Magical Express

[maddiemacsmommy]

I have a friend who is going on her first trip at the end of this month. She is scheduled to use ME, but now is suddenly having a panic attack over some bad experiences she has read about. I have never used ME and would like to give her some feedback from some of you who have. So tell me - good or bad - what was your ME experience like?

 

[ceecee]

We started using it as soon as it was available and have used it every year since. Never any problems at all. I do have to say that the first few years we waited probably 1/2 hr or so. The last two times we got right on and left right away. It is great, tell her not to worry.

 

[W.E.D.]

Wonderful!!

I turned in my luggage in Des Moines at 6:30 a.m. and never saw it again until about 5 that afternoon. Which is what you want!! As long as you keep some essentials in your carry-on, you should be fine. We arrived around 11:30 in the morning. It seemed like there was a HUGE line for ME, but it moved very quickly. We were at our resort and in our room by 1pm. We took a nap, and then went for a walk around POR. When we got back to our room, there was all our stuff as promised.

I would certainly recommend it!

 

[CapnJacksGirl]

We LOVE it! Honestly, we look at it as our first Disney ride of the trip. We have had nothing but good luck in our five times using ME. We love the convenience of not having to get a rental car or pick up our luggage. It's always exciting for us, waiting for the Disney arrival video to kick in. (It's activated by GPS when the bus gets to a certain point along the way.) My DSs (OK, and me too) like to sit near the front of the bus so we have a great view of the Walt Disney World sign. We have always found the process to be very efficient. We've never waited very long to board our bus to the resort and have found that dropping guests off at other resorts before ours has been very efficient and speedy. In our experience, I really don't have anything negative report. I'm sure, as with any service provided by humans, there are always going to be occasional problems, but it hasn't happened to us or anyone we know personally. I have no problem recommending it to our friends who are visiting WDW. Hopefully your friend will have the same experience!

 

[corneredbycorn]

We've used it for both of our last two trips and we absolutely love it. For us, it's a huge perk to staying on property.

 

[ponyboy]

We've used ME on every trip to Disney and wouldn't do it any other way. You don't have to wait for luggage, you don't have to carry it anywhere, you don't have to load it up, you don't have to unload it, you don't have to carry it to your room. Where's the downside?

I'm so happy to get away, I probably wouldn't care if my luggage got lost, never to be seen again anyway. I keep my wallet and phone in my pocket which is all I really need. They sell clothes at Disney World

 

[Dizneefamily+4]

Since we started saying onsite - many trips ago - we've always used DME. We've never had anything but absolutely positive experiences with it. We love its convenience. Our kids look forward to the ride to the resort from the airport on the ME. No complaints here.

 

[jadelane1]

We have used me all of the 5 times we went and it was wonderful!! No hassle and its all done for you. I wouldn't do it any other way!

 

[PrincessSamanthaC]

We love the ME. We have never had to wait for too long and love having to not worry about our luggage! seeing the welcome movie gets us super excited and into Disney mode

 

[TiggerBouncy]

I use it every time I go... at least once a year. Never had any trouble with it. I have always gotten onto a bus within 15 minutes or so. Once I think it took 30 minutes, but that was one time.

Never lost a bag. The ONLY problem I have with it is that I get to the hotel before the rooms are ready. One time I got to Orlando at 9am so the resort of course didn't have our room when we checked in. They didn't get our room ready until almost 7pm - no idea why! And they had problems finding our bag because they didn't know where they stashed it waiting for the room. That's more a bell hop and hotel issue then ME though. They found the bags by 8.

 

[siskaren]

We've used ME on every trip to Disney and wouldn't do it any other way. You don't have to wait for luggage, you don't have to carry it anywhere, you don't have to load it up, you don't have to unload it, you don't have to carry it to your room. Where's the downside?

Some people are nervous about trusting someone else to get their luggage from the airport to their hotel. My response to that is that unless you're doing strictly carry-on, you're trusting someone else to get your luggage from your home airport to MCO, so what's the difference between that and trusting DME to get your luggage from the airport to your hotel?

