New Character Buses at Disney World & Wait Times Update
This summer, Walt Disney World announced that new “Sensational Six” character buses would arrive with next generation features, including USB charging ports and more. We’ve finally had a chance to ride this transportation, and offer some thoughts on that, as well as an updated look at My Disney Experience bus wait times.
If you’ve been around Walt Disney World recently, you’ve probably spotted the new Sensational Six buses, which sport wraps with Donald Duck, Daisy, Goofy, Pluto, Minnie, and Mickey Mouse. In addition to giant heads of each character, the designs evoke each, with red and yellow colors of Mickey’s attire, Minnie Mouse’s polka dots, pastel hues of Daisy, sporty stripes of Goofy, and good doggo style of Pluto.
We’ve seen a growing number of these buses around Walt Disney World for about the last month, but it wasn’t until last week and this week that we finally had a chance to ride them. (And we ride Walt Disney World buses a lot!) Previously, the buses were primarily used for “VIP Cast Members” but now that it appears more of the blank, white buses are receiving the character wrap, they’re finally being rolled out into circulation for resort transportation, too…
Note that while these buses will replace some of the existing Walt Disney World transportation fleet, the Sensational Six buses won’t be the only ones in use. It’s our understanding that Walt Disney World currently had around 375 buses in its fleet before the addition of these roughly 75 new buses that will feature the new character wrap.
These new Gillig buses will join a mix of styles, with around half of the oldest Nova buses (just under 50) being replaced. That means the total number of buses in Walt Disney World’s fleet will increase to just over 400. That’s a net increase of around 25 buses.
This is good news on a couple of fronts. First, Walt Disney World needs more buses as it adds new hotels (as we recently witnessed with our stay at Gran Destino Tower).
Second, if you have a favorite style of bus for some odd reason, you’ll still be able to find it. (Since I’m that odd type, I’m happy to know I’ll still be able to find some of my favorite mid-90s buses with purple interiors!)
Personally, I’m a bit torn on the style of the Sensational Six bus designs. First, I have to acknowledge that these are just buses, so they’re probably not worth getting super worked-up over.
Moreover, I like seeing a variety of bus styles. Mentally ‘collecting’ the different varieties helps break up the monotony and my growing frustration while watching 8 buses to Disney’s Hollywood Studios pass me by as I’m waiting for one to Magic Kingdom.
I also like the idea of featuring classic characters. It’s nice to see Disney embracing its roots, especially at a time when the brand name “Disney” is become populated by so many acquisitions that it’s a nearly meaningless term.
When you think of Disney characters, Mickey and friends are not necessarily what comes to mind any longer. That’s something the company should work to remedy.
With that said, I think the styles could’ve been a little less heavy-handed with the approach. Having them subtly evoke the characters with color schemes and patterns would’ve been cool.
Having the wraps actually fit the contours of the bus (a la Disney’s Magical Express) also would’ve been nice. That’s simply a matter of personal preference, though.
Nevertheless, these Sensational Six next generation buses are cool.
Not as cool as the “Sorcerer Class” NextGen prototype buses (remember those?!) that Walt Disney Imagineering teased a few years ago, but still a change of pace from the rest of the fleet.
On the inside, the Sensational Six buses have modern interiors that include blue seats, laminate floors, and USB chargers.
The seats are thin and remind me of flying Frontier. Uncomfortable seats for a four-hour flight, but pretty good by bus standards!
As for bus wait times, we thought it was to revisit this topic as it’s been slightly over a year since we published our In-App Bus Wait Times Review & Testing for Walt Disney World.
If you haven’t read that and are unfamiliar with this feature, start there–this builds on that review and assumes you already understand how the feature works.
As noted above, we use Disney’s buses a lot, and have stayed at a number of on-site hotels in the last couple of months. I haven’t seen any other blogs take an updated look at the wait times feature this year, which I think is worth doing.
So let’s see how this My Disney Experience bus wait times function works about a year after going live…
To put it succinctly, the only thing that’s consistent about in-app bus wait times is complete inconsistency.
