Why Disney Why?!?!?!! Oh.... maybe that's why....

The Bus situation at Disney Springs. Here is the quick and dirty for those who haven’t been paying attention.  Disney closed the free bus transportation from Disney Springs for non-Disney resort hotel guests.  They claimed it was because people were parking at the Springs for free and then using the bus to get around the parking fee causing a negative experience for hotel guests that paid for the amenity.  I along with many others assumed there were not enough people doing this to justify gatekeeping the buses. 

But after the rule changed, the complaints started coming. People said Disney was being greedy, which I initially sort of agreed with. People worried they wouldn't get to see the resort gingerbread houses this year. Others asked how they were supposed to get to the parks if they started their day at Disney Springs.

Initially, I assumed this was a small number of people. It couldn't be that many.

But the complaints didn't stop. Nearly two months later, I'm still seeing them.

And that started to change my opinion.

Was it really a small minority that were abusing the bus policy?  I am not very confident anymore.  So, I started wondering how Disney realized this.  What data did they have to show this was an issue.  This is a major transportation change with real backlash from consumers, so I assume one of the biggest companies in the world had to have some data behind their decision.

My first thought was bus capacity, especially to resort adjacent hotels.   The monorail resorts, the boardwalk resorts and the Skyliner resorts.   How many of those routes were needing extra buses due to long waits at Disney Springs?  

Obviously, Disney knows how many rooms are occupied and could forecast reasonable transportation demand through normal guest behavior.  But they also have other measurable events like people scanning into parks, magic band usage, location data from the My Disney Experience App, and likely hundreds I’m unaware of. 

But maybe it wasn’t overloaded buses as much as people using the buses at odd times.  Like people who are trying to get to Magic Kingdom as early as possible.  If Disney was seeing the first bus of the day arrive at Disney Springs and there is already a full queue of guests waiting to go to the Contemporary, that would be a bad sign things are being abused.  I mean there are a lot of hotels, “Good Neighbor” hotels within walking distance of Disney Springs.  They do have their own transportation, but I could see using Disney Springs as being easier.  And then of course locals or off-site guests that can get to the Springs easier than a park. 

My second thought was people who were parking in the parking garages at Disney Springs for inordinate amounts of time, like all day. Arrive at parking garage at 9am and leave around 10pm.  That would seem to be unlikely that someone is just a really avid shopper.  But how would they know?  And then I realized they have those little red and green lights over each spot in the garage to show you if there are any spots available before you drive down the aisle.  Ok, those are likely just lights with a sensor so if it detects a car it changes to red and I have no idea if there is any data collected from them.  But it would only take a simple timestamp on each status change.  Then Disney could easily see how many people are parking in the garage for long periods. 

Now, I don’t know the issue was bad.  I don’t know they had any data or where it came from.  But I still think it is very likely they based on this something more than anecdotes or a hunch.   So, now I want to know the results.  Did it work?   And did it have any other consequences.

First off if it was literally the parking loophole, did this reduce the long-term parkers?  If so, how much capacity did it create in the parking garage?  My original assumption that it was a handful of people would have suggested you maybe cleared up a row on one level on one garage, but what if it was a whole parking garage on busy days?  Disney could possibly have too many garages if that is the case, they might need to push more capacity at the Springs to utilize their parking investment. 

If it was walk ups, has there been any affects to the Good Neighbor hotels?  That might be something that would take much more time to present itself, though.  What about the spending levels at the Springs?   Has the average number of sales moved since the rule change?   And what about the possibility of people using Saratoga as a work around?   Is there a mob of people early in the morning walking into Saratoga?  Has there been a mass change in long term parking that reduced at the Orange garage (closest to the buses) and suddenly reappeared at the Grapefruit garage (closest to the Saratoga walkway)?

I find this stuff fascinating.  But what’s even more interesting is what they will do next.  If closing the loophole reduced enough unintended demand to create meaningful capacity, the question becomes what does Disney do with those empty buses and drivers.  I have believed for years that there was a missing bus, the one from the springs to the parks.  I have many times been at one of the parks and wanted lunch but the only place with reasonably close reservations was at Disney Springs.  But there was no way for me being an on-site guest to leave the park and get to the Springs without detouring a resort first.  And the same thing if I wanted to return.  That is where I would want to utilize that new transportation capacity.

You could even encourage lunch movement from the park, by starting the buses around 11 and return service around 1. 

Promoted correctly could help with keeping guest flow to and from parks, affecting overcrowded park restaurants and even queue lines in certain cases.  

No matter how much I didn’t like the move by Disney, I recognize they likely had a better reason than just people are skipping out on parking fees.  And all hotel guests are paying a premium for free parking and transportation, similarly, passholders have paid a premium for free parking if not the transportation also.  So, maybe I misjudged the move.  Maybe I was right along with all those others who complained.  But more than anything I now care more about seeing the data than fighting for the way things used to be.