ME-Two Hours!

[inkkognito]

A friend of mine just used ME yesterday for the first time, and it took her two hours to get to Old Key West! Part of that was waiting an hour for the bus to leave. She didn't arrive at an odd time, either. Her flight came in late morning/early afternoon. Her luggage showed up very, very late too; they had to ask about it twice before it finally showed up two hours later than it was supposed to. She said that the service was okay for the price, but she will not use it again if Disney starts to charge for it. I'm curious if the two hour wait for a bus is typical.
Barb

 

[Lewisc]

A friend of mine just used ME yesterday for the first time, and it took her two hours to get to Old Key West! Part of that was waiting an hour for the bus to leave. She didn't arrive at an odd time, either. Her flight came in late morning/early afternoon. Her luggage showed up very, very late too; they had to ask about it twice before it finally showed up two hours later than it was supposed to. She said that the service was okay for the price, but she will not use it again if Disney starts to charge for it. I'm curious if the two hour wait for a bus is typical.
Barb

Tyler said the average time from landing to arrival at your resort is 70 minutes. Most people don't seem to wait more than 20-30 minutes for a bus. I waited 30 minutes but was one of the first guests in line, I must have just missed a bus to AKL.

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

I'm curious if the two hour wait for a bus is typical.

Barb,

No. Even your friend didn't have a "two hour wait for a bus," based on what your first wrote: "it took her two hours to get to Old Key West."

You didn't write when that "timer" for those two hours started... from when the flight was scheduled to land? from when the aircraft reached the gate? from when your friend reached the DME Welcome Center?

It took me less than an hour from when I got off the aircraft until I was checking in at OKW. We were lucky. The DME motor coach departed a minute or two after we boarded, and OKW was the first stop. The ride itself was around 30 minutes. The majority of the rest of the time was time it took to get from our distant gate down to the curb level (which is time we would have had to spend regardless of our mode of ground transportation).

Other people might not be so lucky. If someone boards a coach right after another coach to the same destination departed, and if that person's resort is the third stop, I could see it taking close to two hours in a worst-case situation.

Regarding luggage, people need to understand that they don't have to wait in the room for their luggage. It's delivered to the room, with the inbound bell service gratuity covered by Disney. Luggage requires manual handling at several steps -- and that handling can't even begin until the airline unloads the luggage from the aircraft and transports it to the terminal. The bell service staff at the resort can be backed up, which can add more time.

The solution for luggage is to pack a small carry-on with items that are needed immediately (swim suit, park clothes, and all the usual things that you wouldn't check anyway, such as valuables and medicines).

It really shouldn't matter if the luggage takes 2, 3, or 4 hours to reach the room from when the aircraft lands.

It was such a pleasure not having to go to baggage claim, not having to lug our bags around Orlando Airport, and not having to lug our bags around the resort!

 

[kaytieeldr]

Regarding luggage, people need to understand that they don't have to wait in the room for their luggage. It's delivered to the room, with the inbound bell service gratuity covered by Disney. Luggage requires manual handling at several steps -- and that handling can't even begin until the airline unloads the luggage from the aircraft and transports it to the terminal. The bell service staff at the resort can be backed up, which can add more time.

Not to mention the logistics of getting luggage from OKW's Bell Services to the furthest units of that resort!

 

[inkkognito]

Just to clarify, it was two hours from the time they got to the bus area. That is what surprised me.
Barb

 

[gigi1313]

personally, i don't think two hours from door-to-door is unreasonable... it took us a bit less than that, but i did not expect it to be as fast as limo service and two hours is less than what it took last year when we rented a car (since we had to wait for our luggage, wait on line in the car rental area, haul all our stuff out to the car, load it into the car, find our way out of the airport and find our resort, park and schlep in)... even if they charged, i found dme to be an easy pleasant convenient way to get from mco to my resort w/minimal (okay, NO!) hassle!

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

Just to clarify, it was two hours from the time they got to the bus area. That is what surprised me.
Barb

And, to clarify further, I assume that means two hours "the time they got to the bus area" until they arrived at OKW, not a "two hour wait for a bus" from when they got to the bus area.

I think two hours is a worst-case scenario, although I think it's unusual to take more than 90 minutes.

For us, it was about 40 minutes from when we arrived at the Magical Express area on the side "A" lower level. Of that time, 30 minutes was the actual motor coach ride.

I think 40 minutes is a best-case scenario.

 

[helenk]

I think 2 hour wait from the time you get to the bus area is a bit unusual. I arrived on a Saturday morning, my flight was full, the airport was mobbed. It took me 2 hours from the time my flight landed to the time I arrived at the Allstar Music. I just missed the bus that was leaving when I got in line. Our group did wait quite a while for the next bus though.
I do not know what time my luggage arrived, as I checked in, dropped my carry on with luggage service and got the next bus to MGM. When I got to my rooom around 5:00 my luggage was in my room. I did not even need to call for it.

 

[BCV23]

For my daughter and I, it was 2.5 hours from landing to arriving at the Polynesian.

Most of that time was spent waiting for the bus to leave.

My daughter uses a wheelchair. After checking in, we were told not to enter the Polynesian queue which probably had 15-20 people in it. We never saw those folks again and I suspect they made it to the resort a long time before we did.

The driver had trouble using the lift. He couldn't get the ramp down so she was up in the air for maybe 5 minutes. She was a trooper but I would have been frightened. That lift is high.

When we finally got on, we sat and sat. Maybe 20-30 minutes before anyone else joined us. A few more straggled on. Finally a larger bunch boarded and we were off. We stopped at POFQ, POR, CR and finally the Polynesian. When we got there, he told us that he would let my daughter off after he helped everyone else. This of course made sense but at that point, the service wasn't feeling very magical!

This was in May and perhaps if the driver knew how to use the lift, we would have made it much faster with that group in the queue.