Why are Disney Transport buses so bad?

[lambdabeta]

I get what you are saying but that doesn't help the guests experience. It is quite the opposite. It helps Disney and the bus service because empty buses aren't driving around. In your example above if I were waiting at AKL for a bus to DHS my wait would be longer because instead of the bus coming right to AKL it will first stop at YC/BC and AK and then AKL. Now it all makes sense why the bus system is so bad. In the example the poor guests at AKL may have a 50 min wait for a bus to DHS because of the extra stops. Disney advertises the buses run in 20 min intervals but this is not true. I know they use the words approximate but 50 mins is NOT approximately 20 mins. The way WDW dispatches its buses seems to be the whole problem from what PP'ers have described. It is not a REAL solution to have guests ask for buses from CM's at stops if the wait is long because as I have read on this thread and others there either isn't someone to ask or people don't know they can. There should be a central dispatch who is watching all of the bus stops and clocking how long people are waiting for buses and if the wait becomes 20 mins and there isn't a bus immediately on its way a new one should be dispatched. Also if there are a lot of people at the stops that share buses, like the deluxe resorts there should be extra buses dispatched to those locations to accommodate and vice versa from the parks to the resorts. The other solution is to actually have buses that are dedicated to certain resorts and parks that just continually do that loop so they are ACTUALLY every 20 mins. Disney has had a long time to perfect this system and they haven't. That is why taxis, Uber and Lyft do a great business at Disney. I don't expect this system or any other to get better as long as people keep going. So when I go I will use alternate transportation because the onsite system is VERY unreliable, in my experience YMMV.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Thankfully we’ve never had an issue with the buses. But I’m also from an area where public transportation is popular so waiting for a bus isn’t a huge deal to me.

 

[maxiesmom]

I have to think Disney knows more about what makes their buses run as efficiently as possible than we do.

 

[Gehrig1B]

Some of it revolves around expectations methinks.

When we head down to the bus depot we expect a 20-30 minute wait. If a bus pulls up earlier we consider that good fortune. If we experience a wait of over 30 minutes (rare) we are quick to call an Uber. You can "expect" a better system if you want, but it will just drive you crazy as is apparent with some of the posters in this thread. We are happy to wait as much as 30 minutes on each end...much better than the cost of a rental car and daily parking plus the aggravation of negotiating the traffic myself. To each their own.

Our last three trips we have had one wait of over 30 minutes and that was at HS trying to hop to MK.

It really is about managing expectations.

I was once told by someone much wiser than me, "You are on holiday. If you find something not to your liking maybe you need to change your liking."

 

[Disney Ron]

Some of it revolves around expectations methinks.

When we head down to the bus depot we expect a 20-30 minute wait. If a bus pulls up earlier we consider that good fortune. If we experience a wait of over 30 minutes (rare) we are quick to call an Uber. You can "expect" a better system if you want, but it will just drive you crazy as is apparent with some of the posters in this thread. We are happy to wait as much as 30 minutes on each end...much better than the cost of a rental car and daily parking plus the aggravation of negotiating the traffic myself. To each their own.

Our last three trips we have had one wait of over 30 minutes and that was at HS trying to hop to MK.

It really is about managing expectations.

I was once told by someone much wiser than me, "You are on holiday. If you find something not to your liking maybe you need to change your liking."

Why should anyone who complains about the buses at WDW "need to change their liking", if they enjoyed everything else about their trip there?

If you go to a bus depot expecting a 30 minute wait, then I don't know what I can tell you. I've been going to WDW almost every year for the last 30 years and this was clearly the worst we've seen the bus transportation. Others I talked to on our trip said the same thing. This is the first trip we've ever complained about the buses.

 

[Disney Ron]

I have to think Disney knows more about what makes their buses run as efficiently as possible than we do.

Well then they're failing.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Some of it revolves around expectations methinks.

When we head down to the bus depot we expect a 20-30 minute wait. If a bus pulls up earlier we consider that good fortune. If we experience a wait of over 30 minutes (rare) we are quick to call an Uber. You can "expect" a better system if you want, but it will just drive you crazy as is apparent with some of the posters in this thread. We are happy to wait as much as 30 minutes on each end...much better than the cost of a rental car and daily parking plus the aggravation of negotiating the traffic myself. To each their own.

Our last three trips we have had one wait of over 30 minutes and that was at HS trying to hop to MK.