We’ve had entire visits when the app just showed “Times Currently Unavailable” for every single park whenever we checked. (I’ve taken this to mean the system is ‘disconnected’ from My Disney Experience.) We’ve had other visits where every time was always listed, and always spot-on accurate.
As with all things My Disney Experience, first hand assessments are going to be all over the place.
I’d believe pretty much whatever people said about their experience with the app and this feature, from the most absolute accolades to the most abysmal.
Most of the time, wait times will display for about half to three-quarters of all destinations, and will be close to accurate. By this, I mean that the original posted “next bus arrival time” will be within 2-3 minutes of when the bus actually arrives. Since this is real-time tracking, this time does increase or decrease (usually the former) due to traffic and other stops.
The most common scenario in which it increases is when at a resort with multiple bus stops. Caribbean Beach and Coronado Springs, in our experience, are especially notorious for this.
It frustrates me that even after bus wait time boards rolled out several years ago and this feature has been added to My Disney Experience, we still don’t have times at the park bus stops. Nor do we have this information in-app.
One hack that I’ve found particularly useful is reverse-engineering bus departure times from the theme parks by looking at the next “estimated arrival at park” time.
The only problem with this is that it doesn’t always work. Early in the day, some buses are “drop-off only” and even other times buses are reallocated from one route to another.
However, it’s the best proxy we have right now, and I’d say this is a reliable measure of when the next bus will arrive. It works about 75-80% of the time.
Overall, this might read mostly as criticism, but it’s meant as a supplement to our original bus wait times review. That was largely glowing, as I found the app functionality to be a good resource to determine when to leave our room and head to the bus stop. My assessment of the My Disney Experience bus times feature remains positive, and I still think this is an excellent resource for determining when to leave your room each morning. We use it a ton, and even though it can be frustrating at times, it’s great when it works right.
The tone of this updated review mostly stems from my disappointment that the reliability of the in-app bus wait times feature is not quite as good as it was at launch. This was a resource I expected to be refined and improved over time, with even better real-time bus tracking, updates, and other functionality. It could’ve been a wonderful tool for transportation planning, but instead, it’s just hit or miss. In retrospect, this being My Disney Experience, I’m not sure why I was expecting anything more.
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Your Thoughts
What do you think of the Sensational Six character buses rolling out around Walt Disney World? Have you used the new bus wait time feature in My Disney Experience? If you’ve used it frequently, do you think it has gotten more or less reliable over time? Any best/worst resorts for this feature? Do you agree or disagree with our review? Did it improve your transportation experience at Walt Disney World? Any questions we can help you answer about WDW transportation? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
The interiors look like NYC buses. And we have the “live” update for which stop the bus is approaching. Would be cool to see something more like the design for autonomous buses in Japan–only without the autonomous part.
I am happy with new style of the buses and the choice of the Sensational Six characters. If it was Star Wars or Marvel designs on the buses, they would be hideous. Inside of the bus, the interior would be nice if the got rid of the ABC TV show advertisements.
I love the new overlays…….I have to admit I did get excited seeing them. As far as waiting for buses I have not used the app. Much like someone pointed out earlier, there are a lot of factors to consider with times. I’m glad to see more of the larger buses being sent for MK.
The buses at Coronado last week were a nightmare. Waited 40+ minutes most mornings – another couple there before us waited almost an hour for a Hollywood Studios bus. Arrived at 8:15, posted time said 8:31. It just kept creeping up minute by minute until the bus didn’t arrive til after 9am. I can understand if it was fluke thing but it happened multiple times.
Same was true at Pop. I can’t understand why in times of GPS and Uber (where you can track your ride share in real time), Disney can’t do something similar or buy the software to make bussing efficient. Several days, we waited on one park bus at the resort while seeing 3 or 4 roll by going to a different park with NO ONE WAITING in their lines. Another day the Magic Kingdom bus line was so long it extended past the three adjacent stops. And, why can’t they do better with bus layout to accommodate more scooters and more people? 35 seats a bus are fine if you have one arriving every 2 minutes but we know this is not the case.
