Monorails to no longer operate during Evening Extra Magic Hours

[zulemara]

This decision ONLY makes sence if TDO does indeed put the extra time and money into Monorail maintenance...which we will just have to wait and see.

agreed, but from what I have heard and based on previous changes(express opening time pushed back while ferries take people in earlier in order to perform additional maintenance) I do think they are serious about this. I don't know if this was coming for a while or if the events on the 3rd/4th pushed it(that's kind of my guess) but it's a good thing.

 

[zulemara]

Someone's appreciation of a service never has to do with it's availability when they don't use it - they care about when they use it. If your city bus runs 40 times a day, you only care about the small window when you need it. That's the consumer for you. And these people do use EMH.. so the fact the monorail was running the whole day doesn't mean anything to them when it's not running when they need it.



The boat routes won't change... and the boats load a heck of a lot slower then the monorails and travel a heck of a lot slower.. and there are less boats. I think a 'people will get there faster' is a fantasy. The boats are better if you get there right before they leave... or just are interested in a relaxing ride. Speed or efficiency has never been their strong point.

If you get on a monorail and are going to the gf, it takes 20 minutes to get around the track.

If you get on the boat it takes less than 5 minutes. It is 20 minutes for the boat to get around the lake(including dock time) and there are 2 on the route = boat every 10 minutes. If you just miss one, 10+5=15 minutes. I race the monorails around the track when I'm on the gold and I'm telling you, I keep right up with them. The fact that guests will be split means only poly/gf guests will be using the boat. The reality is after the initial exit of the park, it's a slow slow trickle during late night emh.

I NEVER compliment management, EVER, but this was the right decision because these things are falling apart and don't have time for maintenance without making the hard decision like this.

 

[DonaldDoleWhip]

Someone's appreciation of a service never has to do with it's availability when they don't use it - they care about when they use it. If your city bus runs 40 times a day, you only care about the small window when you need it. That's the consumer for you. And these people do use EMH.. so the fact the monorail was running the whole day doesn't mean anything to them when it's not running when they need it.



The boat routes won't change... and the boats load a heck of a lot slower then the monorails and travel a heck of a lot slower.. and there are less boats. I think a 'people will get there faster' is a fantasy. The boats are better if you get there right before they leave... or just are interested in a relaxing ride. Speed or efficiency has never been their strong point.

Thank you. As a consumer who has a trip at the Grand booked for August, this does affect our plans, since there are actually 2 MK evening EMH's that week and one Epcot evening EMH. The monorails are almost always packed when I leave MK in the evening, and while less people take the boats, they are often full because of the low capacity. To force all of Grand and Poly's guests onto the boat will be ridiculous.

And if this change results in the monorails being fixed, great. But I don't think the monorails are actually being fixed - it just seems like a way to draw out their lives as they die a slow, painful death. If there was any good news to be shared, Disney should've mentioned it (they could've said something like "in order to conduct a gradual refurbishment of our monorail fleet blah blah blah"), since the reaction to this hasn't been positive from the vast majority of monorail resort guests who post on this board (and others).

And there is more to this than EMH. What about someone who's staying at Contemporary and has dinner at Citricos? MK closed at 9, so the monorail stopped at 10, and dinner ended at 10:15. Instead of taking an 8 minute monorail ride to CR, the route becomes a lot more frustrating and time-consuming.

I know Disney's doing this for a reason, but I don't think the reason is positive. At least not from a guest standpoint.

 

[828tnt]

Disney's Declining Standards by Degrees


when does this get an acronym?

 

[puntagordabob]

People staying at monorail resorts will still have access to the monorail the majority of the time. Making it seem like its not worth the extra price of a monorail resort because of those extra 3 hours once a week is ridiculous. Alternate transportation will be available and the boats A) go to the grand first(because I know it's going to be largely grand ppl complaining about this) B) won't have TTC people C) have only 2 stops instead of 4, therefore I would anticipate service for poly and gf people to be equally efficient if not faster. the CR people will end up on a bus and the TTC ppl on a ferryboat.

Sounds like a great press release for TDO.... Sorry I do not buy into your scenerio that times will actually improve WITHOUT the monorail in use.... I suspect that this is going to be a complete pain to the Guests at these monorail resorts..... if I were in Guest Relations at the park I would be bringing a bottle of aspirin because it is going to be an unpleasent shift for them.

Thank you. As a consumer who has a trip at the Grand booked for August, this does affect our plans, since there are actually 2 MK evening EMH's that week and one Epcot evening EMH. The monorails are almost always packed when I leave MK in the evening, and while less people take the boats, they are often full because of the low capacity. To force all of Grand and Poly's guests onto the boat will be ridiculous.

