Confused about luggage on land/sea

[pouncingpluto]

If someone could clarify for me from first-hand experience, I'd really appreciate it! I know some things changed after 9/11/01, so I'm not sure what the current practice is.

So, we're doing a 3/4 land/sea. We check our baggage at our home airport, then fly to Orlando.

Do we retrieve our baggage from baggage claim and take it with us on the shuttle?

Am I correct in understanding that if you do your land portion first, the shuttle that picks you up is not the DCL shuttle, but a Mears shuttle? So, in that case, we take all of our luggage with us and to our hotel rooms ourselves?

Then, the morning we go to the ship, I want to go to Animal Kingdom. Do we take our luggage down to the hotel lobby and see it next in our room on the ship? How is this arranged? Who and when do we tell that we want to take the bus from AK?

Thank you for your help!

 

[tksbaskets]

Pounce,
Just back from the 12/29 land/sea vacation.

If you arrive on the actual land/sea day, Thursday, you will be met by a Disney Cruise line rep. If you are on an airline that is hooked with Disney your luggage should go right from check-in at the airport you used to get to Orlando to your Disney resort. You should be boarding a Disney CL bus, but Mears operates those too so it won't make a difference. The DCL reps will direct you where to go.

(we went a day early so we used our airport-resort transfer coupons that came with our cruise docs and picked up our luggage from the claim area and went down to Mears where we were pretty quickly shuttled to our resort. I think the only differences were we grabbed our own bags and there wasn't a DCL rep there)

When you check into your resort, you will check in with the DCL reps at your resort too. They will give you a 2 page explaination of taking off from AK. Piece of cake! You call a number from the house phone to get your name on the list of people being picked up at AK. Then you are able to take advantage of PS at Donald's Breakfast-o-saurus at AK - do it! The morning of your cruise you just leave your tagged bags inside your resort room and go on your way to AK. Once there, there is great signage to direct you to the DCL desk where they will check your day bags and give you a "DCL fast-pass" to either Tarzan Rocks or the Lion King show.

You head back to the DCL desk between 12 and 12:30 and are quickly on your way to the ship.

If you have any othe questions, just ask!

 

[pouncingpluto]

Cool... thanks so much for the help! I've done a lot of travelling, but never really been pampered, so someone else taking care of my stuff sounds wonderful yet unnerving at the same time.

I think we'll probably fly United. Is that one of the airlines DCL works with? The only other airline that flies non-stop Chicago (where I think I'll be living in April) -Orlando is American.

So, where does the DCL rep meet us? At baggage claim?

I'm not sure if we'll want to do the Breakfast-a-saurus, just because my boyfriend has never been to AK before, and I want to have time to show him as much of it as possible.

That's awesome about the DCL fastpass to a show. Do you get to choose which one you want?

An unrelated question: on the four day cruise, on the fourth evening, do you dine in the same restaurant as your first evening?

Thanks again!

 

[tksbaskets]

At the Orlando airport you take this tram from the terminal to the baggage claim part. Once you exit the tram you should see the blue-blazered DCL reps. (before baggage)

Yes, at AK you can pick which show you'd like to see. I'd opt for the Lion King if I were you and your boy friend has never seen it. Excellent show!

On the 4-day cruise your 4th day should be the same dining room as the first. That day you will have a special "best of" menu which will be the same in all the dr if I'm not mistaken.

Have a blast!