Just have to vent... Disney buses

[3DisneyFanz]

Enjoy the show and the food!

And a beer after that adventure!

 

[rwdavis2]

This is why on all the trips in my signature we took a Disney bus 1 time.

 

[goofyintoronto]

I'd email Disney and complain! 52 min is just ridiculous!!!! Glad you made it thou.

 

[DisneyFive]

Thanks all!!! Oh yeah, we got our money's worth of beer and sangria this evening. Had just a bit of anxiety built up. . Heading over to MK now to use our Wishes FP's.

We scored some fantastic seats for being category 2. Just to left of stage, second row. Nice!

-Dan

P.S. We have also stayed at Pop Century twice and I agree, the buses are better there, hands down. Direct, both ways. The only problem with the pop century is that the lines (after the parks close) are a tad longer than they are for Port Orleans Riverside in our experience.

 

[Sean91]

We stayed at the Pop Century twice and thought the busses where fantastic, doing The Saratoga next trip and getting slightly worried about the busses due to what I'm hearing lately

 

[toothfairy7]

Booked POR next spring. Again, has me second guessing the $$ I'm spending. Prices continue to rise while services decline. How long can you tick people off, Disney, before they just give up and stop coming??!!

 

[DisneyFive]

Booked POR next spring. Again, has me second guessing the $$ I'm spending. Prices continue to rise while services decline. How long can you tick people off, Disney, before they just give up and stop coming??!!

Oh I wouldn't worry about it. Port Orleans Riverside is a wonderful resort. Overall, the buses aren't that bad. It's a great place to stay. Today was not normal, although it was extremely frustrating.

-Dan

 

[gdrj]

Booked POR next spring. Again, has me second guessing the $$ I'm spending. Prices continue to rise while services decline. How long can you tick people off, Disney, before they just give up and stop coming??!!

POR is our favorite moderate resort. We did have a long wait for a bus one day BUT you can probably say that about any of the resorts. As far as the service decline and ticking people off and the eventual people not coming... not sure if this would rise to that ( I do fully understand OP's frustration and anxiety).

While no one wants anything to go wrong "Blank" happens at times. If you truly feel service is declining you should second guess yourself about the $$ your spending. With busses leaving 25 plus hotels for 4 parks, 2 water parks, DTD, every 20 minutes from about 7 AM until at times 2 in the morning, things will happen. Doesn't mean you have to be happy with it. The transportation system is more extensive then some cities and from my commuting experience, usually much more dependable. If you want to say service is declining that may be a fair point, but not on a bus being a no show.

 

[DisneyFive]

Plus at POR you're not very far from Ft. Wilderness and your dinner show, it would be a very quick cab ride, instead of trying to bus it to MK and then another bus or boat from there.

Tell me about it!!! As we were on our way to MK (to transfer to the boat for Ft. Wilderness). We drove right by the entrance to Ft. Wilderness campgrounds. By that time I felt like screaming to the bus driver to PULL OVER AND DROP US OFF!!! But we were in one of those massive new articulating buses that was COMPLETELY full. We actually had to turn people away by the time we got to the last bus depot at POR. That will tell you how many people were waiting by that point! Not even one of those massive buses could hold everyone waiting. Which isn't even a busy timeframe, 4:45 pm or so...

-Dan

 

[EZMoney]

Got to our bus stop at port Orleans riverside 50 minutes ago and still haven't left the resort!!! We have a 6:15 pm dinner at hoop dee Doo review and I think we're going to be late now. We got to the bus stop a full hour and a half before the show. Super frustrating.!!!

Dan

Riverside is the worst bus stop situation I have experienced. You have to go to the first stop to have a solid chance. At the time we were there last, that was the lobby stop.

 

[pmaurer74]

I think POR was the only resort we did start driving but most of the time we fly and have to rely on the buses. AK was the next worst place we stayed with the buses.

 

[plutoloversmom]

Why didn't you just take a boat to Downtown and jump on a bus straight to the resort?

 

[sharona]

Our 1 stay at POR was our last time taking Disney buses. Beautiful resort but horrible bus service both to and from the parks. We are firmly in the rent a car camp now. We did stay at POP once after that and used the bus to MK once and it was fine but we prefer to drive even to MK. Our next trip is a short one to Dolphin and I don't have a rental car planned but we will walk or boat to EP and HS and taxi to/from the CR when we want to go to MK.

 

[Aimeedyan]

We, too, have been burned too many times by the buses and now just drive to the parks/resorts (with the exception of Magic Kingdom - I think that is usually not worth driving to).

On vacation, my time is money - especially when I've spend gobs of it on park admission - and standing at bus stops is not how I love spending "money"

So glad you made it - I love that show and hope you did, too!

 

[ArwenMarie]

Buses always kind of stink as a mode of transportation in my experience. When I lived in NYC, they took FOREVER to get anywhere and were often crowded and standing room only. I also went to school at a big state school which was sprawling and had a bus system and it was a mess. Talk about waiting forever. I avoid buses as much as I can now because I think I am scarred lol. But on the other hand, I'm glad they are at WDW should I need them one day.

 

[HopperFan]

In my book, 1.5 Hours is a good guideline for a max window in getting to your dining EXCEPT for anything at the campground. We too cut it close to HDDR and we left almost 2 hours before. Normally we drive to all but we wanted to drink. You have no control over when a bus will come to your resort, then you have to arrive at the MK. You have no control if there will be a boat or when. Even if there is a boat (and you get on it), you have no control over when it will actually pull out of the dock for a variety of reasons or even if they make you get off and board a bigger boat due to lines. Then you stop at WL and then sometimes you sit out in the lake until they clear the dock. I was shocked how long it took and honestly it would be my biggest deterrent in booking it again.

 

[DisneyFive]

Why didn't you just take a boat to Downtown and jump on a bus straight to the resort?

For a few reasons... Buses to DTD are few and far between, and bus service from DTD to resorts is typically slow. In addition, once to Ft. Wilderness, there would still be an internal bus transfer to the back (where Pioneer Hall is) which adds a decent amount of time too.

 

[cakebaker]

One of the most important criteria when we choose a resort is the transportation issue. We automatically rule out any resort that has internal transportation. While we may have been lucky and not had huge waits like this- ever- there are some resorts that are just better than others. Since we will not deal with driving our car, we try to make sure we pick a resort where we are confident that the transportation works well. We were pleasantly surprised at how well AOA does it. Hands down, the best we've ever experienced. The downside is their stops are the furthest away from the park entrances, making for long walks after a long day- but we'd certainly stay there again.

Our favorites are those who offer multiple options though. It could be why we're such fans of Disney transportation over using our own car- we don't stay where we know the service could be an issue.

 

[tlmadden73]

That is pretty ridiculous wait, especially since buses should be going to the most popular park (MK) on a regular basis.
But I would have potentially, after waiting that long, (like an above poster said) . just taken a bus or boat to Downtown Disney and gone to Fort Wilderness from there.

My last trip, I had no issues with bus transportation at Pop Century (though the wait to get a bus to DHS first thing in the morning was a bit long, but honestly that was more due to my crew taking their sweet time getting to the bus stop and missing the earlier buses ).

The issues I had was boats not running due to thunderstorms and having to wait and find alternate transportation.

 

[OrangeU]

I've stayed at POP a couple of times and never had an issue, except for late departures from MK. We just hopped on the AOA bus and walked that time, and it was fine. I'm kind of concerned about POR because we check in in 2 days, and we're going to be in Aligator Bayou (5 person rooms). Any tips? Just head to the main stop every morning?