Just back from SSR Room 4630 Paddock Nice but Magical Express WAS VERY BAD

[Jeremy&Susan]

Family just spent a great week at Disney. We stayed at SSR in room 4630.

Room was nice and pretty clean but we would like to let the previous tenants know that we found your lost Cherrio under the dining room table and your empty water bottle under the chair in the master bedroom. I could see missing a Cherrio but the water bottle was a little bit big to be missed.
On the whole though the room was very nice and pretty clean.

The SSR resort is also very nice but we would like to see some more walkways added to the main roads and more benches added to the existing walkways around the water. If you aren't intimate with all the walking paths around the ponds / lakes or from DTD to SSR you sometimes take the main roads and NONE of the main roads into the resort have sidewalks. A bit unnerving when walking a baby. Once we figured out the resort though we were able to stick to the paths they did have.

Only serious issue we had was in leaving. We utilized the Magical Express and probably wont ever do that again. We were told to arrive 20 minutes prior to a 3 PM bus. By 3:20 i asked the bell service personnel where the bus was and they began to check. The bus company had them on hold for over 20 minutes trying to find their bus. While waiting, their manager Toby promised to get my family a taxi to get us to the airport.
Toby was not exactly honest when he made that promise. When the bus company finally told bell services that a bus was only a minute away (now 3:40 for our 3 PM bus), Toby told the bell service people not to get us a taxi but did not even tell us that he was backing out of his promise. Well the bus did finally show-up ----
AT 3:55
Just to round out a great 1:30 long wait for the bus, the bus they sent was not roadworthy, it had air pressure problems with the brakes. Does not sound like a safe Disney Arranged Ride to us. The entire trip to the airport, the bus driver kept going through red lights and stop signs so that he did not have to stop the bus, he said that he was worried that the lack of air pressure would lock up the brakes and the bus would not be able to start again. WOW
When we finally reached the airport, the driver stopped at the first available spot and told everybody that he couldn't go any further due to the air pressure problem and they would have to walk to their airline from that point.

Not a great way to round out an otherwise great trip.

Magical Express is DEFINTELY something we wont be using any time soon!

 

[Ariel8676]

Sorry to hear about the ME..we have used it several times..and have never had a problem.
Happy to hear you had a great trip otherwise!!

 

[jbrowna]

Rather than simply not using ME -- as far as I know this was a complete aberration -- try writing to Disney about your experience. Remember, ME is outsourced: the buses and drivers are contracted by Disney, but are neither owned nor maintained by Disney. They need to know if they're not getting the quality of service they're contracting for.

The only bad experience we had with ME was not really that bad -- the bus actually showed up early. We showed up only 10 minutes -- rather than 20 minutes -- before our time, and the bus had already left. So we waited a half hour for the next one. After us, it went to Boardwalk, where it waited for some slow people, so we were really up against it when we went to the airport. In the end, however, we did make our flight.

In all, we've used ME for something like 5-6 trips, and (if we're not renting a car), wouldn't use anything else.

 

[Jeremy&Susan]

Just being late would not be a reason not to use ME again, agreed.

We too have used Magic Express a number of times without any hitches but this experience went well beyond forgive and forget.

Being lied to by a member of Disney management and then being put in a vehicle which should never have been allowed on the road is beyond the forgive and forget level.

What if the bus hit somebody or got hit by somebody going through the red lights and stop signs?

Safety should be paramount and this definitely was not.

We still love Disney and will return many times. We will just rent a car from now on.

 

[Merylj]

That is really bad - I`m amazed Mears would allow an unroadworthy bus to be used - write that letter for all our sakes!
Pleased you liked SSR - we`ve had 8 days there an I loved it

 

[hematite153]

I agree with your concerns and if I were you, I would be very leery about getting in a bus operated by the same company again. (In fact you've got me worried about my upcoming ME ride even though I've had good experiences with them in the past.)

But, please do write to Disney with the details of your ME trip. They need to know about it and they cannot correct the problem, and prevent it from happening to someone else, if they are not notified.

I was in a bus with similar sounding brake issues this summer. We narrowly avoided one crash when we were unable to stop at a red light only to go off the road into the ditch 10-15 minutes later. After spending the rest of the day at the hospital with several seriously injured children, I have a renewed sense of the importance of proper bus maintenance. I'd now probably asked to get off a bus like you describe--even if it meant being late for my flight.

I'd also encourage all who have the opportunity to ask their governments for seatbelts for buses. (There are several studies showing that seatbelts decrease bus crash deaths and several states that require them. But, the other states keep saying that the taller seats protect people from injury, missing the fact that you can fly up and land on the seats, or hit your head on them.)

 

[3DisneyKids]

Yikes! Disney is fanatical about safety....can't believe they allowed this!