It really is about managing expectations.

I was once told by someone much wiser than me, "You are on holiday. If you find something not to your liking maybe you need to change your liking."

I figure 15-20 minutes wait. I’m from an area with lots of public transportation and when i take a bus or train i give myself the same window. Maybe that’s why I’ve never really been disappointed with the buses at Disney. We usually only wait 5-10 minutes so for us it’s just a nice bonus. There’s been a few times with 20 or more minutes but it’s not that often. We always give ourselves an hour for transportation also.

 

[Gehrig1B]

Why should anyone who complains about the buses at WDW "need to change their liking"

Maybe because complaining on a forum board serves no positive purpose? Maybe because if you change your liking you will be less miserable?

My point, which obviously I did a poor job of making clear, is that while on vacation you can accept and move on or you can allow things like that to ruin your holiday...it is your choice.

If you go to a bus depot expecting a 30 minute wait, then I don't know what I can tell you.

I would expect you to tell me nothing. It's our way of dealing with the wait times and does not effect you in any way.

 

[Disney Ron]

Maybe because complaining on a forum board serves no positive purpose? Maybe because if you change your liking you will be less miserable?

My point, which obviously I did a poor job of making clear, is that while on vacation you can accept and move on or you can allow things like that to ruin your holiday...it is your choice.

I guess I'm the one who didn't make my point clear. We've been going to WDW for 30 years. In 30 years we've never complained about anything. One trip we said the buses were awful and you think it ruined our vacation? Sorry, but like I said we enjoyed every other aspect of our trip from the parks, to the entertainment, food and resorts. Since clearly you are a Disney apologist who doesn't appreciate anything negative being said about WDW, we will never agree so let's agree to disagree.

Have a great evening.

 

[Disney Ron]

I figure 15-20 minutes wait. I’m from an area with lots of public transportation and when i take a bus or train i give myself the same window. Maybe that’s why I’ve never really been disappointed with the buses at Disney. We usually only wait 5-10 minutes so for us it’s just a nice bonus. There’s been a few times with 20 or more minutes but it’s not that often. We always give ourselves an hour for transportation also.

Over the years we had your expectations of 15-20 minutes and rarely it would go over that. This year 30-50 minutes seemed to be the norm from guests we talked to, plus our experience. Toward the end of the trip we used Uber which was great.

 

[Gehrig1B]

Since clearly you are a Disney apologist who doesn't appreciate anything negative being said about WDW, we will never agree so let's agree to disagree.

C'mon... really?

You enjoy your evening as well.

 

[lambdabeta]

@mi*vida*loca, @Gehrig1B, @maxiesmom and anyone else who thinks the buses at Disney are just fabulous and the rest of us need to adjust our expectations. You are totally missing the point of this thread. The experiences of a few people who haven't had to wait for buses does not discount the experiences of the rest of the posters. (I also want to know what your secret is.) More and more people have been complaining on this board about the waits increasing and the buses being more crowded. I agree with them because my observation is you can't count on the buses to be on time. I am not telling you that buses NEVER come in 20 minutes or less just that they are more frequently a lot later. So please stop disregarding my circumstances because you haven't had the same one. I think that is the whole problem with this last few posts. Just because you didn't have to wait for your bus, or it wasn't crowded, doesn't mean that other people's weren't and it was their poor management of expectations because we all know Disney does a great job.(sarcasm implied)

 

[mi*vida*loca]

@mi*vida*loca, @Gehrig1B, @maxiesmom and anyone else who thinks the buses at Disney are just fabulous and the rest of us need to adjust our expectations. You are totally missing the point of this thread. The experiences of a few people who haven't had to wait for buses does not discount the experiences of the rest of the posters. (I also want to know what your secret is.) More and more people have been complaining on this board about the waits increasing and the buses being more crowded. I agree with them because my observation is you can't count on the buses to be on time. I am not telling you that buses NEVER come in 20 minutes or less just that they are more frequently a lot later. So please stop disregarding my circumstances because you haven't had the same one. I think that is the whole problem with this last few posts. Just because you didn't have to wait for your bus, or it wasn't crowded, doesn't mean that other people's weren't and it was their poor management of expectations because we all know Disney does a great job.(sarcasm implied)

I never said they were just fabulous. I’m also not one of those Disney lovers who thinks Disney does no wrong.

