Earlier this year, Disney implemented a temporary rule for transportation to help manage crowds, which wasn’t too popular with many guests. With another holiday weekend and more crowds coming up, this rule might return, which will impact how guests use transportation at Walt Disney World.
Let’s get into this transportation rule, when guests might see it return to the parks, and how to plan for it in case it disrupts travel plans. Mickey Visit brings you the latest Disney news and planning resources, including the rules YouTubers abide by when filming in the parks and the May ride closures at Disney.
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Disney Springs Transportation Rule Change
During spring break, Walt Disney World implemented a temporary bus transportation rule at Disney Springs to help manage crowds.
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To manage the crowds from spring break, Disney introduced a temporary verification step at the Disney Springs bus loop to ensure transportation was prioritized for those with confirmed resort hotel reservations. Cast Members were stationed at the entrance to the bus queues at Disney Springs. Before boarding a bus heading to a resort, guests were required to verify their eligibility to board by providing their MagicBand or mobile device to verify hotel reservations. This was implemented to discourage guests from using free parking at Disney Springs as a workaround to avoid paying for parking at the theme parks.
Disney Springs is the property’s primary shopping and dining district. While theme park parking requires a daily fee, parking at Disney Springs is complimentary. Because of this, these specific bus routes can see high demand from guests who use Disney Springs as a parking hub to access other areas of the property.
Three-day weekends are always high on the list of dates to avoid at Disney World, and if you look at our Disney World crowd calendar, you can see that we rate crowds as Above Normal for Memorial Day weekend this month, which takes place May 22-25. With Memorial Day creating higher-than-usual crowd levels for May, it would not be unexpected to see Disney activate this temporary bus rule to prevent guests from using the free parking at Disney Springs to access the rest of the resort.
When this change is in effect, guests have to provide the following to board a bus from Disney Springs to a Disney resort hotel:
- An Active Resort Hotel Stay: A current reservation at a Disney Resorts Collection hotel
- A Confirmed Dining Reservation: A table-service meal booked at a restaurant located within a resort
- A Booked Activity or Experience: A reservation for a resort-specific recreation, such as a specialty cruise or spa appointment
Guests who cannot verify one of these categories may be denied boarding at the Disney Springs loop. These temporary measures were put in place to manage the misuse of complimentary transportation and keep lines manageable for Disney resort hotel guests. When this policy was previously in place, it was not resort-wide and only applied to the specific route from Disney Springs to the resort hotels. Standard transportation between the four theme parks and the resorts continued to operate under its normal procedures.
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Disney has not officially announced the return of this transportation change, but if it returns for Memorial Day weekend, this is a good indication that it will be a common policy during peak travel periods.
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