I don't understand the bus situation I experienced

Pmlocke · May 3, 2016

My wife and I made our annual trip to WDW this past February. For the first time I experienced something that still leaves me puzzled. Waiting for a bus to the Magic Kingdon at ASMu. It is 9 AM. No bus in sight but buses for all of the other parks are at their pick-up stations. Buses for Animal Kingdom came and went, a total of 5 buses in a row. The last three left with no passengers because, c'mon, they were literally parked one behind the other. Epcot had four buses in a row and Hollywood Studios had four in a row. Downtown Disney had three. All of this going on and not one bus for the Magic Kingdom. In a time period of 20 minutes there were 16 buses. Finally a bus for the Magic Kingdom showed up and unfortunately my wife and I were left because the bus became full. 20 minutes later and, I am not lying, 14 more buses came and went before one more showed up for the Magic Kingdom. At this point there were over 100 people waiting in line. I went inside and complained, I confronted bus drivers who had empty buses to no avail. I just don't understand how they coordinate this bus system. Like I said, we have never experienced this before. It never happended again, just that one morning. There must be a way for the bus driver to call into dispatch and say, "look we have 100 people waiting here and I have no one waiting for my scheduled stop. Can I make a change?" Common sense, right?

disneydreamerinny · May 3, 2016

I agree. They should have bus monitors at every bus stop keeping track of comings and goings to at least call and see what the hold up is and give guests an update every 5-10 minutes. I wouldn't think it would be that difficult to staff throughout the day.

jerseygal · May 3, 2016

Pmlocke said:
My wife and I made our annual trip to WDW this past February. For the first time I experienced something that still leaves me puzzled. Waiting for a bus to the Magic Kingdon at ASMu. It is 9 AM. No bus in sight but buses for all of the other parks are at their pick-up stations. Buses for Animal Kingdom came and went, a total of 5 buses in a row. The last three left with no passengers because, c'mon, they were literally parked one behind the other. Epcot had four buses in a row and Hollywood Studios had four in a row. Downtown Disney had three. All of this going on and not one bus for the Magic Kingdom. In a time period of 20 minutes there were 16 buses. Finally a bus for the Magic Kingdom showed up and unfortunately my wife and I were left because the bus became full. 20 minutes later and, I am not lying, 14 more buses came and went before one more showed up for the Magic Kingdom. At this point there were over 100 people waiting in line. I went inside and complained, I confronted bus drivers who had empty buses to no avail. I just don't understand how they coordinate this bus system. Like I said, we have never experienced this before. It never happended again, just that one morning. There must be a way for the bus driver to call into dispatch and say, "look we have 100 people waiting here and I have no one waiting for my scheduled stop. Can I make a change?" Common sense, right?

That certainly is WIERD! "Who's minding the store"? :scratchin

mouse driver · May 3, 2016

Not trying to defend what happened but maybe this will help understand what happened.
First, if you waited that long, you shouldn't have if everything was going right.
One reason why you may have seen so many buses for other parks at that time of morning is something called a "crazy 8". These are buses based out of DS that run a different route early in the morning. With DS being officially closed yet at 9am these buses will go out to a resort and bring people to a park and then go back out to another resort. No idea why none were going to MK unless they changed something since I was there.

As far as the lack of buses to ASM, MK is the only park that runs dedicated runs to the individual All Stars. Maybe they sent a couple of buses and one or two of them needed to go to FIW. That would leave a hole in the schedule. If the "box" was calling the shots that morning then it would not have picked up on that. The coordinators should have though once the driver called in and said they had a dirty bus.

Next time you wait like that and there is no one waiting for a bus going to a different park ask the drive if "he can make some magic" That phrase works real well. But I will tell you drivers have no control as to where their bus goes. It is all up to the coordinators.

