Magical Express Success

[lorli]

Has anyone used his lately? Last I heard it was still working out the quirks. We are contemplating flying in August, but we are a little afraid of trying Magical Express. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

 

[goofy4tink]

Have you booked it yet? If not, you might want to do it pretty soon so they have time to get your stuff out to you. And you could check over on the Transportation board for more info. But, in the meantime, I'll tell you how it went for us last month.
Arrived in MCO at about 11:50 on Sat 6/18. (flew Song out of Boston). We found the check-in desk and were on a bus by 12:15. Left MCO at 12:30ish. Stopped at CBR first, then YC, and then BC...our resort. Our check-in process went quite quickly. My dh left from BCV about 4 days later. He never got any DME info under the door the night before he left. And since I'm basically an idiot, I forgot to give him the voucher for departure from our packet. But he got on an 8:30 bus, for his 11:45 flight.
We moved from BCV to POR on 6/24. Again, no departure info the night before we left from POR (6:26) And again, I forgot about those packet departure vouchers. Bell Services at POR gave me one, since mine had gone on ahead to the airport. But I digress....at 8:40 I called Bell Services to have them get my stuff to the ME desk. By 8:50 I was at the desk, getting my boarding passes for dd and myself. They weren't too sure which bus I should take to the airport..the noon or the 12:30. We showed up again around 11ish and the crowd at the desk line was huge...but there was a large group leaving, so that might have made the line longer than what would be normal. Since I already had my boarding passes, I just had BS get me that voucher. The line for the bus had already gotten long (again...that large group...a convention type thing for Pampered Chef). So, we got in that line. Driver told those traveling without luggage to come to the front and board the bus. That would be us!!! Only had carry-on since we were flying Song, a participating airline. Hopped on the bus at 11:50ish, the bus finally loaded those with bags to store under the bus. We left at 12:10. Made no other stops since POR people had filled the bus!! It was wonderful to get off that bus and just head right to security. We got to our gate at about 12:45...for a 3:00 flight.

I'll be using DME again in Nov and again in Oct '06!!!

 

[Minnie1156]

I have a friend who just came back. She used it and said it was great. No problems at all. I am leaving Wed. and we are using it.

 

[aubriee]

I used it May 13th and May 22nd and it was great. My plane landed at 9:20am and I had checked into my hotel, dropped off my carry on bag (room was ready), checked out my room, and was in the MK for lunch. My other bag was waiting for me in my room that night when I returned from the park. Checkout was also a breeze with me checking both my bags at the DME counter that morning, receiving my boarding pass, then I was off to the parks for breakfast, returning around 3:00pm, just in time to step onto the DME bus to the airport. Because I had checked both bags and because I had my boarding pass, I just went straight through security and straight to my gate. It was great breezing through the airport without having to deal with any bags. My bags were waiting for me when I arrived in Dallas that night. The DME bus was not even half full when we left the airport to go to POP, nor when we left POP to return to the airport. POP was the first stop going from MCO and we also did not make any stops going from POP to MCO. I'll be using DME again in December.

 

[Tbel Mom]

How about if you have a later arrival? My flight arrives at 7:30 PM-- I'm traveling by myself and will have only one bag. I could very easily grab my own suitcase to ensure that I have it that night, but if I could be sure that it would be in my room that night, I'd just as soon let them deliver it. How late will Bell Services deliver my stuff?
Thanks!

 

[snowiit]

How about if you have a later arrival? My flight arrives at 7:30 PM-- I'm traveling by myself and will have only one bag. I could very easily grab my own suitcase to ensure that I have it that night, but if I could be sure that it would be in my room that night, I'd just as soon let them deliver it. How late will Bell Services deliver my stuff?
Thanks!

June 23rd we arrived at the airport about 8pm. We had checked out luggage in in Chicago and I believe it was delivered to our room about 10-10:30pm. We did call just before that to bell services and they said the truck had just arrived and they were just unloading. It wasn't much later that our luggage came to the door.
Nancy

 

[Gramgwen]

The service worked great! Getting our luggage to our rooms was another story! After I offered to come down to the luggage area at the resort (POR) to help find my bag I finally had it delivered to my room. It only took about 7 hours.

 

[Eeyore's Queen]

We just got back and used it. It was awesome. Long story short, we had a 6 hour delay flying out of Baltimore on June 29th due to heavy rains. We didn't arrive in Orlando until 2am. Ended up changing planes but our luggage had to stay with our original flight. Not a problem since I tagged it all w/ ME tags for the Yacht Club. I did call ME to make sure they would still be there late to take us to our hotel. They said they track all of the flights. (although we were now on a different one.) So, Disney was still there at 2 am. They had buses running but we got a towncar. Our luggage arrived by 8am. No problems except it was all wet, but that's another Southwest story. I am glad we tagged our luggage because if we hadn't, we would have had issues changing flights and would have had an even longer delay. The way back to the airport was fine too. They showed up at exactly when they said they would, so be a little bit early. Have fun.