And if this change results in the monorails being fixed, great. But I don't think the monorails are actually being fixed - it just seems like a way to draw out their lives as they die a slow, painful death. If there was any good news to be shared, Disney should've mentioned it (they could've said something like "in order to conduct a gradual refurbishment of our monorail fleet blah blah blah"), since the reaction to this hasn't been positive from the vast majority of monorail resort guests who post on this board (and others).

And there is more to this than EMH. What about someone who's staying at Contemporary and has dinner at Citricos? MK closed at 9, so the monorail stopped at 10, and dinner ended at 10:15. Instead of taking an 8 minute monorail ride to CR, the route becomes a lot more frustrating and time-consuming.

I know Disney's doing this for a reason, but I don't think the reason is positive. At least not from a guest standpoint.

I suspect your theory of extending the lives of the apparently sick monorail fleet rather than replacing it is in fact a driving force here.

If you get on a monorail and are going to the gf, it takes 20 minutes to get around the track.

If you get on the boat it takes less than 5 minutes. It is 20 minutes for the boat to get around the lake(including dock time) and there are 2 on the route = boat every 10 minutes. If you just miss one, 10+5=15 minutes. I race the monorails around the track when I'm on the gold and I'm telling you, I keep right up with them. The fact that guests will be split means only poly/gf guests will be using the boat. The reality is after the initial exit of the park, it's a slow slow trickle during late night emh.

I NEVER compliment management, EVER, but this was the right decision because these things are falling apart and don't have time for maintenance without making the hard decision like this.

Yeah us CR Guests get crammed into the busses....and the GF/POLY Guests get crammed into boats... wont THAT boat ride be awesome if it is raining!!!! Add some lightning and it will be a E-Ticket! Funny thing...Florida being subtropic and all...it does rain here a lot...and in case you are unaware we ARE supposedly the lightning capital of the USA and perhaps of the world.

Disney's Declining Standards by Degrees


when does this get an acronym?

Sad...this entire decision is sad!!!!

For everyone that talks all this business talk to back up their decision at TDO...consider that it is supposed to be standard business practice to depreciate an item over its life and to in turn save up the money required for its replacement after its expected lifetime ends.... Considering the expected life of the monorails was probably calculated to be far less than our current fleet has given us then TDO should have most if not all of this money earmarked for this purpose so WHAT is the problem!?

FIX OR REPLACE the darn monorails........

 

[dave&di]

WDW has never p****d me off before so this is a first! I always stay at a Monorail resort and have booked to stay at the GF next year. I guess I will get the Ferry Boat to the TTC and walk back to the GF! I presume the Ferry Boats will still be running for EMH??

 

[BigThunderMatt]

If I stay at the Poly or Contemporary I pay a LOT of money for the amenities included in these resorts and one of the amenities is the monorail. I also pay to stay at an overpriced Disney resort because I want to use the EMH. So I expect that the monorail brings me to the MK and back during the EMH too, the same goes for EPCOT.
If these are "usual reactions" to some commentators here because TDO again cuts down services for the guests and still dares to raise prices for both the parks and the resorts, then I don't give a damn about, I AM very annoyed and I think everyone who pays for the monorail resorts should be too.

The monorail serves 3 of 23 resorts on property. The majority of guests are unaffected by this change. The only ones that are are the ones that decide to stay until 3 am when the park closes at midnight and I can tell you from having personally worked many an EMH night that thats not a lot of people. And those people are a representation of the guests staying across property. The minuscule amount of them that are staying at a monorail resort I'm sure does not justify the cost of keeping the monorail lines up that late.

83% of resort guests have to take a bus regardless. Is it really going to kill you to take on or worse, walk across the street, on the off chance you're there that late one night out of your trip?

 

[BigThunderMatt]

WDW has never p****d me off before so this is a first! I always stay at a Monorail resort and have booked to stay at the GF next year. I guess I will get the Ferry Boat to the TTC and walk back to the GF! I presume the Ferry Boats will still be running for EMH??

They will still be running the resort boats (the ones that drop off at GF and Poly) and at that time of night I can guarantee you will probably get on the first boat at the dock.

The reactions of some of these people is absolutely absurd. EMH Evening at MK is ONE NIGHT out of the week people. Unless you're planning on staying 3 weeks and hitting every MK Evening EMH this change is going to affect you VERY little. Get over yourselves.

 

[patricia27]

Monorail

It`s hardly a marathon walk from the Magic Kingdom to the Contemporary!! The buses are fine too. I`m sure it will save money,which is a good thing!! Also as others have said there will be extra time for servicing the monorails, which is important for all our safety.