bluezy · May 3, 2016

Pmlocke said:
My wife and I made our annual trip to WDW this past February. For the first time I experienced something that still leaves me puzzled. Waiting for a bus to the Magic Kingdon at ASMu. It is 9 AM. No bus in sight but buses for all of the other parks are at their pick-up stations. Buses for Animal Kingdom came and went, a total of 5 buses in a row. The last three left with no passengers because, c'mon, they were literally parked one behind the other. Epcot had four buses in a row and Hollywood Studios had four in a row. Downtown Disney had three. All of this going on and not one bus for the Magic Kingdom. In a time period of 20 minutes there were 16 buses. Finally a bus for the Magic Kingdom showed up and unfortunately my wife and I were left because the bus became full. 20 minutes later and, I am not lying, 14 more buses came and went before one more showed up for the Magic Kingdom. At this point there were over 100 people waiting in line. I went inside and complained, I confronted bus drivers who had empty buses to no avail. I just don't understand how they coordinate this bus system. Like I said, we have never experienced this before. It never happended again, just that one morning. There must be a way for the bus driver to call into dispatch and say, "look we have 100 people waiting here and I have no one waiting for my scheduled stop. Can I make a change?" Common sense, right?

We had a very similar thing happen during our trip last June but it was at Animal Kingdom Lodge and we were trying to go to DHS. We had been at AKL for dinner and wanted to go over to DHS for a ride or two and then to watch the Frozen fireworks. We got to the bus stop at AKL at 7:50...just as the 2 CM's with the iPads were walking away. For the next 35 minutes we watched 3-4 buses for every other park along with DTD/DS come and go. Many of them were empty when they arrived and empty when they left. We finally asked a bus driver if he could just radio in and find out if there was a DHS bus on the way - that we hadn't seen one in almost 40 minutes. He called (and we heard the entire conversation) and dispatch said that there was a bus on the way and should be there in 5-10 minutes. Fifteen minutes later (and after watching yet another bus or two show up for every other park) and the DHS bus was finally there. That was a 50 minute wait...way too long. We didn't really get to do much at DHS before staking out our spot for Frozen...but we loved those fireworks so much that we forgot all about the long wait for the bus.

AngiTN · May 3, 2016

Just one of those bus flukes. They happen. They are rare, thank goodness but every so often something slips through the cracks and a route is overlooked. It would be nice if they put the TV monitors up in ever spot to at least let folks know.

Personally, if I wait beyond 20 min I jump on another park bus and switch there

bluezy · May 3, 2016

AngiTN said:
Just one of those bus flukes. They happen. They are rare, thank goodness but every so often something slips through the cracks and a route is overlooked. It would be nice if they put the TV monitors up in ever spot to at least let folks know.

Personally, if I wait beyond 20 min I jump on another park bus and switch there

Can't speak for the OP, but we just kept thinking, "The next bus *has* to be for DHS.....Ok, the *next* bus has to be for DHS...." Had we known it was going to take nearly an hour for our bus to get there, we would have taken a bus to Epcot and walked/boated over to DHS. Hindsight is 20/20. Fortunately, in all of our trips to Disney, even with riding the buses numerous times a day, this was only the 2nd time we waited an unreasonable amount of time for a bus (the other one was waiting for a bus to DTD/DS at GF but we weren't in any hurry that day).

kaytieeldr · May 3, 2016

After the second series of buses, I would have - have, actually - approached the next driver to pull in. Glitches happen but 40-50+ minutes did extraordinary.

spinandmarty · May 3, 2016

the only bus problem I had last week. was leaving the HDDR late show, walked up to bus stop they actually had someone there. I asked when would bus for Pop be there. he told me all buses go to Magic Kingdom. Transfer to resort there.. I said oh that's new, He said no I've been here 2 years always been that way.... Think that's what PO'd me the most!!!! was there late Jan 2015, wife and daughter there Oct 2015... Bus's straight to resort... So we rode bus to MK, lines were nuts, Waited in line as 4 bus's came and left before we finally got on, 3 of them the double bus's... From the time we left HDDR to Pop 1 hour 50 minutes... Had I known would have drove and rode internal bus's....

joelkfla · May 4, 2016

For the most part, buses going to one park have nothing to do with buses going to another park. The buses and drivers are assigned to their park, they are on fixed, predetermined routes, and are not allowed to switch parks because there are more Guests waiting for another park. Agreed, that's not optimum for Guests, but that's the way Disney does it.

