Animal Kingdom Lodge buses

[Dis4us]

Hello everyone,

We are going to WDW on the 4th of Dec-11th. Can't wait!! Staying at AKL was wondering though...been reading some threads on other websites about the busing situation over there. Not a lot of happy campers where that's concerned. This has been going on quite a while. Has anyone heard about rumors, rumblings about this? Does Disney read these blogs and know what's being said? Getting a little concerned about Christmas crowds and transportation. Should I be?:xmas:

 

[NedFlanders]

Stayed there and used the buses during the June time period. It wasn't that crowded at that time but the bus service was absolutely horrible. We had no problem getting to the MK during the day, it was the return that was so bad on the first night that we used a rental car the rest of the trip.

We made the mistake of staying until the park closed. The next thing I know we are waiting in a line for a bus... and waiting .... and waiting... and 1 hour 45 minutes after we arrived at the loading zone we were on the bus... well packed like sardines is a better description.

Now I have no idea how they determine the number of buses that serve a particular resort... but their seemed to be a lot of buses serving most every other resort (you would see a bus loading and another bus right there ready to take over the spot when it left) yet for the AKL you would have a bus loading and leave and then maybe 15 or 20 minutes later another bus would arrive to load some more people... seemed like very shoddy planning. I wouldn't be surprised if you find it even worse around Christmas when the number or people increases.

 

[Master Yoda]

I have stayed at AKL more time than I can count and that resort has some of the best bus service on property. It has a dedicated line with only 2 stops compared to the other deluxe resorts that can share a route with as many as 4 resorts.

 

[dreamfinder]

You ever notice how no one ever posts raves about the bus service at their resort? Because the only time anyone gets that worked up about it is when something is bad. Every resort has its people who complain about the bus service at that resort. And yes, buses do always seem to come for every resort BUT the one I want. Value, Deluxe, all the same. Always the resort or park I want is the one that takes forever. At least that is how it seems.
But no park is really overall worse than any other. I have stayed at AKL, and didn't have any worse sevice than any other resort we have stayed at. Especially at park close, when Disney dispatches buses based on demand at the loading area. Unfortunately, you may have just missed 3 buses for your resort, so now they need to spread the wealth to the others who had been waiting.

 

[NedFlanders]

You ever notice how no one ever posts raves about the bus service at their resort? Because the only time anyone gets that worked up about it is when something is bad. Every resort has its people who complain about the bus service at that resort. And yes, buses do always seem to come for every resort BUT the one I want. Value, Deluxe, all the same. Always the resort or park I want is the one that takes forever. At least that is how it seems.
But no park is really overall worse than any other. I have stayed at AKL, and didn't have any worse sevice than any other resort we have stayed at. Especially at park close, when Disney dispatches buses based on demand at the loading area. Unfortunately, you may have just missed 3 buses for your resort, so now they need to spread the wealth to the others who had been waiting.

Unfortunately I had almost 2 hours to watch as buses were loading up the other resorts with an empty bus queued up right behind to take over when it left... I watched 4 buses come and go for the AKL with at least minutes of time between the time one left and another came... with a cranky kid wanting to go to sleep I was watching my watch very closely.

Now while it is possible that you had excellent bus service when you stayed there, you must also admit that you could have been unlucky like myself and gotten the bus service from Hades... Maybe I hit the lottery and got the only bad service of the year that day, I doubt it. But even if that were the case I wouldn't want to take a 1 in 365 chance of having a miserable time. Best to rent a car and know you can leave when you want, a vacation is too short and people will have stood in too many lines all day in the park to want to waste more time in another line just to get back to go to sleep.

 

[Dukeblue1227]

You ever notice how no one ever posts raves about the bus service at their resort?

This.

Unfortunately I had almost 2 hours to watch as buses were loading up the other resorts with an empty bus queued up right behind to take over when it left... I watched 4 buses come and go for the AKL with at least minutes of time between the time one left and another came... with a cranky kid wanting to go to sleep I was watching my watch very closely.

Agreed.

However, you, like myself and probably every other perosn in the world... we don't seem to think about the times we DO get there and a bus is waiting. If it happens, it's because it was supposed to...

No one can forget the times they've waited over an hour for a bus...

I've stayed at every value there is, two of the moderates, and probably 5 or so of the deluxes...

Can honestly say at every single one there's been a night of my vacation I stayed at MK until after Wishes got over, fought with the thousands of people to the bus lines... gotten in line for my bus, and waiting an hour+ and because you're just standing waiting, you make mental notes of every bus that drives by... if you see two for the same resort before you see one for yours it sticks out like a sore thumb...

Meanwhile if you get there and you get two buses before the resort next to you gets any, it would never cross your mind.

I just rambled on for a longtime... sorry.

