Magical Express question

[aarm1017]

We have reservations at POFQ from 2/23-3/1. Our flight is scheduled to arrive at MCO at 9:35 a.m. on 2/23. Upon arrival, our group of 13 has two rental vans reserved and we plan to drive to Cocoa Beach for the day. When we return the rentals to the airport late that afternoon/early evening, we would then like to take the Magical Express to our resort. Does anyone anticipate that being a problem for us being that we are not heading to our resort right upon arrival into MCO? What about our luggage? We will have everything we need for our beach day with us in our carry-ons and would like our checked baggage to go straight to the resort, even though we won't be arriving until later. I have already completed the resort on-line check-in and indicated we do not anticipate arriving until evening. Thanks!

 

[figment_jii]

I don't see any thing really wrong with your plan, except for one thing. You aren't trying to use MDE as a luggage service (because you do ultimately plan to ride the bus to WDW), but you aren't going to get to the resort for quite a while after you land. When you check-in for DME, the CM will ask you how many pieces of luggage you checked. While there haven't been reports of it here on the Disboard, there is the chance the your luggage might not make it to your resort (i.e., it could have been lost by the airline, directed to the wrong resort by Disney, etc.) and you wouldn't know that until three or more hours after you check into your resort. By then, it might be harder to find the missing piece of luggage. So, while this is not common, it does fall under the "it's possible" category and it's something you should be aware of.

Regarding riding DME later in the day, you certainly can do that. DME doesn't assign you a bus time when you sign-up for it. They'll put you a bus when you check-in, so it doesn't matter if you head straight to DME when you land or if you decide to go eat at the airport, or do something else.