And, my BIGGEST PET PEEVE – Tom, please shed some light – why on earth do they put (usually Pop!) stops so friggin’ far away, when there are empty stops before them dedicated to charters, Minnie Vans, other park buses, Golden Oak (I get this one!), Swan & Dolphin, etc. This burns my biscuits EVERY TRIP, and makes me question staying in the bubble. I get values should be further than deluxe, but non-Disney hotels? And do Minnie Vans need to take up a bus stop?? It’s already a long walk on a hot day. So frustrating.
Where in the app do you find this information. I logged in but I do not see the information.
Do you have to be on site to see it?
The “Next Bus Times” screen shown in the article is only visible in the app when you are currently staying in a WDW hotel, and it only shows the bus departures from *your* hotel. The images above show many different resort hotels, because Tom is using screencaps from multiple resort stays.
We stayed at Beach/Yacht club in August. Our average wait time for Magic Kingdom and Disney Springs was 40 minutes.
This is ridiculous to me!
We had that experience at Boardwalk – great location to walk to two parks! But the two parks you have to bus to… you’re out of luck.
It would be cool if they could make the bus wait times more like a live action map, similar to Uber/Lyft, so that you had a visual of the bus and where it was. That way you could see when it was held up somewhere for awhile, and then watch it again as it moves closer and closer to your pick-up destination. Pipe dreams..
There are cities that do exactly this and it’s a great feature!
I also tried to predict the return bus time while at the park using the ‘arrival time’ as a guide, but you are right — one time our BC bus dropped off at Animal, but then the same bus changed routes and was going to Ft. Wilderness instead of back to BC. We also experienced the App and Monitors at the bus stop not showing times, and it was frustrating during Early Magic Hours and Halloween Party when the bus showed up full from the Yacht Club without any space for BC guests. I feel that Dispatchers could anticipate larger crowds/demand for transportation during special events and magic hours.
We have never used the app, but appreciate the info you gave. My one concern is that Disney ( not to mention most theme parks) seem to think that all their riders are the size of 10 year olds. I know the idea of thinner seats is to maximize ridership, but lets be real. Most adults will take up just a little more room than one of those seats. Some may take up a seat and a half. More seats in a limited space will not guarantee more riders. I would like to see Disney lead the pack by recognizing and accommodating the reality of the customers they serve.
It’s not Disney making the buses, it’s Gillig.
I mention this because I’d hazard a guess that Gillig primarily makes buses for larger cities, where a lot of people walk regularly. For their normal ridership, the seats are probably appropriately-sized.
Staying at Old Key West, the in-app bus wait times were hot or miss. OKW has five bus stops, and it takes a long time for the buses to work their way around all of them. Especially in the mornings, if (for example) a Magic Kingdom-bound bus arrived at the hotel before the previous MK bus had left the hotel, the app would get very very confused. Eventually we stopped looking at the app at all, but my sense has been that the feature must work better at single-bus-stop resorts.
“my sense has been that the feature must work better at single-bus-stop resorts.”
Definitely. That’s why I mentioned CBR and CSR. Old Key West, Saratoga, and Riverside would likewise have this problem.
I suppose with a system like this, things will never be perfect, but I feel your pain watching several buses to the same park roll through while the bus you’re waiting for is nowhere to be found, Animal Kingdom! grr.
I suppose when the system is down, it’s nice they say the buses run every 20 minutes, but doesn’t always work like that. And even more frustrating when you arrive at the bus stop to watch the bus you need rolling away.
As far as the bus overlays go, I think they are brilliant! What a fun way to commemorate the tried and true main characters!
I don’t even see it in my app and it is not searchable.
The “Next Bus Times” screen shown in the article is only visible in the app when you are currently staying in a WDW hotel, and it only shows the bus departures from *your* hotel. The images above show many different resort hotels, because Tom is using screencaps from multiple resort stays.
Thanks!
Thanks. Important info!!! I was about to try it out while still at home too.
