Get to Know the Walt Disney World Bus Stops

While the monorail and Skyliner get all the buzz, the workhorse of Walt Disney World transportation is the bus system. Buses cover the majority of routes around Disney World theme parks, water parks, resorts, and Disney Springs. And when weather or maintenance issues make using other forms of transportation untenable, the buses step in to cover the load.

Not surprisingly, the Disney buses are accessed at bus stops. Getting to know these bus stops can help you have a better transportation experience at Disney World.

Be aware that there is no publicly available master bus schedule like you might find for a major city. If you ask a Disney cast member how often buses come, they’ll likely answer something like, “About every 20 minutes.” In general that’s true, but within that there is significant variability. Buses from your hotel to Disney Springs might only come as often as every 30 minutes during mid-day and buses from the Magic Kingdom to your hotel might come as often as every five minutes following the evening fireworks.

Theme Park Bus Stops

Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and EPCOT all have large bus stops adjacent to the park front gate. Note: even though guests may enter EPCOT through the International Gateway at the rear of the park, there is no park bus stop at that location.

Each of the theme park bus stops has several dozen numbered slips where you’ll board a bus going to your desired destination. Be aware that the slip where you are dropped off may not be the same as where you board to return to your hotel or other WDW location.

To figure out where to wait, look for a large sign at the front of the park that lists destinations along with slip numbers.

Click photos to enlarge.

The system is mostly self-explanatory: look at the sign, find your intended destination, note the slip number, and walk over to that number. For example, on the Magic Kingdom sign above, if you want to go to the All Star Movies resort, go to slip number 28. Disney does change slip designations periodically, always double check.

You can help yourself get where you’re going faster by understanding which other resorts are near your resort. For example, the three All Star hotels (Movies, Music, and Sports) are all within a few minutes walk of each other. If you’ve been waiting quite a while at slip 28 for your All Star Music Movies bus and you see an All Star Music bus arrive at nearby slip 30, you’re welcome to hop on board.

There are restrooms near the bus stops at EPCOT and Disney’s Hollywood Studios. The closest restrooms to the Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom bus stops are located near the park gate. Depending on the time of day and where you’re going, it could be 45 minutes to an hour before you have ready access to a bathroom (25 minute wait at the bus stop plus a 25 minute drive to your destination, for example). There are no restrooms on the Disney transportation buses.

The Transportation and Ticket Center Bus Stop

The Transportation and Ticket Center (TTC), located next to the Magic Kingdom parking lot, does have a bus stop. Many years ago, you could access buses to the resorts from here, but currently the only buses that use this area are non-Disney-owned properties. This includes charter buses, the Lynx public transportation buses, and shuttles from off-site hotels.

Note: Magic Kingdom is the only theme park where the charter and shuttle bus slips are at an entirely different area than the Disney resort bus slips. At all the other parks, the charter and shuttle buses are at the same place as the Disney buses, but usually at the most distant, highest numbered, slips.

The Disney Springs Bus Stop

The Disney Springs bus stop is substantially similar to the theme park stops, with a large directory sign that indicates different slip numbers for different destinations. The bus stop is most easily accessed via the passageway next to the Luxury of Time by Diamonds International shop or behind the Coca-Cola shop, both in the Town Center area. The closest restrooms are near the Jo Malone London store or the Coca-Cola store.

Be aware that several years ago there were two separate bus stops at Disney Springs, one at the West Side and one at Marketplace. This set-up has been discontinued and there is only one bus stop now.

Buses do not run directly from Disney Springs to the theme parks. If you’re at Disney Springs and want to take a bus to a theme park: to get to EPCOT, take a bus to the Beach Club or Boardwalk and then walk; to get to Hollywood Studios, take a bus to Boardwalk and then walk or take a boat; to get to Magic Kingdom, take a bus to the Contemporary or Grand Floridian and then walk or take the monorail; to get to the Animal Kingdom theme park, take a bus to Animal Kingdom Lodge and then transfer to an Animal Kingdom park bus.

If you’re at a theme park, want to go to Disney Springs and the buses to Disney Springs have not yet started running (they often don’t start until later in the day), take a bus to the Saratoga Springs resort, get off at the Congress Park stop, and then walk.

Resort Bus Stops

Every Disney-owned resort hotel provides bus transportation to at least some of Disney’s theme parks. (There is transportation from every Disney World hotel to every Disney World theme park, but it’s not always by bus.) Depending on the hotel, there will be one small bus stop, one large-ish bus stop, or multiple small bus stops at the resort. The number and size of bus stops is related to the number of other transportation options available and the size of the resort. For example, there is just one small bus stop at the Polynesian resort because the nearby monorail can take guests to EPCOT and the monorail and boats can take guests to the Magic Kingdom. Buses only go to Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom, so there’s no need for a large bus stop. Check your resort map for the specifics of your hotel.

Resorts with large footprints have many bus stops scattered around the resort to give guests access without having to walk too far. These include: Old Key West, Saratoga Springs, Caribbean Beach Resort, Fort Wilderness, and Coronado Springs resort.

Most resort bus stops include electronic signs that state when the next bus is arriving for each location. While these may seem like a godsend, I’d be cautious when relying on their accuracy. More than once I’ve seen guests flustered by inaccurate information. For example, a sign says the bus won’t arrive for 15 minutes, a guest thinks this means he has time to run back to the room to grab a jacket. Nope, the bus comes earlier than indicated and the rest of his party is fuming that they have to wait an additional cycle.

Or, the sign says the bus will be there in five minutes, giving you just enough time to get to your dinner reservation. Nope, the bus comes 20 minutes later than advertised, making you late; if you had known that would happen you would have called an Uber.

Overall, consider the wait time information to be a broad estimate and you’ll be in a better headspace to process the real time updates and occasional foul balls.

Airport and Cruise Bus Transportation

Every Walt Disney World resort hotel is a pickup spot for buses to/from Orlando International Airport and to/from the Disney Cruise Line Terminal at Port Canaveral. These buses are fee-based and must be reserved in advance; they’re not part of the normal Disney resort transportation system.

If you’ve reserved a bus for the airport, to find pickup spot, look at the front of your resort for a small round sign that says “Airport Shuttle Departures.”

If you’ve reserved a bus to the cruise terminal, you’ll receive a notification from DCL telling you where and when to meet inside the hotel. DCL personnel with check your cruise documents and walk you to the bus location at the resort.

There are no airport or cruise pickups from the theme parks.