Picking Your Walt Disney World Resort Based on Convenience
By Dave Shute
OVERVIEW: DISNEY WORLD RESORT CONVENIENCE
This site recommends Disney’s Polynesian and Art of Animation Resorts based on their combination of convenience and kid-appeal. If you need to pick a different resort, this material addresses the convenience of all resorts.
The same material is organized in two different ways.
- One list ranks all resorts in order of convenience. You’ll find it here.
- Another list groups the resorts by price category (see this for what you get by price category), and then by convenience, so you can see the most convenient resorts within a price level, and can be found here.
The rest of this page gives the basis for these lists, and ends with a note on future visits.
CONVENIENCE IS RELATIVE
- No Walt Disney World Resort is more than 6 miles from the furthest theme park. Even so, differences in travel time can make a difference in your overall enjoyment of your first family trip, as depending on where you stay, you may be taking as many as 20 bus rides on the Walt Disney World transportation system over the course of your vacation. A less convenient resort that adds an extra ten minutes per bus ride adds up to more than three hours of wasted time. That’s an afternoon at the pool lost, or two great naps!
- Convenience is also relative to where you are going. On your first family vacation, the key destination is the Magic Kingdom, and after that Epcot. So times and convenience to the Magic Kingdom gets the heaviest weight, and Epcot the second heaviest.
NOT JUST TRAVEL TIMES BUT ALSO VARIABILITY
There are a number of sources in books and on the web for travel times. They are mutually inconsistent, and in some cases internally inconsistent. So I rode and timed the trips of a lot of buses, and the recommendations below are partially based on this data, supplemented by what seem to be more reliable other sources, as well as a couple of other factors:
- Beside total trip time, another key basis of my recommendations is that, given the small number of trips you are taking, normal variability can swamp any point estimates of total trip time. Variability comes from three sources.
- First, the buses, although typically expected every 15 to 20 minutes, are not on an exact schedule. Other transportation modes (boats and monorails) are also variable. All of the instructions in the daily itineraries about when to be at a stop add extra time to account for this variability.
- Second, buses can be delayed in loading from large crowds on or off the bus, and/or the need to load or unload wheelchairs and scooters.
- Third, most buses serve more than one stop–multiple stops at one resort, or stops at multiple resorts, or both–and each added stop adds not just length but also variability to total trip time.
- Also, different resorts are served by buses with wildly varying resort rooms potentially served per bus, ranging from around 700 to near 4,000. Larger numbers of potential guest rooms served per bus indicate that you may need to wait in line for a second bus because the people ahead of you in line fill up the first bus to drive up, and also hints at whether you are likely to have to stand on your trip.
The lists rank resorts by convenience in terms of total likely trip time (weighted based on trips in the Basic Itinerary), adjusted for variability and for (weighted) resort rooms served per bus.
- One list ranks all resorts in order of convenience. You’ll find it here.
- Another list groups the resorts by price category (see this for what you get by price category), and then by convenience, so you can see the most convenient resorts within a price level, and can be found here.
NOTE FOR FUTURE VISITS
Convenience varies based on what you plan to do, and you will do different things in your future vacations, which likely will make the Epcot resorts more convenient then than they are for your first family trip.
This is because the parks at Walt Disney World are laid out like a backwards L, with the Magic Kingdom at the top of the L, the Animal Kingdom at the end of the bottom of the backwards L, and Epcot and Hollywood studios at the corner of the backwards L. One of the Epcot resorts will put you in the center of the action.
Resorts that will move up the convenience scale for future trips because of this include the Epcot Resorts the Beach Club, the Yacht Club and the BoardWalk Inn, and also the nearby Caribbean Beach, Pop Century and Art of Animation Resorts.
MORE ON WHERE TO STAY AT DISNEY WORLD
- For where to stay, see this
- For your next best choices, in order, see this
- For picking your resort based on appeal to kids, see this
- For picking your resort based on convenience, see this
- For where not to stay, see this
- For what you get in each resort price category, see this
- For Walt Disney World resort price seasons, see this
- For resort reviews, see this
- For the value resorts, see this
- For the moderate resorts, see this
- For the deluxe resorts, see this
- For suites at the deluxe resorts, see this
- For the Disney Vacation Club (“DVC”) Resorts, see this
- For a (geeky) overview of comparative room size, see this
- Military/DOD families should look at this
- Families seeking the most comfortable place to stay should see this
14 comments
Hi Dave…more questions! (Third one in the last week!) We will likely stay at either Pop Century or AoA when we go in 11 months. (Leaning towards AoA if we can get a room there.) A couple things I was wondering about in relation to the convenience factor. We will be driving to WDW and so will have our car available on the trip. Is it worth considering driving to and from the parks each day rather than taking the Disney buses? And, a somewhat related question, if we do drive to the parks each morning but want to eat first at Landscape of Flavors, could we drive from our room (it would be a Little Mermaid room) and have a place to park near Animation Hall? Or is that area pretty much reserved for buses and guests checking in? The 10 minute walk to breakfast would be fine, but then having to walk back to the room to get our car and go to the parks seems silly. Maybe it’s not worth driving anywhere once we’re on property, but from numerous reviews I’ve read, the buses seem like they could be an issue. I don’t want to spend alot of time waiting around for a bus if we have our own car and it would be easier to take that. Just curious…thanks for your help!
