Disney Cruise Line Transfer Questions

[tinkerbellmagic]

We have a land/sea package booked with DCL. I purchased DCL bus transfers with this package. Today, I realized I can save $200 on air fare by leaving a day earlier. I want to stay at WDW on that first night, but want a cheaper hotel than we have booked for the Land/Sea. We have the Polynesian booked for the Land part of our Land/Sea, but I wanted to book a value resort for the first night (All Stars Sports, most likely).

My questions are:
1.Can I still use DCL transfers and just tell them I am coming in a day early and will be staying at a different resort for one night? Or do I need to cancel the DCL transfers that I would have used the following day from MCO to Polynesian (since the All Star Resort is NOT part of the Land/Sea package) and book my own transportation (which I would rather not do)?

2. Also, since the All Star Resort is not part of my Land/Sea package and I will book that night seperately, how will we move from All Stars to the Polynesian to begin our Land/Sea? I don't have a problem finding my way there, but will Disney transfer our luggage? Will we pay extra for this service (excluding bell tips)?

Any help appreciated. Thanks a bunch!
Tink

 

[justhat]

We didn't use DCL transfers, so I can't help with that part too much, but I can help with moving your bags from Sports to the Poly. Just call bell services at Sports and tell them that you're transferring to the Poly (if your land portion is first, which I'm assuming it is). They will come up, tag your bags and move them over to the Poly for you. When you arrive at the Poly (my suggestion would be to take the bus to the MK and take the monorail from there), call bell services when you get to your room and they'll bring the bags up. Your bags probably won't get there right away, so pack whatever you need for the day and take it with you. Also, bell services at Sports will take awhile to get there so you could also drop it off yourself.

About the DCL transfers, we had planned on using them initially (changed our minds once we found out I was pregnant, so we'd have to take the baby on the DCL bus, which means no carseat, so we didn't think it would be safe since she was only 15 weeks old at the time) so I know a little bit. We booked our own 'land' portion-meaning all we booked with DCL was the 4 night cruise, then we booked a pre and post WDW stay on our own. But, like I said, we had DCL transfers, so I'm sure that you'll be able to keep your transfers, but you'll have to call and tell them of your change in plans.

Have a great trip!

 

[tinkerbellmagic]

Hi justhat, Thanks so much for the information.

When you say I can move my bags myself from All Star Sports to Polynesian, (since All Stars bell services are slow), do you mean we can hop a Disney bus at All Stars with our luggage and also walk onto the monorail with it to the Polynesian? I don't remember if I ever saw anyone else moving luggage on Disney buses and monorails. Do they let you do this?

btw, what an adorable baby!

Tink

 

[justhat]

Thanks! If only she could stay that size--right now we're battling her not ever wanting to lay down now that she can sit up. Problem is she still topples over from time to time.

Instead of waiting for bell services at the All Stars (at Pop it took about an hour, maybe a little more, for them to get our bags to be transferred to the GF), take your bags to the lobby at Sports and give them to bell services. They'll tag them and send them off ot the Poly. At Pop, they told us we could leave the bags in our room and head out to the parks (or in our case check-in at the GF), but we didn't want to do this since we had my daughter's car seat, travel swing, tons of water bottles, etc. that we wanted to be sure made it. Not that they'd forget and leave something that large in the room, but you never know. Also, we wouldn't have gotten the stubs to our luggage tags, and having them makes it easier to get your luggage in the even that a bag doesn't show up with the rest.

 

[tinkerbellmagic]

Thanks so much for the explanation, justhat. From what you said, I know now that the luggage transfer should go smoothly. We sure would have looked silly moving the luggage the other way...

In case anyone else might benefit from this, I spoke to my TA and she says that I will not be able to use the DCL bus transfers we had booked from airport to resort since we are arriving a day early (and staying in a different resort than our land/sea resort). We will need to find our own transportation, so am thinking of toughing it out with Mears from MCO to first resort and maybe using a towncar to get to the port (in order to arrive earlier than a DCL bus would get us there).

Your baby will probably be very athletic if she is sitting up already. Such a cutie!

Tink

 

[disneymom3]

The bus from the Poly to the port can be a bit of a pain. I would book a towncar if I were to do this again. You line up in this cattle call type set up, and they herd you onto the buses. Then, our bus went to the Beach Club where we sat and sat and sat. Don't know what we were waiting for because we finally left with no more people put on the bus than those who were there when we got there.

We are rather independent people when we travel and would have liked to decide on our own what time we were going etc. Plus, I HATED the dumb cartoons they showed on every leg of that darn trip. My 3yo who will watch anything was even tired of them!

 

[justhat]

Yep, she was quite the athlete in the womb and seems to have maintained that love for activity. She was trying desparately to sit up since she was about 3 months old and finally mastered it a fews days before her 5 month birthday. It's kinda nice to be able to sit her down so she can entertain herself for awhile, but like I said, after awhile she'll tip over, which she hates!

But anyway, we used Tiffany Towncar to get from the GF to the port and then back to AKL. We booked that as a roundtrip WDW-Port transfer then booked a separate airport-WDW roundtrip transfer. We've used Mears in the past, but now that we need to use her carseat we couldn't risk that we'd have to take one of those large buses with no seatbeats. This worked great for us in terms of getting to the ship because we got there nice and early, as we wanted to. This was great as there was no line to eat lunch at the buffet, no wait for Flounder's Reef and we got our choice of times, etc. It was great to explore the ship without tons of others all around.