Disneys Magical Express - NEVER AGAIN

[byoung]

Takes 2 to 3 hours of time more than the towncars round trip. To me it's worth saving the $110 for the towncar. If Disney starts charging for this service than I will go back to the towncars.

 

[TDC Nala]

Takes 2 to 3 hours of time more than the towncars round trip

Wow! Is this for an entire round trip, cumulative? Then it makes sense.

For airport to resort, a towncar would most likely take 30-45 minutes. I've taken ME a few times and depending on when the bus left the terminal and where my resort was in the dropoff order, it's taken generally between 1 hour and 2 hours for that leg.

Coming back, I would probably leave 2 hours prior to flight time if I had a car (this is with no luggage to check; if I had luggage to check it would probably be 2.5 hours). ME generally picks up 3 hours prior to flight time but this is to accommodate any other stops the bus makes. If all goes well ME adds an hour to car time.

So, yes, I can see 2 to 3 more hours cumulatively for a round trip...not per leg, unless something goes wrong.

 

[beattyfamily]

Thanks for sharing OP.

I almost used ME this past Sept since it was an extra trip without my DH but I ended up canceling and renting a car, like I usually do.

I just didn't like the idea of being on ME's schedule getting to my resort and I really didn't like having to leave my resort 3 hours before my flight, when, with a car, I could leave any location in WDW (and not just at my resort) about 1 1/2 hours before my flight. I had a 1:25p ADR at PSB on my last day and my flight was at 5:30p. I didn't want to cancel it because of ME. With my rental car, I could park at Epcot and leave Epcot at 3:30p and still make my flight and enjoy a nice birthday lunch. With ME, I would have had to have been at my resort at 2:30p and not have made that ADR at Epcot.

It's worth it to me to continue to rent a car even though ME is currently free. To each their own.

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

Takes 2 to 3 hours of time more than the towncars round trip. To me it's worth saving the $110 for the towncar.

I don't agree that DME takes "2 to 3 hours of time more than the towncars round trip." Maybe 1 hour roundtrip — 30 minutes or so at each end of the vacation.

For your inbound trip:

• DME allows you to bypass baggage claim. You go straight to the DME Welcome Center, where you check in and board the motorcoach. You might be on the road while others on your flight are still waiting for their luggage, or you might encounter lines and waits. And, of course, you have no control over the departure time of the motorcoach. You should arrive at your resort 50-100 minutes after you land.
  
• With a towncar you first have to wait for your luggage at baggage claim. After that, you wait for the driver to retrieve the car. Then it's nonstop to your resort. You should arrive at your resort 60-75 minutes after you land.

The first time I used DME, we were on the road 5 minutes after we arrived at the Welcome Center. The second time, it was more like 20 minutes. Both times, we were the first stop at WDW.

For your return trip:

• Leave approx. 3 hours before departure with DME.
  
• Leave approx. 2.5 hours before deprature with a towncar.

Sure, you can take a later DME motorcoach or you can schedule a later towncar pickup. However, I wouldn't recommed either.

The big advantage of a towncar isn't the modest time savings. It's the personal attention and the privacy, and the feeling of control (not having to be on someone else's schedule).

The big advantage of DME (in addition to the fact that's it free) is not having to bother with inbound luggage. You attach the yellow tags before you check your luggage at your home airport. Your luggage "magically" shows up in your room a several hours after you land. It's great not having to handle anything except carry-ons at Orlando Airport and when you check in at your resort. You can be somewhere having fun when you luggage is delivered.

One other consideration is that a town car is very comfortable for a couple or a family of 3. For a family of 4, a towncar is tight, and DME is more comfortable. For more than 4, a towncar service won't work unless you get a costly limo or van.

 

[DisneyConvert]

Figure one's weekly Disney expense, say $2.5k for a family of four (which might include air fare, hotel (on site - moderate), meals (less the cost of food at home?), park tickets, incidentals (oh boy, we don't want to forget about those!).

Then figure, one will be "entertained" and exposed to "magic" at one's WDW experience for, say 100 hrs that week (very rough, but say 13 hours per day x 7+ days). Not sure exactly how that works out, but pool time, monorail time, restaurant time, hanging out at the resort or parks etc., all counts.

That's $25/hour one is paying to be entertained. That's total for a family of 4. Your mileage may vary.

So now, what does a TownCar or rental car even, save?

time - to & from the airport, maybe >1/2 hour coming, 1 hour going. ($37+)
grocery option - $35 or so in reduced Walmart vs. Mickey expenses, maybe.
restaurant alternative (off-site?) - $100 or more.

