Now that our focus is on our December trip, my wife and I are talking about options.
Anyhow, while “resort hopping” is not officially allowed, I do think that in at least some cases, you can resort hop to see the resorts, or in the very least if you have dining reservations, etc.
Okay. So two questions.
We aren’t sure if there is any reason to head to Old Key West for Christmas decorations or not. But we did see a Vlogger post about eating at Olivia’s. (They claimed that the fried chicken there is actually better than Homecomin’!) Anyhow, my thought is that, since we’re staying at the Boardwalk, we can walk over to HS and hop on a bus to Old Key West to get there. But then I wondered about getting back. If the park is closed, this would mean we have to take transportation to Disney Springs from Old Key West, and then take the bus back to Boardwalk from DS. Looking at transportation from OKW…does anyone know if the boats are running to DS? Or are they only doing buses now?
Similarly, if we wanted to look at Wilderness Lodge, we can do the same thing…question here, though, is if they will let us into the resort if we simply have a mobile order at the quick service place rather than the TS? The idea would be to have placed a mobile order ahead of time so we could show them our order upon arrival. Primarily this would be just to see the Christmas decor at WL. Of course…with HS closing at 7 pm, would the bus transportation run back to HS from WL after that? If not, we’ll probably have to do the whole bus to DS first thing.
Olivia’s gets great reviews. Have never been there myself but lots of people have it on their “every trip” list.
You can definitely get there by the bus route you’re discussing. You can get back by the bus route you mention as well. IIRC boats are not running at OKW now. IMO best bet is just Lyft/Uber/Taxi.
I’m not following the WL question. I think it would be the same as the OWK situation. They aren’t checking for a reservation for those coming by buses, but if they do a QS is not going to get you anywhere I don’t think.
This is what I wasn’t sure. If the mobile order was already placed, wouldn’t they let you in to pick it up? We could do TS, just not sure we necessarily want to.
Just not sure how other places are doing it compared to Pop. At Pop, frankly, there is no one checking anything. Anyone can come in and they don’t care where you’re from.
I have seen both on chat and I think via Len on Instagram or Disney Dish, that the parking lot guard will let you in with a mobile order. But I have zero first hand experience.
Right. We aren’t coming by car. We’re flying down for the December trip, so we won’t have a car at all. Just trying to plan around DIsney-only transportation at this point.
In the vlogs we’ve seen, so far I’m not sure Disney is actively ensuring anyone is actually staying at that property before letting them in…but it might be some places are stricter than others. Not sure how WL is doing things.
Okay. So I guess the follow up would be…would we need to have ANY kind of reservation (mobile order or TS reservation) at all in this case? Perhaps we’ll just be able to resort hop! Of course, it is a time-consuming endeavor at this point, so we might just plan one or two a day, versus our original plan (pre-COVID), which was a day dedicated to it using various transportation methods throughout the day. That plan will no longer work since transportation options are limited.
Lyft will be our back-up/last resort. Trying to come up with plans that don’t require it at this point. But, then again, if in the moment we make it to WL and then we just don’t want the hassle of having to trek to DS to get back to Boardwalk, we might have to.
I suppose another option might be to do the resort hop at lunch time instead, so there isn’t such an issue. We could take the boats from MK to WL.
This was true everywhere we went. They won’t let you into the actual place to pick up your food until your order is ready, but to get into the resort is no issue at all (maybe if driving, but certainly not with buses, skyliner, or walking). Feel free to come and go as you please. Also, we ate at Olivia’s for the first time a few weeks ago for dinner, it was quite good. We did not have the chicken though. I am not sure it is worth going to OKW just for decorations, it is a cute resort but nothing like the other deluxes where the decor is great in December (AKL, WL, BC/YC, and such). Will you have your car? We drove so no concerns about getting back to our resort. Oh just saw no car…I don’t think it is worth it. There are so many other grand places to visit, and all that hopping takes longer than you want it to.
No. This is where our planning is coming into play now. It will be the first time since our honeymoon we’ve never had a vehicle. While our trip last week we MOSTLY used Disney transportation, we did a few times use our car when it made more sense.
Having just stayed at WL and CR, there was no one checking anything upon entering either resort. Anyone could have come and gone as they pleased as far as entering the building. Parking may be a different story of course.
The problem has to do with park hours. MK closes earlier than HS. So, if there is no bus to HS, then there would be no boat to MK. Or…would there be a boat between WL and, say, Contemporary? It is tricky planning this because Disney hasn’t updated the ACTUAL situation with transportation anywhere that I can find, so it is all anecdotal.
DFB said that it will depend on the guard at the gate if they let you in early, before the time, WITH a reservation. They said WL was the strictest resort. We had a reservation at GF and the guard didn’t even read it (we showed our MDE reservation); we showed up 90 min early. I think if you use D-transportation no one will question you.
