Bus kiosks thingies!

[mousermerf]

Ok, so.. if anyone remembers my little trek on the Backstage Magic tour recently, I encountered odd looking kiosks.

I asked.. "What the heck are those?" No one here, there, or anywhere seemed to know.

They were like a podium with an angled screen at the top and a little card-swipe thing. No port to spit out tickets or any sort of printer. Just a card swipe and a screen. What on earth would you use that for?

Well, looks like I have an answer - for the new bus control system. The little kiosk would be at the bus stop and each room-key gets swiped to tell the buses to hustle on over because X number of guests are waiting.

Ya think? No? Maybe?

 

[jessfriends]

That would be awesome!!!

 

[Hakunamatata]

Ok, so.. if anyone remembers my little trek on the Backstage Magic tour recently, I encountered odd looking kiosks.

I asked.. "What the heck are those?" No one here, there, or anywhere seemed to know.

They were like a podium with an angled screen at the top and a little card-swipe thing. No port to spit out tickets or any sort of printer. Just a card swipe and a screen. What on earth would you use that for?

Well, looks like I have an answer - for the new bus control system. The little kiosk would be at the bus stop and each room-key gets swiped to tell the buses to hustle on over because X number of guests are waiting.

Ya think? No? Maybe?

Either that or they are really having a problem with people parking at DTD or offsite and finding their way onto the bus system, so this will be Disney's way of restricting bus usage to resort guests only.

 

[brkgnews]

That would go in line with a rumor posted on the boards a while back about swiping keycards at the bus stops.

Hrm... the DTD thing does add some interesting possibilities, too. I'd gladly swipe my card to be able to go from DTD to a park.

Then again, let's think totally outside the box (stupid corporate terms). Maybe some system where the kiosks could go in the main building of each resort, allowing you to add on a day at a waterpark or a night at PI by merely swiping your room card (with the charge showing up later as an incidental on your hotel bill)? They've already got automated ticket kiosks at the TTC -- if these were in hotels, the person would already have their ticket media, so no need to spit anything back out to them.

But again, that's just some blue sky thinking. Your idea sounds much more plausible and has some recent rumor to back it up.

 

[DisneyBride94]

I'm waiting for a food replicator... To heck with Earl Grey. Hot. How about Mickey Bar. Cold?

 

[wickedfan07]

so this will be Disney's way of restricting bus usage to resort guests only.

And the poor people who can't always afford to stay on-property have one less privledge...

If this turns out to be true, I sure hope it doesn't affect the monorails. It'd stink as an off-property Guests to be shunned from such an iconic feature of WDW. As someone who will probably be an off-property guest until I/my family hits the lottery or sells our timeshare (we've already tried the latter), I'd be upset at a move like that.

 

[Hakunamatata]

And the poor people who can't always afford to stay on-property have one less privledge...

It was never a privledge to begin with. On site transportation is a benefite for staying at the Disney resorts.

The monorail would remain open to offsite guests since its the main way to get from the TTC to the MK.

 

[jasondiff]

And the poor people who can't always afford to stay on-property have one less privledge...

If this turns out to be true, I sure hope it doesn't affect the monorails. It'd stink as an off-property Guests to be shunned from such an iconic feature of WDW. As someone who will probably be an off-property guest until I/my family hits the lottery or sells our timeshare (we've already tried the latter), I'd be upset at a move like that.

Well considering you gotta ride either the monorail or the ferry to get to the MK from the parking lot, I don't see them doing this.

As for DTD, I would think swiping your card at a kiosk would still allow people to manage to get onto the bus anyway. It would be much easier to just show your keycard to the driver while boarding.

 

[ToTBellHop]

Well considering you gotta ride either the monorail or the ferry to get to the MK from the parking lot, I don't see them doing this.

As for DTD, I would think swiping your card at a kiosk would still allow people to manage to get onto the bus anyway. It would be much easier to just show your keycard to the driver while boarding.

well, Disney would feel no reason to send a bus if no one scanned at a given stop, and since non-resort guests would not have anything to scan at DTD, this would deter them. They could hop on a bus as soon as a resort guest came by wanting to get to a park, but that could be a long wait, depending on time of day, which seems to be a determent to me. The only people who would wait for that would be the same cheap people who will go to DTD, take a bus to a resort, and then transfer to a park, and Disney won't stop people like that, anyway. They'll always find a way to save their $10 (not that I don't think parking is over-priced, though Six Flags charges more).

 

[mousermerf]

Well, the idea poase elsewhere was that instead of the initial rumored "cameras" watching the bus stops to count heads (imagine the software to get that to work) they're instead opting for a swipe of a card.

The computer simply counts the number of cards swiped, and dispatches buses appropriately. Little photocell beams on the buses themselves count people getting on and deducts it from the number of heads at the stop - and viola, we have more efficient bus operation. No more 5 buses for 3 people at the MK stop every 4mins while the Epcot and MGM stops have 20+ people but not buses for 25mins.