Close enough, that I can see why different folks choose different options.

 

[vince971]

It's amazing how different everyone experiences have been with DME. I have used it twice and knew both times what I should expect. Both of my experiences were very similar. I was very pleased with the fact that I could by-pass picking up my bags and go straight to the DME counter. Especially my November trip. We had 12 people, 4 of them small children, which as many of you know means lots of luggage. I waited about 15 minutes total between the two lines and then boarded my bus. Both trips my family was the 2nd stop. I think about 60-70 minutes to the check in line at SSR in November and the same for Coronado in January . The return trips took a lot longer but I kind of expected them to anyway. It did take a long time for our luggage to get to our room on trip #1. I think about 4 hours but we had all we needed in our carry-ons, thanks to advice from these boards!! For me the convenience of not trying to navigate the airport with my 3 small children and luggage far outweighs the extra time I would have saved using a towncar service.

 

[DebIreland]

I'm all for saving money but I am way too scared to use DME again. It was a disaster when we used it last summer. In fact, it was the only thing that went wrong with our entire holiday - everything else was just wonderful and we had a ball!!

I did tons of research before our trip. DME was only operating a few weeks when we took advantage of it on June 24th so I made sure to find out all I could in advance. I was really excited about it and grateful for the free ride to our resort BUT to start, we received a total of four sets of luggage tags/DME reservations in the post!! At the time we had booked through Small World Vacations and our wonderful TA was as amazed as I that we should receive so many packages. Not to be too boring but package 1 had the correct check-in info, wrong check-out info and all the tags had my daugher's names on them (she's 1!!); package 2 had the correct check-in info, wrong check-out info and all the tags had my name on them and so on with package 3 and 4 with various assortments of names, dates etc. When we put them all together we had tags for everyone (with about 200 to spare ).

Anyway, I didn't care about any of this - I knew we were eligible to use it and I took my TA's advice not to worry so I didn't. She double and triple checked with DME and they assured her they had all my details. I knew where to go when we arrived at MCO and in fairness we saw the CM with the giant Mickey hands immediately and then saw the queue which was endless. I queued for over an hour! And guess what? They had no details for me in their system at all. So, not to worry, I gave them all the details again - our names, resorts, check out date etc. I was particularly anxious that we get the check-out details right for our return trip to MCO because we had a split stay, between POFQ and WL. It took quite a while but the CM (who was very very nice) assured me that all the details were in the system and not to worry; he called it all back to me and said we were all set!

So, happily I gathered the troops to set off to the bus queue and wait.... and wait.... and wait.... and wait. Whilst many, many others who came along way after us skipped merrily onto their busses we stood and waited some more. I asked the CM what the delay with the PO bus was and she just kept saying "just a few minutes now". So 1 hour later, we get on our bus. This is now 2 hours and 15 minutes AFTER we had arrived at MCO. At this stage the kid are exhausted and irritated from hanging around an airport. So we sit on the bus and the driver is muttering and complaining. He was clearly having a very bad day and didn't utter a word or even attempt a smile at anyone for the trip. No video either but I didn't care about that. We're going to Disney World..... yay!!!!!

So finally we arrive. Nothing could dampen our excitement so even all of that didn't bother me. This was 5.30pm. I was prepared not to get our luggage for a long time so we had the basics with us. We went for dinner etc. and when we got back at 9 our bags were in our room. except my youngest son's bag was missing All his clothes were in the missing case but he didn't care Again, we didn't panic but we rang downstairs and they said they'd look into it. We went to the food court and came back to find a message on the phone from a wonderful kind gentleman who had checked into Old Key West and had the same name (first and last) as my son and, get this, the same room number as us too!! "What are the chances?" as he said himself!!! So he was very kind and called bell services straight away and had them bring the bag to us. Now I totally understand that mix up; even though we were at different resorts I can see why the CMs would have put our bag with his luggage. No sweat. All is well with the world. Thank you, thank you, thank you to Mr D. Murphy if you're out there somewhere - Disney magic at it's best. My child had clean clothes again (although he was quite looking forward to wearing the same shorts, t-shirt and underwear for 10 days)

So.... fast forward a few days and I'm thinking on and off about our return trip so I ask DH to contact DME and make sure (tripley, quadrupley, quinte .... oh you know, there's been a lot of making sure )..... So he does. Guess what? They never heard of us and "no sir, you haven't provided any details for your return trip" ). So, hmmm, he gives them all the details AGAIN. Fast forward 3 days we get back to our hotel room and get a message on our phone from DME "this is Disney's Magical Express. As you haven't provided us with any details of your check out time could you contact us a.s.a.p. please?". Hello?????? Again???? The frustration is killing me at this stage. So we contact them and give them all the details again and I ask why they keep losing our detals when we've provided it 3 times from home, once at MCO, once on the phone and now again and she said we couldn't have provided any details because if we had it would be in the computer. Sure, yeah! Nothing very magical about that.

