unkadug
Follower of "Saget"The Cult
How so? The only difference in a monorail resort and a non-monorail resort is the monorail. :shrug:
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Monorails to no longer operate during Evening Extra Magic Hours
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
How so? The only difference in a monorail resort and a non-monorail resort is the monorail. :shrug:
DonaldDoleWhip
Well-Known Member
The guests staying at monorail resorts are paying the highest rates on property. Is it fair to charge them the highest prices, and then take away the primary amenity of these resorts and provide the guests with the same clunky, slow transport that people get for paying $80 a night?
And you point out that the pros of monorail resorts still outweigh the cons. But how do the monorail resorts now compare to the other deluxes? For half the price of GF, you could be at Wilderness Lodge, which is considered to be one of the best themed deluxes and still offers bus/boat transport to MK. Then there's the Epcot resorts, which cost a fair amount less than the monorail resorts and are a stone's throw from Epcot and a walk/boat ride to Hollywood Studios. $400 a night at GF doesn't seem so acceptable when you're corralled into a switchback queue for a crowded bus and it takes 50 minutes to get back to your room when it should've taken 10-20. When you strip away the monorail during prime hours, all GF and Poly have left is bus transport to everywhere (like the values) and a boat to MK that is way too small to be useful when the monorail isn't absorbing 90% of guests trying to get back to those resorts.
Honestly, I'd rather Disney shut down the monorail completely (until the 'maintenance' is complete) and reduce the rates of monorail resorts so they match the prices of WL/AKL. That way, the 'maintenance' can receive more than adequate attention, and guests at the monorail resorts will at least be receiving some compensation.
googilycub
Active Member
Yes lets inconvience everyone, including those who drive to the parks for the whole day, as opposed to only those who decide to use the late extra magic hours...:hammer:
thehowiet
Wilson King of Prussia
Being inconvenienced three nights out of a seven night vacation is still unacceptable if I have to pay the same rate.
I take full advantage of evening EMH, so I don't care how much time the monorail is available during the rest of the day. If it's not available when I need to use it and I paid for it, that is unacceptable, unpredictable breakdowns excluded of course.
I take full advantage of evening EMH, so I don't care how much time the monorail is available during the rest of the day. If it's not available when I need to use it and I paid for it, that is unacceptable, unpredictable breakdowns excluded of course.
wolf359
Well-Known Member
Yet both are spoken fluently and frequently around here. Don't hate me for wanting to join in. When in Rome, and all that...
DonaldDoleWhip
Well-Known Member
But those are the three times a week when MK and Epcot are supposed to be less crowded for use by resort guests. I know many people who specifically base their park choices around EMH, which is what matters. It doesn't help me that the monorail runs until 11 PM every day of the week, if I can't get back to my room quickly after evening EMH when I paid $400 a night for that amenity.
WL is very close to MK, and it took me on average 30-40 minutes to get from WL to MK via bus (including wait time). On the way back, I took the boat, and it took 30 minutes to an hour. WL doesn't share the bus or boat with any other resort, and it's actually really close to MK (it's a shorter drive from MK to WL than to GF). So if the bus from MK to Poly/GF is shared, that will make it take even longer. Unless they put a ridiculous amount of buses on the route, then I expect that the GF/Poly situation will be worse than WL's current transport situation.
And also, I was staying at Contemporary the day after the monorail crash in 2009. Since the monorail was down, Disney offered a bus to Epcot that was shared between CR, Poly, and GF. It was a long, unpleasant ride. I presume that's what will happen on EMH nights too.
Disagree. I've always found the monorails far busier from 10 PM - 12 AM (when people are done with dinner at Chef Mickey's/California Grill and/or shortly after Wishes ends and/or after the park closes to regular guests) than during the day.
I honestly don't care if the monorail is in operation for 95% of the time. If it's not in operation for the 9 hours that I need it (the nights where MK and Epcot will have reduced crowds and be cooler than during the day), it doesn't help me. Same with other monorail resort guests who base their plans around EMH.
And like WL, AKL is much cheaper than the other deluxes, which further supports my point. The transport factors heavily into the pricing.
