How to do Disney off-site?

- Must take a bus to a resort and transfer to another transportation or walk to park

Not sure about that. Can't you:

- Walk to SSR and take a bus to the parks
- Take the boat to SSR, OKW, POFQ, POR and take a bus to the parks
 
We always take the resorts shuttle service when we stay at our timeshare and it's quick and easy - the shuttles leave regularly and it's way better than driving and parking.
 
If you have to rent a car, you are FAR better off using Uber. It will be cheaper and gets you almost to the front gates.
 
If you have to rent a car, you are FAR better off using Uber. It will be cheaper
I think that really depends on what you intend to do on your trip. If you are strictly going to make one trip to the park and one trip back each day and nothing else, Uber might be the way to go. However, if you want to be able to come and go freely, maybe take a mid-day break and go back to the park in the evening, resort hop, spend any time offsite shopping or dining or hitting other activities, having a car could save you a bundle over Uber. I would never stay offsite without a car. Heck, I don't even like staying onsite without a car.
 


If you have to rent a car, you are FAR better off using Uber. It will be cheaper and gets you almost to the front gates.

What about leaving the parks? I feel you'd be fighting everyone for an Uber/Lyft who are also trying to do the same.
 
I've stayed a couple times at Harbour Lake (we're Marriott owners and love the Marriott timeshares).

I'm assuming you have a rental car, as you'll want one there.

Honestly, if you want to pop over to MK, you could just valet park at the CR and walk over. It's not so much more than paying to park at the TTC, and much more convenient!

You'd want a car to grocery shop and to eat out. Harbour Lake only had sandwiches at the bar, not a restaurant. It's a great place for little kids, but we had a car. Also did Discovery Cove, which was literally 5 minutes away (and an amazing day!).
 
I've stayed a couple times at Harbour Lake (we're Marriott owners and love the Marriott timeshares).

I'm assuming you have a rental car, as you'll want one there.

Honestly, if you want to pop over to MK, you could just valet park at the CR and walk over. It's not so much more than paying to park at the TTC, and much more convenient!

You'd want a car to grocery shop and to eat out. Harbour Lake only had sandwiches at the bar, not a restaurant. It's a great place for little kids, but we had a car. Also did Discovery Cove, which was literally 5 minutes away (and an amazing day!).

We just went to the Boardwalk Resort for a breakfast reservation and they handed me a piece of paper that said we could have 2 hours to stay and that was it. I would have thought the Contemporary Resort would act the same way.
 


Honestly, if you want to pop over to MK, you could just valet park at the CR and walk over. It's not so much more than paying to park at the TTC, and much more convenient!

We just went to the Boardwalk Resort for a breakfast reservation and they handed me a piece of paper that said we could have 2 hours to stay and that was it. I would have thought the Contemporary Resort would act the same way.

Valet Parking is different from regular parking for an ADR.

Regular parking is a 2-3 hour limit. Valet Parking you are paying for and allowed to leave your car all day.
 
I’m definitely not the ethical police but the resort buses are already overcrowded with people paying to stay at those resorts unless it’s a slow time like mid day and buses don’t run as frequently

You're so right on this. One day, midday on our last trip, we waited over 45 mins for a bus from Epcot back to our onsite resort ... while watching multiple (as many as 6 or 7) come and go for the same 1 resort. Definitely thinking the rental car option would be a better plan next time.
 
I’m definitely not the ethical police but the resort buses are already overcrowded with people paying to stay at those resorts unless it’s a slow time like mid day and buses don’t run as frequently

You're so right on this. One day, midday on our last trip, we waited over 45 mins for a bus from Epcot back to our onsite resort ... while watching multiple (as many as 6 or 7) come and go for the same 1 resort. Definitely thinking the rental car option would be a better plan next time.

I hear you and understand your concern ........... and in the "old days" you had to show your "Disney hotel transportation card" in order to use the bus system.

But now the buses are open to anyone to use ... per Disney ... so there may be guests on the buses that are not staying there, although I think it's probably very few any given bus.


FROM DISNEY WEBSITE

I’m not staying at a Disney Resort hotel. Can I use the monorails, buses and boats to get around Walt Disney World Resort?

Yes. All Guests have complimentary access to our network of monorails, buses and boats. If you would like to visit multiple parks, enjoy a nice dinner at one of the Disney Resort hotels or shop at Disney Springs, you can leave your car parked in the theme park lot and use our transportation network.
 
Thanks for that, HopperFan. I was going to post the same thing. All guests have access to all Disney transportation. You do not need to be staying at a Disney hotel.

YUP, they hope you visit and eat $, shop $ and maybe like it enough to book next time $.
 
What about just using Uber/Lyft ?
$25 a day added to a DS hotel may be less than parking fees for a rental car and
less than a moderate resort at WDW :)

And if a DS hotel person can ride a WDW bus - then why not take the bus to DS and walk to your DS hotel (Hilton & Holiday Inn are both easily walked back to from DS)
 
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DS hotels have their own bus service to all the parks, as I understand. We are going in Feb., which is lower season, and feel we'll be OK with DS bus. The one day we go to Universal, we'll Lyft. With parking fees for both the hotel and now WDW, plus the cost of renting a car and gas, I can't see that it's really that good of an idea to rent anymore. Unless there's some incredibly cheap car rental deal that I don't know about. We we live in a city and are used to mass transit.
 
Off-siter here for 4 of 5 trips to Disney within the last few years. We rent a house that, traffic depending, is less than 10 minutes to the main WDW entrance from the front door. We rent from the same individual each trip who happens to live nearby so there's very little uncertainty when it comes to our reservation. Now that we've become more veteran guests our trips are getting longer and we're less concerned with filling each minute of the day with park stuff. Being very close but off site let's us kind of live around the environment and pick and choose which park or resort to explore and when to visit (while in the area). If someone is under-the-weather or the weather itself doesn't cooperate we then have our own space with a kitchen, grill, pool, etc to just relax.
 
OP here. And back from our trip staying off-site.

Definitely found that the time it took to get from off-site location to inside the park was a lot longer than represented, especially for MK where you're dependent on the ferry or monorail to get you in. We were there before park opens every day waiting for 'rope drop', but in every case, I was really glad I planned for a minimum hour from point A to point B.

For other parks, I don't really feel like it would have made much a difference if you were driving or taking a park bus, but in the case of MK, I can definitely see an advantage.

All that being said though, as long as you plan accordingly, there's nothing wrong with parking. Getting in and out was super easy. And you can't beat the amount of money saved.
 
Definitely found that the time it took to get from off-site location to inside the park was a lot longer than represented, especially for MK where you're dependent on the ferry or monorail to get you in.
Glad you had a good trip.

One option to consider for MK is to Uber to the Contemporary instead of driving from the offsite place. You have to pay for the Uber, of course, but won't pay the $22 parking fee that day, so that offsets it. Then you can just walk over to MK from the Contemporary and you skip the TTC entirely.
 
Glad you had a good trip.

One option to consider for MK is to Uber to the Contemporary instead of driving from the offsite place. You have to pay for the Uber, of course, but won't pay the $22 parking fee that day, so that offsets it. Then you can just walk over to MK from the Contemporary and you skip the TTC entirely.

We considered it and/or driving to Contemporary and paying for valet parking, which especially if you consider the possibility of surge pricing is probably cheaper than Uber. But ultimate we weren't sure we wanted to add the extra walking to the trip when we weren't even sure how we were going to handle the walking we KNEW we were in for inside the park, especially our DD5.
 

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