Magic Express Question for the Trip Back to Airport

[hamlet35_2000]

Ok, I've read all of the ME pages and a lot of the Transportation Pages, and I believe that I understand the process, so here is a quik idea, and let me know if you all agree and that it is doable.

I want to maximize my last day, and we have a late fight @ , and I do not want to have to go all the way back to Pop Century to catch the ME shuttle. So I was thinking, I am on Delta and they will deliever my bags to the airport, so I don't need to worry about that...do I have to take ME to the airport in order for them to take my bags (and If I don't...how will they know--it's not like at the airport where they only take the bags of people who have been scanned into the bus)? And if I don't take ME I can take mears and pay for that from the Grand Floridian (we will be at the MK that day). Or is it possible to call ME Reservations and have them pick us up at the Grand Floridian? Is this something that is common? Do people do this? I know I am crazy...but I want more time in the Magic Kingdom before I have to leave, and I don't want to deal with getting back to the PC in the middle of the afternoon. Let me know what the official rules are (and if my minor breaking of them will effect my luggage getting back to the airport) and if ME will change Hotels for pickup on the last day. Thanks everyone!

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

First, it's completely okay to use Resort Airline Check-in (RAC) to get your boarding passes and to check your luggage if you're on a RAC-participating airline such as Delta — even if you're not using Disney's Magical Express at all. It's not cheating. It's not breaking any rules.

Your pickup for Disney's Magical Express transportation back to the airport will be scheduled from the resort at which you're staying. I once had a similar idea of asking to have my pick-up changed to a different resort (Beach Club, so we could depart from a F&W Festival event at Epcot). When I called the DME number to see if this was possible, I came away with the impression that I could probably do so if I pushed the issue.

In the end, i decided it would be easier to go back to the resort where we were staying. Although we could check our checked luggage through RAC, we also had carry-ons. It was easiest to leave those carry-ons with bell services at our resort.

The difference in time between taking a bus to POP or a monorail (or boat) to the Grand Floridian is probably only 5-10 minutes or so (although, in either case, it will depend on how long you end up waiting for your transportation to POP or GF). It's probably not worth the effort to depart from somewhere other than POP.

One way to gain more time is to take a cab or towncar from the Contemporary. The Contemporary is the first monorail stop after MK. You can safely schedule a towncar 2 1/2 hours before your flight, but your DME coach will be scheduled approx. 3 hours before your flight (and they'll ask you to be there 15 early). I'm not sure it's worth it, considering that the DME coach is free and a towncar isn't. Also, you would again have the issue of what to do with your carry-on bags.

 

[Lewisc]

POP is the last stop at WDW before the bus goes to MCO. Even if you can get DME to pick you up at the Contemporary the pickup time is likely to be at least 15 minutes earlier than the pickup time you'll be given from POP. You won't be saving much time.

DME picks up twice an hour and the pick up time from resorts is anywhere from 2 3/4 - 3 1/2 hours before your flight.

 

[CleveRocks]

I'm only passing along what I've read, but I'm very sure I've read Tyler saying that DME will STRICTLY only pick you up from the resort where you were a guest.

 

[dvc guy]

First, it's completely okay to use Resort Airline Check-in (RAC) to get your boarding passes and to check your luggage if you're on a RAC-participating airline such as Delta — even if you're not using Disney's Magical Express at all. It's not cheating. It's not breaking any rules.


Let me understand what you are saying, as this is what I wanted to do. I can get boarding passes and check my luggage at the resort desk( flying Delta) and then drive my rental car back and just get on the security line. My luggage will be checked thru and be at the airport when I land.

I am a pretty savvy travler and I know that luggage can be delivered and checked in by a private company, but Disney will permit this?

 

[goofy4tink]

First, it's completely okay to use Resort Airline Check-in (RAC) to get your boarding passes and to check your luggage if you're on a RAC-participating airline such as Delta — even if you're not using Disney's Magical Express at all. It's not cheating. It's not breaking any rules.


