Downtown Parking Problems
We have long noted the increase in parking traffic at the Downtown Disney location at WDW - without seeing huge increases in the actual numbers of people shopping there. Most recently, we dropped in to DD late one morning for (we thought) a quick shopping trip at The Marketplace side. Well, 15 minutes later, we were still looking for somewhere to park and were imagining huge crowds when we finally got into the shopping district.
Imagine our surprise when, after finally finding a parking spot (by following another shopper back to their car!), we walked into the Marketplace to find very light crowds. For those familiar with Disney’s pricing for their theme park car parks, this won’t come as any surprise. For, by parking at DD and then hopping on a Disney bus to one of the parks, it is perfectly possible to avoid the parking fee altogether, and it seems there is now an epidemic of people ‘using’ (or abusing?) the system in this way. We’re not sure why anyone would want to add at least another 20-30 minutes to the time it takes to get into the parks, but we think it is clear that enough people are doing this to create parking congestion back at DD for people who just want to shop there.
So, our question is this: what should Disney do (if anything) to stop this occurring and keep the DD car parks from filling up with non-shoppers? Answers on a postcard, please……….!
March 19th, 2006 at 4:19 pm
LoL .. They must be gluttens for punishment though.. From experience of using the DtD bus depot (usually as a way of not using the car so we can fully enjoy all the varied resorts dining opportunities, the service makes virgin trains timetable seem like a smooth operation..
An interesting conundrum of the depot has to be, how, is it actually possible, to design a bus depot where incoming buses have to circumnavigate the depot four times between entering and leaving..
March 23rd, 2006 at 9:35 pm
the DD buses don’t go to the parks… they go to the resorts only (okay the water parks too). you need to take a bus to the resort then change over to a theme park bus. It adds at least an hour to your trip….
April 6th, 2006 at 11:05 am
I imagine parking at Downtown and getting a bus to the Contemporary Resort, then walking over to the park, would be as quick a journey to the MK then driving the additional way to the MK lot, parking, getting the tram to the TTC, then getting monorail or ferry to the park.
Not having stayed outside the MK Resort Area, I’ve never actually tried this theory out…