Disney World Orlando Florida and Disney Transportation

This year marks Disney World’s 50th anniversary and my family has been going during that entire time. In the first few years, it was an exciting new experience and showcased technology and foreign travel ahead of its time. For many of us, it is now a little outdated, and even Disney recognizes that as there is a major construction redo especially at Epcot. We have taken our children, nieces, nephews, and now grandchildren multiple times, and today as we speak it has become an obligatory chore to do so. Don’t get me wrong we love our grandchildren and love to see the sparkle in their eye when they are there. But as we age we simply have trouble coping with the heat, the crowds, the distances involved, and the increasing costs. Our last trip was the first one we rented scooters as it is now difficult for us to get around. My first recommendation is not to rent the scooters onsite as they are not maintained and have speed governors that render the units unable to go up hills. My son-in-law had to push mine up every hill. I understand there are private companies that will meet you at the front gate and rent you one so I recommend you research that option and carefully question those companies on what you get, how fast it goes, how far it can go etc. To me a major problem with Disney World is the Disney Transportation System. Since opening Disney tells you an advantage of staying on property is you can go anywhere using the bus and monorail system. What they don’t tell you is outside the Contemporary Resort, the Polynesian Resort, and the Grand Floridian, which are on the monorail when it works,  is you have to walk a very long distance to catch the bus and in some cases, you have to transfer to another bus to get to where you want to go. For the most part, to get to a bus you have to walk a lot and once you arrive you have to walk a long way to your final point. We have found Uber/Lyft to be wonderful in Orlando and at Disney as well. Other than the Magic Kingdom you can get door-to-door service with Uber/Lyft. We never waited longer than 5 minutes for a driver and never paid more than $15 for a trip. For us, it was well worth it. During our trip, the monorail was suddenly discontinued and staff had no answers or explanations. After waiting close to 30 minutes with no answers we eventually had to walk, again a long distance, to the bus stop and catch a bus to go to our destination. When it was all said and done we spent over an hour just trying to get to where we were going and in my experience that is common at Disney World even when everything is working fine. While waiting I looked up problems with the monorail and found multiple articles outlining many issues. The monorail is also 50 years old and originally it was ahead of its time it is now old and outdated technology that needs fixing or repairing daily. So I highly recommend using rideshares as much as you can in order to save hours of time and aggravation. Another problem with Disney World since it has opened is heat. I do not recommend going in the summer when temperatures and humidity can go over 100. For years Disney has sold water bottle sprayers with cheap low-speed fans to spray your face and blow air but trust me they don’t work well. Today you can go online and purchase portable high-speed fans that can be recharged nightly and they will work much better than what Disney will sell you. The food at Disney World has always been pretty good, the problem is getting in. You always had to make reservations but as a rule, you could do it the same day on arrival with minimal issues. Partly because of Covid and staffing that is not really true today. We had problems making reservations the entire time we were there so I strongly recommend you review in detail Disney’s policies on reservations and make them as soon as you can. On one of our days we just got the fast foods available as it was much easier. Not great healthy food but minimal waiting at least. If you visited in the past be aware many of your favorite rides and experiences have either been changed or eliminated. We used to love the movie in France, today it is a Beauty and the Beast sing-along which did not appeal to us. At Epcot, there is a lot of construction that has closed many venues. In summary for us, Disney World is hot, humid, tiring, long exhausting walks, and expensive entertainment. But with grandchildren sooner or later you will want to go. Research all options and be up to date with what is going on so you can plan the best trip.