We are driving to Disney World, so we have the option of driving to the parks instead of taking busses. Do you think this is a good idea, or do you think it would be more of a hassle to drive there then just waiting for the busses? We are staying at Caribbean Beach so we will definitely want to take the skyliner at least once, just because.
Thanks!
I think I would use the skyliner as an experiment but rely on your own car for anything else. I’m very interested in reading Tom’s review of the skyliner efficiency in the near future. The buses are the reason why we try to stay on the monorail and go to MK and Epcot more than HWS and AK (in part plus MK is our favorite) more often. Disney needs to get the app working on the regular! That would really change the game for us if we could plan/time our hotel exit for bus pick-up. There is not much worse to kill the magic than just missing the bus you wanted to take and have to wait another 20 min while missing rope drop.
I’d drive to Epcot, DHS, and DAK. Take the bus to Magic Kingdom.
I 100% agree with Tom on this. I rent a car every WDW trip because I love the convenience of driving to and from Epcot, DHS, AK, or resorts. Theres always a short wait for the trams and there is rarely traffic to these parks to and from the resorts.
Thank you all for your responses and advice! Looks like I have a plan 🙂
Definitely take bus to Magic Kingdom (so you don’t have to deal with monorail/ferryboat rides getting to/from parking lot), and take the skyliner to Hollywood Studios. Driving to Animal Kingdom and Epcot make sense if you don’t want to wait for the bus, though the skyliner will also take you from Carribbean Beach to Epcot’s back door.
We’ve splurged on a monorail resort for 4 nights (doing Mk and E) and then moved offsite for 4 nights (drive to AK and HS). We find it more convenient to drive from offsite to those last 2 parks than to rely on Disney buses from onsite resorts.
We just returned from CBR and like you, had a car but tried to take the bus to MK a couple of times. Once at 6:30PM on EMH night and once early AM well before opening. Both times busses arrived too full to fit everyone who was waiting. We were unfortunate to be in Aruba which is the last bus stop. If you plan to bus to MK and are in Aruba or even Jamaica, you might walk to an earlier stop to have a better shot at getting on. We ended up driving. Yes it can take longer to deal with the monorail, but at least you have an idea how long it will take and can plan for it. It will be interesting to see how the addition of Skyliner affects bus service there. Will buses be reallocated to MK and AK and less for Epcot and HS?
We have requested Martinique but that doesn’t mean we will get it. I have heard that about the last stops and will definitely take that into consideration and dive if we are there. Thank you!
As for the busses at the parks, I have always had the feeling they were not going to release the app wait times because Disney would not want guests waiting for the last minute and then sprinting to the bus lines. With the amount of guests at the parks, this logic from Disney worked for me. Again this was just an assumption of mine, I do not think I actually ever heard this as an official explanation.
That’s one possibility, but how many people are even aware of this functionality? (My guess: <25% of resort guests.) Of that number, how many would actually plan around this feature? (My guess: <25% of that previous 25%.)
I just don't see it being an actual issue. Whenever it comes to Disney IT, I think the smart money is not on the explanation that makes them sound thoughtful and savvy.
I think one of the biggest negatives about the in app bus schedule for the parks is that the bus drivers have to wait until they are full or nearly full, so even if you had that planning available, you’d just get frustrated that it said the bus would be there, but then sat for 20-30 minutes waiting to fill up.
Even without the frustration of knowing when a bus would be there, I experienced that wait after a 15 hour day at magic kingdom, then early flight the next day, we were stuck on a bus for close to 30 minutes as we decided to leave before fireworks started, but not enough others did that.
Your wisdom here is probably accurate.
We just returned on Monday fron an 8-night stay at Yacht Club. I don’t think the bus wait times worked once in the app (at least not for where we were going). We stayed at Coronado for 4 nights last summer, and found it great and useful. It was very disappointing this time. A couple times it worked, but not for the park we were going to – we got the same thing you captured and showed above (. . . unavailable).
We found it both helpful and not helpful as I will generally forget to think about checking until we were ready to go to catch a bus. Usually when finishing breakfast or getting ready to leave our room. Then it’s panic as it shows the bus will arrive in just a few minutes, then hurrying to the stop only to see the bus pulling away.
