Disney announced today that they're going to start charging a nightly parking fee for staying at their WDW hotels. The price is $13 per night at Values, $19 at Moderates, and $24 at Deluxes. Walt Disney World Resort Hotels to Begin Charging for Overnight Parking - LaughingPlace.com In general, "free" parking was one of the few true advantages of staying on property. Lots of other hotels in the area have hidden fees (parking, resort fees, etc.) that make their rooms look cheaper at first glance, but ultimately cost more. I can see why Disney would want to make their properties more competitive with the others, but it's not like hotel rates will be dropping as a result of this. Eliminating one of the few truly guest-friendly policies will only make people further question the wisdom of paying Disney's exorbitant hotel prices, which have grown huge amounts in recent years It also seems odd to me that any hotels in such a spread out suburban-style area charge for parking. I understand the need in big cities (particularly in places where you're likely to drop your car off at the beginning of your stay and not need it until you leave), but WDW has the blessing of size to avoid these sorts of issues. Furthermore, having pricing tiers is weird, since it's the same service provided at all levels. Many of the lower-level hotels have better parking than the higher-priced ones. And with rumors of the dissolution of the Value, Moderate, and Deluxe marketing levels in the not-so-distant future, it only makes that setup seem more questionable Of all the obvious cash grab moves Disney has made recently, this is the most obviously cash grabby
Charging for parking at any hotel is one of my pet peeves!! A few years ago my friend with whom I often visit Disneyland asked me to drive down and meet her. She was being put up at the Hilton for a teacher's conference. I mean, I got to stay for free so it was still a great deal. But when I had to pay $45 to leave the parking lot at the end I was still a bit put out. At that time I could have gotten a cheap hotel for less than that per night and it had free parking and free computers. (The Hilton also charged to use their computers.) It was neat to stay at such a nice hotel with the big soft fluffy towels and all. The room had a microwave but no 'fridge! The cheap hotels all had refrigerators. Anyway, this sort of thing always leaves me wondering why it seems the places that charge the most up front also seem to charge extra for things that should be included. We really hope to visit WDW someday. But the longer we wait the less likely it is that we will be able to afford it.
A lot of people use DME to get to and from their hotel/airport when going to WDW. We generally don't rent a car when we vacation (unless it's Hawaii) because most place do charge for parking. We are going to be in Seattle in a couple of weeks for a Mariners game, but decided to stay in Renton because we would've paid roughly $100 in parking fees to stay in town. We would much rather pay $30 to park at the stadium for an afternoon and just walk the mile or so in to Pike or the Wharf area after the game to wander around to allow for the traffic to die down a bit.
When we did Comicon this month; we took the bus from Renton. So nice to whiz past the traffic and not have to pay through-the-nose for parking. We got so lucky in Hawaii where Town hotels charge for parking. We got a 3 bedroom house across the street from the beach on the North Shore for $200 a night. It had a yard with a nice driveway to park 2 cars. Don't think we'll ever see a deal like that again.
Fine with me. Driving is one of the things I take vacations from. I can count on one hand the places where I would rent a vehicle while on vacation: 1. The Big Island of Hawaii: Oahu has TheBus, and I've even walked to the Hawaii Railway Society's museum from the nearest bus stop (it's not bad unless you get lost). Maui has a bus system that likewise takes me everywhere I've wanted to go, that wasn't within walking distance of my hotel in Kahului. But the Big Island, at least as of the last time I was there, only had one public bus, which made one trip, one way, in the morning, and a return trip in the evening. 2. Jamestown, California: It's ironic that Railtown 1897 SHP, the backcountry facility of the California State Railroad Museum, is an hour's drive from the nearest train station (Modesto), and that the only way I'm aware of to get there by bus is from Yosemite. 3. Crosby, North Dakota: No longer an issue, because everybody I know there is now deceased. When I go to San Francisco, I get around on the MUNI, BART, CalTrain, and occasionally other local transit services. When I go to Boston, the "T." Chicago, the CTA, mostly the "L." New York City, the subway. Colonial Williamsburg, their famous little gray buses. New Orleans has NORTA. When I go to Yosemite, I take YARTS, from the train station in Merced. When I go to WDW, I take DME between there and the airport, and I take whatever transfer service is currently serving the train station. For side trips to Kennedy Space Center, I take the local Gray Line affiliate. And within WDW, the bus service is free. (But remember: 1900 Park Fare, at the Grand Floridian, DOES NOT SERVE LUNCH!)
