disney ironed out all the problems the Skyliner has been having.

I guess it's a cost-cutting move, but what's going to happen when the Skyliner unexpectedly goes down and suddenly hundreds of people have no way to get to the parks? Will Disney have busses on standby? If they do, they have to pay for the gas and the drivers, so how is that saving money? And if they don't, how long does it take to get a bus and driver online? An hour? How many busses would you need, considering you don't know how long the Skyliner is going to be down? Do you go with one (cheapest), which means you're going to have HUGE crowds of angry people trying to jam into the ONE bus that shows up? Or do you dispatch three or four, only to have the Skyliner go back up when they're on their way to Pop, which is then a waste of money and resources?

I sure hope Disney has a plan for this, because it has "fustercluck" written all over it.

I don’t know. I think the skyliner is always going to have down times and stoppages. It seems inevitable. They’re probably thinking, what the heck, it’s as good as it’s ever going to be, let’s just start reducing those buses.
 
I don’t know. I think the skyliner is always going to have down times and stoppages. It seems inevitable. They’re probably thinking, what the heck, it’s as good as it’s ever going to be, let’s just start reducing those buses.

Which is exactly why they shouldn't be doing this. The Skyliner is cool, but it isn't a reliable replacement for the bus system. It stops too often, it goes down too often and unexpectedly, and come summer when thunderstorms are frequent, there are going to be days when it isn't running at all.

When the downtime is planned, that's fine. But when crowds of hundreds of people are waiting for the Skyliner and it goes down, suddenly you have hundreds of people with no way to get to the parks.

Disney has two ways to deal with potential unplanned downtime: have busses on standby (faster but you're not saving money) or dispatch busses on-call (cheaper but obviously will take MUCH longer, forcing guests to stand in the hot sun and fume and will keep them from getting to the parks - and spending money there.)

I'm getting the feeling Disney didn't think this through. They just figured the Skyliner would work flawlessly right out of the gate, that it would never go down or have problems, and nobody would ever choose to not ride it if they had the choice.

That's fine I guess, but that's not the way it's working out, and Disney is now deciding that they're going to force you to ride the Skyliner whether you want to or not - although of course, you can always spend $$$ to park a car at the resort or take a Lyft/Uber. In addition to paying the jacked-up prices at the not-so-much-of-a-value resort, of course.
 
I’m a little surprised they’re starting it this early for HS, with all the early EARLY morning trips to Hollywood Studios for ROTR.

With this decision, the ONLY ways to get to HS early enough to get on RotR is to drive yourself or pay for a Lyft/Uber. I'm sure the Lyft/Uber drivers are thrilled at this development, and raising their prices accordingly. I'm not sure when the busses start running to HS, but obviously those will fill up quickly so that's not reliable either unless you want to get up super early and go stand in line for the ONE bus an hour.
 
With this decision, the ONLY ways to get to HS early enough to get on RotR is to drive yourself or pay for a Lyft/Uber. I'm sure the Lyft/Uber drivers are thrilled at this development, and raising their prices accordingly. I'm not sure when the busses start running to HS, but obviously those will fill up quickly so that's not reliable either unless you want to get up super early and go stand in line for the ONE bus an hour.
If (as an example) the skyliner doesn’t open til 7:30am but HS opens at 7am, there will always be buses starting at about 5:30 am, same as the other resorts, to get you to HS.

The one bus per hour doesn’t start until the skyliner is open.
 
We are arriving tomorrow at Pop Century. Thank goodness I was on the DIS to find this out because we were planning to bus to get to HS early enough. I sure hope that they move the Skyliner hours earlier so that resort guests without a car like us will have half a chance of getting to HS sufficiently before opening time. It would sure stink if staying at a Disney Resort suddenly becomes a huge disadvantage. Or maybe they could offer to pay for all of us to Uber or Lyft over to HS!🤪 Hotels outside Disney resorts are sounding a whole lot more attractive.
 
I stayed at Pop over Thanksgiving week and the bus service was TERRIBLE. Really. The worst I've ever had on property. We waited at least 45 minutes for every bus we took to and from there. We loved the skyliner, though! They will need to start running that earlier for HS if they are going to cut the busses at Pop.
 
If (as an example) the skyliner doesn’t open til 7:30am but HS opens at 7am, there will always be buses starting at about 5:30 am, same as the other resorts, to get you to HS.

The one bus per hour doesn’t start until the skyliner is open.

Thank you. This is what I'm hoping/assuming. Call me naive, but I can't believe Disney would leave us with no regular WDW transportation way to make it to DHS early enough for park open/ROTR BGs.
 

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