 

[flynnibus]

If you get on a monorail and are going to the gf, it takes 20 minutes to get around the track.

If you get on the boat it takes less than 5 minutes. It is 20 minutes for the boat to get around the lake(including dock time) and there are 2 on the route = boat every 10 minutes. If you just miss one, 10+5=15 minutes. I race the monorails around the track when I'm on the gold and I'm telling you, I keep right up with them. The fact that guests will be split means only poly/gf guests will be using the boat. The reality is after the initial exit of the park, it's a slow slow trickle during late night emh.

If it's a slow trickle - then why not simply reduce service by keeping the last two monorails that will be out of the barn anyways on the resort loop. By your admission it's low capacity, they don't need a lot of trains.

Because that costs labor to keep the monorail system running longer, and it puts more hours on the system. That's about cost - not about getting more barn time. They couldn't get them in the barn anyways.. so make it so the last two are the first ones serviced in the AM, for them to come back online in the afternoon/evening shifts.

And what's the capacity of your boat.. 30? And I'd question your optimistic times... the launches always wait. I love the boat ride - but the cycle time kills it. The ferry is the same way... really effective but so slow to cycle - even with both running.

 

[CaneinBatonRoug]

They will still be running the resort boats (the ones that drop off at GF and Poly) and at that time of night I can guarantee you will probably get on the first boat at the dock.

The reactions of some of these people is absolutely absurd. EMH Evening at MK is ONE NIGHT out of the week people. Unless you're planning on staying 3 weeks and hitting every MK Evening EMH this change is going to affect you VERY little. Get over yourselves.

I don't think they're being absurd. They paid a premium for these "perks".

I never have, nor will I ever stay at a deluxe resort. This doesn't affect me at all.

One thing of note though, if you stay at a monorail resort and don't use the EMH perk, you can continue to call it a monorail resort. If however, you do plan to use the EMH perk, from now forward you must refer to your resort as "the world's most expensive Holiday Inn".

 

[puntagordabob]

WDW has never p****d me off before so this is a first! I always stay at a Monorail resort and have booked to stay at the GF next year. I guess I will get the Ferry Boat to the TTC and walk back to the GF! I presume the Ferry Boats will still be running for EMH??

The large ferry boats do not operate during EMH

The monorail serves 3 of 23 resorts on property. The majority of guests are unaffected by this change. The only ones that are are the ones that decide to stay until 3 am when the park closes at midnight and I can tell you from having personally worked many an EMH night that thats not a lot of people. And those people are a representation of the guests staying across property. The minuscule amount of them that are staying at a monorail resort I'm sure does not justify the cost of keeping the monorail lines up that late.

83% of resort guests have to take a bus regardless. Is it really going to kill you to take on or worse, walk across the street, on the off chance you're there that late one night out of your trip?

Guests get lower services.... doesnt matter what excuse you mask it with. Seriously am amazed that point escapes!

It`s hardly a marathon walk from the Magic Kingdom to the Contemporary!! The buses are fine too. I`m sure it will save money,which is a good thing!! Also as others have said there will be extra time for servicing the monorails, which is important for all our safety.

10 minutes at best...but what of our family who has a handicapped member? If TDO did what was really required to make the monorails operate as they should (fix em, replace em..whatever it is) then we wouldnt be here. For the first 39 years this was always the way it was.....now suddenly its OK to lower the Guest experience... interesting

 

[peter11435]

If it's a slow trickle - then why not simply reduce service by keeping the last two monorails that will be out of the barn anyways on the resort loop. By your admission it's low capacity, they don't need a lot of trains.

Because that costs labor to keep the monorail system running longer, and it puts more hours on the system. That's about cost - not about getting more barn time. They couldn't get them in the barn anyways.. so make it so the last two are the first ones serviced in the AM, for them to come back online in the afternoon/evening shifts.

And what's the capacity of your boat.. 30? And I'd question your optimistic times... the launches always wait. I love the boat ride - but the cycle time kills it. The ferry is the same way... really effective but so slow to cycle - even with both running.

I guess you missed the part about there being more to monorail system maintenance than just the trains. I'm not surprised.

 

[mystical magic]

If they really need to shut it down longer for maintenance then that's exactly what they should do. Many have complained long and hard about WDW not performing the necessary maintenance in their parks and allowing them to decline. Well it looks this is a case where they are not.

I have one suggestion for TDO - Make a bridge over the canal to connect the sidewalk from MK to GF! This would help not only with the newer shorter hours of the monorail allowing another option beside boat or bus, but also at high rider times of the monorail. And yes, it would have to be a draw bridge so the EWP could exit and enter.