That being said, at All-Stars in the morning (and Pop, AoA, & PO as well), there are a number of "floater" buses kept in reserve. They are waiting to be dispatched to handle unusual crowds going to any park. Some one is supposed to be monitoring the queues, and dispatching those floaters as needed. Apparently that some one was not doing their job, or not doing it very well.

maxiesmom · May 4, 2016

Pmlocke said:
My wife and I made our annual trip to WDW this past February. For the first time I experienced something that still leaves me puzzled. Waiting for a bus to the Magic Kingdon at ASMu. It is 9 AM. No bus in sight but buses for all of the other parks are at their pick-up stations. Buses for Animal Kingdom came and went, a total of 5 buses in a row. The last three left with no passengers because, c'mon, they were literally parked one behind the other. Epcot had four buses in a row and Hollywood Studios had four in a row. Downtown Disney had three. All of this going on and not one bus for the Magic Kingdom. In a time period of 20 minutes there were 16 buses. Finally a bus for the Magic Kingdom showed up and unfortunately my wife and I were left because the bus became full. 20 minutes later and, I am not lying, 14 more buses came and went before one more showed up for the Magic Kingdom. At this point there were over 100 people waiting in line. I went inside and complained, I confronted bus drivers who had empty buses to no avail. I just don't understand how they coordinate this bus system. Like I said, we have never experienced this before. It never happended again, just that one morning. There must be a way for the bus driver to call into dispatch and say, "look we have 100 people waiting here and I have no one waiting for my scheduled stop. Can I make a change?" Common sense, right?

Not really. Bus drivers calling in saying they want to go to x resort instead of y resort would cause chaos.

joelkfla · May 4, 2016

maxiesmom said:
Not really. Bus drivers calling in saying they want to go to x resort instead of y resort would cause chaos.

Not to go to a different resort, but to pick up Guests at the resort going to a different park. As a former bus driver, there were lots of times I would have liked to have serviced the Guests that were piled up waiting, instead of driving an empty bus back to my hub.

But Disney is hog-tied by the inflexibility of their computerized dispatch system -- which is ironic, because the stated reason for putting the dispatch on computers 9 years ago was to make things more flexible (actually, I think "responsive" would be more accurate.)

MouseketeerSinceDay1 · May 5, 2016

joelkfla said:
Not to go to a different resort, but to pick up Guests at the resort going to a different park. As a former bus driver, there were lots of times I would have liked to have serviced the Guests that were piled up waiting, instead of driving an empty bus back to my hub.

But Disney is hog-tied by the inflexibility of their computerized dispatch system -- which is ironic, because the stated reason for putting the dispatch on computers 9 years ago was to make things more flexible (actually, I think "responsive" would be more accurate.)

Actually the "computerized" system is so much more beneficial for the guests because before they upgraded them, drivers could drive around (or hide) all day without picking up 1 guest and nobody would know. Now the system ensures guests are in fact being picked up and the drivers aren't taking too long to complete the route . . AKA: "Milking the clock".

joelkfla · May 5, 2016

MouseketeerSinceDay1 said:
Actually the "computerized" system is so much more beneficial for the guests because before they upgraded them, drivers could drive around (or hide) all day without picking up 1 guest and nobody would know. Now the system ensures guests are in fact being picked up and the drivers aren't taking too long to complete the route . . AKA: "Milking the clock".

OK, difference of opinion here.

Computerized or computer-assisted dispatch is the way to go, but the Disney implementation is inefficient, inflexible, and unresponsive to demand. There are way too many buses driving around empty that could be picking up waiting Guests, and, as many Guests have observed and noted on this board, too many buses following right behind another bus (or 2) picking up for the same location. And drivers are instructed to "load and go" even when they're empty and they've seen another bus just depart on the same route.

The original model was called "Magic on Demand", and was intended to be just the opposite of the current implementation, assigning buses as needed to move the Guests. Unfortunately, the system was poorly designed and failed, and Disney fell back to the current backup system.

I don't understand the bus situation I experienced

Pmlocke

Peter Locke

disneydreamerinny

Elliot’s MiMi

jerseygal

DIS Veteran

mouse driver

DVC Member

bluezy

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AngiTN

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bluezy

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kaytieeldr

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spinandmarty

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joelkfla

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maxiesmom

The Mean Squinty Eye Works

joelkfla

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MouseketeerSinceDay1

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