Magical Express to Resort time

[shana398]

How long does it take using Magical Express to get from the airport to your resort? We are staying at CBR and arrive at the airport at 3:15. I am wondering if it's safe for us to make a dinner reservation for 8:30 p.m. We're hoping to do the Hoop Dee Doo Review our arrival night.

 

[Bob P]

Hi,

In general, it takes 60-90 minutes from the time your flight arrives at the gate until the time you walk into your resort.

 

[amomma23]

How long does it take using Magical Express to get from the airport to your resort? We are staying at CBR and arrive at the airport at 3:15. I am wondering if it's safe for us to make a dinner reservation for 8:30 p.m. We're hoping to do the Hoop Dee Doo Review our arrival night.

I think it's reasonable to expect to be at CBR by 5:00. I would be confident making HDDR at 8:30.

 

[disneyag]

The past 3 times I used DME, I timed it. From the jetway of the airplane to my hotel, it was 75 minutes.

 

[anonymousegirl]

You should be fine, but remember it takes a while to get from your hotel to Hoop dee Doo. I haven't done it in awhile, but I remember a longish bus ride within the Wilderness resort

 

[mmbl]

How long does it take using Magical Express to get from the airport to your resort? We are staying at CBR and arrive at the airport at 3:15. I am wondering if it's safe for us to make a dinner reservation for 8:30 p.m. We're hoping to do the Hoop Dee Doo Review our arrival night.

It has never taken us more than about 60 min. and usually about 50. 15 min from gate to bus, 30-45 min from boarding bus to resort. Maybe we have just gotten lucky with busses leaving quickly and being among first dropped off.

 

[LilyWDW]

I would not do it. And it has nothing to do with MDE.

I would never make a reservation on my arrival day. Too many things can go wrong when it comes to travel. Then you will be out of your money due to the cancellation policies. Especially something like HDDR since you will be out the whole amount of you can't get there.

 

[sam_gordon]

I would not do it. And it has nothing to do with MDE.

I would never make a reservation on my arrival day. Too many things can go wrong when it comes to travel. Then you will be out of your money due to the cancellation policies. Especially something like HDDR since you will be out the whole amount of you can't get there.

+1

Granted, assuming your flight is on time, you should have no problems. But what if your flight is delayed? Depending on your connection time, even a delay of 1 hour can affect whether you make your connection.

 

[goofy4tink]

How long does it take using Magical Express to get from the airport to your resort? We are staying at CBR and arrive at the airport at 3:15. I am wondering if it's safe for us to make a dinner reservation for 8:30 p.m. We're hoping to do the Hoop Dee Doo Review our arrival night.

Ok...if your flight lands, on time, at 3:15, you'll be off and at the gate by 3:30ish....which gets you to CBR around 5 (probably sooner though). Get checked in, settled, freshened up...now about 6ish. You would have to take a bus to MK, then the boat to FtW....now it's about 7ish. Walk up the path and you're at Pioneer Hall Okay, you're on time.
BUT...if anything goes wrong with your flight...even a delay of an hour...you will be very rushed, if not too late.
If you can, I would book it for another night. Chances are that everything will be fine, but it would be this one time that something would go wrong. I know that the one time I had to be at a function at WDW, on my arrival day, it was 3 hrs. after I arrived. And, it was at my resort to boot. BUT...my flight left 3 hrs late...due to mechanical issues, they had to get us a new plane. So, I missed the function that I so badly wanted to attend!
Plan accordingly.

 

[4Still]

Thanks for the awesome feedback, very helpful. My TA recommended my travel party not put our magical express tags on until after we have claimed our luggage at MCO. This is our first time using Magical Express and I am confused by this recommendation which doesn't align with all I have read. How much longer will this delay arrival time to our resort?

 

[sam_gordon]

Thanks for the awesome feedback, very helpful. My TA recommended my travel party not put our magical express tags on until after we have claimed our luggage at MCO. This is our first time using Magical Express and I am confused by this recommendation which doesn't align with all I have read. How much longer will this delay arrival time to our resort?

With all due respect, your TA doesn't know what they're talking about. If your ME tags aren't on your bags when you check them at your home airport, you may as well throw them out.

Here's the process (in general)...

Bags come off the plane.
Bags with yellow Disney tags are taken to a sorting area to be sorted by resort and transported to WDW.
Bags without tags go to baggage claim.

If you wait to put your tags on, you've already missed the sorting. You'll still need to take your bags yourself to the DME area and they'll be put under the bus that you ride to your resort. At your resort, you'll collect your bags (tip the DME driver), and haul your bags to your room.

If you're scheduled to land at 3:15, I see no reason to not put the tags on before you check them with the airline. They should be in your room by 8pm that night. You should ALWAYS pack your carryon with anything you need for the first 24 hours.