 

[Mtnman44]

I've only used ME twice so far but overall been very pleased. My only complaint is that waiting on the bus after arriving at the airport seems kinda long. however, it's not that bad when you think about it. they can't have a whole bus waiting for every arriving group. They've got to put them together as best as they can. Plus, it is still less time than waiting for baggage and then shuttleing over to the car rental place so I'm pretty happy about that.

Then when it is time to leave the resort and you can check your bags AND get your boarding pass, right there at the resort, WHOA! That is awesome! we did this at 8am for for a 5:30 flight and then had half a day for more fun!

 

[toesmom]

Family just spent a great week at Disney. We stayed at SSR in room 4630.

Room was nice and pretty clean but we would like to let the previous tenants know that we found your lost Cherrio under the dining room table and your empty water bottle under the chair in the master bedroom. I could see missing a Cherrio but the water bottle was a little bit big to be missed.
On the whole though the room was very nice and pretty clean.

The SSR resort is also very nice but we would like to see some more walkways added to the main roads and more benches added to the existing walkways around the water. If you aren't intimate with all the walking paths around the ponds / lakes or from DTD to SSR you sometimes take the main roads and NONE of the main roads into the resort have sidewalks. A bit unnerving when walking a baby. Once we figured out the resort though we were able to stick to the paths they did have.

Only serious issue we had was in leaving. We utilized the Magical Express and probably wont ever do that again. We were told to arrive 20 minutes prior to a 3 PM bus. By 3:20 i asked the bell service personnel where the bus was and they began to check. The bus company had them on hold for over 20 minutes trying to find their bus. While waiting, their manager Toby promised to get my family a taxi to get us to the airport.
Toby was not exactly honest when he made that promise. When the bus company finally told bell services that a bus was only a minute away (now 3:40 for our 3 PM bus), Toby told the bell service people not to get us a taxi but did not even tell us that he was backing out of his promise. Well the bus did finally show-up ----
AT 3:55
Just to round out a great 1:30 long wait for the bus, the bus they sent was not roadworthy, it had air pressure problems with the brakes. Does not sound like a safe Disney Arranged Ride to us. The entire trip to the airport, the bus driver kept going through red lights and stop signs so that he did not have to stop the bus, he said that he was worried that the lack of air pressure would lock up the brakes and the bus would not be able to start again. WOW
When we finally reached the airport, the driver stopped at the first available spot and told everybody that he couldn't go any further due to the air pressure problem and they would have to walk to their airline from that point.

Not a great way to round out an otherwise great trip.

Magical Express is DEFINTELY something we wont be using any time soon!

Uggh! Sounds really bad. Bad enough for adults, but I read you have a baby. That makes this much worse. Sorry for a crappy end to your holiday. I wouldn't use ME again if I was you either. Learned my lesson for our holiday in March, we'll rent a car just to avoid such possible problems. Enough trouble travelling with young kids to not have to worry about problems with buses being 1.5 hours late.

 

[alldiz]

OP.....please write a letter to disney letting them know what happened to you

The problem is incompetant drivers.....not unacceptable vehicles....

On my Aug trip on ME we stopped 1st at BW...the driver couldn't open the
handicap door...this started a chain of events leading to the release
of the air pressure and the bus couldn't start.

I know this because my hubby is a railroad engineer very knowledgable
in all types of equipment....he was really annoyed because he had to
go to the bathroom and the driver had no idea what was wrong.

Someone else had to come on the bus and tell the driver what to do.
Caused quite a commotion because 2 ME buses going to the airport,
were stuck behind us.
kerri

 

[Jeremy&Susan]

We did write into Disney first thing when we got home. They responded by letting us know they were forwarding our concerns and would get back to us in the next five days.

We will let you know how it goes. I hope to be surprised but I am expecting the patterned response of, "We take safety very seriously and will look into this further to make sure issues like this do not occur in the future......... yada yada yada"

Nothing any company wants to seriously respond to through an email thread. They aren't going to get rid of Mears, is there any real alternative?
They also aren't going to fire or reprimand a manager for lying and then tell you via email either?

I just hope they actually do something about the issues, they don't need to tell me all the details.

 

[Jeremy&Susan]

Well, we did get a call back from Disney.

Very nice person who insisted that our experience with the ME is not what Disney wants and she will look into it. Kind of what I expected, hopefully something gets done to ensure visitor safety. I'm thinking not too much will happen unless more issues like this come up from other Disney Guests. One voice is only a sound-bite.

Also the Castmember did say that what Tobi did was not right, but she really did not seem to want to talk about a Disney Castmember doing something wrong. Again she said that she would look into it.

I'll let you know if I ever get a call-back letting me know if something will be really addressed and not just talked about.

Thanks for all your comments and shared concerns.

 

[wildernessDad]

Your experience seems to be the exception rather than the norm. I've never had a bad experience with DME and look forward to using it in the future.

We pack an extra suitcase with water and use the empty suitcase for goodies. I don't think I'd do that if I had to lug that suitcase around.