Let me understand what you are saying, as this is what I wanted to do. I can get boarding passes and check my luggage at the resort desk( flying Delta) and then drive my rental car back and just get on the security line. My luggage will be checked thru and be at the airport when I land.

I am a pretty savvy travler and I know that luggage can be delivered and checked in by a private company, but Disney will permit this?

Yep, they do. They don't care how you get back to the airport when it comes to your luggage. They make you ride the DME bus in order to get the luggage delivery in order to discourage renting cars and then going off-site to those 'other' parks. But, you most certainly use the resort baggage checkin and then drive your rental back to MCO...no problem. Just be sure to have all your ID's in order when you do this, as well as all those who are flying there...it's the same thing as doing it at the airport!

 

[CleveRocks]

Let me understand what you are saying, as this is what I wanted to do. I can get boarding passes and check my luggage at the resort desk( flying Delta) and then drive my rental car back and just get on the security line. My luggage will be checked thru and be at the airport when I land.

I am a pretty savvy travler and I know that luggage can be delivered and checked in by a private company, but Disney will permit this?

Just in case you're a cynic like me, let me explain it to you this way (all my opinion, not any official line or anything like that) ....

Disney wants to earn as many of your dollars as they can. They understand that sometimes giving away something for free can help them in the long run. They entice you with DME, which is free airport transfers and free luggage delivery. If you take them up on their offer, three things happen:

-- you don't spend money on towncar/rental car/taxi, so you have more $$$ to spend inside WDW;
-- without a rental car, you have no way of easily accessing outside meals and souvenirs and non-Disney forms of entertainment, so they capture more of your dollars
-- the idea of free transfers might entice some people who don't normally stay on-site to give a Disney resort a try (reaping beaucoup bucks for WDW)

So Disney entices you, indirectly but very strongly, to spend more of your money on-site. That's why they won't let you use DME as a luggage-only service. If they are spending money to deliver your bags, they want their own financial return, which is the fact that you're pretty much "stuck" inside WDW and have no choice but to spend your dollars there. If you send your luggage with them but then rent a car, they lose all of their financial advantage. They're footing the bill for your luggage delivery but they don't have you "stuck" spending money only within WDW (plus whatever part of your travel budget was spent on the rental car is now unavailable to be earned by them).

Now, once your vacation is over, Disney reasons that they don't stand to earn any more money from you. You're leaving. Whether you take their bus or a taxi or a towncar or a rental car or a rickshaw, you're not giving Disney another dime. Thus, there's no incentive for them to "make" you ride their own bus. They really don't care how you get back to the airport because they have no financial incentive to make you want to ride DME back. That's why it's perfectly kosher to check your luggage with Resort Airline Check-In and then get back to MCO any old way. They offer you the free return trip on their bus, but they don't lose out if you don't take them up on that offer.

Sorry this was such a lengthy response. Blame my writing teachers who always made me read Dickens.

 

[hamlet35_2000]

I am going to get alternate transportation back to the airport and use the resort to deliever our luggage. ME cast members were quite rude, and wouldn't let me speak at all or tell them my situation (being on a late flight and wanting to get dinner in before having to leave for the airport). Those CM's already have me in a foul mood about the experience, and I will be sure to let managers at my resort know. I have been to Disney many times in the past and I have never seen such an unwillingness to accomadate special situations. I was not asking them to leave later or anything like that just be picked up at a different resort. I guess (like they said) I just don't understand how anything works. I guess I don't, but I guess also I know enough that I have other options (and other options for vacations as well). I am through fighting that battle and have written both the Walt Disney Communication Department and my Resort Manager to express my displeasure with the whole experience so far and I am not even there yet. I have memories of Disney CM's at least trying to be accomdating, especially as you moved up the chain of command, but I went up pretty high in ME and nothing except for the regular scripted response. It was sad and disappointing that such an attitude about something that I don't see as a big problem for them (they would need to pick us up regardless of whether we are at PC or the Contempory, and I really do not understand what difference it makes). I can't imagine how Disney now handles real issues???? Oh well, still excited about going just kind of leery about everything now--what's going to be the next problem that gets the "not my problem" attitude and what am I going to be told that "I just don't understand how things work here" about next. Oh well...... this gives us even more time at the MK, and maybe with the extra hour we can now make that reservation for California Grill at 5:30

 

[CleveRocks]

I can understand your asking the questions you asked, and I can understand your not tolerating rude behavior from CMs, but beyond that I'm just not sympathetic. Sorry. Not flaming, just politely disagreeing.

