Daitcher said:
I see where you are coming from here. I can't say how many complaints or problems there have been. What I can say is that ME is still a work in progress. On the DVC boards there was a thread 350+ posts long with many bad experiences. Maybe I'm just paranoid but I'm still a little uneasy using this. Also, what about the time issue? How long from the time you land until you are at the resort? How long after that is the luggage arriving? Thanks for the thouhts Eric. I as too harsh with this and for that I apologize.
Very cool change in tone, Dave. Thanks.
Your "time" question. I used DME on its 4th day of operation, about as new as new can be. It took me 53 minutes from the time I got into the DME line at the airport until I was dropped off at CBR.
53 minutes. Would I have gotten there any sooner with a rental car or limo? As always, let's do the math....
Driving time is about 30 minutes no matter what vehicle you're in. That leaves 23 minutes for me to wait in line at the DME counter, wait in my bus queue, then wait for the bus to leave. 23 minutes is in play. So let's say you rent a car or get a limo. You have to wait at baggage claim. Can we say an average wait is 10 minutes until you actually get your bags in hand? We've all waited longer, but let's look at a pretty-good-case scenario and say 10 minutes. If you got a limo, let's say 5 minutes for the driver to bring the car around and load your luggage. If you rent a car, let's say best case of 5 minutes if you have one of those features where you go directly to the car without interacting with anyone or waiting in line at the rental counter. So either way, let's call it best case of 15 minutes. 30 + 15 = 45 minutes, a whopping 8 minutes faster than my actual experience.
I have no desire to leave WDW property, so I'd never rent a car. I would have done a limo had DME not been around. But with DME being free, in the above example I'm looking at paying $120 for at best getting to my resort 8 minutes faster than I actually did. That figures out to that 8 minutes costing me a pro-rated amount of $900 per hour. OUCH. And, if you stop at a grocery store in your car or make a grocery stop in a limo, you just blew ANY time advantage over DME, and I've beat you to the resort. I got a grocery delivery from Gooding's, so it's not like we were without breakfast foods and snacks and bottled water and such.
For the people who complain about the luggage taking a long time to arrive. Plan for it, and it's no problem. I guess people who's personality says "I have to fully unpack the second I get there and I can't enjoy my vacation until I do so" should avoid DME. The circumstances matched very well to my personality as well as my existing behavior. In the 17 years I've been flying as an adult I've ALWAYS packed a carry-on with my needs for the first 24 hours just in case the AIRLINE delays my checked luggage. So, my luggage "magically appeared" in my room at CBR about 4 hours after my plane landed. I don't know exactly when because I wasn't in my room waiting around for it. We were in the pool with our kids (5 and 2.5) enjoying the start of our vacation, since we were prepared with bathing suits and "beach shoes" (as our kids call them) as well as changes of clothes in case a young one made an inevitable mess. We had two rooms (our in-laws tagged along
) and we found ALL of our checked lugagge inside our rooms when we returned from the pool.
For the people who complain about DME picking up too early on the return trip. We were picked up the schedueld 3 hours prior to our flight's scheduled departure, thankfully. I found the ONLY available skycap as soon as I got off the bus, to help the 6 of us with our 12 bags (checked and carry-ons) get to the airline ticket counter. We waited I don't know how long at security, but it was LOOONG. This was a Saturday around 5:00 p.m. Also, because of the timing, we had to get food at the airport to feed our kids. It's not like we were able to bring any with us after a week at WDW, and it's not like the kids could have waited until after we got home around 10:00 p.m. We waited in huge lines at the mini food court in our terminal (past security). We then took the very short stroll to our gate and saw that they had already begun boarding. So thank goodness for that pickup 3 hours before departure, in our case.
My experiences with DME were excellent, and I was one of the initial guinea pigs. As others have said, I can understand people complaining if they didn't read all the info in the DME packet (or on this board!) and thus had unrealistic expectations, but that's not the fault of DME or of Disney. It would be kind of like saying that the service in a restaurant was horrible because the food didn't arrive two minutes after we ordered. Since we know it will take significantly longer, we plan for it in advance (maybe some bread and butter from the basket on the table while we wait?, maybe reservations 30 minutes earlier than the time when we expect to feel "starving?") and don't get all annoyed and righteously indignant because we're not digging in to our food two minutes after we handed the server our menus.
) and will be taking the ME. Usually we get a towncar for the family, but this time since it's only the two of us, we decided on the ME. We will be arriving about 9:30 p.m. and really do not want to wait until late at nite or morning for our bags. Can we use the ME service but pick up our own bags at the baggage carousel? Now that they have changed the terminal, will it be a problem? Only 5 days until VACATION and boy do I need one!! 
