Update on Disney World Monorail Closures

As detailed here, the two monorail loops serving the Magic Kingdom began closing on weekdays from 11.30a til 7p last week.

I was at the Contemporary Thursday through Saturday, experienced the closures on Friday, and so thought I’d give a bit of an update, with photos. Along the way, there’s detours into the new buses, and Polynesian construction!

But the short version is that there’s lots of buses and all seems to be going fine.

Friday I started the day with a visit to the Wilderness Lodge to pick up a few more photos for the re-review. While in line for the boat from the Wilderness Lodge back to the Contemporary, I heard another guest complaining that because the monorails were down at TTC, the boat was the only way she could get back to the Contemporary.

I couldn’t think of any sensible scenario where getting from TTC to the Contemporary included a boat from the Wilderness Lodge, so I thought I’d better check out how the outage was going…

I started at the Contemporary bus stop, where you can now find buses to the Magic Kingdom and to TTC.

I walked to the Magic Kingdom, and saw along the way two different track gang vehicles–here’s the one I got a better shot of.

At the Magic Kingdom bus stop, I saw the buses heading to the monorail resorts and to TTC.  The Polynesian and Grand Floridian shared one bus at spot 1, and the Wilderness Lodge and Contemporary Resort shared another at spot 2.

There was also a different bus stop for TTC, at spot 28.  Here’s the slot assignments the day I was there. (As always, click the photos to enlarge them.)

As I walked up to the TTC slot, one of the new articulated buses pulled away from it.  I was bummed to not get a ride in one of these–they are enormous!

But I did get this photo of three of them lined up at the bus stops.

Here’s a closer shot of the new buses.

Then I took a regular bus from the Magic Kingdom to TTC.  The rolling time was 5 minutes.

Here’s the TTC signage for the buses to the monorail resorts.

The bus sharing is the same here (or at least it was when I was present).

I suspect the poor woman who took the bus to the Wilderness Lodge, and then the boat to the Contemporary, got that idea from a Wilderness Lodge guest on the bus who didn’t realize the bus went both places…and only knew about the boat…

There’s also buses to the Magic Kingdom at TTC (plus, of course, the ferry).  These have better signs than the buses to the monorail resorts, including this one.

From TTC I walked to the Polynesian–despite the construction at the Polynesian, the walkway is still open. When they need to move stuff from the staging area to the construction area, they’ll shut it down for a bit.

The only new thing about Poly construction I noticed, by the way, is that Tahiti is now sealed off behind construction fabric.

Here’s a shot of the construction from Tokelau, which remains open.

Then I went to the Polynesian bus stop and grabbed a bus to the Magic Kingdom.  As was the case at the Contemporary, Magic Kingdom, and TTC, I waited less than five minutes for the bus.  I’d guess average waits will be on the order of ten minutes.

The bus to the Magic Kingdom from the Polynesian heads first to the Grand Floridian, then backtracks around the Seven Seas Lagoon to the park.  Rolling time plus the time at the Grand Floridian was about 15 minutes–the return trip, where the Poly will be visited first, will be about ten minutes.

Later that evening, when the monorails were running again, I took it both ways. It took about two minutes to get back to the Contemporary from the Magic Kingdom, and 13 minutes to get to the park in the first place.  Crowds were light both ways.

At the Contemporary, I heard a different woman complain to the monorail cast members–“How can you call yourself a monorail resort with monorail closures?” she asked.  A fair question.

But maintenance needs to happen, and, at least on this quiet Friday with no evening parade at the Magic Kingdom, the buses filled in just fine.

I’m a little worried about how this will work on days when people are trying to get to a 7p parade…and I’m really concerned about the week of President’s Day, when both the hotels and the parks will be mobbed–but at least on Friday, all was well.

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