So, last day, we go to get our 5pm bus to MCO (our flight leaves at 8pm but as it's an international flight we are very happy to leave at 5pm to leave us check in with time to spare etc.). The bus pulls up, CM loads the bus, asks everyone for their tickets. We give him ours, he looks at the airline (Aer Lingus - an Irish airline) and he said he never heard of it. We didn't fly into MCO with Aer Lingus, we flew in via NY with Delta so we didn't know what terminal we needed to go to. Neither did he. He checked his list and said "nope, you're not on the list". He radiod someone who had never heard of our airline either so he said "I'll just drop you at terminal __" (can't remember which one it was was now, 2 I think). The bus took FOREVER. We weren't the only ones to notice this. So he dropped us somewhere. We had no idea where we were. I asked him would he please check back again to the office and ask where we are meant to go and he wouldn't do it. He said his job is to drop us at MCO and that's what he did. Hmmm, ok.

So we wandered aimlessly around MCO and finally found a wonderful airport staff member who took the time and trouble to help us because I was very close to tears at this stage and convinced we were going to miss our flight. By the way, we did have (of course) our email flight print-outs but they didn't print the terminal on them. I had the airline number in my notebook though and the staff member kindly called them from his cellphone and directed us to Gate 28 at Terminal something. It was a long way off but we made it with 30 minutes to spare for our flight.

Will we ever use Magical Express again? Not if Mickey himself drove the bus. Not if we had to cut 3 days off our trip to afford the cab fare, not if the bus seats were lined with gold and champagne and cavier was free-flowing on-board, not if.... you can imagine!! We (my family) are clearly the Bermuda triangle of Disney guests and we vanish into thin air in the Disney "system" so, in short, I'm looking forward to the cab ride from MCO in October.....

TO ADD: We are not moaners. We had a fantastic, magical time at WDW and the CMs, the restaurants, the resorts, the pools, the theme parks, EVERYTHING, was wonderful except for DME!

Thanks for letting me get this off my chest!

 

[boomhauer]

I've only used ME once so far - On the return trip last May (when it first started). I thought the bus was fine. I liked the TV's showing Disney stuff, though it seems kind of silly and pointless LEAVING the resort.

Noone likes to sit at the airport for 2 hours, but hey - Policy is policy. That's just the way it is. You don't like it - Rent a car.

What I didn't like was the fact that we had to carry all of our luggage from the bottom of the garage, up 2 flights to check in. I realize they have weight restrictions at MCO, but that part kind of stunk. If Disney wants to call it "magical express", hire a few more bodies to assist people with their luggage who aren't on a participating airline.

Then again, it's free, so I can't really complain. Just some suggestions I would give Disney. They always seem willing to go the extra mile. To me, that's how they could go that extra mile with the ME.

 

[goofy4tink]

grumpus....I have used DME three times now, with the first time being in June. We used it to get to BCV but when we left WDW we left from POR. It was totally chaotic. But, that was because there was a Pampered Chef convention (for lack of a better word) that was leaving POR that morning also. It seems that about 75% of the resort was booked by Pampered Chef people and with them all leaving around the same time, it was a zoo!!! But, that was the only time I found the return to be chaotic. And yes, POP will store your bags until your room is ready. As an aside...your town is a beautiful one. My ds went to Nichols for 2 years, so we are pretty familier with the area (also only live 35 minutes away from you)

As far as DME adding on 3 hrs to the time of transportation....only one time have I used a towncar service that got me to my resort faster than DME has. That was when my driver was actually at the bottom of the escalator waiting for me, and I had only carry-on luggage. Otherwise it has been about the same time frame. I have routinely been in my resort check-in line about an hour after touching down at MCO.
Now, when we return to the airport, I really don't love the fact that I have to leave almost 3 hrs before my flight, but that's only about a half an hour longer than with the towncars I have used. Up to this point, and using DME three times so far, it's been a wash time wise. And if it saves me over $100 to use DME, then I have no problem sharing my ride with 30 of my new friends. There will always be those people that don't want to ride the bus...they will always take a towncar. That's their right. No one is right or wrong...just a personal preference.

