Really disappointed in the transportation

[kaytieeldr]

You never know when a whole heap of Wheelchairs or ECV's are going to need to be fitted which can eat up a lot of time.

In fairness, typically each bus can handle at most two mobility devices (not a whole heap )

 

[Disneypro1]

I love using the Walt Disney World Transportation System.

I can use the Disney Magical Express that has a wheelchair lift to take me to my Walt Disney World Resort.

They take my checked luggage from Atlanta and it shows up in my resort room.

I can take Walt Disney World Bus from my resort to the Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Disney Hollywood Studios, and Disney Springs and back to my resort because they have two spaces to tie down my wheelchair.

Sure I may have to wait sometimes if there are more than two other wheelchairs or mobility scooters in line ahead of me as I see others that came after me standing in line walk onto the bus.

Sometimes I may have to wait for two buses.

But you know what?

I am on vacation and I love the way that Walt Disney World tries to make so many things accessible for me.

I don't own a car and I use Atlanta's mass transit buses and trains, so I am familiar with using this transportation.

I wonder how many guests visit that don't use their home city's mass transit on a daily basis because they live in a suburb and they use their one or two cars to get around?

I can use the Walt Disney World Monorail system with Disney cast members helping me by manually placing a ramp down to allow me to drive onto and off of the Disney Monorail.

I can travel by all but one of the Walt Disney World water taxi boats. The very small one has steps and I can't use those.

But I can use the larger water taxi boats and pontoon water taxi boats.

It is so nice to have that option and not to order a taxi whenever I want to go somewhere on Walt Disney World property.

I like the attractions and any Walt Disney World queue line that allows me to walk in line with everyone else until I get to the front row where there is usually a gate or chain to exit for a place for a wheelchair or mobility scooter to wait for the bus or attraction ride.

I have had some guests get very upset that I am allowed to board a Walt Disney World bus before anyone else. There is a reason for this. It is easier to roll onto the bus and parallel park my wheelchair.

If there were guests boarding, it might be more difficult to drive forward, turn and reverse with so many feet around. And if guests were seating on either side of the rows their feet narrows the width of the aisle of the bus to drive forward and reverse to parallel park into the wheelchair spot.

For that very same reason, wheelchairs and mobility scooters exit the bus only after all the guests' exit first.

And these are just a few of the reasons that I like Walt Disney World Transportation.

But this is just my personal opinion.

I don't speak for anyone else.

Very well stated. 110% agreed

 

[sethschroeder]

Yeah, I'm in shock at what I'm reading on this thread. I haven't been to WDW before, and now I feel sick about how much is being spent to stay onsite. My brother wanted to stay off-site, but the rest of us talked him out of it — mostly for the "convenience" of the transportation and benefit of EMHs (which all got pushed up to 7 a.m., which I guess means we have to be at the bus stop before 6 a.m. to enjoy it, based on unpredictable bus times?). It didn't even occur to me that we'd have to build in more than 15-20 minutes for in-park transportation. I figured, It's Disney, you're spending the big bucks so they take good care of you, surely there will be a continuous flow of shuttles, surely this basic component of park operations will be dialed in.

Now I'm reading: An hour? Ninety minutes? Simply expect the transportation you paid a hefty premium for not to show up for 40 minutes? (The implication: If you're disappointed to waste hours of an expensive vacation at sweltering bus stops, you're being an unreasonable brat.) Sorry to be negative, but this is like the nth complication in this herculean planning process. Disneyland last year was absolutely lovely. One of the most thrilling surprises in all of my travels, ever. And so much less money for so much more ease. 5-10 minutes walk to the gate, parks right next to each other (among other things that were easier).

I'm just glad I read this because my family would be totally blindsided. We'd be missing dinner reservations and ditching plans left and right. We wouldn't be prepared to keep small children from melting down during long, hot lines when they're hungry and tired, just for a "convenient" bus ride. We would have assumed that an operation that requires food and attraction reservations to be scheduled months in advance also would have some semblance of a schedule for guests to get there, after they were promised transportation as a perk.

Take a breath and realize these longer waits are exceptions. During a week long trip most people will have roughly 20+ bus rides. Yes it sucks but even if you have on the high side 2 or 3 (from this specific thread) that is still a vast majority with no issues.

It will be my first time back since 2014 this fall but we never had issues except 1 time across 2 trips which combine for roughly 3 weeks.

I would not stress out about it and just realize at times there may be a wait. Overall though you get to not worry about parking, figuring out shuttles in parking lots, forgetting where your car is, hot car, fighting traffic, accidents (either you or being stuck behind one).

It's really a nice service but if people don't like it that's fine they have their own experience and their tolerance for variation in service level.

