I spoke with Disney about my upcoming ADR's (I have Chef Mickeys at a 7AM opening spot in August, staying at All Star Music), and inquired about the shuttles. I was informed that you should check in with concierge the moment you arrive, and they will help you book a spot on the shuttle for the character breakfasts.
You were given incorrect information.
There are no spots to be "booked." The buses run starting around 6:30 a.m. They'll run maybe every 30 minutes or so until about 1 hour before park opening ... at that time, they start running about every 15-20 minutes like usual.
Like I said, there's nothing to reserve for an early bus that goes to Magic Kingdom. Believe me, there is nothing a Lobby Concierge cast member can do to get you to Chef Mickey's on-time. WHY? Because
those buses run very early 365 days a year. They don't work on a reservation system. They show up. Every morning. They show up beacuse lots of people have early ADRs at Chef Mickey's as well as at Crystal Palace (inside MK). You wait at the stop. You get on the bus. You ride. You can walk from Magic Kingdom across the street to Contemporary Resort, the location of Chef Mickey's.
Also, when you board the bus, you should
casually mention to the driver that you have an early ADR at Chef Mickey's. The driver doesn't HAVE TO do this, but he/she is permitted to drop you off directly at Contemporary Resort on his/her way to MK on those early morning runs.
Disney's weakest link is that there is no place to call with questions. Or rather, there's no place to call where you can be assured to get an accurate answer.
When you call 407-W-DISNEY, you are NOT calling a question-and-answer line, you are calling a reservations number. The cast members at the call centers (there are several call centers ... the biggest is at WDW itself, but there are others that aren't even in Florida) are there to make resort reservations, make dining reservations, and sell tickets and other entertainment.
Those cast members are NOT trained in all aspects of WDW. They aren't trained in how the buses run. They aren't trained in restaurant menus and allergies. They aren't trained in specific resort policies except those related to making a reservation. And so on.
Unfortunately, those of us who've hung around this message board (and others) can go on and on about the laughably wrong information people have been told.
Overall, Disney doesn't cross-train its cast members. They are trained for a specific role, and beyond that they get little else. This is true all across WDW.
Just yesterday, for example, a relatively new Disney cast member responded to someone's transportation question. He did this as an individual on a message board, he did not do it as part of his job. Anyway, someone who will soon stay at Polynesian Resort asked if there was any andvantage to walking to the Transportation & Ticket Center and getting an Animal Kingdom bus there as opposed to going to the Poly bus stop and waiting for an AK bus there. This new CM, who identified himself as a monorail driver, responded that the question-asker was mistaken, that her question didn't make sense ... he said that none of the monorail resorts had bus service to or from any parks, and that she would have to go to the TTC to catch a bus to AK.
Well, of course, he was wrong, and several of us told him so. He got defensive and disagreed, and even tried to quote from a training pamphlet given to monorail CMs. Well, would you believe that the pamphlet was wrong???!!! The pamphlet, at least as he reported it, did seem to say that if you want to get from any of the monorail resorts to ANY park you'd need to take the monorail to the TTC and then take a bus, ferry or monorail to a park from there.
In this case, Disney's own training information was wrong!!!
So it makes sense to me that you'd stand a good chance of getting bad information over the phone from a reservations CM.
My strongest advice to you is DON'T ask about bus service from any CM at your resort. The VERY BEST people to ask about bus service are the only people who are trained in it, and that is the bus drivers themselves.
Seriously, while at WDW, the bus drivers are the people to ask about buses. Feel free to ask the driver of whatever bus you're on about how to get from Point A to Point B. Better yet, you can usually find drivers hanging out near each park's bus area as well as at the TTC; they all wear the same costume (uniform), so they're easy to spot. They'll be happy to answer any of your Disney Transport-related questions.
But before you go to WDW, you can ask your questions right here at WDWMagic ... there are many of us here who can help and who like to help!
