We’re doing an MK After Hours event next month, and we’ll be staying at the Swan Reserve.
I assume that the Swan/Dolphin buses don’t run late for ticketed events. So am I better off getting an MK bus to Boardwalk or Yacht Club, before walking over to SR? Google Maps says it’s only a 1-minute difference between the two, but curious which walk you all would consider to be easier/safer/better at 1am.
If like the Dolphin, their buses go to the TTC and I had to take the ferry over for the Christmas party in December. That was one and done. We walked over to Yacht Club after that and caught MK and AK buses there.
Yes - I’m not worried about getting to MK to start the night, just how best to get home at the end of the night (very early morning).
We also went back to YC, as we assumed we would have also had to go to the TTC to go back to the Dolphin too and didn’t want to deal with that. YC to
Dolphin is a shorter walk than to the Swan Reserve though.
Sometimes YC, BC and Boardwalk share a bus. I imagine that might be the case at night sometimes. If so, YC is the first stop in the loop so it would make sense to get off at that stop.
However, a dedicated bus to Boardwalk is slightly faster.
So what I might do is go to the Boardwalk bus stop. If it happens to be a combined bus, get off at YC. If it’s a dedicated bus, get off at Boardwalk.
(In reality, if it’s separate buses, the difference will be completely due to chance of which bus is further from boarding when you arrive at the depot.)
Either of those walks should be safe even that late at night. It it were me, I think I’d pick YC because the walk from there is closer to YC buildings rather than Jellyrolls, which will be closed down by then, so a little less populated.
Thanks @Jeff_AZ that’s exactly the info I needed!
See, from YC to Swan/Dolphin, the walk, once you go thru the lobby, is mostly straight over the bridge.
From the Boardwalk, thru the lobby (and down a floor if memory serves), than along the boardwalk to the bridge.
I feel like the walk from the YC to the S/D end of the bridge is a little less than walking from the outside of the main Boardwalk area, to the boardwalk to the S/D end of the bridge.
Possibly because you can pretty much see your route from YC, where from the Boardwalk you can’t see your route.
Blue is from YC to end of bridge
Green is Boardwalk
Pink is from bridge to Reserve
And this is what I’d do - reserve ahead of time a rideshare for pick up from Contemporary
Walk from MK to Contemporary and ride to the Reserve
The Crescent Lake area is likely very well lit.
But that last bit to the Reserve is across a road.
Am I looking at this correctly @Jeff_AZ
Looks right to me! The Uber option is also a good suggestion.
As was already suggested, I would expect that at that time of night, the YC, BC, and BW will share a bus. When that happens, the YC bus makes the best logical choice of the free options. Even if they aren’t sharing a bus, the BW really only has maybe a tiny advantage at best…and really, the bigger difference will be based on which bus picks up first. Given a 50/50 chance that YC versus BW would be first, I’d probably just go with YC. (On the other hand, the BW is a more INTERESTING walk.)
I thought about that, but I’m not sure exactly what time we’ll finish. If we manage to cross off all our must-dos before they kick us out at 1am, then we’d likely head back early than re-ride a bunch of things. And if I just uber without reserving it ahead of time, I’m worried there won’t be that many drivers out super late on a Monday night.
But, we still may go that route if our feet are killing us by end of night anyways.
We were at Beach Club at 10 pm - before the night time show had dumped the Epcot folks.
The drop off area was super busy. Rideshares on top of rideshares. Pretty sure WDW hours of operation drive the drivers operating hours.
Right, but I’m talking about an After Hours event - close for that is 1am.
And perhaps this is an outdated worry on my part. But our last trip was in 2021, so still coming out of the covid times a bit, and we had snagged a post-park close reservation for Oga’s Cantina on our HS day. By the time we finally made it out of the park and to the rideshare area, it took us 30+ minutes to get an uber. So I figured an even LATER exit due to the ticketed event may be even worse.
Probably Covid driven.
I think now, with so many rideshare drivers, 1 am wouldn’t be a problem. 2:30 am maybe. 
Altho when do bars close. 
Plus, if you know you’re done and ready to go, look for a ride at that time. Then walk to Contemporary.
I was looking for a Lyft at about 6 pm at Contemporary last summer. The cheaper ride was 20 min away so I opted for that one. I had a place to sit, and things to catch up on my phone. All good.
1am shouldn’t be too bad to get an Uber. However, I think by that point at night you will prefer to stop walking when you get to the bus depot and wait for a bus vs. walk all the way to Contemporary. They usually make sure folks are taken care of that late at night at the bus depot, even if they have to do a special dispatch.
There are always plenty of uber/lyft drivers out and about at all hours at WDW
2021 was BAD for rideshare. I waited for many of them for a long time that year. It’s not like that now
They’re going to the Reserve
I druther not do the Swan bus stop at TTC or walk to the Reserve from YC.
I would totter along to the Contemporary to wait for a ride share. Especially since I’ll already be at street level vs monorail
Oh that’s a fair point. But at least that walk would be after a (hopefully seated) bus ride.
