My family and I are planning a trip on the DCL in November of next year. I have some questions: 1) Does the DCL transfer bus pick up passengers at the Art of Animation? If not, how do we catch a transfer bus? 2) We are staying at WDW resort, going on the cruise and then coming back to WDW. We would like to stay at the Art of Animation on our first stay but then go to the Pop. Does anyone know if the Pop will let us store some luggage there until we return so we don't have to bring everything on the cruise with us? 3) We are thinking of renting a car at the port and driving back (so we can stop at Universal). Has anyone ever rented a car from Alamo at the Port? If so, how much of a pain is it? Thank you!
DCL offers transfers from ALL resorts owned and operated by WDW. They cost $35 per person each way and are booked thru DCL. It is a good idea to mention your transfers at the hotel when you check in. You'll get a letter in your room on the last full day giving you instructions and an exact pick up time. While we haven't done it at these specific resorts, we have left luggage at one resort and picked it up at a different resort--bell services will take care of this for you and will deliver it to the second resort (the one you'll use after the cruise). All you need to do is talk to bell services at your first resort--they take care of everything from there. We have never used Alamo at the port, perhaps because until recently they did not have an outlet near the port. I've read that they share a location now with Enterprise and National. We have used Budget, Avis, and Thrifty. All have locations where you can drop off/pick up near WDW as well as near the cruise terminal..For example, Beget is in the Doubletree hotel near Downtown Disney. THey have a shuttle to your resort or you can catch the Marketplace bus at Downtown Disney (5-8 minute walk). Rental codes for many companies are at rentalcodes.com and mosesavers.com.
My family and I stayed at A of A before we sailed on the Fantasy in August. We were picked up around 12:30 and then had to go to Pop and pickup some guests there as well. All in all we were not on the ship until about 2:30 and were unable to make it to lunch (we had to grab a snack on the pool deck after the muster drill.) I will not be using Disney transport to the ship on my next cruise because of this, we are going to get a limo. Using the Disney transport back, however, was fine and I will do that again.
