Latest Magical Express pick-up time at a WDW resort

[NancyIL]

I read the Magical Express FAQ (http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/wdw/common/helpFAQ?id=HelpFAQDMEPage), but didn't see this addressed. I'm planning to stay at a WDW resort for 4 nights in December. On check-out day, I'd like to take ME to the airport as late as possible in order to spend the maximum amount of time in the parks. I plan to stay at an airport hotel that night and fly home the next morning. I know that ME picks up 3 hours before a scheduled flight, but without a flight that day - what's the latest pick-up time from a WDW resort to the airport?

 

[dacky041208]

What I would do is pick a flight that leaves as late as possible on your checkout date. For example, if you can find a 10 pm flight, they will pick you up roughly at 7. That gives you most of the day at the parks. ME is a 24 hour service (I've seen some people report getting picked up at 2 or 3 am), so I think you would just need to find a flight that leaves about 3 hours after you want to get picked up at the resort. Bell services will hold your luggage for the day.

 

[goofy4tink]

DME bases your airport return time on your flight departure. You have two options here...
1. find a flight that goes somewhere, anywhere, from MCO in the late evening. For instance, there is a flight leaving MCO and heading to Laguardia at 8:50pm on Aug 21. You could put in flight info for that flight, and they would give you a pickup time of about 6pm.

2. Or just wait until you get to your resort and call DME and give them the time you need to be at MCO. Tell them that you are not flying out that night though. It is entirely possible that they will just give you a time for pickup that meets your needs, rather than the 3 hrs before a 'fictitous' flight.

 

[NancyIL]

Thanks to both of you. I took ME to the airport a few years ago when I wasn't flying out the same day, but I told ME that I wanted a late-afternoon pick-up. (I was meeting an incoming flight, then picking up a rental car to visit my mom.) I just wondered if there was an absolute latest time that you could go to the airport in the evening.

I just called POFQ and talked to Bell Services. I was told that if I had a 9 p.m. reservation, I would be picked-up - although I'd probably be the only one on the bus! It makes sense that buses would run all night, because people arrive in Orlando late at night, as well as depart on very early morning flights.