One of the easiest things to do around Walt Disney World Resorts in Orlando, Florida is to find inexpensive or free travel. If you are a resort guest, your transportation is nearly always free via your resort, with the most comprehensive transportation package coming from the actual Disney World Resorts. However, once you move a bit farther afield, up towards Universal Studios and Sea World, cheap transportation can be a bit trickier. The hardest thing to find is convenient and inexpensive transportation. The I Ride Trolley system around International Drive is the best way we have found to get from point A to point B easily and cheaply.
After one of the worst and most chaotic trips we had to the Orlando area, my partner and I were in need of a reprieve. Leaving Discovery Cove, we could obtain transportation via the buses that run back and forth between Discovery Cove and Sea World, but to get from Sea World to our hotel was proving quite a bit more difficult. Fortunately, we stumbled upon information regarding the I Ride Trolleys. The I Ride Trolleys run through the International Drive area daily from 8 in the morning through 10:30 at night, so getting around only poses a problem if you plan to be travelling around the Orlando area after 10:30 pm.
Upon leaving Sea World at about 9:30, we were quite nervous, having never really used public transportation before. We come from an area where cars are king and bus travel rather limited, so the expectation was that we would have great difficulty finding the Trolley stop and even more difficulty figuring out how to get to our hotel.
Fortunately for us, the Trolley signs are all standardized, as per the I Ride Trolley website and are all 10 feet high and on both sides of the street. At Sea World, the stop is located to the right of the entrance on the far side of the parking lot, and it is readily obvious where they are located. Just to make sure, though, we checked with a Sea World employee, who was happy to point us in the right direction. The Trolley stops were covered, though they are not always this way. There was a map depicting exactly where we needed to go and which Trolley we needed to ride.
Once the Trolley arrived, we noted two issues. One, the first Trolley we attempted to board, having determined that it was the one we wanted based on the map, was quite full. We wanted to check with the driver to make sure it would get us where we need to go, and were told bluntly “Nope, not this one.” It was not clear whether the Trolley was simply too full or whether we were on the wrong one, and we waited for another Trolley. The next driver was much kinder and explained some of the basics to us. As we were travelling with a small infant in hand, people in the quite overcrowded Trolley permitted me to sit while my partner stood in front of me to make sure no one fell into us, which was certainly a danger. I was told by a nearby passenger that the I Ride Trolleys tend to be quite busy in the evenings and around the theme parks, which was certainly the case when we took one from outside of our hotel the following day around 10 am.
The I Ride Trolleys service the International Drive area and cost $1.00 per person (exact change required) over 12. Children under 12 are free and seniors are a quarter. You can also purchase an Unlimited Pass for $3-$16, depending on the number of days that you’ll be using the Trolley, according to the I Ride website.
