How far to the parks?

[doindisneyagain]

Just a question to those of you who have stayed at FW. We are going for the first time in Feb. We were planning on going back to the camper for lunch and dinner. Is this doable? I've heard it takes almost an hour to get to the park, then an hour back using disney transportation. What are you're experiences? We don't really want to drive back and forth to the parks - we did that last year when we stayed off-site. We are looking forward to letting Disney do the driving!

Thanks!

 

[tiggereyore]

I might not be that much help but I'll chime in. We went in Oct and chose to drive to the parks( heck we'd driven from Vermont) we had my mom and dad ( not a park person!!!!!) and us as well as a 4 1/2 yr old and 22 month old. I wanted my jogging strollers so it was a choice I made. We drove to MGM in 10 min took my Dad 35 to get back by bus to the front Outpost. Epcot he hung in for the full day so can't help there. Animal Kingdom It took him and hour and half (he was hopping mad) MK we took the boat took him 1/2 hour. Driving was easy and when you wanted to get back with cranky kids it was easy. We left the parks most days by 3 and they fell asleep for the nap on the way home I relaxed then did dinner while they were sleeping then after dinner we could go to the pool which we did everynight for 2-3 hrs. Also with driving we could let them sleep in the am and still make park opening. We saved money by eating at counter service the boys and I could usually share 1 meal. We averaged $15 a day ( i had packed snacks). it was actually relaxing to sink into to your own seat (not a garenteed thing on a bus) after walking all day. Another little perk was I have and automatic starter in my sequoia and so it would be cool when we got there and easy to find in the parking lots.
Christy

 

[Colleen A.]

We were just there last month and I think the most it took us to get to any of the parks was a half hour (I think that was to Animal Kingdom). We would come back to the trailer for dinner, then hop back to the parks in the evening. Heck, here's a good example of the time it took - we left AK after the 3 pm Lion King show (so say 3:30)...we made it back to the trailer (which was in the 200 loop), heated up pizza for dinner, ate the pizza, fed the peacocks, walked to the marina, DH bought munchies in Settlement Depot, caught the boat to MK, through bag check.....all by 4:50. I remember this vividly because I commented to the bag checker that we still had 10 minutes to wait for SpectroMagic. He said we had plenty of time....they postponed it til 6pm! Heck, I could of done more shopping at the Settlement Depot!!

Do you know what loop you are staying in? I liked the preferred ones since I didn't need to rely on the internal buses to get around FW. Also, since you don't need to go through TTC anymore to switch buses, it's really easy.

 

[Memph1s]

We take the boat to MK but drive ourselves everywhere else.
At the worst it is as fast as a bus and you never have to wait and you always get a seat. . We leave a cooler in the car and will come back to it for lunch. When the park hours are short like they are now you loose a lot of park time coming and going to camp for lunch. Now in the summer when the parks are open late we will go back to camp for a swim and lunch and then go back to the parks.