First, there's bus service from the resorts to pretty much anywhere in the "world". For example, from the Caribbean Beach Resort (our resort) we could take a bus to any of the four theme parks, the two water parks, and Downtown Disney. The buses are air-conditioned and the drivers are very friendly. When you get on a bus to go to a park music plays that fits the theme. For example, when going to Disney-MGM Studios showbiz music (like scores from movie soundtracks) played in the background. No matter where we were, when going back to our resort the bus played Caribbean music (I got very tired of hearing "Under the Sea" and "Kokomo"--with just the music and without the lyrics-- every time we were going back to our room). Even though the Caribbean music may have been annoying, the bus was still a wonderful service. Typically buses run every 20 minutes and begin running at about 7 am. We had mostly great experiences with the bus system (although one time we waited at our stop for about 40 minutes before an Animal Kingdom bus that wasn't full showed up), and when we didn't it was mostly because our stop was the last on the route.
Second there's the futuristic monorail that links the Magic Kingdom to the Transportation and Ticket Center (TTC) and some of the fancy resorts. There's also a monorail that links Epcot to the TTC. We only rode the monorail once. We rode it on Saturday morning after our breakfast at Chef Mickey's (we were in the Contemporary Resort and the monorail comes right through) and had fun going by all of the different resorts. On its way to the Magic Kingdom, the monorail passes by the Contemporary, Polynesian, and Grand Floridian resorts. It's a very fast and comfortable way to travel if you get the chance. Kids love it too, and it's even OK (and fun) to ride it just because you want to (it might have been quicker for us to walk to the Magic Kingdom from the Contemporary, but we wanted to take the monorail anyway)!
The last way is by boat launch. There are some areas of the resort that can only be accessed from other areas by the boat. We learned this the hard way. When going to breakfast at the Beach Club, we thought we could get on a bus to any park and then transfer to the bus to the Beach Club. Well, this statement is true for any park EXCEPT for Epcot and MGM-Studios. Of course, the bus we got on went to Epcot, and once we got there the cast member at the bus stop told us that we had to take a bus to MGM-Studios and then take the boat. So that's what we did. We weren't late for our reservations because we left very early, but we did learn that the resorts on the lake near Epcot were only accessible to the two parks by boat (and the Epcot boat docks on the other side of the park in World Showcase--that's why we could not take the boat from Epcot to the Beach Club) or by walking. The boat was wonderful though, and the captains were very nice and funny. They even took a picture of the family for us.There are some cases when calling a taxi is useful and perhaps the best way to go. We had to call for a taxi twice during our stay. The first time was for when dad and Zack had to be at the Magic Kingdom for their tour at 7:15 (there was absolutely no way they could have caught the bus) and the second time was when we had to be at the Contemporary for breakfast (after our Beach Club adventure, we really didn't want to deal with transfers again). However, it is possible to travel from place to place without a cab.
Overall, the transportation system was great. It was wonderful to park the van for the entire week and not have to worry about driving it around or having to deal with parking lots at all the parks (the bus stations are at the front of each park). We didn't move the van at all while we were on Disney property!
The best advice I could give to the Disney traveler is this: make sure that you give yourself plenty of time to get from place to place, especially if you are planning on going from resort to resort. It can take a lot longer to get there than you think. And make sure you know what bus goes where--and if there are certain parts of the resort that are only accessible by certain modes of transportation (i.e. the boat story).
