Riverside buses About This Page:

[trixie lamb]

I am reading about long waits..... Anyone give me early morning bus info? How long is the wait? Are they running enough? Is there a best bus stop at Riverside?

[Danielle Harmon]

I only remember one bus stop at Riverside, but I could be wrong. While we love Riverside the bus issue is why we are staying elsewhere now. We never had issues in the early morning, but at night the buses were beyond crowded and the wait was very long...it seemed that there were 5 other resort buses, say for Caribbean Beach or All-Star, for every one bus going to Riverside. I know that probably isn't true, but that was the perception.

[Pris]

There are 4 bus stops at POR and 1 at POFQ. Usually the bus picks up at FQ first and then goes to POR. The first POR pickup is usually the front one by the main entrance. During busy times of day I would head to that one to be picked up. At other times of day, it won't matter at all. WDW stations a CM at the bus stops during the early morning hours to keep in contact with the "bus control" area and keep crowds moving along. I have seen empty busses come into POR and head straight to the 2nd bus stop when crowds are high. You may have to wait a little longer for pickup in the early morning, but that would be true at any resort.

[Caldercup]

They have made many good updates to the bus system -- Disney Word-wide. My experience is that they were running very well in December '07 and June '08 for our recent trips.

When I stayed at Riverside in '04 and '05, I never had a wait of longer than 20 minutes, and that was when I walked up as a bus for my park-of-choice was pulling away.
Eileen

[Principessa_di_Fata]

I stayed there in value season (early Feb) and I was only on a full bus once, and that was at park opening time. Otherwise, we waited no more than 10 minutes for a bus. Usually less.

I can't speak to any other time of the year though, and I've heard it can get pretty busy.

There are four bus stops at POR, but I always just went to the main one out front. I don't know why, lol. Just got into the habit.

[TinkWink57]

We haven't stayed there in awhile, but we always headed to the lobby area to get the bus. I'm sure they are not too bad during less busy seasons, but they were always packed when we stayed there, after having stopped at POFQ first.

[Belle0824]

Originally Posted by Danielle Harmon

While we love Riverside the bus issue is why we are staying elsewhere now. We never had issues in the early morning, but at night the buses were beyond crowded and the wait was very long...it seemed that there were 5 other resort buses, say for Caribbean Beach or All-Star, for every one bus going to Riverside. I know that probably isn't true, but that was the perception.

I totally agree!! We liked the resort, but the bus situation was not good!!! Every afternoon/evening, particularly coming from the parks, we waited forever and then always had to stand for the ride.

[jimmymac]

There are 4 stops at POR and 1 at POFQ> POFQ is the first stop in the morning. The best stop at POR is in front of the building where you check in (Porte Cochere sp?)

[greentie]

They seemed to be running separate POFQ and POR buses for pretty much all of the last couple of weeks (we got back on Saturday). There were also a lot of Riverside buses, definitely more buses to there and Caribbean Beach than to anywhere else.

[pita]

We stayed in September of last year and the year before. BOTH years we had problems with the buses but last year was exceptionally bad. The lines at MK went down and out of the far end of the covered waiting area and POR is the further most que area from MK. People with cell phones were calling requesting additional buses. At Epcot we ended up sitting on the ground with most of the other people waiting for the bus as it was taking so long. At Port Orleans there were times that the buses were so full that they didn't pick up. That was VERY frustrating to us.

I doubt that we would stay there again. We gave it a second chance thinking that the first year was a fluke.

-pita

[Minniemouse27]

We (me, dh, dd-6yo & ds-2yo) stayed at POR in early December during Pop Warner week. Both POFQ and POR were at capacity due to the cheerleaders and we only had to wait for buses twice!

Both times were when we closed parks down (MK for MVMCP and DHS during late EMH). We didn't have a problem after late EMH at Epcot though.

Even when we had to wait...those waits weren't anymore than 20min or so and it was fine. We did stand sometimes but not often.

We would stay at POR again in a heartbeat...we loved it there!

[twins4me]

We stayed at POR in early Dec. also. However, we had a terrible time with busses going back to the resorts. The night at EPCOT, the line was so long, we must have waited for 3 POR busses to load up before we got to board. We closed parks (or just about closed them) every night. I understand waiting till the end of the night is always busier, but this verged on a little much. In comparison, we stayed at CBR in April of 2006, the week before Easter. The parks were crazy busy, wall to wall people, and I don't think any of our waits for the busses were as long at back to POR in Dec.

[Spork]

When we were at POR this past weekend the busses were running very smoothly and much better than our last visit in May.

[trixie lamb]

That is so good to hear. It has turned into one of my biggest concerns as I want to build in breaks for the 70 yr olds and the 2 yr old, but not lose a lot of vacation time to "buses".

Also, I found out that for the Fri,Sat,Sun of my conference 25-27 July ASHA added a shuttle bus run to make it smoother....am only, but it means I dont have to catch a bus as early as I thought I was going to have to.

[akleos]

I was concerned that the gas crisis might have caused big back-ups throughout WDW so I'm glad to hear that Greentie's experience was so positive. I'm still goign to expect the worst, and hope for the best when our trip comes along in September. We're never really had positive experiences with Disney buses (esp. the DME) so I can't really say that anyone's stories are out of the ordinary. We've had 30+ minute waits with hardly any line at all at night while staying at a Deluxe resort that offered no alternative transportation BUT the buses. Which is why I always expect to wait 20 minutes at every stop. =shrug= It's just one of those components that I haven't got much control of so I try not to let it get me too upset.