 

[MaC410]

I'm a bit late to this discussion but wanted to give some thoughts since Disney transportation has become a big part of how we decide where to stay. My wife and I are like a lot of people, when we go to Disney we want to feel like we are always in that "disney bubble" and don't want to worry about renting a car and driving ourselves places. Everywhere we go is using Disney transportation. The magical express from the airport has so far always been great for us. We have never waited long, we find it fun to be on a bus full of happy people all going to Disney World and we love the convenience of not having to worry about getting our luggage.

The regular bus service however has been hit or miss for us and it really does seem like it depends on where you are staying. When we've stayed at the Yacht or Beach Club the bus service has mostly been fine. When staying at a place like Art of Animation the bus service was a nightmare all trip. When staying at the art of animation almost every single bus had 2 ECVs needing to be loaded and then of course you have all the strollers. This all makes sense though with what kind of resort art of animation is. With all the family suites you kind of expect large families and families bringing grandparents who may need ECVs. Obviously these guests aren't doing anything wrong but these factors make bus waits and bus lines longer.

Because of the hit or miss bus service we now tend to pay the extra money to stay in the Epcot resorts so we can walk or take the boat to Epcot or Hollywood Studios. The less reliant we are on the buses, especially at night when the park closes, the happier we are on our trips. We are hoping the Skyliner will give us opportunities to stay at slightly cheaper places and have a much more reliable way to get to Epcot and Hollywood Studios from other resorts.

 

[jjan]

I just had a nine night trip in May at Pop Century and for the most part, the buses were great. I'm not going to pay to park a rental car at my Disney resort (especially when I have an AP-- ridiculous) and I'm not going to pay to UBER. I will say, I have never waited as long as I did for Magical Express at the airport. It was really awful and not a great way to start my vacation. I think that it was a 45++ minute wait and it was not overly busy. The other thing that I noticed was one morning on the way to rope drop (not sure which park), there were 8-10 motorized wheelchairs waiting for that park's bus. That slowed everything down considerable and it took forever. This is definitely not a complaint towards people that have mobility issues, it is just that it is easy to forget how many more people seem to be using these options and how much busier the parks are. I can't imagine how long & the number of buses that it took to accommodate them all. I used to stay off site most times and when you figure in the driving, parking and trams to the front of the park, I feel that buses are still faster.

 

[kaytieeldr]

I can't imagine how long & the number of buses that it took to accommodate them all.

Four or five buses, with the last couple possibly waiting as long as an hour and a half.

 

[Christine]

I just had a nine night trip in May at Pop Century and for the most part, the buses were great. I'm not going to pay to park a rental car at my Disney resort (especially when I have an AP-- ridiculous) and I'm not going to pay to UBER. I will say, I have never waited as long as I did for Magical Express at the airport. It was really awful and not a great way to start my vacation. I think that it was a 45++ minute wait and it was not overly busy. The other thing that I noticed was one morning on the way to rope drop (not sure which park), there were 8-10 motorized wheelchairs waiting for that park's bus. That slowed everything down considerable and it took forever. This is definitely not a complaint towards people that have mobility issues, it is just that it is easy to forget how many more people seem to be using these options and how much busier the parks are. I can't imagine how long & the number of buses that it took to accommodate them all. I used to stay off site most times and when you figure in the driving, parking and trams to the front of the park, I feel that buses are still faster.

I've been going to Disney for many, many years and have either always stayed off-site or, when on site, had a rental car. This last trip, we drove down to Florida, so we did have our car but this is the first year that we had a relative with us who needed an ECV (dad, age 80, needs an ankle replacement). To make things easier, we decided to stay on a monorail resort and make use of the buses.


We were at the CR and, honestly, I felt like we always waited a LONG time for a bus. When we left Animal Kingdom one day, I thought the bus would *never* come. It had to be a one hour wait; all the while buses for every resort came and went, sometimes twice.

Getting my father into the bus was another aspect. The bus drivers were all great about it it but it certainly slowed things down for EVERYONE riding that bus. I felt so bad. I could feel the daggers behind my back.

The monorail was fine. Easy enough.

We'll probably be going on a big family trip in September. There will be two elderly relatives with ECVs. I'm seriously considering renting the ECVs that break down so we can use our car more.

 

[Day-Day]

I know some of this depends on the resorts but we were at POR last week and several times the MK bus passed by full. I still prefer to drive to all parks including the MK for EMH or regular rope drop because I have a better estimation of the total time it will take. There is more variability with the buses even though they drop off at the park and not at TTC when going to the MK.

The new location for buses at Hollywood Studios is a long walk, out in the open, from the security check point and the gates. I had one person who was trying to limit walking in the heat due to medical reasons and we had not realized how far the bus area was with the new location. We drove to the park but decided to use the bus to go back to the resort and return in the evening; it was a long, hot walk (record high temperature for that date) with no clouds and then a long wait at the bus stop. We used Uber to return late in the afternoon.

I've always had a car and prefer the flexibility but I am considering forgoing a rental car for our next visit and use ride sharing much of the time.