Disney World's Transportation System Is Even More Massive Than I Thought, But It Also Makes My Biggest Resort Problem More Frustrating

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Credit: Walt Disney World

Walt Disney World in Florida is called the Vacation Kingdom, and the name isn’t simply a slogan. Walt Disney World’s property is twice the size of the island of Manhattan, and it was originally planned to contain an actual city. While the city never came to pass, one thing that it does have, which it needs to properly function, is a transportation infrastructure that rivals that of many American cities.

If you’ve been to Walt Disney World, then you’ve seen the various ways one can get around the resort property. There are buses, boats, the popular Skyliner gondolas, and of course the famous Disney World Monorail. It’s clear that a lot goes into moving people around Disney World, though until now I had no idea just how big Disney World’s transportation system really was.

Disney World Has One Of The Largest Transportation networks In The Country

This week, Walt Disney World released a lot of information about its free transportation on property that really shows you just how big Walt Disney World really is. It’s all broken down in a great infographic that shows how Disney World compares to public transportation throughout the U.S.

Credit: Disney Experiences

Some of this information isn’t too surprising if you think about it. Of course, Walt Disney World’s Monorail is the largest monorail network in the U.S.. Despite Walt Disney’s best efforts, the monorail never received mass adoption as a transportation system, and the few that exist outside of Orlando are very small.

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The fact that Walt Disney World has more watercraft than the Staten Island Ferry, or that the bus system as the 13th largest ridership of any bus system in the country, shows that while Walt’s vision of Epcot may not have been built as he’d hoped, Walt Disney World is essentially a functioning city. It even has a complete dumpster fire of a local government, like so many other cities.

But on the subject of buses. If Disney World has 424 of them, why does it always seem like I spend half my time there waiting for one?

So, Why Can’t I Ever Get A Bus?

While there are lots of ways to get around Walt Disney World, the most common is by bus. Buses are the only way to get to Disney’s Animal Kingdom and the only transportation method that stops at many of the Disney World hotels. As such, you’ll find yourself waiting for them a lot.

And I feel like I must be waiting for them more than anybody else because anytime I need to leave a theme park to go to my hotel, it seems like there’s a bus going to every hotel but mine. Sometimes a bus will stop for one hotel more than once while I’m still waiting for the first one to stop for me. That said, I still haven't had a chance to use the Disney World bus schedule in Google to try to manage the interminable wait.

I tend to avoid taking a Disney World bus whenever I can simply because I hate waiting for them. Other methods, like boats or the Skyliner, might not even be faster, as they're often less direct, but at least they are a bit entertaining. Taking the Disneyland Monorail from the Contemporary Hotel was heaven.