 

[princessjv]

I too will never use this service again. For 99.9% of users, there most likely is not any problems. SADLY, we used it in Oct. and YES, we were the .01% with a big problem!

ME lost our luggage on the way from POR to the airport. They unloaded us at Term 1. Our driver then proceeded to ask my DH for his tip while unloading our luggage, "do you like my service...most people who like my service give me a tip". My DH stepped over to me (on curb with infant and DS) to get the tip (that we planned on giving him), our driver closed the doors to the luggage compartment, grabbed his tip and ran on the bus. As the driver was getting on the bus, my DH counted our luggage, yelled to the driver that he is missing one. The driver said, "gotta go, I am late" and left. To this day we are without our luggage... The luggage included all of our trip momentos. This was not a Magical Experience to end our 10 day Magical Vacation. My son still gets very upset that he lost all of his, "Disney Magic Names" (autographs).

Do your research before you go, yes it will take longer than a town car (in most cases), yes you do need to carry on anything you may need (just like normal travel on any airline)and yes they can still loose your luggage!

As for who owns Disney Magical Express, Disney DOES! Do they contract every peice of it out? YES! Who is responsible for DME...? Well according to all of the Disney CM's that we have dealt with with on our issue...NOT DISNEY!?!

 

[seashoreCM]

>>> Aer Lingus
For charter and international flights you really need to request an earlier bus time back to the airport, like 3-1/2 or 4 hours before your flight. I think there are just two drop offs at the airport for guests going home, one on the A side and one on the B side and the locations may vary depending on traffic.

>>> gotta go I'm late
You should have filed a lost baggage report with Magical Express, the exact method would depend on how much time you have before your plane leaves for home. Start with a phone call to put them on notice. Asking for a tip is improper and you can mention that too in order to help identify the bus and driver. Edited 1/23/06 to add: IMHO driving off before the guest has reconciled everything is a severe irregularity also. Edited 1/27/06 as follows, remove the IMHO.

>>> get another bus
If your assigned bus home doesn't come or doesn't take you, ask the resort manager for help. If time is short he should take money out of the till and hand it to you for a taxi.

 

[vince971]

Will we ever use Magical Express again? Not if Mickey himself drove the bus. Not if we had to cut 3 days off our trip to afford the cab fare, not if the bus seats were lined with gold and champagne and cavier was free-flowing on-board, not if.... you can imagine!! We (my family) are clearly the Bermuda triangle of Disney guests and we vanish into thin air in the Disney "system" so, in short, I'm looking forward to the cab ride from MCO in October.....

TO ADD: We are not moaners. We had a fantastic, magical time at WDW and the CMs, the restaurants, the resorts, the pools, the theme parks, EVERYTHING, was wonderful except for DME!

Thanks for letting me get this off my chest!

IF I WERE YOU I WOULDN'T USE DME AGAIN EITHER!! Glad to hear you didn't let that experience ruin your vacation.

 

[lovesdumbo]

OK I just had to look at time stamps from my photos from my last 2 trips. Trip in Aug 05 I used DME to ASMo. We had all carry on luggage. HUGE crowds at DME-cruise arrival day. Waited a fairly long while for bus. When we got at the resort with everyone else on the DME there was a long line to check in. We checked in, room not ready, checked bags with bellman, went to the bathroom, went to the bus stop where I took my first photo while waiting for the MGM bus 2 hours & 20 mins after touch down.

Next trip Oct 05. DD & I went 2 nights ahead of the rest of the crew and I had all the luggage for the 5 of us for 9 nights (7 for the others). I met up with the FL Tours driver at luggage claim, he drove us to the Poly, got a bellman to take us to Poly concierge, told the bellman I didn't want a first floor room, waited for concierge to find another room, waited for the concierge staff to actually go look at a room to be sure it was ready, bellman brought us and all luggage up to the room-including a couple of boxes I had shipped to the resort, bellman told me all the features of the new room. Took my first photo after bellman left 1 hour, 21 minutes after touch down. To be completely truthful, I still hadn't really checked in yet but the town car service was much quicker than DME.

princessjv-I can't believe Disney didn't do anything to replace your DS's autograph book. Did they offer any compensation for your lost bag? How sad for your little man!

