Touring monorail resorts

[KappleB2]

Hello! I am so excited to say my mom and I will be down there in September! Only 79 days!
Our last full day there we are having breakfast at Kona and then I plan on spending the day at Epcot. I was thinking we could park at the Poly and then ride the monorail over to Epcot. We have never seen any of the monorail resorts so I thought this would be fun and different for us.

Is this a good idea? How long would it take? How late does the monorail run? Disney transportation is all new to me as we have always just driven our car.

Thank you in advance!

 

[Monty]

Technically, you're not supposed to park at Poly all day if you're only having breakfast. During busier times of year, they can be quite strict on that. September is relatively quiet, so who knows? It isn't a big deal to either park at TTC parking and walk over to Poly or move your car after breakfast.

The Monorail runs from 7AM until I think an hour after the parks close. The Monorail resorts are on the MK loop and EPCOT is a different track. If you want to visit the Monorail resorts, you can go from Poly to GF then past MK to Contemporary and from there go to the TTC and switch to the EPCOT Monorail. I'm not sure if they're still shutting down the Monorails during the day for maintenance or not... or what times they were doing it. Someone willpopin and let you know though...

 

[GoofGoof]

It may work. Definitely make an advanced reservation. I tried this at contemporary one night when I was staying off property and just wanted to go for fireworks and parade without paying for parking. I told them I was eating at Chef Mickeys and they asked if I had a reservation when I said no they told me the resort was at full capacity and they couldn't let me in but if I parked at the MK lot I could take the monorail from the TTC to the contemporary. We ended up trying the Polynesian and it worked. We got in that night. We stayed at BLT this past weekend and my father in law was meeting us for dinner at Kona Cafe. We told him to come and park at our hotel and we would ride the monorail over. They gave him a 3 hour parking pass and said if he stayed longer his car could be towed. No clue if they actually enforce it. I have also had success parking at the Boardwalk and going into the back end of Epcot at night by saying I was going to ESPN Zone. Not sure if that would work at 8am. If you can't get into the resort if you park at the MK lot you can take the tram thing to the TTC/boat launch and walk over to the Polynesian and then walk back to TTC after breakfast to ride to Epcot.

 

[Tom]

Since you never know when Disney will be enforcing their rules, it's best to make your plans based on following their rules.

This said, your best bet is to park at the MK/TTC parking lot, tram or walk to the TTC, then head left and walk to the Poly (or take a 1-stop monorail ride) for breakfast.

Then ride the monorail one resort at a time, ending up back at the TTC, like Monty said.

From there, monorail to Epcot for the day, then monorail back at night. Or, to save you the travel time after a long day, drive from MK/TTC over to Epcot after your resort tour.

This is assuming you're staying at a Disney resort hotel, which grants you free parking at the theme parks. If you're staying off property, it will be even more difficult to try and park at the Poly, unless you have an ADR, at which point they may still only allow you a temporary pass...and may indeed tow your car if the resort is full. Your safest bet is to park at the theme parks as much as possible.

 

[ReganA]

I enjoy checking out the other resorts as well. No matter where we stay, we almost always go to Kona at least once for breakfast. Have fun.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

While not right on the monorail...if you want to tour one more resort in the MK area...you can also catch a boat over to Wilderness Lodge. The boats heading over from MK are probably the most convenient, but you can also catch the lauch from the Contemporary. Ultimately, as others have noted, since Epcot is also in your plans I'd probably park at the TTC to do all of this. When we stayed at the Contemporary last August, we went to Epcot on a EMH nt...so the monorails were not running. The Contemporary shared a bus w/the TTC...so it would still be easy to get back.