Hey Yall! The hubby and I have decided to plan a quick trip the last weekend of August. He will only be doing 1 park day with me and I’ll be doing 2 solo. (He can only take "so much " 
) We are going back again for over a week in November so needing to stay as budget friendly as possible with this one. Looking for a hotel that the Hubby wont mind spending days in so I thought about a DS hotel. Looking at the Holiday Inn Orlando DS. Needing thoughts on transportation etc. We typically stay at Pop and are used to getting easily to the parks. Don’t want to save the $ just to regret it later. Help!
I just stayed at the Wyndham a couple weeks ago. Their shuttle wasn’t running yet (pretty sure none of the DS hotel ones are but definitely check).
For the morning, we used Uber. Didn’t have any trouble getting one and the price wasn’t too bad. Normally in the neighborhood of $15/20. For MK, that does put you at the TTC rather than park entrance.
In the evening, we did rideshare - particularly on a really rainy evening. However, we used the SSR buses one evening and then walked to our resort. The Congress Park stop is the one closest to DS and the path over to the DS hotels. (In theory you could try this to get to parks but your closed bus stop is the last on the SSR loop so I did see some reports of people needing to walk to an earlier stop if they wanted to be sure to get on a bus first thing).
Wyndham (where I stayed) is the closest so it was literally a 10 minute walk. Obviously take a look in Google Maps to check how far Holiday Inn is. There is a staircase to the walkway over a busy road, but elevators are available.
Another option that we didn’t use with the park, but was on my radar, you could use the DS buses (maybe 12-15 minute walk as opposed to 10) as long as DS is still open (just check their hours) when you are coming or going. We did use the DS buses to get to the CR and do a progressive dinner on our arrival day. We also used one on departure day to get to AKL to eat at Sanaa before we left.
It was a bit of finagling and I would not do it with kids, but it was just me and a friend on a budget so it worked out.
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Thank you so much for the info!!
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We stayed at the Doubletree, further along that same road, in 2018. We were underwhelmed by the shuttle. And the advertised walking time.
If I were staying at the Holiday Inn at DS I’d absolutely use Disney buses when DS is open.
The hotel shuttle uses beyond stops. Out beyond the - covered - Disney bus stops. Out in the open. Which does, admittedly, provide an unobstructed view of the lightning of any approaching storms.
We did get tired of waiting one evening and grabbed a Disney Springs bus. Which is how we know the Doubletree is not a short stroll from DS. At least for my old, short legs. 
Once a Disney bus drops you at DS there is a bit of a walk thru DS to the elevator and the elevated walkway to the Hilton. Holiday Inn is next after the Hilton.
Walking out to the hotel shuttle stops at the park isn’t probably a lot different than walking thru DS except that libations are not on sale in any of the bus stops I’ve waited at.
50% of the time, we waited over an hour for a DS hotel shuttle at a park. In the mornings, at our hotel, we waited at least 30 minutes 50% of the time.
I have stayed on the Holiday Inn multiple times.
The common bus between DS resorts works out fine. If you are an extreme rope dropper, you may want to Lyft/Uber to the park first thing in the morning. I did not have an issue with the bus. It does drop you off at stops that are a little further back than the premier Disney Bus stops at the parks, but it was not that big of a deal for me and I did not feel they were really that far away. For Magic Kingdom, it did drop you off at TTC.
You just need to pay attention to the bus stop numbers given to you when you check into the hotel. I believe they have it on a pamphlet you get at check-in. It will tell you bus stop numbers. It also tells you if you are part of route A or B.
In the mornings I would typically take a Lyft/Uber to the parks for rope drop (I was trying to get RotR BGs; back when you had to be in the park to get them). I did take the bus a coupe of mornings, it made it there in plenty of time for rope drop. Once I got to the first park, I used standard Disney transportation if I was park/resort hopping.
At the end of the day I typically would take the Hotel Bus back to the resort. There were also times at the end of the day where I would hop a bus to SSR from the parks (as mentioned above) and mosey over to DS for some food and shopping. From there I would just walk back to the hotel using the overpasses (I believe it is the one right by BBB and Earl of Sandwich in DS).
Staying here saved me a lot of $$$. I like the pool and restaurant. I also did not find it as an inconvenience to the parks.
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Yep that’s correct! The walkway is right there.
For the OP, I know in another thread we debated a lot about whether there was ever a time that would be too late to use it (ex: once DS hours ended). There was nowhere to close the path from SSR to the DS hotels (it actually goes right behind Earl of Sandwich if you don’t want to walk through the edge of DS). So I do believe it is always accessible, regardless of time. There is a sign for a small side path on SSR property that says closed from dusk until dawn, but the main path seemed fine.
That’s good to know about how the shuttle worked. It wasn’t up a couple weeks ago (not sure when it’s coming back), but I kind of wondered how it ran for future possible trip.
I agree with that as well.
During MW 2020, I walked from the Holiday Inn to SSR to get on the bus that would take me to the Half Marathon. At 2:30am, I used the overpasses and walked on the backside of Earl of Sandwich to get over to SSR.
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