Magical Express won me over

Epcot Mom

Mouseketeer
Joined
Feb 22, 2000
Messages
443
Ok, I'll admit I was snubbing my nose at ME due to prior bad experience with Mears. We have taken car services since 2000 and loved them. Even though we could have used ME for free, I booked a car service we hadn't tried before for our trip last week. This was a car service I checked out on these boards, received many recommendations for and after speaking with and emailing, decided to go with them.

We landed in MCO an hour late due to a fire, yes fire, in the engine as we pulled out of the gate in our home airport. We had killer turbulence all the way there which just about knocked out my husband and I. (7 year old DD thought it was even better than Space Mountain, sat there with her hands in the air and everything!) There was a floor show on the airplane as some poor family dealt with a serious peanut allergy reaction on the plane. We finally land, and our car service is a no show!! We called the number they gave us and were told it was not working at this time, but was in service. (They had turned off their phone.) The night before I received an email confirmation with all the right info so I know they had it all, they just didn't bother to come.

It's after 10:00 pm and I have two kids who just want to get to bed. I go to the ME desk and tell them I haven't booked ahead of time but can they help us out. The woman kindly asked for my name, then handed me a piece of paper and showed me where to board the bus. It was that simple!!!! We waited maybe 10-15 minutes to board AND leave for our resort. There were several other groups on the bus but they stopped at our resort first. They ME guy told me they aim for no guest to wait longer than 10 minutes. They were pretty close!

We decided to take ME back to the airport even though they wanted to pick us up 45 minutes earlier than we would have taken a car service. It really wan't worth paying on our own just for 45 minutes. They were friendly, efficient, clean and had movies playing which kept us all entertained the ride back.

This was nothing like the Mears of years ago. I realize we came in late at night and it may be different in the height of the day but they were big winners in our book and worthy of at least consideration. I'll give them a try again when we return! My daughter even pin traded for a ME pin during our trip!!!
 
Did you take your luggage with you? i Mean on the ME Bus?? or did you check your luggage at the counter and arrived later.
 
I too was totally impressed with the whole thing!! I am sooo sorry about your flight, how terrible!!! YIKES!!! Funny how dd had not a care in the world, wish I could be like that on a plane :confused3 Did the car place take your money?? I hope you get a refund somehow
 
How long did it take for you to get your luggage at the resort. We are flying in late and heard it can take 4 hours to get luggage.
 

I am so glad for you :flower: I too am some what of a car service snob. However, my ds loved the bus ride thing to the Port and asked me if the new ME would be similar. It sounds like it is and we are going to give it a shot during our upcoming trip in January. Can you still tip the driver of the bus or is that a no-no? I know on the Port runs they cheerfully accept :Pinkbounc
 
disneyfreak71 said:
How long did it take for you to get your luggage at the resort. We are flying in late and heard it can take 4 hours to get luggage.


Yes they say 2 to 4 hours from when the plane lands, I think we got ours in 3 or 3 1/2....we were so busy we didn't enen notice. I had packed swim suits and pj's and necessities in my carry on so that helped...
 
Sorry it has taken me so long to respond...technical difficulties. Anyway, we had our luggage with us as we planned on doing a car service. We flew Southwest so it wouldn't have been any other option anyway. It really wasn't a big deal. The luggage came right up and was on the bus with us. The ME people didn't seem to bat an eye. I understand the appeal of checking the luggage at the home airport and just letting it come as they get it. I think it depends on what you're doing once you arrive. In our case, we pretty much went to bed so it would have been a problem for it to have arrived on another bus. If it were our usual daytime arrival, I could see just checking in, carrying sunscreen in the bag of goodies for the plane and hitting a park as soon as we check in. Just depends on what you're going to do once you hit property. It wasn't a big deal grabbing our bags on the way to ME.

As for the car service, they did not ask for money up front so we weren't out anything except 45 minutes of waiting and looking at the airport. We have taken car services many times before with no problem. I would think with all the whining they have been doing about how ME is killing the car service people they would have bothered to show up for a paying customer. Maybe they just didn't want to bother for the late arrival (only 9:30 local time). I try to see the good in things and would like to find a nice spin for it but they didn't even bother to call us at our resort, which they knew from our reservation. They really just didn't try.

For our next trip, we'll be using ME. It will be interesting to see if our experience is as good the next time. I have to admit, I'm still a little anxious about the potential wait but I'll give Disney another chance to prove they are worthy of my airport transfer business on a regular basis before I hand in my "car service snob" card!!!! :)
 
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I'll send you a pm, I don't think we can type the name in the forum.

There are lots of good ones we have tried before and even this one was recommended by others on the DIS.

Thanks,
Epcot Mom
 














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