Minnie Van From Airport

[CarlyMur09]

We have a trip upcoming in May that we are trying to figure out the details for and hopefully have a better start to our vacation than we've had the last few trips. (The trips themselves were fantastic, but the first night or two.. not so much).

So we currently have a SW non-stop flight from PIT to MCO scheduled to land at 9:30 PM on 5/17, and I already have DME reserved. However a few things are making us concerned, especially since we have MK EMH the next morning.

Up until last year, DME was rather quick for our family to get through and get going, and we were at the resort within 90 minutes of landing, which is what is expected. However our trips in April, September, and December were not 90 minutes. April was a bit of an outlier, as our flight was delayed from 7:30 to I believe 10:30 or 11, due to mechanical issues. We had landed at MCO around midnight and got down to ME after getting the checked luggage. However we did not get to Poly until 3 AM that morning. (after waiitng on DME for over an hour). I understand that was an outlier, and we were okay with that, but for our trips in Sept and Dec, we had landed at around 8:30 both times, and still hadn't gotten to the resort until almost 11 PM those nights.

It may be that our family's just had some bad luck with DME timing, but we're concerned it may happen again next time, and we'd rather just get to the room ASAP.

There are 5 of us, so we had been looking at either a Mears taxi or the Minnie Van. (My parents already nixed the normal Lyft/Uber, so these are not optional for us).

Questions:

1- Is the Minnie Van actually available at that time? The Disney website states that hours are from 6 AM to 12 AM, but I'm finding other sources that state arrivals are only 6 AM to 10 PM?

2-It does state a capacity of 6 people and 6 medium suitcases.... Anyone know what that means? We normally take down 1 backpack/bag and 1 carry on per person, plus 2 checked bags. Are we over the limit with that or not? We could pack one and put a soft sided wheeled duffle bag in the other one, if that's the case. (I'm pretty sure the checked bags we normally take are 26-28 inches).

3 -If that suitcase is too large for the Minnie Van...could we put the yellow tag on it and have it sent to the room, or would we be out of luck for this?

Thanks, everyone.

 

[holden]

I would call the number that you use to book the Minnie Van airport service and ask them your questions. Another option would be to use a transportation service like Tony Hinds. I haven't used him but I have read about him a lot on these boards. People seem very satisfied with his transportation service.

 

[kandb]

Just an FYI, the later your flights get in, it seems like the later you have to wait for DME to "fill" a bus. I don't know your situation but from now on when we fly, I decided it will always be on earlier flights because later flights have so many more issues with delays, plus your paying a lot of money for a Disney resort (Poly) and your not even using it for the day you arrive. Good luck

 

[CarlyMur09]

Just an FYI, the later your flights get in, it seems like the later you have to wait for DME to "fill" a bus. I don't know your situation but from now on when we fly, I decided it will always be on earlier flights because later flights have so many more issues with delays, plus your paying a lot of money for a Disney resort (Poly) and your not even using it for the day you arrive. Good luck

Thankfully the Poly was on points and was only for one night, and while the whole situation was stressful, we did have a place to sleep for a few hours after the whole thing, so we weren't complaining.

As for coming in earlier, that may have some weight to it, it's just the way our schedules worked out, as PIT-MCO nonstops have dropped to a few per day lately, unfortunately, and the earlier nonstops were too early, and the other flights with stops were actually getting us there later than we wanted.