I do believe that people who use public transportation on a regular basis have a different expectation for Disney buses. I have read threads of people complaining about 10 minute waits. I think that’s ridiculous. Just like i think 30-50 minute waits are ridiculous.

I have no secret on my bus waits. It may be that i don’t do Disney multiple times a year or even every year so much fewer opportunities to be disappointed. Lol.

 

[lambdabeta]

I never said they were just fabulous. I’m also not one of those Disney lovers who thinks Disney does no wrong.

I do believe that people who use public transportation on a regular basis have a different expectation for Disney buses. I have read threads of people complaining about 10 minute waits. I think that’s ridiculous. Just like i think 30-50 minute waits are ridiculous.

I have no secret on my bus waits. It may be that i don’t do Disney multiple times a year or even every year so much fewer opportunities to be disappointed. Lol.

I still don't think you get my point though. I didn't say you said "just fabulous". It is kind of implied because you have never had a long wait.

I also disagree with the statement about people who use public transportation. Public buses have nothing to do with whether you are willing to wait or not. I do agree that complaining about a 10 min wait is ridiculous but that is irrelevant to this thread. If you agree that a 50 min wait is too long then why are you posting in a thread on that subject about how you have never waited that long or had a problem. I'm sorry but I'm really not sure what the point of your posts are then.

 

[joelkfla]

I get what you are saying but that doesn't help the guests experience. It is quite the opposite. It helps Disney and the bus service because empty buses aren't driving around.

Bingo! There is extreme pressure from uppermost management to keep costs low. As a result, middle and lower management is focused more on the appearance of efficiency than on Guest satisfaction. They want it look like they're saving money. even if they're not getting the job done in the best way. You can see it all around, from less frequent rest room cleaning to the cutting of little extras.

In your example above if I were waiting at AKL for a bus to DHS my wait would be longer because instead of the bus coming right to AKL it will first stop at YC/BC and AK and then AKL. Now it all makes sense why the bus system is so bad. In the example the poor guests at AKL may have a 50 min wait for a bus to DHS because of the extra stops.

Not exactly. Theoretically, if a bus starts the route at DHS every 20 minutes, then one should arrive at AKL every 20 minutes. But the longer a run is, with more stops, then the more variability there is in the time it takes to complete due to wheelchair loading, traffic, whatever, and the more likely it is that gaps in service will develop.

There should be a central dispatch who is watching all of the bus stops and clocking how long people are waiting for buses and if the wait becomes 20 mins and there isn't a bus immediately on its way a new one should be dispatched. Also if there are a lot of people at the stops that share buses, like the deluxe resorts there should be extra buses dispatched to those locations to accommodate and vice versa from the parks to the resorts.

No argument from me on that. Disney tried to implement true demand-driven dispatching a decade ago, but it failed miserably, IMHO due to a flawed model and corner cutting in technology to support it.

The other solution is to actually have buses that are dedicated to certain resorts and parks that just continually do that loop so they are ACTUALLY every 20 mins.

That's how it was done maybe 20 years ago. The problem is that it doesn't account for surges and full buses.

 

[a1tinkfans]

Eek... I don’t think I’ve ever waited more than 30 minutes ( typically under 15) and that was a fiasco and they gave us fastpasses when I spoke up about it.

The bus boards ...that are at the resorts.. that provide the approx time for the bus arrival times... are they at any of the park bus depots?
I thought it was something they were adding ??

Sorry to hear of the negative Long wait experiences of late. I can imagine the frustration. Hope the rest of ur trips were much more positive.

 

[lambdabeta]

Bingo! There is extreme pressure from uppermost management to keep costs low. As a result, middle and lower management is focused more on the appearance of efficiency than on Guest satisfaction. They want it look like they're saving money. even if they're not getting the job done in the best way. You can see it all around, from less frequent rest room cleaning to the cutting of little extras.

Not exactly. Theoretically, if a bus starts the route at DHS every 20 minutes, then one should arrive at AKL every 20 minutes. But the longer a run is, with more stops, then the more variability there is in the time it takes to complete due to wheelchair loading, traffic, whatever, and the more likely it is that gaps in service will develop.

No argument from me on that. Disney tried to implement true demand-driven dispatching a decade ago, but it failed miserably, IMHO due to a flawed model and corner cutting in technology to support it.

That's how it was done maybe 20 years ago. The problem is that it doesn't account for surges and full buses.

