Beware: Bus driver's ....stories of getting lost on busses in WDW

HinunterZuNich

New Member
Original Poster
Well I have a funny story from our trip last week to WDW relating to a bus ride back to POR from the Magic Kingdom (end of the night). After waiting quite a while to get on the bus due to two wheelchairs needing to be loaded, we got on our way for what seemed to be an EASY ride back to the POR. We make the usual turns but I see that our bus drive seems to be fairly shaky on the road that leads past Fort Wilderness and such. She is driving extra slow and when other cars/busses pass she seems to move to the side as if she's afraid their going to hit our bus.

We finally make the turn on the road that hosts POFQ/POR and start to get near our turn into the resort. The only problem is that she forgets to turn and as this occurs pretty much everyone on the bus started going "turn turn turn" .....which she didn't do :( She was supposed to turn into the entrance that is between POR/POFQ since the busses never use the main entrances but that never happened. She proceeds to the light and turns onto the road that OKW and SSR are on, all of the people on the bus hoping she turns into OKW and makes a U-turn! ......and guess what, she didn't.

Finally she gets on the mic and in a very scared voice says "Your very dumb bus drive got lost" ....but that was it, no explanation of where she was going to turn back or anything. After we FINALLY get to Saratoga Springs, she proceeds to make another wrong turn in that resort and drive through it in it's ENTIRETY. Most of you know that the resort is fairly large, why did she not just take the road that leads to the main building and loop around.

About five minutes later we turn back towards POFQ/POR and as the turn arrives, no joke everyone on the bus was yelling "turn" over and over to the point that I felt really bad for her. She apologized and for the most part people were amused (at her not with her) about the situation, so there was no abuse towards her for getting lost.

Wow...post-WDW vacation feeling is starting to kick in, thus this post was born and while I know it has no true meaning it sure was an experience that needed to be told.
 
It's actually really surprising that they would let a driver out on their own without knowing the route they're running in their sleep...I hope the bus driver quality isn't slipping...

:brick::brick::brick:
 

Hakunamatata

Le Meh
Premium Member
It's actually really surprising that they would let a driver out on their own without knowing the route they're running in their sleep...I hope the bus driver quality isn't slipping...

:brick::brick::brick:

Not to sound rude, but I question why they let some of the bus drivers they have behind the wheel of a bus. There have been a couple that seemed to have difficulty speaking understandable english. This does not seem to be very safe in my opinion.
 

Master Yoda

Pro Star Wars geek.
Premium Member
We had a bus driver mistakenly turn into Old Key West one late night on the way back to POR from MK. The bus driver readily admitted to the mistake, took us through Old Key West, made a few parody like DVC sales pitches and then got back on track.

Turned out to be a funny punch line on the end of a great day.
 

DVC Dave

New Member
i am not sure if our driver got lost, missed the turn or whatever....but al of a sudden our driver gets on the mic and goes and here is the Saratoga Springs resort...I just thought you might like a look at it. We were headed back to the Beach Club from DownTown Disney.
 

Trishnh

Active Member
Well I have a funny story from our trip last week to WDW relating to a bus ride back to POR from the Magic Kingdom (end of the night). After waiting quite a while to get on the bus due to two wheelchairs needing to be loaded, we got on our way for what seemed to be an EASY ride back to the POR. We make the usual turns but I see that our bus drive seems to be fairly shaky on the road that leads past Fort Wilderness and such. She is driving extra slow and when other cars/busses pass she seems to move to the side as if she's afraid their going to hit our bus.

We finally make the turn on the road that hosts POFQ/POR and start to get near our turn into the resort. The only problem is that she forgets to turn and as this occurs pretty much everyone on the bus started going "turn turn turn" .....which she didn't do :( She was supposed to turn into the entrance that is between POR/POFQ since the busses never use the main entrances but that never happened. She proceeds to the light and turns onto the road that OKW and SSR are on, all of the people on the bus hoping she turns into OKW and makes a U-turn! ......and guess what, she didn't.

Finally she gets on the mic and in a very scared voice says "Your very dumb bus drive got lost" ....but that was it, no explanation of where she was going to turn back or anything. After we FINALLY get to Saratoga Springs, she proceeds to make another wrong turn in that resort and drive through it in it's ENTIRETY. Most of you know that the resort is fairly large, why did she not just take the road that leads to the main building and loop around.

About five minutes later we turn back towards POFQ/POR and as the turn arrives, no joke everyone on the bus was yelling "turn" over and over to the point that I felt really bad for her. She apologized and for the most part people were amused (at her not with her) about the situation, so there was no abuse towards her for getting lost.

Wow...post-WDW vacation feeling is starting to kick in, thus this post was born and while I know it has no true meaning it sure was an experience that needed to be told.

