Magical Express Questions??

[amystevekai&bump]

Hi, this is the first time we have ever used this service and just had a couple of questions:

Am I right in thinking that we collect our luggage from the first carousel, drop it off and then don't see it again until it is delivered to our hotel room?

We are going to be on the early virgin flight - should I expect the ME bus to be very busy?? And how does it work, does each bus go to all hotels?? Is there a particular order that the bus takes, ie does it drop off at deluxe hotels first ??

If it goes to all hotels, do you find it a very frustrating ride after a long flight or is it not so bad??

What time does the luggage get to your room generally??

(Sorry that was more than a couple of questions wasn't it!)

 

[LORNA ANN]

We did this in February it was easy yes collected our luggage at first carousel, then if you want luggage with you you can hold on to it !!(this was new as normally you would hand it back)We handed ours back, as i dont travel light, but collected it again off second carousel,we had toddler,stroller & hand luggage so just wanted to collect luggage off 2nd carousel,could have left it for Magic Express but we were on Virgins last flight of day & they do say up to 3 or 4 hrs for your luggage to reach your room we did not want to arrive at room with nothing & wait just incase it was 4 hrs would have meant near midnight,
Anyway proceeded to Magical express followed very clear signs but you should have excellent directions with your yellow luggage tags,you check in at the desk give name of resort they tell you to follow red carpet & someone shows you straight to your bus.
Think i may have made it sound complicated but its not its very easy, honest !
The bus was full when we got on so 5 mins and we were on our way only stopped at 3 places, i think they have different buses for different areas.
We thought it was a good service very efficent !

 

[paulh]

to be honest for us from the uk.the option to have luggae delivered to room works out bad.
As we usaly have late ariving flights,say you land 4pm give an hour for customs 5pm travel to hotel check in 6.30-7pm then land in room.
now are you going to the parks?most would be a bit jaded after traveling on the go for 24 hours,and if you wanted bags it can take till midnight for them to arive in room.
We have always opted to take our own bags to bus we still take an overnight caryon bag incase of delayed lugage(past experience)
Now if you land in the mornning yes it is worth it so you can enjoy the parks,but to us that would aply to any americans taveling as they would get in early JMHO. ME is great withever option you use
Paulh

 

[chocolateMinnie]

We also used DME in February. We too collected our luggage and took it with us so that when we arrived in our hotel at about 8pm and ready for bed the luggage was there with us.

The check in desk was almost empty, no queue which amazed me as it was their President's Day weekend which is apparently really busy. We got on the DME within seconds but waited about 35 minutes until it was full before we departed. This didn't really matter to us as we were shattered after such a long day and hadn't booked a dinner or anything.

We stayed at CSR and the bus went to Pop Century first, CSR then on to Animal Kingdom Lodge. Took about 45 minutes to get to the resort for us.

Used it to come back but had already dropped our luggage at DTD and the time they picked us up gave us too long at the airport in all honesty.

I would use it again though.

 

[amystevekai&bump]

thanks Lorna Ann - great info!!!

I think I read on the US boards that you can ask at check-in for them to hang on to your bags until the morning if they think they will be delivered later than a time you specify. So we might tell them to not deliver our bags later than 8pm!!

thanks as well to Paul and Chocolate Minnie - sorry I posted this before I read your replies!! (Perhaps we should just carry our luggage too - It doesn't seem like we will get it to the room before the children go to sleep - so it might be preferable than having to wait until the next day!)