 

[TAKitty]

Okay, first of all, Magical Express IS Disney. As at least one person stated above, Disney runs it with Mears as the subcontractor.QUOTE]

When I was last on ME in Dec. the driver made it very clear that he did NOT work for Disney but Mears. He was not a cast member he clearly stated .

 

[mainewmn]

Well we just used DME and LOVED it. Allow me to take you back a bit to explain the small hustle we did have to go through with DME before we left. I booked our January trip in August of 2005. Since I book the airline first then booked the hotel I was able to give them all my information right there when booking the hotel. The only questions I stressed was that it was a surprise trip for my boys and I wanted NOTHING sent to the house about the trip. I was assured that NOTHING would be send to the house and that the information would be sent to my work instead as requested. Happy with my choices I sadly realized someone dropped the ball when an envelope with “your reservation confirmation” showed up at our house a week later. I immediately called and expressed to them how upset I was that this information was sent to the house instead of my work. I was assured that no further information would be sent to my house, that they wore going to change the address. Well lo and behold they change the street address but left the city the same (I work about 3 cities away from where I live) so no information was getting to me. In late December I called DME and inquired where my pocket of info from DME was, I was told that it was mailed to the wrong address and that they would request another pocket sent to us but that they could not guarantee we would get it in time. The rep from DME explained how we could still bypass getting our own language and use the full service of DME without the tags. I took the chance and decided to try it and LOVED IT. When we got off the plain with no problems we found a man holding DME sign located with other drivers who instructed us where to go. Downstairs we found a long queue line with no one in it, where a DME person took all the info on our luggage and directed us to our hotel queue line. We waited in line for maximum of 5 minutes and wore instructed to precede on the bus, on the bus we waited for another 5 minutes and we wore out of there, make a long story short we wore eating our lunch at the hotel by 1:30 pm. Our plain landed at 12:00, in that time we managed to get of the plain check in with DME, get on the bus, check in, go to our room to drop off our carry on and refresh and go back downstairs to eat. Our luggage arrived in our room by 3:00 pm as DH stayed behind on the phone putting our some sort of emergency at work while we went to the parks. I just hope they still have DME when we go back next year as it was easy and painless way to go.

Oh I almost forgot our driver that brought us to the resort was fabulous, he played games, sang happy birthday and such. On the way back the man was very knowledgeable in wild life in Florida and kept the bus entertained with stories and such they also played Snow White which was nice way to finish our trip. I know now everyone will like the same thing but this is our experience and we are sticking to it.

 

[kaytieeldr]

When I was last on ME in Dec. the driver made it very clear that he did NOT work for Disney but Mears. He was not a cast member he clearly stated .

Um... I'm pretty sure that's what subcontract indicates

 

[lovesdumbo]

when we got back at 9 our bags were in our room. except my youngest son's bag was missing All his clothes were in the missing case but he didn't care

On your next trip when you use a cab or rental car or town car service will you seperate clothes among suitcases? I've been able to keep my checked bags to just 2 (by shipping a box to the resort and doing laundry...) for the 5 of us for our week long trips. I always put half of everyone's clothes in each bag that way if one gets lost noone is without underwear for a week.

Sorry to hear about your nightmare! Glad you had a great trip anyways.

 

[DebIreland]

On your next trip when you use a cab or rental car or town car service will you seperate clothes among suitcases? I've been able to keep my checked bags to just 2 (by shipping a box to the resort and doing laundry...) for the 5 of us for our week long trips. I always put half of everyone's clothes in each bag that way if one gets lost noone is without underwear for a week.

Sorry to hear about your nightmare! Glad you had a great trip anyways.

Thanks. We really did have a great holiday. Great idea about separating the luggage. I'm gonna do that next time.

 

[TAKitty]

Um... I'm pretty sure that's what subcontract indicates

I understand that but some people really believe that ME is infact Disney. Our driver gave us a 15 minute talk (yes I kept track) informing the entire bus that he works for Mears etc. It did not make for a magical moment .

 

[sluggo]

I understand that but some people really believe that ME is infact Disney. Our driver gave us a 15 minute talk (yes I kept track) informing the entire bus that he works for Mears etc. It did not make for a magical moment .

Actually the only Mears employee that you will encounter is the motor coach driver. The people manning the Airport reception/check-in desk are all Disney CM's. Also the people that pull your bags from the carousels are also Disney CM's.

Sluggo