 

[goofy4tink]

Thanks for the awesome feedback, very helpful. My TA recommended my travel party not put our magical express tags on until after we have claimed our luggage at MCO. This is our first time using Magical Express and I am confused by this recommendation which doesn't align with all I have read. How much longer will this delay arrival time to our resort?

Sam is 100% right.......if you pick your bags up at baggage claim, there is absolutely no reason to put those yellow tags on them! It's amazing how many people I see, in the resort bus line, scrambling to attach those yellow tags. Only once did I try to tell someone that they didn't need to do that. His response? 'Oh, okay...so you think you know more than our travel agent? Yeah, didn't think so.' Seems to be a lot of bad info out there. Oh yeah...my snappy comeback to that guy? 'Evidently I do!!' as I turned away from his group. He was not amused.

If you want DME to take your bags from the plane to the resort, tag the bags with the yellow tags. They won't get out to baggage claim, but be taken right from the off load area to a DME holding area...then they are scanned again, and put in the correct area for each resort. They are scanned as they are loaded into the bins, and then again when they are off loaded at the resort. At least that's what I've been told. You shouldn't plan on seeing the bags, in your room, for up to 3 or so hrs after you check in at the resort. In your case, that would probably be around 8ish.

And as sam says..pack anything you might need for the remainder of that arrival day in your carry on bags. That way you can freshen up, change your clothes if you wish, have a swim...whatever. But you won't have to wait for your checked bags to arrive!

 

[ebradley23]

I would not do it. And it has nothing to do with MDE. I would never make a reservation on my arrival day. Too many things can go wrong when it comes to travel. Then you will be out of your money due to the cancellation policies. Especially something like HDDR since you will be out the whole amount of you can't get there.

Are they really that strict with the cancellation policy? I've travel a lot with work, and hotels have always waived cancellation fees when flight issues have caused me to have to cancel. I assumed the same courtesy would apply to dining reservations on arrival day. I always call from the airport as soon as I am made aware of the problem to make any changes/cancellations, so it was never last minutes.

I think I left enough time between arrival time and lunch ressies, but now I'm reconsidering.

 

[Srbright]

Are they really that strict with the cancellation policy? I've travel a lot with work, and hotels have always waived cancellation fees when flight issues have caused me to have to cancel. I assumed the same courtesy would apply to dining reservations on arrival day.

Yes, they are that strict. If you miss the reservation for any reason outside of Disney control the cancelation fee applies. It even applies to things that Disney controls (resort issues, problems at the park, etc.) but sometimes they will waive the fee. If not, that would leave Disney with a multitude of reservations a day where they would somehow have to work to verify that you had flight issues.

When we went in 2012 we had reservations at Cali Grill at 8 PM. Our flight from DTW was supposed to take off at. 8:30 and arrive at MCO at 10:15. They had mechanical issues and we changed gates once and planes twice. We did not get to POR until 6:45. We had just enough time to check in, drop our bags and get to CG within 5 mins of our reservation time.

Stacy

 

[4Still]

Thank you Sam_gordon and Goofy4tink! I asked twice and I knew it didn't align with my Magical express book and what I have read here. I feel confident now disregarding that information.

 

[4Still]

Thank you Sam_Gordon and Goofy4Tink. I am now confident with disregarding the recommendation from my TA.

 

[Carriemel]

I took excessively detailed notes in March when we flew in.

5:00pm Plane arrives at gate.
5:25pm Off plane, potty break, run to DME.
5:27pm On bus to BCV
5:32pm On the road
6:00pm Through the first welcome gate where Mickey and Minnie are.
6:04pm At CBR, where 19 people get off, including a few bags
6:07pm Depart CBR
6:12pm Arrive BWI
6:16pm Finally pull up to let people off at BWI - 2 people get off.
6:18pm Depart BWI
6:20pm Arrive BC, where 6 people (including us) got out.
6:27pm Receive keys to room.

So, 87 minutes exactly from the time the plane arrived at the gate until we had the keys in our hand.

 

[luvmy2babies]

I’m also in the camp of not making ADRs for arrival day. I make my ADRs for the days in between arrival and departure day, which usually gives me room for a 2 credit meal. But I avoid arrival and departure day. There’s enough to think about on the travel days IMHO. If I were to make an ADR for arrival day, it would have to be one of the few places left that doesn’t have the credit card guarantee. Are there any of those left? On arrival and departure days we eat QS.

And oh no. If you have to add in going to baggage claim at MCO, it’s even worse. The previous posters are right. I’ve been to baggage claim at MCO when going on other trips (cruise out of Port Canaveral and Sea World trip). I would not deal with that heading to a Disney resort unless my flight arrived 7pm or later because I might not want the bags getting to us that late.

I wonder if the travel agents that have given those instructions might be getting that confused with cruising. When we went on a Royal Caribbean cruise out of PC, we did attach the tags to our luggage after getting it from baggage claim and before taking our transportation to the port as our travel agent instructed. But that aligned with what we read in our documents as well.