How much time needed - MCO to AK Rope Drop

[AliceIn]

What time would we need to be on the Magical Express in the morning if we plan to check into the Beach Club, then pick up a rental car at the Dolphin/Swan, and plan to be at Animal Kingdom for 9ish am.

 

[Jestocost]

What time would we need to be on the Magical Express in the morning if we plan to check into the Beach Club, then pick up a rental car at the Dolphin/Swan, and plan to be at Animal Kingdom for 9ish am.

I'm guessing you are staying in the airport area the night before your BC reservation and are trying to figure out what time to get to the DME Welcome Center to meet your plans?

I would plan on it taking at least an hour to get to the BC via DME and another 30-45 minutes to check in at the BC and walk over to the Dolphin after that.

Ultimately you are going to be limited by the fact that the rental car counter at the Dolphin doesn't open until 8 a.m. As a result, I think you're going to want to plan on being there when it opens to allow time to get the car and make the drive over to AK.

My question is if you're going to rent a car and will be at MCO, why not just pick it up at the airport and drive to the BC yourselves?

 

[Greysword]

I agree. Alice, you are likely going to need about two hours (maybe an additional 30 min) from wheels rolling to rope drop.

There are quite a few variables, including:

- bus departure time from MCO
- load out (how many stops)
- front desk workload (mainly with departing guests)
- Dolphin car availability
- traffic to AK
- if your room is ready you'll want to take luggage up
- if room is not ready, you'll want to check luggage with bell service (who may be busy, too)

... just to name a few. Not to bring you down, but it is going to be an early morning You can mitigate some of it by using only carry-on luggage for the morning (checked luggage with go to resort via RAC), doing online check-in (desk should have room key or reservations ready, so you wouldn't even need to actually check-in with the desk), and maybe splitting up to have one person run to the Dolphin to get the car process started while the others get the hotel set.

Good luck, and let us know the strategy and how it worked, please!

 

[AliceIn]

My question is if you're going to rent a car and will be at MCO, why not just pick it up at the airport and drive to the BC yourselves?

A couple of reasons for doing it this way:

It is a lot less expensive for us if we pick up at the Epcot resort and drop it off there when we are done. We can use a much smaller car if we don't have to worry about all the luggage. We're a party of 5, so a compact car is fine if it's just us and the two booster seats. If we need to fit all the luggage, we need a larger vehicle. We can also drop the car off a few days earlier without having to go all the way back to the airport.

The plan was to be at the rental counter by 8ish and then head to AK.

It sounds like we'd need to be at DME between 6 & 6:30?

Early mornings for us are the norm. We have to drop our kids off at their before school and summer camp programs every morning by 6:30, so we are up at 5 regularly.

We're hoping that since AK is not a late night park, we can make a fairly early day of it.

We are staying CL at the Beach Club, I was hoping we could just drop luggage off with them and head out right away. We've never done CL before (and without the great deal we got this time, we won't be doing it again!), and I thought check-in was much easier.

 

[winthropf]

If it's possible, it might be an advantage to have one adult stay at BC to check in while the other walks over to the Dolphin to pick up the rental car.

 

[msjprincess]

A couple of reasons for doing it this way:

It is a lot less expensive for us if we pick up at the Epcot resort and drop it off there when we are done. We can use a much smaller car if we don't have to worry about all the luggage. We're a party of 5, so a compact car is fine if it's just us and the two booster seats. If we need to fit all the luggage, we need a larger vehicle. We can also drop the car off a few days earlier without having to go all the way back to the airport.

The plan was to be at the rental counter by 8ish and then head to AK.

It sounds like we'd need to be at DME between 6 & 6:30?

Early mornings for us are the norm. We have to drop our kids off at their before school and summer camp programs every morning by 6:30, so we are up at 5 regularly.

We're hoping that since AK is not a late night park, we can make a fairly early day of it.

But if you're staying at an airport hotel the night before, won't you have to bring your luggage with you?

 

[AliceIn]

But if you're staying at an airport hotel the night before, won't you have to bring your luggage with you?

We will take the Magical Express from the Airport to the Beach Club. Luggage would be on the bus with us.

 

[AliceIn]

If it's possible, it might be an advantage to have one adult stay at BC to check in while the other walks over to the Dolphin to pick up the rental car.

This is a good suggestion and I hadn't thought about it. One can check in while the other brings up the car.

If this all works out, I'll write it all up and tell you guys how it went. It does sound a bit clown car like once I wrote it all out.

 

[msjprincess]

We will take the Magical Express from the Airport to the Beach Club. Luggage would be on the bus with us.

Oh yeah, I was thinking straight