Well just look back at the thread. Quite a few people have described the poor, beat-down monorails and the struggling old track. Aw, poor monorails, they're worked so hard that they just can't take it anymore. Well then what difference does 9 hours a week make (if the monorail is still operating for 18 hours a day)? To me, that just says Disney is trying to rescue a sinking ship with band-aids. Make it last longer, not actually improve the guest experience. If Disney wants to do the job right, then do it right. DL lost Space Mountain for 2 years (and I think other E-tickets were down during that timespan for various reasons), and I think it was worth it. I know that SM was necessary because of the foundations, but still, Disney never attempted to just do the minimum to make it last as long as it could. They did what was necessary for safety AND plussed the experience a lot. If the monorails are in such a pathetic state right now, then do the job right and offer alternatives, such as the relatively cheap buses that the monorail resorts will be getting anyway. Then lower the prices because the monorail resorts aren't any better than the other deluxes once they lose the monorail.
googilycub
Active Member
Do you have any transportation expericance to say it will not? As I stated earlier in this thread, I work for a railroad, and have talked to the track guys. They stated that they would kill for an extra 1 hour a day. These guys only work 5 day work weeks, so they would do this for 5 hours, let alone 9. Now I understand that the modes are not quite the same, however unless someone who works for WDW in monorail mx, it is about as close as you are going to get....
DonaldDoleWhip
Well-Known Member
Nope, I know nothing about transportation. But if the issues are as severe as people have indicated in this thread, then it doesn't sound like Disney is doing enough. Like I said, if there is some huge problem with the track and the trains and how they're aging, I'd rather see something done to fix them rather than put the monorail system on life support at the expense of Disney's highest paying guests who receive no compensation for it (and in fact will be paying more for less once next year comes around).
Unless you left after fireworks, I just don't see how that's possible. The trip itself only takes 8 min by boat and there's always 2 boats on the route. In fact if there was only 1 boat on the route and you just missed it, it would be back in 20 minutes, so something isn't right here.
As for the gf/poly route, they will most likely be putting the larger cruisers on that route. It's not like they aren't goin to change anything given the situation.
The other funny comment was that it's unacceptable to not be able to use the monorail, but it's ok if it's an unexpected breakdown. See that's the problem, they can't even keep them running when they are supposed to be. So then we have to scramble to redeploy buses and boats to compensate for rails going down at any given point. OR they can plan for it and hopefully make them more reliable during the times they are supposed to be available.
DonaldDoleWhip
Well-Known Member
The wait was definitely longer than 20 minutes. Maybe it took a long time loading/unloading somewhere on the way? The trip was at least 40 minutes. Either way, if the buses are becoming the prominent means of transport from MK to those resorts, then I would expect similar issues to the ones I faced at WL. But at least WL's pricing reflects the inferior transport available.
And I don't see how that comment is funny. If the monorails break down or there's an emergency, then obviously nothing can be done. It was unexpected and circumstantial, but that's not the norm. To actually schedule a monorail closing while MK is supposed to be open is completely different. And like I said, if the nights I happen to be at MK late are EMH nights, then I am affected, and I don't care about the other 5 nights.
And also, does anyone know what will happen during those 6-9 hours of monorail closure per week? Will the monorails just sit somewhere and be used less (sometimes I've seen monorails inside the CR tower all night)? Or will they actually experience some kind of extra maintenance? If it's the former, then I don't see how this will actually help much. Rather, it's a way to prolong the lifespan of an increasingly hopeless monorail fleet.
patricia27
Member
Monorail Resorts
There seems to be so much anger here on this topic!!
There seems to be so much anger here on this topic!!
unkadug
Follower of "Saget"The Cult
Kamikaze
Well-Known Member
Yes.
thehowiet
Wilson King of Prussia
OR, instead of a short-term band aid fix they can implement a long-term fix.
A number of alternatives have been mentioned in this tread. They can keep the monorails running during evening EMH, they just choose not to because of the expense of adding new/more trains, upgrading the power grid, and making the express side of the resort platforms more accessible and configured for load/unload when the resort beam needs to go down for maintenance.
The Las Vegas monorails run from 7 am to 2 am during the week and from 7 am to 3 am on the weekends, all year round. I realize that during the busy months at WDW the downtime is a little less on some nights, but there are also times during the year that the WDW monorails have more downtime than the LV system. Again, there are solutions to make up for this lost downtime during the busy months. I understand that the WDW system is much, much older, but if they invest money into system upgrades they won't need to reduce operating hours permanently.
That is my biggest problem, the fact that this change appears to be permanent. If it was just temporary to get the system healthy, I would be more understanding.
Patrick_Ears
Well-Known Member
Yes the ferry will be running along with the resort buses.
puntagordabob
Well-Known Member
There are quite a few valid reasons for that...one of which is that TDO apparently was not spending the required funds over many many years to properly maintain/upgrade the system & monorails and now we as the Guest's are going to be the victims of this lack of forsight.
I always thought in the past the TTC ferry stopped running an interval after normal closing and that the monorails were the only way back to the TTC?
Scuttle
Well-Known Member
Because this is a joke! Fix the damn system and like someone said don't just put it on life support. Put the entire monorail system down in September for a few weeks if that's what it takes.