I wholeheartedly agree w/ your transportation choices @hbquikcomjamesl ! We generally enjoy figuring out the public transportation system on vacations. It can be a bit more challenging in Europe where not everything is in English, but with a bit of planning it's not too bad.
Although the initial learning curve may be higher, I've found that most international transit systems are far easier to use than in the US. The networks are generally more extensive, have shorter headways, and cheaper fares. And since many of the cities were either built prior to widespread automobile use or were built to be transit-centric, they're much more walkable and easier to get around once you're near your destination When using transit in the US, I typically double and triple check to make sure each portion of the journey will link to the next, since so many things aren't really transit-accessible. In other countries, it's a lot easier to just figure it out on the fly
That's really cheap of Disney to charge for parking, especially in the US, where many people from all over the country travel to WDW by car. Hopefully DLP isn't introducing that cash grab, because we usually go there by car.
Having visited WDW just recently, I find this really unfortunate. My room at Port Orleans overlooked a parking lot. Said lot was not full. Said lot was the closest you could get to many of the lodges out there. The number of times I saw hotel staff jet by in a golf cart and think, "Maybe I should try to thumb a ride" doesn't bare reflecting on. Charging people money to park there just seems silly. You're already paying to stay at a Disney resort and go to Disney parks and such, why do they feel the need for more parking fees? It would make more sense in the spots where parking is more impacted (Disney Springs, the various parks, etc.), but not out in the vast open spaces around the larger resorts. I flew in, and never had a vehicle, so I didn't have to worry about it, but for so many people I met on my trip, driving was the only option, and they came with all sorts of stuff you can't get on a plane.
My first thought (other than obvious cash grab) is Disney wants to discourage people from renting cars so they have no choice but to stay on property. A guest with a car might got to Universal Studios or to the beach or to Legoland or the many other attractions in and around Orlando. But if they don't have a car then they're beholden to the transportation available which only takes you to to/from the airport, Disney parks and Disney Springs and those are the only places you can spend your money. So it's a cash grab either way.
Uh, no. The local Gray Line affiliate picks up at several Disney hotels (they used to pick up at ANY Disney hotel) for everything from airboat rides to shopping sprees to Kennedy Space Center, and the Orlando LYNX bus picks up at several WDW locations, including TTC and Disney Springs, with #50 running from TTC to the downtown hub, with a stop at Sea World. I've never had the slightest interest in visiting Sea World Orlando (I haven't been to Sea World San Diego in decades, and the last time I even found myself in their parking lot was the result of a wrong turn in the middle of the night), nor Universal Orlando (the last time I was at Universal Hollywood, the Screen Test Theatre had a Star Trek theme; if I want a studio tour, I go to Paramount, where you get an actual tour of an actual working studio), but I've taken the local Gray Line affiliate to KSC at least once on every visit to WDW, and I've taken Lynx on Sunday mornings to get to a church in Winter Park). And once, when I learned rather belatedly that WDW photo finishing had decommissioned their last film lab, I took a cab to an off-site drug store that still had a film mini-lab. (When they come up with a digital camera that can beat 100-speed 35mm film for image quality, doesn't cost an arm and a leg, and isn't as bulky as medium format, THEN they can drag the film equipment from my cold, dead hands!) If you're transit-savvy, you can, with a little advance planning, get from any Disney hotel to anywhere you have any business going.
Mind you, it's not like San Francisco, where you can get anywhere you need to go (and a lot of places you don't) on the MUNI, or Chicago, with CTA buses and "L" trains, or New York with the subway; it is, after all, a resort (even if they like to style each hotel as a resort in and of itself), and they would rather keep you on-property, and it's not as easy to walk off-property from WDW as it is to walk off-property from Colonial Williamsburg (a "history resort," after all, but literally right next door to William & Mary), but it's certainly not like being on some island out in the middle of the ocean, where you would need a boat (and a seaworthy one at that) to get off-property.