Point is, Disney cannot possibly, at the busiest times of the day, accommodate getting every single guest on a bus rapidly. And it really cannot be expected. And if it ever did happen, there'd be zero praise...

(And if it did happen, all the "Why is it so expensive" related threads would multiply 100 fold... in order to accomplish that prices for everything would have to probably triple...)

 

[Lucky]

The system should be more flexible. When there's one really long line and a bunch of short lines, the next bus that arrives should (duh) stop at the longer line. But sometimes you see the next 10 buses stop for shorter lines instead.

 

[CleveRocks]

Every Disney resort has pretty good bus service. There's no such thing as a resort that has consistently poor service versus another one that has consistently perfect service. If people LIVED at these resorts we'd know that. But unfortunately, all we have is transients, people who are at the resort for a week or so every now and then. In other words, if a particular resort happens to have a bad hour or bad day or even a bad week, guests who experienced this will generalize that the service is ALWAYS like that. Even though that would not be accurate.

I'll give you a personal example. During our week staying at the Polynesian, we quite literally never waited more than 2 or 3 minutes for a bus. All week! Should I conclude from that that Poly has the best bus service ever? NO WAY! The buses run every 20 minutes or so at Poly just like they do at every other resort. So what happened to us during our week there is that we were lucky, that we happened to arrive at the bus stop a minute or two before the next bus to our destination was coming.

But think about it. Let's say there was another family trying to go to the same places as us all week, but they got the bus stop 4 minutes later than we did all week. Well, that family would go home telling everyone that they had to wait 20 or 25 minutes for every single Poly bus all week, and they'd tell people that bus service at the Poly stinks.

But I was there the same week and had wonderful bus service.

This is why I generally don't pay attention to reviews of bus service at any resort. I would NEVER pick a resort based on reports of how their buses run, since over time it's about the same at all the resorts.

 

[Master Yoda]

Every Disney resort has pretty good bus service. There's no such thing as a resort that has consistently poor service versus another one that has consistently perfect service. If people LIVED at these resorts we'd know that. But unfortunately, all we have is transients, people who are at the resort for a week or so every now and then. In other words, if a particular resort happens to have a bad hour or bad day or even a bad week, guests who experienced this will generalize that the service is ALWAYS like that. Even though that would not be accurate.

I'll give you a personal example. During our week staying at the Polynesian, we quite literally never waited more than 2 or 3 minutes for a bus. All week! Should I conclude from that that Poly has the best bus service ever? NO WAY! The buses run every 20 minutes or so at Poly just like they do at every other resort. So what happened to us during our week there is that we were lucky, that we happened to arrive at the bus stop a minute or two before the next bus to our destination was coming.

But think about it. Let's say there was another family trying to go to the same places as us all week, but they got the bus stop 4 minutes later than we did all week. Well, that family would go home telling everyone that they had to wait 20 or 25 minutes for every single Poly bus all week, and they'd tell people that bus service at the Poly stinks.

But I was there the same week and had wonderful bus service.

This is why I generally don't pay attention to reviews of bus service at any resort. I would NEVER pick a resort based on reports of how their buses run, since over time it's about the same at all the resorts.

Thank you for this post. I was trying to find a nice way to say "The exaggerated negative reports are full of bull puckey!!!!" and you did it far better than I could.

 

[NedFlanders]

This.



Agreed.

However, you, like myself and probably every other perosn in the world... we don't seem to think about the times we DO get there and a bus is waiting. If it happens, it's because it was supposed to...

No one can forget the times they've waited over an hour for a bus...

I've stayed at every value there is, two of the moderates, and probably 5 or so of the deluxes...

Can honestly say at every single one there's been a night of my vacation I stayed at MK until after Wishes got over, fought with the thousands of people to the bus lines... gotten in line for my bus, and waiting an hour+ and because you're just standing waiting, you make mental notes of every bus that drives by... if you see two for the same resort before you see one for yours it sticks out like a sore thumb...

Meanwhile if you get there and you get two buses before the resort next to you gets any, it would never cross your mind.

I just rambled on for a longtime... sorry.

Point is, Disney cannot possibly, at the busiest times of the day, accommodate getting every single guest on a bus rapidly. And it really cannot be expected. And if it ever did happen, there'd be zero praise...

(And if it did happen, all the "Why is it so expensive" related threads would multiply 100 fold... in order to accomplish that prices for everything would have to probably triple...)

From my perspective if I'm staying in a deluxe resort where I'm paying 3 times the price as someone in a value resort, I expect to see better service... and that means I better not have to wait in line 3 times as long as someone that paid a third of the price I paid.

Does the service always suck? No, never said it did. But if it fails miserably once during your vacation then that is a problem. I don't rely on any Disney bus service anymore that way I know my transportation will be under my control and if it happens to suck it will be my fault... otherwise you are at the mercy of someone making decision to maximize their profit not your enjoyment.