Magical Express till 2011!!

[simzac]

This is great news. We love ME.

 

[married@wdw]

I wonder if it will drive car rental prices down. I'd still like to have a car, but I am not willing to pay more than $200 per week for a compact or imtermediate.

Haven't seen any decent car rental prices for quite a while. Last December, I was able to get an intermediate from National for 8 days for $118.35 - including all taxes and fees. Rates now for that same time frame are more than double that.

If the rates don't come down, we'll be doing ME and possibly just renting a car on site for 1 or 2 days max.

Best wishes -

We just booked National for 3/29-4/2, intermediate -- $98 and change with all taxes and fees. It's not quite as good as what you got, but we're Emerald Club so we'll probably end up with an SUV anyway. Not too shabby for 5 days.

We love ME. We love that we can splurge on a rental car for just a few days. We either pick one up at the airport and return it at the Swan (National, or is it the Dolphin?) half way through the trip and use ME for the return, OR use ME to get to Disney, the pick up a rental car part way through the trip. And we love, love, love being able to check our luggage at the hotel for the trip home!!!

Thanks for the good news!

 

[AMcaptured]

After reading how much ME is costing Disney a year, I understand why the pools are suddenly freezing cold.....

Disney is sort of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

 

[byoung]

We been using ME, the last 3 trips. Will continue to use it, if they start charging it will depend on how much.

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

We been using ME, the last 3 trips. Will continue to use it, if they start charging it will depend on how much.

Again, here's an excerpt from the Orlando Sentinel article, "Disney shuttle deal forces drivers to cope — Competitors say they won't survive if Disney doesn't charge for Magical Express," by Beth Kassab, Sentinel Staff Writer, March 17, 2006 (the same article that's posted in post #7 of this thread), with a few key phrases highlighted:

A deal between Walt Disney World and Orlando International Airport to keep Disney's free Magical Express shuttle running for five more years left industry competitors Thursday grappling with how to cope with the shuttle's impact over the long term.

Until this week the popular service that shuttles tourists directly from the airport to their Disney hotels and separately delivers luggage to their rooms was a pilot program scheduled to end in December.

Other transportation providers were hoping the service would end or, at least, begin charging for the bus ride and baggage delivery.

"I don't think I'll last another six months if they don't start charging," said Leonardo Dale, owner of limousine and sedan service Image Transportation. "From 40 reservations a day we dropped down to three or four. You can't survive on that."

Disney spokeswoman Kim Prunty said the company has no plans to begin charging for Magical Express.​

Keep in mind that the top Walt Disney World executives look at the bottom line profit. With Magical Express, Disney is achieving higher hotel occupancy with less discounting of room rates; and Disney has a large captive audience of guests who spend their money entirely on Disney attractions, Disney dining, and Disney shopping.

That's worth a lot more than whatever revenue Disney could take in by charging for Magical Express — especially if a charge for Magical Express would reduce usage without appreciably reducing the overall operating cost of Magical Express.

 

[SylviaL]

We love DME, too. That's one of the reasons why we just planned a quick trip for May. With 2 toddlers, the luggage transfer is great and so is not having to lug 2 car seats (we could rent them but they are expensive and can be quite dirty). For our 4 day trip in May, I thought about renting a minivan (7 people) because we're staying at OKW and then it would be easier to eat at the resorts (like Boma and Beaches & Cream) but it would have cost $300. In those 4 days, I don't think we'd spend $300 in cab fare. DH's relatives from Taiwan are meeting us there. DH just mentioned that they would probably enjoy Sea World, but since we won't have a car, I guess we'll just stay at Disney.