Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge Resort’s Bus System (Schedule, Stops, and Average Travel Times)

Complimentary bus service to and from the parks is one of the perks of staying at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge. As you may know, Animal Kingdom Lodge is a deluxe resort. However, due to its somewhat remote location, the resort only offers one form of transportation: Disney’s bus service. So for this article, we’ll focus specifically on the bus schedule, including average travel times, internal bus stops, and what to expect during your stay.

Unfortunately, this resort often gets mixed reviews because the resort only offers bus transportation. Guests tend to complain that the resort is “far away from everything” or that the bus service “takes forever.” That said, we’ve tracked the travel times from all the resorts and found no significant differences between Disney’s Animal Kingdom and anywhere else. Of course, if you stay at Disney’s Contemporary Resort, you can walk to the Magic Kingdom in about 10 minutes. You’re also likely to pay considerably more for that location, even though they are both deluxe resorts.

Now for those travel times. While we can’t estimate how long you’ll have to wait at the bus stop, we can provide an average travel time from Jambo House (the main lodge) to Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and Disney Springs. We’ve tracked these routes (multiple times) to come up with a fair average.

For reference, the bus stop at Jambo House will be to your left when you exit the main lobby. You can also exit through Zawadi Marketplace, the hotel’s gift shop, to get to the bus stop. The bus stop is covered with benches and waiting areas for each destination. Animal Kingdom Lodge has two bus stops (Jambo House and Kidani Village). We cover the bus travel times from Kidani Village in a separate article.

When traveling to the theme parks, Jambo House is the last stop before the bus leaves the resort, which means it will be the second stop when you return. It’s important to remember where to exit when you return and listen for the bus driver to announce the stop. If it’s late and you’re riding a packed bus with a sleeping child in your lap, you wouldn’t want to exit at the wrong stop.

Note that our travel times do not include how long we waited for the bus. Wait times signs are posted at the resort bus stop, indicating when the next bus will arrive. The times below are how long it’s taken us to get from the Jambo House bus stop to the listed destination. For example, the 22 minutes to Disney Springs includes the time it took to stop at Kidani Village. (When you travel to Disney Springs, Kidani Village is the last stop when you leave the resort.) Again, these are the averages of several trips and do not consider extenuating circumstances like significant traffic.

Buses From:	To:	Time:
Jambo House	Magic Kingdom	17 minutes
Jambo House	EPCOT	13 minutes
Jambo House	Disney’s Hollywood Studios	12 minutes
Jambo House	Disney’s Animal Kingdom	7 minutes
Jambo House	Disney Springs	22 minutes

Want a quick reference? Download our Animal Kingdom Lodge Travel Times Printable. (No email required.)

We hope you enjoyed this overview of the resort’s bus schedule. For more on how transportation works at this resort, see our Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge Transportation Guide. You might also like the following coverage of the resort:

• How to Get from Jambo House to Kidani Village
• Coffee Options at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge
• Animal Kingdom Lodge Pool (Photos and Details)
• Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge Restaurants Guide

To see our complete coverage of the resort, you can access our guide to Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge. For more on the buses at Disney World:

• The Complete Guide to Disney’s Bus System
• Disney World Bus Schedule Guide
• List of Average Bus Travel Times at Disney’s Resorts
• Disney Resorts with Multiple Bus Stops

More Planning

Resorts Gal specializes in Disney World Resorts, Characters, and Dining. Explore our resources, including our Disney World Resorts Guide. It provides an overview of everything you need to know about the Disney Resort Hotels. For dining, our Disney World Dining Guide is an excellent place to start. Our Disney World Transportation Guide is a wonderful resource for planning your routes. It’s one of our most popular resources. If you plan to meet characters in the parks, we have an updated list of Disney World Characters. It includes every available character meet-and-greet in the parks and where to find rare characters throughout the year. Lastly, our Disney Parks Guide provides a complete overview of all four theme parks and water parks.