Magical Express - Any good?

[MECH8T7]

We will be flying down during March break. Last year, we rented a car from the airport. We got a good rate but got kind of nailed due to the fact that they treated us as having rented for a week plus two days (i.e. weekly rate plus two days at the daily rate) (We arrived on a Saturday and departed Sunday evening)

Anyways, we are trying to decide what to do about transportation this year. In particular, we are trying to decide whether we should try to take advantage of Magical Express on both arrival and departure or using it when we land and renting a car from WDW property for the last half of our stay and dropping it off at the airport.

I was wondering what kind of experiences (positive or negative) people have been having with Magical Express on either arrival or departure?

In particular, on arrival, was there a big delay between when your flight arrived and when you actually got to your resort? was it obvious where you should be dropping off your luggage at the airport? did your luggage make it to your room okay?

On departure, did you have to be ready to leave some ridiculous amount of time before your scheduled flight? did your luggage make it to the airport at a decent time, etc., etc.?

Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences.

 

[Scratch42]

Personally have not used the service but have heard mixed reviews!

To quote a CM last Labour Day Weekend when I received a message that my ME was all set and had to call to make sure that they did not expect me to be on the bus, we had a car..............

"What you don't want to spend 3 hours on the bus before you get home?"

I've heard of people who have had their luggage lost, their luggage not showing up until the wee hours of the night/morning.

Plus if you are not using one of their partners, you will be lugging your own luggage to the bus.

Just some things to take into consideration.

janet

 

[Debbie]

My sister and I had a good experience last August. Finding the desk is not difficult-Follow the GROUND TRANSPORTATION signs to the lowest level. Luggage on wheels helps.

We were on the bus almost immediately at check in (basically no wait) and were at the resort as quick as could be, with a couple of stops-probably an hour from the time we checked in. We went to the room, checked it out and then headed back to get something to eat. While we were sitting in the food court, I saw lots of yellow tagged luggage going by. When we went back to the room, it was waiting for us in the corner.

Going back was fine. They seem to have radio contact with the buses. There was one couple that had had a problem with time, but ME sent a cab for them.

I would definitely use them again. Just wish I had the opportunity to do so!

 

[cdnmickeylover]

We had a good experience except with getting the bags to our room. We had no trouble finding the checkin desk at the airport. We had put the luggage tags on our bags and therefore didn't pick them up at the airport. Our plane landed at 6:35pm. We checked in and basically walked onto a bus. We were staying at POP which was the first stop. No problems at checkin and off to MK which was open late. We got to MK (by bus) at 8:30pm which we didn't think was too bad since we had checked out the room and stopped at the food court first.

We got back to the room at around 12:30am and our bags weren't there. They didn't arrive til 1am which we thought was an awfully long time.

We had no problems going back to the airport. We flew Southwest which isn't a participating airline so we had to take our bags with us - we figured this was no different than if we were dropping off a rental car. The bus picked us up at around 2:45pm for a 5:15pm flight. The bus went straight to the airport with no other stops.

We are using ME again but are picking up our own bags at the airport and therefore not using the ME tags. We arrive at 9:50pm though which is part of the reason.

During our stay we thought we would miss not having a rental car but we didn't at all.

 

[runner26.2]

We used ME on our 10 day trip in November. Like the other posters we simply got of the plane at MCO went to the ME registration desk where there was a very short line (less than 5 minutes) and then went to the bus boarding area where we waited 10-15 minutes for our bus to show up which took us directly to our resort.

Our flight arrived in Orlando early evening. In our carryon bags we took payjama's and stuff for the kids to get to bed that night without needing our luggage. Our luggage was at the resort 2-3 hours after we arrived, which meant the kids were already asleep. I walked over to the baggage area and asked them if they could deliver the luggage around 7:30 the next morning so as to not walk the kids.

There was no problem doing that and the luggage was there exactly on time.

On the way home we did not fly a participating airline. The staff took our bags from the room to the baggage area the morning of our departure and we picked them up there and took them to the bus loading area (about 50 yards at POR). With 3 kids there was no way I could have lugged everything from our room to the loading area so their help was greatly appreciated.

Obviously I provided a very generous tip to the bell staff on arrival and departure but you couldn't beat the convenience and the service.

 

[Teresa Pitman]

We also had a very positive experience.

About having to leave early - our flight left at (I think) 8:00 a.m. They wanted us to be out to catch the bus at 5:00 a.m. My daughter called the ME phone number the night before and said she thought that was way too early. So the person she talked to said he'd changed the time of our flight to 9:00 a.m., and then we could catch the 6:00 a.m. bus. That worked fine for us, and we were able to get a little more sleep and still had plenty of time at the airport.

Teresa

 

[iluveeyore]

ME is excellent - much less stress than renting a car and driving yourself to the resort after travelling - we always rent a car to get groceries for our DVC home, but prefer the ME to get us to the resort - hardly any wait at all. If you do use it though, I would suggest you get your luggage on arrival and take it with you if you need stuff out of it to get settled when you get to your resort - our luggage took 4 hours the first time we used it and had our bathing suits and toiletries in it. Only about 15 minutes extra to your wait time if you get your own luggage on arrival - totally worth it. Going back was no problem at all - arrived at the resort on time and got us to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Some airlines even have check in at the resorts so your luggage is already at the airport and you don't have to lug it with you or wait in line to check in at the airport. Enjoy!

 

[dsneygirl]

We used it twice last year. Both times we carried our own luggage onto the bus and didn't use the transfer service (in Dec we only had carryons). The first trip we were at our resort about 1.5 hours after deplaning. This past trip in Dec it was a little longer but still very manageable.

I think the pick up time back to the airport is very reasonable. The lines at MCO security are terrible. You could easily be in line 30 min+.