I almost prefer not having any info until we get to the bus stop and check the boards there.
This past weekend we had good karma including taking a chance and getting on standby flight at 6am to get another 12 hours at Disney, being the last to get on the Magical Express bus and departing immediately for French Quarter, leaving Hollywood Studios just ahead of the crowd at close only to see the bus back to French Quarter pull out then thinking we had a long wait another bus pulls in within 2 minutes.
My wife is also pretty good at speeding up to almost a run while waving her arms to try to get the bus drivers attention when it looks like a bus is about ready to pull away. Not sure that is actually effective, maybe the driver was going to wait anyway, but it’s fun to watch.
the idea of the bus times is great, but doesn’t the line at the bus stop always have an effect on things? a bus could be a minute away, but if there are 50+ people ahead of you in the bus stop line, it really doesn’t matter. you’ll have to wait for the next bus anyway, so i don’t see how it’s beneficial in telling you when to leave your room unless it can also tell you how many people are currently in line. they didn’t have this feature on my last trip so i’m curious to test it out, but in cases with heavy bus lines, i guess i don’t really see the point.
It depends on the resort, Laura. At some place like Pop Century first thing int he morning you are absolutely right. But many of the smaller resorts rarely have lines for buses. And for midday trips when the lines are short and teh buses run less frequently this is quite valuable.
In recent memory, the only time when this has been an issue was when staying at Pop Century or the All Stars, and trying to catch a bus to arrive at or around rope drop. (Leaving the park at closing is another such scenario, but that wouldn’t be a “leave your room” situation.)
For me, that scenario is an outlier. In every other instance, the line has not been too long to catch the first bus that arrives. Maybe we’ve just been lucky but, again, we ride the buses a lot.
we’ll be at AoA. thanks to free dining, we’ve got a number of character breakfasts planned for early mornings. hoping to catch early enough buses to get us where we need to go (minnie vans are simply too pricey for me to justify). or try a family uber with a car seat. we likely will at least be trying to do midday breaks so i can see it being useful then.
We were at Pop last year just after Thanksgiving for almost 2 weeks and almost always had to wait at least for one more bus, and I’d guess on average 2-3 buses due to lines of people waiting to get on. Went to all 4 parks, mostly around park open or a little after, and a few times around noon. And one morning was total chaos with so many people lined up that the lines intermingled and you couldn’t tell which line you were in without asking. (On the plus side, a fleet of buses arrived shortly afterwards, picking up people everywhere in the driveway, not just the official bus stops, and for us the wait was about average. Of course, people towards the front of the line had waited far longer than we did.)
I’m really hoping this improves in accuracy and availability. I’d love to be able to have somewhere to compare if it’s better to take a bus or the skyliner back to my resort. especially at Epcot after the fireworks, when I’m already in the world showcase. This could be a real game changer.
“In retrospect, this being My Disney Experience, I’m not sure why I was expecting anything more.”
That is a sad (if accurate!) indictment of Disney IT.
In a short, 3.5-day trip we had all the experiences you showed: great accuracy to “unavailable”. It was great the day that we were getting read to to leave our room and I checked the app and saw a bus expected in 2 minutes. We hustled to the bus stop and made it ~1 minute before the bus (the times adjusted a minute or two as we made our way there.)
Another time we saw a MK bus scheduled to arrive 2 minutes before the AK bus, then it changed to a minute after, then it changed to 20 minutes after! Luckily we were going to AK that day, but it would have been frustrating to hurry down to the stop only to wait an additional 20 minutes. (Perhaps this was a shared stop and the bus filled up before getting to this hotel so they bus skipped and they just sent the next one).
I agree that return times to the hotel from the park would be most appreciated. For instance, in our case we were staying at the Dolphin and a Yacht/Beach club bus rolls up. Do we just get on that bus, or wait for the Dolphin? (Pop/AoA would be a similar decision) It would be nice to know instead of having to take the gamble.
In your scenario, I would get on the Yacht/Beach Club bus and then walk to the Dolphin.