 

[ManyMinnie]

I've never had a bad experience with ME.

 

[LSUfan4444]

In my personal opinion, she is way more likely to have sever baggage issues with baggage handlers at her airport and MCO than DME.

If the concern isn't about luggage, and it obviously isn't about cost, the only other "issue" might be time. Allow for an hour and a half between flight arrival and arrival to your resort and I don't think thats bad at all.

 

[RooRach0906]

We love ME, we have done 3 trips using it. We only had one minor problem when we were waiting for the bus to take us to the airport but the Disney CMs figured it out and we got our own bus all to ourselves to take us. Just have them keep anything they will need right away on them, as your luggage will not arrive for a couple hours. We have never waited over 20 minutes for our bus. Hope they have a great time.

 

[kymom99]

I used it twice and never had a problem. The first time was a month after they started the service and there were no bugs at all. My niece even joined us a couple days into our trip and one phone call took care of adding her flight to the system. She left a different day too, and no problems there either.

The second time, our return flight was very early so we couldn't check our bags or get boarding passes ahead, but that was the only catch.

 

[AJKMOM]

I haven't used it, but my DSIL did in February, and all went well, except one loud mouth jerk who talked on his cell phone the whole trip- so loudly everyone could hear him, and he used the f-bomb several times. That can happen in the line to get the rental car, not an indictment of DME.

 

[DizzneyDi]

I think ME is one of the best perks of staying on property. We've used it basically since the service began and have never had any problems. I do agree with the pp who mentioned packing anything important in your carryon. I have meds that I must take daily and they would never go in baggage I've checked with an airline. I won't take the chance that my meds got on a plane to MCI rather than MCO! Depending on the time of year and where you're traveling from, it's also a good idea to pack a lighter weight change of clothes in your carryon. If I'm traveling during colder weather I love being able to get out of my sweater and jeans and into vacation wear right at the airport.

I also wanted to point out that if someone has qualms about trusting ME to deliver their bags in a timely manner, they can just leave the ME identification off their bags, pick them up at baggage claim, and take them on the ME bus. It may be necessary to check them at the resort if your room isn't ready, and that comes with its own concerns, but again, in many years of travel to WDW I've never had an issue when I've checked bags at any WDW resort.

 

[MHSweb79]

We've used ME dozens of times and I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone.

In the very early days, the waiting areas were mob scenes and it took awhile to get your bus, but now you just walk straight through onto the bus, and when it's full enough you take off. Zippedee-doo-dah!

Our only other issue was one time coming back to the airport there were about 15 of us waiting for our assigned bus, and when it came he only had 4 available seats. We had arrived earliest, so we got on. I saw the rest of the folks at the airport later so they all made it fine.

Not sure what nightmare stories she's heard, but we've done rental cars and taken ME, and my husband would vote ME every time.

Edited to add: My only horrible trip on ME was the bus that picked us up at the airport and then didn't play the Disney video on the way to our resort. No magic - just express. It was crushing! I think I whined all the way to POFQ that day.

 

[DisneyRookie2007]

As previous posters have already mentioned, we also have not had any issue with ME. I will say though that on a few occassions we had to wait 20-30 minutes or so to board the bus and then wait for it to depart. In addition, it is customary to tip the bus driver when removing your bags. Always bring a change or clothes or essentials in your carry-on as it may be 2-3 hours before your bags arrive to your room. If arriving late evening - probably best to leave the tags off your luggage and cart it to the bus where it will travel wit you to the resort.

 

[msmama]

One time I had a fairly long wait getting on the bus - but you used to have to talk to someone at a desk. Last trip I just walked right on, someone scanned my booklet, directed me to the correct line and off I went. I barely slowed down!

Two trips ago I rented a car ( we drove to see a space shuttle launch) and it took FOREVER at the car rental counter. I wished I was taking ME.