They are offering a free service. They won't change their procedure just for you. All companies have procedures. It helps them run as efficiently as they can. 6,000-10,000 people use DME each day. If they started making all kinds of exceptions and rule changes, it probably wouldn't run as efficiently as it runs.

Disney is offering free dining for a certain time interval. The free dining promotion has rules, procedures. If I wanted them to deviate from those procedures, there's no harm in my asking. If they stand by their rules, then so be it. I'm not inclined to have such a strong sense of entitlement that I'll brood over the fact that I don't like what they are offering me for free. I don't know the exact origins of the phrase "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth," but I think it applies in this case.

Disney is a magical place, but it's also a serious business run by serious people. I'm sure you'll have a wonderful vacation, if you allow yourself to do so.

Also, if you do care to complain more, as is your right (God Bless America!), the only advice I can give you (in the spirit of truly trying to be helpful to you, Fellow Traveler) is don't bother complaining to staff at the resorts (hotels), as they have nothing to do with DME or how it operates.

Have a great vacation!!!

 

[hamlet35_2000]

Disney says that they provide this service for free but in the end you are paying for it some way or another. Disney does not provide things for "free" no matter what they say. As for complaining--if the experience is not what I feel it should be (rudeness or not listening or interuppting me continuously) I will make sure that someone in the higher echolon of managers knows so that perhaps in the future I can avoid someone else having to deal with these employees.

I really feel that another poster had DME figured out quite well--they only care about how you get there, and don't want you to be able to get a car or something else and still get your luggage there. Once you are there and on leaving day, they really could care less, and that is the attitude that I am getting from both Disney and DME. So be it. I will think twice the next time I book a 4000 dollar vacation with them.

And I still stand by my original thought-- I don't understand the rule... not wanting them to break it just for me, just explain it. Why can't they pick you up from another resort? If they are dealing with 10000 people that day--it's 10000 people regardless of where they pick them up? If I could get one person from DME tell me the problem with it (other than that's the policy) I wouldn't be upset by the issue, but I haven't had any logical explanations-- maybe someone on here can provide one other than that is the policy--the policy about the free dining plan is you can't share--but I know people do. Disney will bend the rules for people when in the end it doesn't cost them anything, and even some times when it does cost them...so I am just confused at the attitude about DME that I was given. Rules are rules--but rules were also meant to be broken.

As for getting the service "free"--LOL Nothing is free at Disney, and I am paying the price with aggravation and rudeness from employees before I even get there.

 

[CleveRocks]

Disney says that they provide this service for free but in the end you are paying for it some way or another. Disney does not provide things for "free" no matter what they say.

I certainly agree with you in theory. I'm not naive enough to think that anything a company calls free is truly free. But I will share my exact experience with you, my evidence that, at least for a time, DME was TRULY free.

I went to WDW May 8 - 14, 2005. DME started May 5, 2005. I booked the trip back in October of 2004, before there was any public knowledge about anything called Disney's Magical Express (but certainly Disney knew it was coming!). Prior to actually booking the trip, I knew there were 4 different weeks I could have potentially traveled. Two of those weeks were just before DME started, one was the week I traveled, and one was a few weeks later in May. ALL 4 PRICES WERE IDENTICAL. So at least for me, DME was truly free. How else to explain the identical prices pre-DME and post-DME?

The other way to look at it is Disney doesn't have to pass along the savings because they earn so much more BECAUSE of the "ripple effects" of DME. I posted this "math stuff" on another board a while back. DME costs Disney between $50 million to $85 million dollars per year. 10,000 guests per day, 365 days per year, so that's 3.65 million DME users per year. That means DME costs Disney between $13.70 and $18.63 per passenger.

