Staying at Animal Kingdom in Early May - Need help!

HI, gang!

I will be taking my honeymoon in early May, and my wife and I will be doing the Disney Cruise Land and Sea thing, staying at Animal Kingdom Lodge for the first leg of our trip.

1. What%26#39;s this I hear about Animal Kingdom having their own independent bus that doesn%26#39;t stop at other hotels? Will we be able to just hop on a different bus from each theme park, or Downtown Disney, and not have to cram in with all of the other travelers staying elsewhere? If so, how do I make sure I catch this bus instead of the others?

2. Is the Animal Kingdom park within walking distance of the Animal Kingdom Lodge? We think that one of the days, we%26#39;l be seeing the Animal Kingdom first, so I wonder if we%26#39;ll have to wait for the bus, or whether we can get a good warm-up by just hoofing it in the morning.

3. Going from park to park - it%26#39;s not as simple as taking a bus or tram, correct? I have to take a bus to a resort, switch busses, and get on a bus going to the other park? Are there cast members at each stop who provide you with the shortest round trip, or helpful advice, or are we pretty much on our own?

Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated. We have only 3 days to try and soak up all of the new experiences the parks have to offer - and when I say new experiences, I mean that we are annual passholders here is SoCal, so we needn%26#39;t bother with things that are already out here, like Soarin%26#39; or Fantasmic, or anything that%26#39;s the same on both coasts. Any time-saving tips you could offer would be very helpful. And of course we are used to using Fastpass!

Interesting tip we picked up in SoCal - You can have 1 Active Fastpass at a time in each park! So you could go to Disneyland, grab a Fastpass for Space Mountain, head over to CalAd, and get a Fastpass for Soarin%26#39; at the same time -- Then again, in Cal, the parks are right next door to each other, and traveling between parks could be honestly described as ';hopping.'; I don%26#39;t think we%26#39;ll be that lucky in Florida.

Thanks in advance!

-Brian

Staying at Animal Kingdom in Early May - Need help!

First of all, you are going to LOVE AKL. It%26#39;s amazing. Okay, so..

1) Yes, it%26#39;s true that the AKL bus services only AKL. This is opposed to some of the other resort buses that service ';sister'; resorts - all of the All Stars resorts (3 of them) use one bus, etc. AKL is a little farther out than other resorts, so it%26#39;s nice to have a straight shot home at night.

2) Animal Kingdom is NOT within walking distance of AKL, but the bus ride is very short, 5 - 10 mins.

3)From Animal Kingdom, you can catch buses to other parks. From all other parks, you have to either go to a resort and catch the correct park bus (All buses are clearly marked) or go to the Transportation and Ticket Center (near Magic Kingdom) and get a bus to another park. We usually take the bus to a resort and then walk to the park. Eg, if we want to go to Epcot or DHS, we%26#39;ll take the bus to the Boardwalk and then walk to either park. For Magic Kingdom, we%26#39;ll take the bus to the Contemporary and walk. Cast members will always help you.

My best tip to you is to purchase a Passporter Walt Disney World guidebook. You can buy one at their website www.passporter.com or at Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble. It has in depth info on every resort, park attraction and restaurant. It will give you maps and average wait times, shortest bus connections, weather, etc. It really is great.

Another tip - Make meal reservations as soon as you can, 180 days out. www.allearsnet.com has menus from every restaurant at the parks and resorts.

Have fun!!

Staying at Animal Kingdom in Early May - Need help!

1. Yes, AKL has it%26#39;s own busses that go exclusively to that resort. However, you won%26#39;t be alone as the lodge is huge and lots of folks from the lodge will be on the busses with you. The busses are easily identified by the marquee on the top front of the bus. Also, most of the parks have designated areas depending on the lodging you have.

2. No, AKL is not in walking distance of A.K. theme park. You must drive or ride the bus. There are no sidewalks along the roads and Disney frowns heavily on ';hoofing'; it around their road system.

3. There%26#39;s debate on whether you can park hop directly by bus as it may depend on the time of year and capacity of crowds. If you cannot take a bus directly from one park to another, you can do the resort transfer method. The monorails only serve Magic Kingdom and Epcot. As for cast members help, if someone is posted, be sure to ask, but having cast members posted at the bus stops is not common.

As far as park hopping goes, Disney World Orlando is nothing like Disneyland, CA. In Anaheim, the parks are within walking distance of each other with an easy ';go between';, but in Orlando, this is not the case. The parks here are very spread out and the only two parks that can even be walked between are Epcot and Hollywood Studios...and even then, it%26#39;s a 20 to 25 minute walk.

Have a wonderful time!!