Magical Express to Resorts

[OldSchoolDisney]

Is the Magical Express service to the resorts basically the same as the old Mears shuttle except they take your bags right to your room for you? Will be staying at BWI and was wondering.....Thanks

 

[DISNEYFOS]

actually its soo much better than that. (or at least I think so) We put the tags on here before we leave. Check them at the airport and they "magically" show up in our rooms. No collecting them in Orlando and puting them on the bus and draggin them to check-in.

 

[OldSchoolDisney]

How often do the shuttles run ...etc.....

 

[DISNEYFOS]

So when you sign up for the Magical express they ask for your flight information. You get a packet of Luggage tags and instructions approx 20 days before you leave. The instructions for your arrival to Orlando tell you to go to the Disney Welcome Center on A side of level one. I'm not sure..but if they are asking for your flight information I have to assume they will make sure a shuttle is there for the guests arriving at that time.

For departure They state you will be notified of the specific motorcoach pick-up time and location at resort. It will be approx 2 hours and 45 min prior to your flight departure.

As a side note, at the BWI (and a few others) you can actually check-in at a specific desk at the hotel and receive your departing flight boarding passes the night before your flight home. Nice little perk

 

[stacy6552]

Its just like Mears, including all the problems. The good news is that with Disney as the middleman, you can rest assured that nothing will be too screwed up. For instance when they simply didnt show up for our return trip to the airport, the resort manager stepped right up and got us a cab and prepaid, lickety-split.

 

[Lewisc]

You had to get your own luggage with Mears. As a result Mears had 4 pickup locations in the airport. Some guests had to make multiple stops in MCO. DME only has one location. DME is free, the number of guests using it is dramtically larger than the number of guests who used Mears. DME buses generally stop at 3-4 resorts. Mears would make more stops, with some stops not even being WDW resorts. The buses are dispatched before they're even full.

The result many posters wind up being at their resort 60-90 minutes after landing at MCO.

 

[Mickymark]

We used DME in August and the trip to our resort could not have been more easy. We checked our bags in Philly and when we landed in Orlando we were directed to the DME desk. We waited in line for not more than 15 minutes and actually made it to Disney property 18 minutes later. I know because the driver commented on this fact. We went to two other resorts before ours and still made it to our resort in about 50 minutes total time.
The return trip was terrible. It took us well over an hour to get to the airport from the WL! Then because our gate (Usair) was on the "B" side of the airport we had to loop around and completely circle the airport before getting off which added about 10 minutes to the trip. Once inside, we had to check our own bags because our airline didn't participate in the DME program. I'll say this: DME picks you up 3 hours in advance of your flight leaving to avoid any unforseen problems and we only had about 10 minutes to spare on our return flight!