I also think they should consider a minimum closing time of the monorail of, say 10pm. The MK resorts have many restaurants and shows that go on in the evenings and the monorail facilitates the ability of resort guests to get to those venues.

 

[wdwmagic]

Just got off the phone with a castember and she assured me that the monorail is down for maintenance and it is NOT a permanent change.

It is a permanent change unfortunately. Whoever you spoke to has the information wrong.

 

[BrittanyRose428]

Thank you. As a consumer who has a trip at the Grand booked for August, this does affect our plans, since there are actually 2 MK evening EMH's that week and one Epcot evening EMH. The monorails are almost always packed when I leave MK in the evening, and while less people take the boats, they are often full because of the low capacity. To force all of Grand and Poly's guests onto the boat will be ridiculous.

And if this change results in the monorails being fixed, great. But I don't think the monorails are actually being fixed - it just seems like a way to draw out their lives as they die a slow, painful death. If there was any good news to be shared, Disney should've mentioned it (they could've said something like "in order to conduct a gradual refurbishment of our monorail fleet blah blah blah"), since the reaction to this hasn't been positive from the vast majority of monorail resort guests who post on this board (and others).

And there is more to this than EMH. What about someone who's staying at Contemporary and has dinner at Citricos? MK closed at 9, so the monorail stopped at 10, and dinner ended at 10:15. Instead of taking an 8 minute monorail ride to CR, the route becomes a lot more frustrating and time-consuming.

I know Disney's doing this for a reason, but I don't think the reason is positive. At least not from a guest standpoint.

I didn't even think of this, thats a very good point. This gives me even more reason to believe that if you're paying for a monorail resort you should have access to the monorail during EMH.

 

[Monorail Lime]

I have one suggestion for TDO - Make a bridge over the canal to connect the sidewalk from MK to GF! This would help not only with the newer shorter hours of the monorail allowing another option beside boat or bus, but also at high rider times of the monorail. And yes, it would have to be a draw bridge so the EWP could exit and enter.

This was planned for a long time. The personalized bricks in front of the Magic Kingdom and in the Poly/GF area were advertised as a "Walk Around the World" because they were originally going to link everything together. It's a great shame it was never finished.

 

[flynnibus]

The monorail serves 3 of 23 resorts on property. The majority of guests are unaffected by this change. The only ones that are are the ones that decide to stay until 3 am when the park closes at midnight and I can tell you from having personally worked many an EMH night that thats not a lot of people.

The monorail serves the 3 most expensive properties...
The 'majority' does not matter when dealing in customer service. Customer service is about each individual
How do you get this 'only those that stay until 3am' claim? EMH is generally 2-3hr past normal closing time. Anyone staying more then 1 hour into EMH is impacted... it has nothing to do with it being 12am or 3am.
And for the nth time, if it's not a lot of people, it shouldn't be a lot of train needed to maintain the service for them.

Service should be able to be staggered as train demand varies. Disney is either trying to reduce costs or simply trying to reduce hours on the trains.

And those people are a representation of the guests staying across property. The minuscule amount of them that are staying at a monorail resort I'm sure does not justify the cost of keeping the monorail lines up that late.

83% of resort guests have to take a bus regardless. Is it really going to kill you to take on or worse, walk across the street, on the off chance you're there that late one night out of your trip?

Please to save Disney... never apply for a Customer Service role. Your attitude towards guests is the polar opposite of what it should be.. which is YOU matter.. not 'well there isn't enough of you here to make it worth my time'

Those 3 resorts represent over 2300 hotel rooms - all of which paid more for that resort's location for one reason - the monorail.

Say, while you are at it, why don't they cut early morning monorail service too?

Or maybe is it because the maintenance window is the part Disney isn't willing to expand? and would rather cut services then expand labor?

 

[BrittanyRose428]

It`s hardly a marathon walk from the Magic Kingdom to the Contemporary!! The buses are fine too. I`m sure it will save money,which is a good thing!! Also as others have said there will be extra time for servicing the monorails, which is important for all our safety.

What if I'm with someone who isn't good walking? Part of the reason we stay at Monorail resorts are because some of the older members of my family really only care about MK and Epcot and it's much more convenient for them to just get the monorail without even going outside the hotel than for them to have to walk to bus stops and what not.

 

[wm49rs]

What if I'm with someone who isn't good walking? Part of the reason we stay at Monorail resorts are because some of the older members of my family really only care about MK and Epcot and it's much more convenient for them to just get the monorail without even going outside the hotel than for them to have to walk to bus stops and what not.

As has been stated before in the thread, the ferry boats will continue to run for guests at both the GF and Poly. And for those handicapped/ECV guests, there are boats large enough to accommodate them as well.