OK ... OK... please let me clear up some misconceptions:
Anyone who flies into Orlando International Airport (MCO) AND staying at a Disney owned and operated resort can use DME. You don't need to buy a "package."
DME is two things, a free bus ride and a luggage delivery system. EVERYONE who uses DME checks their luggage in at their home airport, and won't see it again until it "magically" appears in their resort room. You don't have to wait around for it, and you don't need to be in your room when it arrives (hence the "magical" part of it). While it CAN take 6 hours as someone else said, that's a pretty extreme example and most people have been getting their luggage about 2-4 hours later (but the suggestion to pack essentials in a carry-on is a GREAT idea!). The checked luggage "magically" gets to your room because before you leave home you attach a special DME tag (it's sticky paper, bright yellow, with all kinds of pre-printed identifying info) to each piece of luggage you will check. Your home airport and your airline don't know about DME and don't care -- when you're flying TO Orlando, your home airport and your airline have nothing to do with DME. Don't ask them about it, they will think you're speaking a foreign language or something. After your luggage is deplaned, the airline releases it to the airport's control. At that point, employees of an outside contractor pull all the DME-tagged bags out of the luggage stream. Your luggage then gets loaded onto a truck and is delivered to your resort. From there, your resort's Bell Services staff take it to your room. They are pre-tipped by Disney for this service, so don't feel badly if you're not there to tip them. Hopefully, you're out having fun rather than sitting and doing nothing waiting for your bags.
That's the luggage delivery part. The other part is the bus ride. You get a free ride to your resort. People from up to four resorts are grouped on a bus. MOST people have reported not waiting more than about 20 minutes until the bus leaves, and many reported less time (it was only about 10 minutes for me). While there are no set groupings of which resorts go on which buses, it is pretty reliable to say that for any given bus, the resort closest to MCO gets dropped off first, etc. You have the option of taking your carry-ons onto the bus with you, or having the driver stow them in the cargo hold (you get them back when you arrive at your resort) -- if the driver handles your bags, it is appropriate to tip.
When your vacation is over
, DME gives you a ride back to MCO. It is scheduled about 3 hours prior to your flight's departure time. Again, the bus may stop at up to four resorts. If you are flying one of a small group of airlines (called "participating airlines"), you have the luxury of checking your luggage AT YOUR RESORT (and also getting your boarding passes) and then not seeing it again until you go to your home airport's baggage claim carousel. If, like me, you are flying a "non-participating airline," you take your luggage to the bus, the bus driver puts it in the cargo hold, and then unlaods it for you at MCO; at that point, you go to your airline counter and check in like you would any other time.
A lot of people get messed up with the terms "participating" and "non-participating" airline -- there's no need to be confused. It applies ONLY to your return to the airport, and only applies to your luggage. EVERYONE gets the luggage handling/delivery on their way FROM the airport to WDW.
Some people get nervous about the luggage delivery facet of DME. I think it's great, and I also can't understand how someone trusts the airline to transport the bags 1000 miles but then doesn't trust a Disney contractor to take it the last 20 miles, but to each's own. For those people, they control matters by NOT putting the yellow DME tags on their bags, picking up their bags at baggage claim, and then taking the bags to the bus, then getting the driver to load the luggage into the cargo hold, etc. Me, I like being treated like a VIP and not having to bother with going to baggage claim.
I know this was LOOOOONG, but I hope it helps you understand DME better.
ENJOY YOUR TRIP!
-- Eric