Hi Brooke, for three of the four parks driving is always better than the buses. The exception is the Magic Kingdom, where it’s always better to take the bus!
And yes, there’s central parking at both Pop and AofA to which you can drive from your room, park, eat, and then drive to the parks…
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Thanks so much Dave…I appreciate the advice! Just due to my own curiosity, why is it so much better to take the buses to MK?
Brooke, at MK, the parking lot is at the TTC, and after you park, you still have to take either a monorail or the ferry to get to the park entrance. This adds another 15-30 minutes to travel time for cars vs WDW buses, which drop you off right outside the MK entrance…
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[…] As far as in-park costs go, Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World are comparably priced. Ticket prices are about the same, as are food prices and souvenirs. Disneyland Resort does not have multiple hotel tiers, so if you stay at one of the three Disneyland Resort hotels, expect to pay a lot per night of your stay (about as much as you’d pay at a Walt Disney World Deluxe Resort). Walt Disney World’s Moderate and Value Resorts are less expensive. However, off-site hotels are Disneyland Resort are much more conveniently located to the parks than off-site Walt Disney World hotels. We typically pay less for our off-site hotel at Disneyland Resort than we do for our on-site Walt Disney World hotel, and that off-site hotel is closer to the parks at Disneyland Resort than the hotels at which we stay in Walt Disney World! It’s touched upon above, but it’s important to know that not all Walt Disney World hotels are conveniently located. […]
Not sure where is the best place on the site to ask this Q: I am interested in using taxis a few times to spare us the ordeal of moving the car or getting on the bus. If you get a taxi to go from one park to another, can you get one easily? Can you get dropped off right at the gates of the MK, or do you have to go through the transportation center still? I want to avoid the transportation center, as it sounds like a madhouse. Specifically, we have one night with a babysitter where we will leave HS and then have to get back to HS for a dining res. Then later that night we may want to go to MK.
Jane the axis drop you off near the parks except, as you feared, at MK. At Mk it is indeed at TTC. Usually they are easy to get…
I want to make sure we are located by a pool with a hot tub and close to bus stop we booked one bedroom villa what do u reccomendi have special needs for my foot so need to be close to pool to soak my foot
Hi im staying at Saratoga Springs resort one bedroom villa which the best for close to pool and bus stop..
Diana
Diana, there are multiple bus stops and multiple pools. All of them have hot tubs. Take a look at this, part of this review.
We have always stayed at Deluxes (first at Wilderness for 3 trips, then 3 at Contemporary, and staying at Beach Club this summer). Looking at a trip early March 2018, and considering Port Orleans Riverside. We do not rely on Disney transporation. Will I be annoyed/disappointed at a Moderate? I kind of have sticker shock on the rates for the dates I am looking at for the Wilderness…
Rachel, as long as your expectations are reasonable (smaller rooms–though comparable to WL; less kid appeal; less interesting pools; more sprawl) it’s a great idea. If you end up finding moderates adequate, then in future years you’ll save a lot of money.
You could also get deluxe style spaces at moderate prices by renting DVC points for a studio. See this.
I’m wanting to make dinner reservations at different resorts and Disney Springs but I’m wanting to find the quickest form of transportation to and from the parks and resorts for time measures as we would be leaving the park and coming back after we eat. I’ll choose what day I plan on spending at what parks based on the reservations for quicker transportation. We will have our own vehicle but wouldn’t mind using any of the transportations at Disney as long as it’s the fastest transportation to and the parks. I’d like to do reservations from Disney Springs, Disney Beach Club resort, Disney contemporary resort, Disney’s grand floridian resort & spa, Disney’s Polynesian village resort and the cabins at Disney’s fort wilderness resort. We plan on spending 2 days at each park at minimum without visits to the water parks. My question is what park is closest to each of these resorts and what form of transportation would be the fastest to and from one another? Is there maybe an app that I could punch in where I want to go from where and it would tell me what transportation would be best lol.
Well, Vanessa, I guess you could do that, but many times of the year you would be better off picking your parks first, then fitting your reservations in around them. There are no certain time estimates, as variables include where you are in a park when you start your journey to transport, how long you have to wait for transport, etc.
The Beach Club is just outside of Epcot’s International Gateway, and is walkable from Epcot. Give yourself half an hour to get to it form Epcot
Disney Springs is not close to anything. Buses run there from the resorts, and after 4p from the parks. Give yourself an hour to 90 minutes to get there.
The Contemporary, Grand Floridian, and Polynesian are all stops on the resort monorail loop that also stops at Magic Kingdom. Once you are at the front entrance of the park, where the station is, plan on ~20 minutes for the Contemporary and ~30 for GF and Poly.
Fort Wilderness is accessible by boats that run from the front of MK. Give yourself 40 minutes from the front of MK.
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