So they not only might entice more people to stay on-property because of the perk of luggage service and free transportation, but I think the big payoff for them is that people who take DME don't have access to the non-Disney world. No grocery stops -- they have to buy the overpriced Disney groceries at the resort gift shops (since so few people know that grocery delivery from off-site is available). No rental car to go off property to non-Disney restaurants. You don't think that's worth $13.70 to $18.63 per person to them?

PLUS, there's the intangible of the guests having more money to spend in the first place. If I take DME instead of spending $120 on a private ride (or more on a rental car), that's $120 more I have to spend on-property. I might take my wife to a very fancy dinner that I otherwise might have been too cheap to do. I might buy my kids more crappy souvenirs with that extra money I have, or I might buy my kids' teachers a souvenir, or my nephews, or the neighbor's dog, or whatever.

IN OTHER WORDS, IF EVERYONE WHO RIDES DME EATS ONE MORE WAITRESS-SERVICE MEAL THAN THEY USUALLY WOULD, DISNEY TURNS A PROFIT ON DME. IF THEY EACH BUY ONE ADDITIONAL SOUVENIR T-SHIRT, DISNEY TURNS A PROFIT ON DME.

Math pretty much makes the argument. And of course it ignores the strong possibility that Disney's great marketing of DME has caused people to stay on-site who previously stayed off-site, and of course if I stay at Pop Century Disney makes A LOT more money off me than if I stay at Best Western. In the end, your assumption that Disney has to charge us for DME is a potentially flawed assumption. They earn much more money because of DME than DME costs them.

 

[seashoreCM]

I would think that Disney must have some mechanism to prevent the removal of baggage from the airport without the owner;s consent. By requiring that the guest ride ME in order to have baggage magically delivered, Disney pretty much solves this problem. Even if the yellow tags were relied upon exclusively as the mechanism, if someone failed to take off old tags when going on a new trip to Orlando but not Disney, he could end up waiting at the carouse while his baggage was whisked away to a place (WDW) he did not want.

 

[lyzziesmom]

And if I don't take ME I can take mears and pay for that from the Grand Floridian

Magical Express is actually operated by Mears, so I believe you would be getting the exact same service.

Also, I once missed my ME bus back to the airport, and after going round & round with several CM's with varying degrees of helpfulness, a CM finally took pity on me and admitted that I could simply hop on the next ME bus, or the next after that, and still get to the airport in plenty of time. Unless you are travelling internationally, there really is no need to leave more than 3 hours before your flight. I got on the next bus and still sat around at the airport for 2 hours, thinking "I could've still been at WDW!"

 

[hamlet35_2000]

Magical Express is actually operated by Mears, so I believe you would be getting the exact same service.

Also, I once missed my ME bus back to the airport, and after going round & round with several CM's with varying degrees of helpfulness, a CM finally took pity on me and admitted that I could simply hop on the next ME bus, or the next after that, and still get to the airport in plenty of time. Unless you are travelling internationally, there really is no need to leave more than 3 hours before your flight. I got on the next bus and still sat around at the airport for 2 hours, thinking "I could've still been at WDW!"

Thanks for the info lyzziesmom. That Mears was somewhere behind this whole thing was a thought that came to mind when I started having issues--I have always had problems with Mears--nearly every trip I took in the past. I haven't gone in about three years, but before that (when I worked in the corporate world and not in education) I would go 2 or three times a year, and I have never enjoyed the Mears experience. So, it is no surprise to hear that Mears is behind this all in some fashion. I was thinking of just showing up at the Contempory and getting on the DME bus--what are they going to do? Kick me off and make me miss my flight? They will have more problems with me than just a letter to Disney Communications after that. But I digress, I am getting the towncar option (especially now that I know Mears is behind it all) and will be having a lovely dinner at California Grill and then going to the airport without any hassle or someone telling me "You just don't understand how things work". I actually think I do understand how it works--and I hope that it does not portend how they actually do things at Disney now.

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

That Mears was somewhere behind this whole thing was a thought that came to mind when I started having issues--I have always had problems with Mears--nearly every trip I took in the past.