OMG!! That same thing happened to us returning from the MK late one night and going to PO Riverside in April!! We saw a lot of behind the scenes stuff-LOL!! We were WAY out of the way and almost off Disney property. I felt kind of bad for the bus driver because he had no clue!! He had to stop the bus and ask for directions from another driver!!:lol:
 

One Lil Spark

EPCOT Center Defender
OMG!! That same thing happened to us returning from the MK late one night and going to PO Riverside in April!! We saw a lot of behind the scenes stuff-LOL!! We were WAY out of the way and almost off Disney property. I felt kind of bad for the bus driver because he had no clue!! He had to stop the bus and ask for directions from another driver!!:lol:

:eek: That is crazy!
 

PintoColvig

Active Member
Honestly, you guys need to try not to make fun of the bus drivers. They are a great source of rumors about upcoming changes at the world. :lookaroun
 

HinunterZuNich

New Member
Original Poster
I want to add to my original post that this didn't in any way mean the bus driver was bad. I think since they had just shut down half the bus stops at the Magic Kingdom that day, she may have been sent to a new route since our queue was past full. I'm leaning towards the idea that she was supposed to do another route and last minute they had her switch. It's still odd though that she wouldn't know all the resorts since that's their main job, but I'm going to say she was new and overwhelmed :)

If anything on this trip, I felt more interest in one day working in WDW transportation. Whether it be the busses, boats, or monorail, they all seem like great jobs!
 

brertigger

Member
This happened to me once.
We were going from PORS to MK. The bus driver arrived at EPCOT and said "Sorry about that folks, I'm usually an EPCOT bus driver. We will be at MK in about 10 more minutes."
 

Victoria

Not old, just vintage.
Apparently Disney has hired a pile of new drivers and let them all out on the road last week. I, like the OP, had a driver get us lost on the way back to POFQ/POR. We ended up in OKW. We also had 2 drivers only stop at POR even though the bus was clearly marked that it was going to BOTH resorts. It was only after a lot of yelling and shouting that we were able to get the driver to drop us (about 20 people) off at POFQ. We had yet another driver who drove a max. of 30mph from MK to POFQ. :brick: One driver we had thought he was Mario Andretti and took every corner so fast I was actually praying for a seatbelt.

All my trips to WDW have relied on Disney transport and I have never had an issue prior to this trip. Between all the above shennanigans and the fact that wait times for a bus were astronomical left me less than impressed. I realize that WDW doesnt promise buses more frequently than every 20 minutes, but a 35 minute wait between buses at park closing is a bit much.
 

sandman50

New Member
Not to sound rude, but I question why they let some of the bus drivers they have behind the wheel of a bus. There have been a couple that seemed to have difficulty speaking understandable english. This does not seem to be very safe in my opinion.

I seem to have noticed a trend in this lately also.
Being a U.S. commercial vehicle driver for most of my adult life I can agree with you.I guess we shouldn't judge but I would like to have my driver speaking clearly the language of where he is driving.

Now I have never had any driver I felt totally unsafe with,but I can sure tell when they're new at it.
Sometimes it can just be the bus itself too.Those auto transmissions can be pretty jerky.And I can tell you that if you don't spend alot of time with the same bus it can make a big difference in how you drive it.

I can just imagine how they must feel in a different bus at park closing,standing room only,in the pouring rain trying to navigate around.

My favorite ride was coming out of EPCOT at park closing,full load safely drag racing another bus out of the park.
Everyone gave up a cheer for that one.:lol:


rich
 

Woody13

New Member
In reality, none of those events were a mistake. The bottom has dropped out of DVC sales and the DVC sales staff has now resorted to slipping a few extra dollars to the bus drivers so they will “mistakenly” turn into the SSR and drive around the place. It’s just another desperate DVC sales tactic. :animwink:
 

Victoria

Not old, just vintage.
In reality, none of those events were a mistake. The bottom has dropped out of DVC sales and the DVC sales staff has now resorted to slipping a few extra dollars to the bus drivers so they will “mistakenly” turn into the SSR and drive around the place. It’s just another desperate DVC sales tactic. :animwink:


Hmmm. Interesting theory you have there. Who knows for sure if that is what is really happening though. :lol: It really sucks for Disney if DVC sales are down as bad as you say since they seem to just keep building and building new DVC resorts. I guess they have to reach a saturation point eventually. I want to buy into DVC very badly but I don't want to do it at SSR. I'm going to wait and see what the next DVC property is going to be (Contemporary?) and then either buy at the new resort or buy a resale.
 

TTATraveler

Active Member
While I have never been on a bus that got lost and had to turn around at another resort, I have often wondered why some drivers take the most indirect route possible to get somewhere.
 

Register on WDWMAGIC. This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.

Back
Top Bottom