Rent a car or not?

[KJo719]

My fiance and I will spending our honeymoon in Disney in July. We are currently trying to decide if we should rent a car or not. I say no- we're planning on staying on Disney property the whole time. It's been a few years since I was there last, but I remember the Disney transportation being pretty good. He is afraid that since it will be July and it's very crowded in July, we will have to wait a long time for a bus. We're staying at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Kathy

 

[tmli]

You may have some long waits, but the transportation is very convenient. Even if you had to wait for a bus from the MK by the time you got the monorail and then the parking tram to your car, you'd be at the resort. Its your honeymoon relax, let them do the driving and use the money saved for a great dinner!

 

[inkkognito]

I am a big fan of Disney transportation because I am much too lazy to drive while on vacation. We use Happy Limo for our airport transportation and then rely on Disney to get us around WDW property on 99 percent of our trips. We've stayed at a variety of Disney hotels, and the only one where I really hated the transportation was at Caribbean Beach (we stayed in the "Trinidad" section and we quickly realized that the word "Trinidad" is Caribbean slang for "No bus come here"). But other than that, we've had great luck with transportation at Coronado Springs, the AK and Wilderness Lodges, etc. etc. etc. One of the few times we rented a car was for a quickie trip where we got a Downtown Disney Good Neighbor Hotel and a car rental dirt cheap via Priceline, but even with the car, we ended up using the hotel bus to get to the parks instead. I know that some people swear by having a car, but personally I prefer to be chauffered...it's worth the crowds and some waiting.
Barb
Visit the Platinum Castaway Club at: www.castawayclub.com

 

[KJo719]

Thanks for your help! I think I'll be able to convince him it's not necessary to rent a car!
Kathy

 

[CarolMN]

If it helps, AKL is the only deluxe hotel that doesn't have to share buses with other resorts. I think you will find the transportation just fine for your needs.

Unless you plan to do a lot of traveling between resorts, I doubt you'll miss having a car. We rent a car only if part of our stay is off site. Otherwise, the car just sits in the lot and is only used for transportation to and from the airport. That was OK when car rental prices were lower, but it is now often quite a bit more expensive than the private towncar services.

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding - hope you have a wonderful honeymoon stay.

 

[Michael623]

I am in the minority here I guess. I love WDW period, but I think the transportation is terrible. I like knowing that at the end of a day on my feet I will have a seat back to the resort. Unless you have a car you can't be sure. If you want to check out other resorts or want to hop over to DTD for a little while and then head over to a park you have to change buses twice. I say rent a car. To save money I just rent the cheapest smallest car. It is usually less than $100 a week. You may not use it every day but there will be times you'd wished you'd had it if you didn't rent it. If you deduct the cost of mears or a towncar the rental car costs you practically nothing. I stayed at the AKL earlier this month and it rocked!!

 

[n2mm]

We feel that you can get around on WDW transportation, but for us, we always rent a car. We like to zip around and not wait for buses (we do use the buses to go to MK sometimes). We also like to eat at other resorts. It usually takes less than 10 minutes to zip from one resort to the others. Plus we have many other areas on WDW property that the buses do not service and visits to the local Publix. We feel the cost of a rental cars are not that bad. Actually I posted some pretty good rates on Dollar right now using No code. Some folks love the WDW transportation and I'm glad that it's a perk that Disney offered. Just isn't for us.

 

[Bill From PA]

Yes, a rental car assures you of a seat for your trip, but balance that against the time it takes you to get to and from the car to the park entrance. WDW busses deliver you to the door so to speak, your car takes you to a lot where you wait for a tram which then takes you to where the bus would've taken you in the firsst place (sometimes!). In the case of MK, after the lot/tram deal, you still need to get across the lagoon.

That said, we always rent. When you add up a shuttle from MCO to WDW and back for our group of 5 or more, throw in a trip to Universal/IOA and the convenience of a car if you want to visit another WDW resort, very slow using Disney transportation, the rental is worth it. For some reason the last two years it took us 1 1/2 hours to hop from AK to another park around 1 pm, so we drive to AK. Other than that, WDW transportation is fine.


Bill From PA

 

[Chip 'n Dale Express]

AK Lodge generally receives good transportation. Very rarely do I ever hear a problem happening over there. AK Lodge is not a MOD resort, so that means buses run on a Flex Dispatch schedule all day long. Intervals are typically 12-15 minutes, give or take. During PEAK times (Morning rush, park closing, parade exit, etc), the AK Lodge bus may get slightly crowded, but not for long. Lines are never as long as most of the other resorts.

 

[Bill From PA]

Hey, Chip 'n Dale Express, thanks for all your valuable advice on WDW transportation. I was refering to hopping from AK Park, not the Lodge. Two consecutive times a year apart we hopped from AK to Epcot one time and MGM another and we had to wait for the second or third bus as there were a lot of others trying to do the same thing. This was about 1 pm both times. Perhaps this was a fluke, but last trip we drove to AK and used WDW busses for all else.


Bill From PA

 

[sgtdisney]

We always rent when we go to Disney World. I really want the flexibility to come and go as I please. Plus it does come in handy if you plan on doing any resort to resort hopping or things of that nature. We also like to go off property once in a while for other places to eat and shop.

 

[Chip 'n Dale Express]

Originally posted by Bill From PA
Two consecutive times a year apart we hopped from AK to Epcot one time and MGM another and we had to wait for the second or third bus as there were a lot of others trying to do the same thing. This was about 1 pm both times. Perhaps this was a fluke, but last trip we drove to AK and used WDW busses for all else.

*shrug* That's odd. 1pm is never really a busy time there. 5:00pm, I can imagine with the parade exit, and impending park close... Im hoping it just happened to be a fluke.

 

[vellamint]

On our first trips we always rented a car as we stayed offsite...my last 2 trips we stayed onsite and did not rent a car...

What do I prefer...

Renting the car.....bus transportation is good when it is good...but when you want to LEAVE and you have to wait or you are too tired to stand and must stand......we are much happier knowing we have the car if need it. We are renting for our next trip.

(P.S. Last trip we wound up taking cabs 4 times to get somewhere faster AND lost 2 hours including EE because something was left in our room and we had to go back for it....probably why we feel this way)

 

[loveswdw]

Rented a car for our honeymoon in 1999 (Alamo--bad, bad experience--stay away from Alamo!! Let's put it this way, almost $400 for a Cavalier-- yes, we got a refund of about half!). We thought we would need the car since we were going to SeaWorld and Universal, resort hopping for dinner, etc. Guess what? We put 100 miles on it the entire 8 days. 100 miles!! That's it! And paid all that money...

We have never rented a car since then while staying in Disney. But if you are planning on visiting outside WDW you may want to consider your options of shuttle, towncar or cab. Sometimes it just as cheap to rent (as long as you don't rent from Alamo). Go with Dollar!

Just our experience...

loveswdw