DME for Very Late Flight?

[LiloH]

I am meeting some of my friends for a quick girls weekend in Orlando later this month. They are all arriving on Friday morning but I am taking a flight that arrives at MCO at midnight.

I know DME will stay open for me and I don't need luggage service but will I end up waiting forever for a few other people so the bus can get full enough to leave? I worry I'll have to kill another hour or something waiting for delayed flights before they will let us leave!

Also, I am at Saratoga Springs so how can I get to my room if it is on the other side of the large resort once they drop me at the main building?

Or...is this not worth it and should I bite the bullet and pay for a town car?

Does anyone have any experience with late night DME to share?

 

[seashoreCM]

1. Considering that the normal daytime Magical Express buses back to the airport are scheduled every half hour for modest passenger loads, it is reasonable to expect that late night bus headways both ways will be somewhat longer.

2. However to meet the guideline of guests' being scheduled back to the airport about 3 hours before their flights, the half hour headway is maintained as needed as long as there are flights going out of the airport and homebound guests to catch them. This in turn means more DME buses at the airport ready to go to the resorts reasonably late into the evening.

3. Although most guests reporting on this topic have reported lesser wait times, a one hour wait for a late night DME bus to get going has also been reported here from time to time.

4. While you are not expected to hop on a plane immediately when utilizing DME back to the airport, the buses may stop running when there are no more planes leaving however some buses would continue to run to pick up Disney bound guests late at night.

Depending on the order of stops, you could use the park bus to get from one section of the resort to another. That late at night only the Downtown Disney bus and perhaps some Extra Magic Hours park buses would be running.

 

[Lewisc]

What airline? Will you have checked luggage? SW baggage claim is located in the opposite corner as DME. SW passengers have to go to level two to get their luggage, schlep their bags back up to level three, go to the opposite corner of MCO then go down to level one. A car service will probably have you halfway to SSR in the length of time it will take you to walk to DME. I'd either probably suck it up and pay for a car service under those circumstances. You'll probably get to bed at least an hour earlier. There are reports of late buses making extra stops. No checked luggage? Budget trip? I'd be tempted to get DME a shot.

The PP point isn't really valid. There are virtually no flights domestic flights departing MCO between 10p and 5a. That means there will be few, if any, buses leaving resorts after 7p. There might be a few international flights which require a resort pickup at 7-8p. Unlikely there will be buses with passengers arriving at MCO at midnight. That would suggest a 3a domestic flight or 4a international flight.

 

[Jestocost]

It's hard to predict exactly how DME will work for a late night pick up. There are reports of longer waits and extra stops, as PPs have noted, but in one instance when we arrived late we had our own private motor coach to the Poly. No wait. No other stops. No other passengers.

Since you will have to get your own bags, that does add some time to the DME trip and a cab or car service likely will get you to your resort more quickly as a result.

 

[LiloH]

It's hard to predict exactly how DME will work for a late night pick up. There are reports of longer waits and extra stops, as PPs have noted, but in one instance when we arrived late we had our own private motor coach to the Poly. No wait. No other stops. No other passengers.

Since you will have to get your own bags, that does add some time to the DME trip and a cab or car service likely will get you to your resort more quickly as a result.

Thanks everyone for the input! I won't have any checked bags (quick trip=carry on) so I need to way the risk of a long wait vs the cost of the shuttle. There's also the possible delay factor which means I will be very, very late and very, very tired and probably not too happy to be sitting on the bus for an hour.

Does anyone know the rough cost of a taxi to the resort? How does it compare to the towncar service?