Thank you for the clarification. I know all these people weren't imagining the long bus waits. Now we know why. It is unfortunate they won't do anything about it but that is what I have said since the beginning of this thread. So I will continue to do what I have been and that is to use alternative travel.

 

[charmed59]

I’m from an area where I only use public transportation when I’m on vacation, so my expectations are mostly from other countries. In the last year I’ve used public transportation in London, Brussels, Amsterdam and Dubai. In my experience good luck is the train or bus pulling up as I walk onto the platform, bad luck is the line I want is 6 minutes out. Twenty minutes means I’m looking for other routes, 50 minutes means me, and everyone else, is walking as there is apparently a system wide problem. In this year’s travels the longest I waited for public transport was 10 minutes, when one line apparently got very backed up, as there were 2 trains stacked up behind t

I used the buses at WDW once. Our experience there ranged from 20 minutes to a little over an hour at park close. Since then we either stay at a resort near the park, or we drive. Needless to say, if we chose to go to Disney it is not for the free, fast transportation.

 

[snappy]

I’m from an area where I only use public transportation when I’m on vacation, so my expectations are mostly from other countries. In the last year I’ve used public transportation in London, Brussels, Amsterdam and Dubai. In my experience good luck is the train or bus pulling up as I walk onto the platform, bad luck is the line I want is 6 minutes out. Twenty minutes means I’m looking for other routes, 50 minutes means me, and everyone else, is walking as there is apparently a system wide problem. In this year’s travels the longest I waited for public transport was 10 minutes, when one line apparently got very backed up, as there were 2 trains stacked up behind t

I used the buses at WDW once. Our experience there ranged from 20 minutes to a little over an hour at park close. Since then we either stay at a resort near the park, or we drive. Needless to say, if we chose to go to Disney it is not for the free, fast transportation.

I stay at BWV or BCV so I can walk to Epcot and DHS. Don’t rely on busses very often. Drive to AK. Only attraction of bus service is when staying with a large party who have different plans each day with only 1 car. Then some some of the party has to deal with busses. Forget the busses, at MK at park closure. True nightmare. Won’t find me in that chaos.

 

[goofy4tink]

When someone waits 40 minutes for a bus isn’t interpretation. It’s, well, fact.

There’s little open to interpretation. Actually, if we look at this objectively, if the buses are running on a 20-minute schedule and it takes ≈20 minutes to get to a destination (other pickups, drop-offs, etc.) then it wouldn’t take much to push the total time over an hour. Which is probably why all my ADR confirmation emails recommend allowing up to and hour and a half.

Some people aren’t really bothered by the long wait time. Others are. Especially considering how much they’re paying. IMHO, most people would prefer to not spend a couple of hours a day traveling or waiting...and, it appears it happens more often than not.

Mike

Not always!!! An example. My friend and I arrived at the AKL bus stop for DHS just as the bus was leaving. Ok, no big deal, we weren't in any hurry. We were the only guests standing there. About 10 mins later, a family walked up. Other people arrived over the next 10 mins. So, basically, my friend and I waited about 20 mins for the bus. When the bus came along, that family that had arrived 10 mins after we did, shoved in front of us, saying 'We've been waiting the longest, we get on first!!!!' Okay, sure. Then, the mother proceeds to scream at the bus driver that they have been standing there, waiting for over 40 mins, that the bus service is a joke and that she's going to speak to someone about it and again states that they have been waiting for over 40 mins!!! Fine. As my friend and I board, right behind this terrific family, I leaned down and said to the driver 'Ah, no they haven't been waiting 40 mins. We've been here 20 mins, they arrived about 10 mins after we did!!!' He just grinned and said 'Oh, that's nothing new.'
So, there are many people that tend to exaggerate their wait times. And many times it's easy to do....10 mins can feel like 20 mins in the heat/humidity of Fl when you need to be someplace.

Now, that isn't to say that there have been many instances of guests having to wait 30+ mins....it's happened to me, maybe three times. But, I go to WDW about 5 times a year, for a week at a time usually. I own DVC so stay in those resorts but also stay in value and moderate resorts as well. I have had fairly good bus experiences to date. I was getting used to renting a car but now that Disney has instituted parking fees, that's a big old minus.

And yes, people here do tend to naysay those who report bad bus experiences. I'll go out on a limb and say that maybe 70% of those reports are valid, while 30% are exaggerated. Transportation at WDW isn't perfect, not by any stretch. But, it is generally acceptable.