Mears is not "behind this whole thing."

Disney's Magical Express was conceived by, and is managed by, the Disney Company. Disney uses several contractors. Mears maintains and drives the motor coaches. BAGS Inc. provides Remote Airline Check-in at the your resort. ARINC Incorporated provides technology. I understand that the packets are prepared and mailed by a contractor.

However, Disney is "behind this whole thing." The rules are by Disney (in consultation with the Transportation Security Administration), and Disney handles the reservations and scheduling.

Taking a towncar from the Contemporary is certainly an option. In fact, I suggested it earlier in this thread.

One thing that you need to plan for is what would happen if you can't check your bags with Remote Airline Check-in (RAC). There have been reports on this board of occasional computer outages that prevent baggage check-in. Also, if you're randomly selected for additional an security screening, you won't be able to check your bags with RAC. And there are things that an airline counter can do, but that can't be done through RAC — for example, RAC was unable to handle my wife's check-in due to the need for some special processing for a first class upgrade.

Also, make sure that you allow enough time for your dinner. Keep in mind that ADRs do not guarantee immediate seating, and that dinners are not as fast as lunches. Your towncar pickup will normally be 2 1/2 hours before your scheduled flight departure.

With your plan, you will not achieve your goal of "more time in the Magic Kingdom."

 

[seashoreCM]

Apparently, according to hearsay on these boards, ME did at one time allow return to the airport from another resort. I cannot think of any reason why that is no longer allowed other than to reduce administrative confusion.

Missing your assigned ME bus going home often leads to problems somewhere. Letting you simply board the next bus (or board a bus from a different resort unannounced) may result in no seats for somebody else at the next stop.

Most of us have been lucky but a few people have had to run for their plane even after showing up for their ME bus home on time.

 

[Lewisc]

The next logical step is to check guests into their hotel at MCO and bus them directly to a theme park. The parks might have to install some larger lockers to accomodate carry on luggage.

Apparently, according to hearsay on these boards, ME did at one time allow return to the airport from another resort. I cannot think of any reason why that is no longer allowed other than to reduce administrative confusion.

Missing your assigned ME bus going home often leads to problems somewhere. Letting you simply board the next bus (or board a bus from a different resort unannounced) may result in no seats for somebody else at the next stop.

Most of us have been lucky but a few people have had to run for their plane even after showing up for their ME bus home on time.

 

[hamlet35_2000]

The next logical step is to check guests into their hotel at MCO and bus them directly to a theme park. The parks might have to install some larger lockers to accomodate carry on luggage.

Yes! That would be the most conveinent, and yet they apparently can't even handle picking someone up at another resort, can you imagine the flack over checking in people at the Airport. Obviously this is something that "they just would not understand".

 

[hamlet35_2000]

Apparently, according to hearsay on these boards, ME did at one time allow return to the airport from another resort. I cannot think of any reason why that is no longer allowed other than to reduce administrative confusion.

Of course it has happened before and it will happen again, just depends on how much you are willing to fight to get it done. I am not willing to fight that battle any longer. Just saddens me to think that Disney is behind all of this more than I thought.... Oh well, I will take my towncar and dinner at the California Grill. (The money for the towncar came directly out of the souviner budget, so that's 100 dollars less to spend on T-Shirts and keyrings)

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

My guess is that if leaving from another resort was previously possible, but is now strictly forbidden, the primary reason would have to do with luggage — checked and carry-on.

I can imagine guests insisting that Disney must send their checked luggage to another resort (because they couldn't use Resort Airline Check-in for any reason). And I can imagine guests trying to take luggage onto Disney buses. And I can imagine guests arriving at theme parks with all sorts of carry-ons that then need to be inspected by security and held near the entrance.

Another reason could be scheduling. Guests are assigned to DME departures on the day prior to their check-out. The system expects guests to leave from the hotel at which they're staying. Potentially handling hundreds of exceptions every day would be a costly undertaking, and could result in capacity problems at resorts that are convenient to theme parks, such as the Contemporary and the Beach Club.