DrTomorrow
Your Disney friend from the Future!<br><font color
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2003
- Messages
- 3,498
First, a big "THANKS" to Tyler for adding factual info to the discussion. It's always nice to hear what's really supposed to happen.
That being said, however, I remain somewhat sceptical as to how it will actually happen; what's that quote: "No plan of battle survives contact with the enemy"....
I've experienced this type of situation in the past at Las Vegas, where many, many tour agencies offer "transportation to your hotel for you and your luggage", complete with shuttle buses that only stop at a few hotels, and 'special luggage tags' so you don't even have to pick up your bags at the carosel. And some of my experiences have been quite dreadful. The extreme - which only happened once - is luggage didn't make it to Las Vegas until the next day. More typical were long waits for the shuttle to leave the airport and even longer waits to actually get to your hotel.
A few comments on Tyler's description:
1. Disney knows who's arriving, when they will arrive and what hotel they're going to, so they can minimize the wait for buses to depart. Well, that will work fine - as long as there are never any delayed flights, no one is ever bumped to a later flight, and everyone checks in with DME very promptly. I'm not usually a cynic, but all it's going to take is a few flights arriving at inopertune times - along with someone stopping at the bar for 25 minutes after arrival but before checking in - to gum things up really good.
2. I suggest that Horace is going to be disappointed - I'll bet that more people with have carry-ons, and bigger ones at that. For some people, it can be up to 6 hours from the time the arrive at their home airport until they would normally get their luggage - they have a lot of things they need/want for that time. Add in the fact that they might not get their luggage until 3 or 4 (or more) hours after that, they may well pack even more, to tide them over until the bags do arrive (note: cruises recommend that you carry-on everything you'll need for your first evening at sea for this very reason).
3. Even if they keep the 3 or 4 hotel per route limits (which I doubt, as I feel that doing so will result in a lot of half-empty buses - or longer airport waits), if you're staying at the last hotel on the list, you've got a wait. Even if it's only 10 minutes from resort to resort, and 10 minutes to unload all the people and all their under-the-bus luggage at each resort, if you're number 4, you've just added an hour on to your wait, in addition to the drive from the airport to WDW property, and any wait at the airport.
4. Don't even get me started on how early you need to have your luggage out for the return trip; how early you need to be waiting for the shuttle, and how nerve-wracking it is when that shuttle doesn't show up.
Please, PLEASE don't get me wrong - I really hope this works out! It'd be a great perk for WDW guests, and probably save a lot of folks some $$$ (although I suspect that Disney feel otherwise
). We always rent a car, and always will, so I have no axe to grind. I just feel that buses are a problematic mode of transportation - and I always love to ride the WDW Transportation buses, even though we have a car (the drivers are almost always a positive bonus part of the fun!). I can remember when WDW buses had time schedules, published on the maps (yep, I was at the TTC, looking for the bus with the flag of the red cross on the gold field 
); regular schedules work pretty good. But since DME is on-demand, I think that it's going to be, hmmmm, an interesting roll-out. As they say, time will tell - that's why I agree with CarolA: give it a few weeks and see what the reviews say. But CarolA, what fun is it if we can't play 'What If?' about Disney? 
That being said, however, I remain somewhat sceptical as to how it will actually happen; what's that quote: "No plan of battle survives contact with the enemy"....
I've experienced this type of situation in the past at Las Vegas, where many, many tour agencies offer "transportation to your hotel for you and your luggage", complete with shuttle buses that only stop at a few hotels, and 'special luggage tags' so you don't even have to pick up your bags at the carosel. And some of my experiences have been quite dreadful. The extreme - which only happened once - is luggage didn't make it to Las Vegas until the next day. More typical were long waits for the shuttle to leave the airport and even longer waits to actually get to your hotel.
A few comments on Tyler's description:
1. Disney knows who's arriving, when they will arrive and what hotel they're going to, so they can minimize the wait for buses to depart. Well, that will work fine - as long as there are never any delayed flights, no one is ever bumped to a later flight, and everyone checks in with DME very promptly. I'm not usually a cynic, but all it's going to take is a few flights arriving at inopertune times - along with someone stopping at the bar for 25 minutes after arrival but before checking in - to gum things up really good.
2. I suggest that Horace is going to be disappointed - I'll bet that more people with have carry-ons, and bigger ones at that. For some people, it can be up to 6 hours from the time the arrive at their home airport until they would normally get their luggage - they have a lot of things they need/want for that time. Add in the fact that they might not get their luggage until 3 or 4 (or more) hours after that, they may well pack even more, to tide them over until the bags do arrive (note: cruises recommend that you carry-on everything you'll need for your first evening at sea for this very reason).
3. Even if they keep the 3 or 4 hotel per route limits (which I doubt, as I feel that doing so will result in a lot of half-empty buses - or longer airport waits), if you're staying at the last hotel on the list, you've got a wait. Even if it's only 10 minutes from resort to resort, and 10 minutes to unload all the people and all their under-the-bus luggage at each resort, if you're number 4, you've just added an hour on to your wait, in addition to the drive from the airport to WDW property, and any wait at the airport.
4. Don't even get me started on how early you need to have your luggage out for the return trip; how early you need to be waiting for the shuttle, and how nerve-wracking it is when that shuttle doesn't show up.
Please, PLEASE don't get me wrong - I really hope this works out! It'd be a great perk for WDW guests, and probably save a lot of folks some $$$ (although I suspect that Disney feel otherwise
). We always rent a car, and always will, so I have no axe to grind. I just feel that buses are a problematic mode of transportation - and I always love to ride the WDW Transportation buses, even though we have a car (the drivers are almost always a positive bonus part of the fun!). I can remember when WDW buses had time schedules, published on the maps (yep, I was at the TTC, looking for the bus with the flag of the red cross on the gold field ); regular schedules work pretty good. But since DME is on-demand, I think that it's going to be, hmmmm, an interesting roll-out. As they say, time will tell - that's why I agree with CarolA: give it a few weeks and see what the reviews say. But CarolA, what fun is it if we can't play 'What If?' about Disney? 
)