 

[mousermerf]

well, Disney would feel no reason to send a bus if no one scanned at a given stop, and since non-resort guests would not have anything to scan at DTD, this would deter them. They could hop on a bus as soon as a resort guest came by wanting to get to a park, but that could be a long wait, depending on time of day, which seems to be a determent to me. The only people who would wait for that would be the same cheap people who will go to DTD, take a bus to a resort, and then transfer to a park, and Disney won't stop people like that, anyway. They'll always find a way to save their $10 (not that I don't think parking is over-priced, though Six Flags charges more).

Why don't those people realize you can drive from 535 to MK or even the back road by Port Orleans and then do the loop around the MK resorts to park for free? Seriously - stop parking at DtD.

 

[jasondiff]

It was never a privledge to begin with. On site transportation is a benefite for staying at the Disney resorts.

The monorail would remain open to offsite guests since its the main way to get from the TTC to the MK.

At one point the old park hopper tickets said on the back ticket holders were entitled to transportation between MK, TTC, Epcot, and WDW Village at LBV. The more recent tickets no longer say anything about transportation. So on site transportation was a benefit of being a ticket holder, not a resort guest.

 

[Hakunamatata]

At one point the old park hopper tickets said on the back ticket holders were entitled to transportation between MK, TTC, Epcot, and WDW Village at LBV. The more recent tickets no longer say anything about transportation. So on site transportation was a benefit of being a ticket holder, not a resort guest.

Very likely, but how long ago was this? I dont believe its been in the recent past has it?

 

[jasondiff]

well, Disney would feel no reason to send a bus if no one scanned at a given stop, and since non-resort guests would not have anything to scan at DTD, this would deter them. They could hop on a bus as soon as a resort guest came by wanting to get to a park, but that could be a long wait, depending on time of day, which seems to be a determent to me. The only people who would wait for that would be the same cheap people who will go to DTD, take a bus to a resort, and then transfer to a park, and Disney won't stop people like that, anyway. They'll always find a way to save their $10 (not that I don't think parking is over-priced, though Six Flags charges more).

Good point. I wonder how many people taking busses from DTD to the parks are from hotels on Hotel Plaza Blvd. who dislike their sparse shuttle service and decide to walk to DTD to catch a Disney bus.

 

[lwalker8]

The bus system is a priviledge for Disney Resort guests, but that includes all guests going to any theme park. They all, with the purchase of the ticket, gain the rights to use the Disney Tansportation Systems...all of them. And I sort of doubt this is what this kiosk is for. But that's just my opinion.

What would be cool is to have something like this be a system that lets you choose your own fastpass time for a ride ahead of time in the lobby of your Disney Resort. But since it apparently has no slot to put a fastpass out I will just have to keep hoping.

 

[jasondiff]

Very likely, but how long ago was this? I dont believe its been in the recent past has it?

I think it disappeared around 96 when the stamped passes were replaced by mag strip passes.

 

[jasondiff]

What would be cool is to have something like this be a system that lets you choose your own fastpass time for a ride ahead of time in the lobby of your Disney Resort. But since it apparently has no slot to put a fastpass out I will just have to keep hoping.

I remember reading some rumors about interactive TVs in the rooms that would let you do this, then print them out when you got to a park. If it was in the lobby, can you imagine the line for it in the mornings at, say, Pop?

 

[ToTBellHop]

Now, they prefer to be vague in their Disney Transport policy, but pretty much no one will stop a guest with a park hopper from hopping on a bus to another park--that's how you park hop. Then you can have guests with RSVPs at a restaurant at one of the Resort Hotels, and they can hop on the Resort lines. It's meant to be a privilege for guests at the Resorts, but if you have a legitimate reason to be heading around, no one will stop you. One interesting prospect, however, would be to retrofit the machines to also let you scan your park hopper or AP, and then Disney could use a sort of "big brother" system of seeing where you are going--and if you are the AP frequently taking the bus from DtD to a Resort and then hopping on the bus from there to a Theme Park, Disney might exchange some words with you. The computer monitor must be for something, like you could scan your Key to the World, and it would say "OK! Have a Magical day", or you could scan your Park Hopper to get on the bus from AK to MGM, and get the same message. If you wanted to get from a Theme Park to a Resort, however, and didn't have a Key to the World, it might ask you if you are going to a restaurant or just exploring a resort (which you can), and then say something like "OK! Have a Magical day! You will be able to use Disney Transport again in 1 hour." That would be perfectly reasonable for someone with a legitimate reason to be at a Resort, but it would deter the jerks trying to cheat the system.

 

[JML42691]

...What would be cool is to have something like this be a system that lets you choose your own fastpass time for a ride ahead of time in the lobby of your Disney Resort. But since it apparently has no slot to put a fastpass out I will just have to keep hoping.

I believe that Disney is/was attempting to develop this. A proposal was sent for a patent on this design that allowed guests to choose their day plans and recieve fastpasses for certain times from their hotel lobby. This is one of the rumored proposals with the barcode on the side of the new fastpasses. This document was also released around the time that the fastpass machines started to change over to the new ones (about two weeks ago). Does anybody still have the link to this page with all the info before I go searching through my suscribed thread list?

 

[jmvd20]

WDW transportation is supposed to be free to all guests with tickets, not just resort guests. At least that is the way they explained it to me a few years ago when we stayed off site (2004).