Wilderness Lodge Bus Question

[KSquared]

I have a few questions regarding the buses at WL. Our home resort is Old Key West so my experience has been based solely on that so I'm trying to gather information about the buses at WL.

Does WL share buses? I have seen conflicting reports on different forums!
How long is the average travel time? I know it would not take long to get to MK, but am curious about the other parks.
How early do the buses start running for EMH? If we want to be there for RD how early should we be waiting for a bus?

I would love any advice regarding the buses, thank you in advance!

 

[Weather_Lady]

WL sometimes shares buses with Fort Wilderness during non-peak times of day, but the resorts are so close together that it only adds 3-4 minutes to your travel time. It's always way less than 10 minutes to the MK and more like 15 to Epcot/HS and 20 to AK. The ferry to MK is also a nice option, and potentially faster if you happen to arrive just as a boat is arriving or loading up.

In theory, buses begin running an hour before park opening, including EMH. However, Wilderness Lodge, like all Disney resorts, is prone to bus service failures. Every single WDW trip we've ever taken, regardless of whether we stayed at a Moderate or a Deluxe, we've had at least one instance of waiting 60+ minutes for a bus. During our stay at WL last May, that instance was a 90-minute wait for an AK bus on an EMH morning. The very first AK buses of the day pulled up to WL around 7:55am (with the park opening at 8:00am) to find a huge, angry mob that had been on their phones for half an hour pleading, begging, arguing and threatening anyone at WL or in Disney Transportation who would listen, trying to get a bus. Still, I don't think this is an issue unique to WL, since it always happens to us once on every trip... overall, we were very happy with the transportation. A typical wait for a bus, both at WL and at the parks, was 10 minutes or less. If we wanted to be at a park for rope drop -- meaning we were aiming to arrive at the park about 30 minutes before it opened -- we were typically standing at the WL bus stop one hour before park opening (or 70 minutes for AK, and more like 45 for MK). If traveling at a more popular time of year with higher-than-average crowds, we'd have arrived at the bus stop even earlier.

 

[dave&di]

I think @Weather_Lady has answered it for you, we stayed at the WL in 2012 and had no issues with the buses, to get to the MK the ferry boat is a joy to ride!

 

[216bruce]

Yeah, agree with the above. we've stayed there over two dozen times over almost 20 years and you get the occasional ridiculous bus wait. Normally it's fine. The service also will share with GF sometimes depending on the route. In the past we also shared with the Poly a couple of times and it's never been more than a few minutes extra. The boat to Mk is magical, especially at night.

 

[DisneyJunkie]

My only major complaint with staying at the WL is the bus transportation. The signs posted at the bus stop state that buses come by every 20 minutes or so, but for most of the time, the buses that DO come every 20 minutes aren't necessarily the buses you're waiting for. I'd say the wait is more 25-30 minutes, during which you can have buses come and go to every other location except the one you're trying to get to. And yes, the resort does share buses with some of the other resorts too, which makes your travel time even longer. I would, if you're trying to get to the Magic Kingdom, instead go to the boat dock and take the launch from there. It may or may not stop at the Contemporary on the way, but it's a nice ride regardless.

On the whole, I've pretty much experienced bus transportation issues in any WDW resort I've stayed at. It's definitely bad at WL, but it's even worse at the moderate resorts (probably the value ones too, but I can't testify to it), where you have to go through the internal bus system before they leave the resort and actually head out to the destination.

 

[Tuvalu]

The bus to MK goes directly to the MK, a five minute ride tops. Because of the proximity to MK, MK buses tend to arrive at WL fairly quickly.

Epcot buses share with Ft. Wilderness campground. WL is picked up first and dropped off first on the return from Epcot.

In the morning, the Studios bus is shared with GF, with WL picked up first. Later in the day the Studios route is shared with Ft. Wilderness.

 

[KSquared]

Wow! Thank you everyone! I really appreciate all of your wonderful responses.

 

[ToTBellHop]

The bus to MK goes directly to the MK, a five minute ride tops. Because of the proximity to MK, MK buses tend to arrive at WL fairly quickly.

Epcot buses share with Ft. Wilderness campground. WL is picked up first and dropped off first on the return from Epcot.

In the morning, the Studios bus is shared with GF, with WL picked up first. Later in the day the Studios route is shared with Ft. Wilderness.

I was just going to say, depending on the location, we either shared with FW or GF this past January. There was only one morning where we had an EXCESSIVE wait (1 hour), but that was the morning of the marathon. These things happen.

It was a nightmare getting to DTD, but I think that is the case, in general, now with the construction. We won't bother going there again until the work is done. I was quite satisfied with travel time to the parks from WL.

I almost never experience more than 20 minute waits for a bus to come at ANY WDW resort. And, despite what others say, I have always found WDW bus service to be pretty uniform across all of the resorts in terms of the actual amount of time it takes to get to a park (e.g. Pop has only one stop and doesn't share, but you routinely have to wait for the 3rd or 4th bus in the morning; CBR has multiple stops but they send buses frequently; deluxes have only one stop but most share buses with other resorts). Excepting DTD, if I leave about 45 minutes from the time I arrive at the bus stop to the time I want to be at the park, I am usually satisfied (and when I get lucky and the bus I want shows up almost immediately, all the better!).