Lost in Transportation

This post is just an anecdote of what happened to me a couple days ago while I was at the parks. It was Thursday, December 20th. I was at the library in the morning, posting the 2nd episode of the podcast and doing my usual forum postings and such when I decided to cut my online time short and go to the parks. I went to The Studios first, to take pictures of the now bare archway at the Animation Courtyard. Anyway, I strolled around the park for a while, checking out the Harlem Gospel Choir, as well as the Osbourne Family Spectical of Dancing Lights. Around 6:30pm I decided to try and head over to Epcot and get a bunch of imported candy from Japan before going back home. Well as I was heading out of the park gates, I was deciding weather I should take the boat, bus, or just walk. Well the line for the boat looked like it could fill two boats, and I really didn't want to walk. Just then a bus pulled up to the Epcot stop so I went with that. Now it wasn't a regular Disney Transportation bus. It was a Downtown Disney Resort bus.

Earlier this year, I had ridden a charter bus that picked up at Animal Kingdom, and dropped off at Epoct. So I figured that they were using the Downtown Disney bus to replace a park bus that was down or late for whatever reason. Everyone got on the bus and about 10 minutes later a man asked the driver if he was going to Epoct and much to everyone's surprise the driver said no. He was going to the Hilton, and about 6 other hotels before he was going to Epcot, so it would be about an hour before he would get there. I don't think there was anyone on the bus that was trying to get to any of the hotels. So needless to say, everyone was a little less than happy, and pretty confused.

The next bus that came was also going to Epcot, but like the previous one, it had other hotels to go to, so it would about 40 minutes to an hour. Well everyone decided to just take that bus, while I decided to go in the hotel and try to find out more information. I got a cappuccino at the Starbucks and asked about the best way to get back to the parks. I was informed that I could just walk to Downtown Disney, so thats what I did. By now I had scrubbed my original plans for going to Epcot, and decided to just hang out at Downtown Disney for a little bit before going home. I started browsing around some of the stores and found an excellent CD in the Once Upon A Toy store. Its The Haunted Mansion (ride) Soundtrack. It has a bunch of ride audio as well as unused recordings.

I'll go over the CD a little bit more in Episode 3 of the podcast, which comes out tomorrow. Anyway, I started to get hungry so I went over to Earl of Sandwhich, but that place was PACKED! So I settled for less, and got a double quater pounder w/ cheese at McDonalds. Once I finished my meal, I figured I'd better get back to TTC so I wouldn't miss the last Lynx bus home. I got on a Disney bus to the Grand Floridian, then took the Monorail back to TTC. Once I got there, Wishes had started, and about 10 minutes later Illuminations could be seen through the trees across the parking lot. With both firework shows going on, they had to close some of the roads. So instead of the Lynx bus leaving TTC at 9:53pm, it didn't arrive until 10:15 or so. That was one of the strangest, and slightly frustating experiences I've ever had at Disney.