Late Arrival to MCO--WWYD?

SaintsManiac

Wait for it.
Joined
Dec 9, 2014
So I am torn on what to do about our arrival in a couple of weeks.

Our flight arrives at 11:10pm. Right now I am thinking of doing only carry on luggage and taking DME.

OR

Should we check our bags, collect them and Lyft? DME?

What would you do? Last time we arrived past 10pm we collected our bags and waited forever for DME. It took 1.5 hours to get to POP because we had just missed a bus.

Any thoughts appreciated. I don't know why this decision is so hard for me. :sad2:
 
We always try to get by with just carry-ons. As you've already experienced, bus frequency can be lower that late. Probably wouldn't take much time to go to DME and check on departure. If it'll be awhile use a ride-share.
 


We always try to get by with just carry-ons. As you've already experienced, bus frequency can be lower that late. Probably wouldn't take much time to go to DME and check on departure. If it'll be awhile use a ride-share.


We are leaning to using Lyft as a backup only. My question about that is how far from DME area is the Lyft pickup area? I know NOTHING about taking cabs from MCO.
 
They pickup on Level 2 Arrivals. My googling shows them listed in the Taxi lane. Likely multiple locations.
 


We have a similar situation in August. We chose option 3

Booked a hotel near the airport that has a free shuttle. Will land around 11:15pm, take the hotel shuttle and sleep, then get an early AM shuttle back to the airport and hop on DME to go to the resort. I had a ton of hotel points so it won't end up costing us anything extra :)
 
i would use DME. I’m assuming you’re not doing anything that night other than go to bed so I would go the easy route with DME and if you have to wait for a bus then it’s an opportunity let the anticipation of an awesome vacation build one more time.

ETA - I check my bags as long as I have what i need for the next day in a carry on.
 
I am in the same position in a couple weeks. I will be checking my bag, collecting at baggage claim, and then heading to DME to catch the bus to All Star Movies for the night. Just think it really is the easiest option for me. I just plan to sleep in a little more than normal the next morning (or possibly for awhile on the plane even though I am coming from the west coast).
 
I'm in the same position, too. After many trips arriving at around 7AM JetBlue changed their only LAX>MCO flight so this Sunday I'm landing at nearly midnight. Friends are arriving earlier in the day so the Cabin will be ready. I'll let DME take my checked bag as I won't need it until late Monday (we're going to Universal Monday).

Does it really take 90 minutes to up to 3/4 hours for a bus to take you to the resort that late?
 
I'm in the same position, too. After many trips arriving at around 7AM JetBlue changed their only LAX>MCO flight so this Sunday I'm landing at nearly midnight. Friends are arriving earlier in the day so the Cabin will be ready. I'll let DME take my checked bag as I won't need it until late Monday (we're going to Universal Monday).

Does it really take 90 minutes to up to 3/4 hours for a bus to take you to the resort that late?

I am hoping it's NOT the norm. It was the only time we arrived that late and I just couldn't believe how long it took.
 
I am in the same position in a couple weeks. I will be checking my bag, collecting at baggage claim, and then heading to DME to catch the bus to All Star Movies for the night. Just think it really is the easiest option for me. I just plan to sleep in a little more than normal the next morning (or possibly for awhile on the plane even though I am coming from the west coast).


We decided to just stick with DME. It's going to be so late and I want to be stress free. We can sleep in on Saturday, thankfully!
 
I'm in the same position, too. After many trips arriving at around 7AM JetBlue changed their only LAX>MCO flight so this Sunday I'm landing at nearly midnight. Friends are arriving earlier in the day so the Cabin will be ready. I'll let DME take my checked bag as I won't need it until late Monday (we're going to Universal Monday).

Does it really take 90 minutes to up to 3/4 hours for a bus to take you to the resort that late?


My dd decided to join us last minute last September and her flight landed about 11:30 pm. She took ME to the BWVs and it took about 90 minutes, maybe a tad less. She said it made many stops. I think gnhey just fill a bus, so those first have to wait for it to be somewhat filled and ot just makes stops to any resort that is on the bus, although Im not fully certain. That was our experience.
 
We’ve arrived very late our last 3 trips - we take the latest flight out of YYZ so we are waking up at WDW on the morning of our first day of vacation rather then spending the day traveling, or getting up in the middle of the night to be at the airport 3 hours prior for clearing customs/security.

Our flights have gotten into MCO between 11:20pm and 12:30am.
We have both travelled with carry on’s only & have grabbed checked luggage and brought it to the DME - the timing for the checked bag was surprisingly quick at that time of night, so it didn’t add much to the overall timing.

That said... shortest travel time was just under an hour to WL in mid December with a midnight arrival... 90 mins to Pop on a late November trip, arrival time 12:20am.
Our longest was over 2 hours to the YC in late August - very slow driver even on the highway, 4 stops before the YC (Pop, CBR, BW then YC with BC after our drop off) that was a 2:15am ish check in from a 11:50pm arrival with just carry on’s.
 
Our late night arrivals have resulted in long ME bus rides. More waiting before we leave, more stops. It’s not pleasant when all you want is your bed. I’m arriving at 7:30pm next week and have aarranged a car. Just want to get there. 7:30 pm isn’t late, but I don’t want to risk it. My poor experiences have been with arrivals after 11pm.
 

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