Very Disappointed in Magical Express

[Jimmy Mouse]

And that's why people call it "The Tragical Express"

 

[VandVsmama]

That really sucks! I'd be frustrated, too. We might end up choosing to use Uber or Lyft to the airport instead.

 

[nkereina]

While assigned seats would be idea, I don't see much of a reasoning for it though as you are getting ready to board a plane with little or no social-distancing, aren't you?

The point is to social distance as much as you possibly can when you can. There is no reason why on a 75% empty bus that people need to sit in adjacent rows of each other when there's tons of empty rows to the back. While we can't always help distancing on planes, why would we not want to do it when we actually can?

And FWIW, our flight home last week had 58 out of 140 seats full. We had one person in the row in front of us, but no one to the side or rear of us. We were more distanced on our Southwest flight than we were on our DME bus.

 

[Shellyred8]

We've done two WDW trips post COVID and taken DME both times. Both time from MCO the our resort hotel was good. They gave us seat assignments and spaced everyone out and told everyone to wear masks. On our first trip, when we went from the hotel to MCO, the driver asked us to load from the back and leave a row in between us and the next group. Everyone complied. On our second trip, the driver said nothing. I was the first, and only one, on the bus. I sat somewhere in the middle. As other stops were made, the people that got on were good about keeping a row in between each other and one row off-set on the opposite side.

 

[lmdean]

I'm saddened, but can't say I'm surprised about the return to MCO experience on ME. After our stress-filled return-to-MCO trip in 2017 where the clueless driver dallied around for almost an hour trying to load a disabled passenger and we arrived with 20 minutes to make our flight, I'll never use it for returning transport again. We booked Tiffany Town Cars for this trip.

 

[nkereina]

the clueless driver dallied around for almost an hour trying to load a disabled passenger and we arrived with 20 minutes to make our flight

Wow! Our driver last week had to load a wheelchair and it added maybe 15 minutes. It does seem to be more complicated than loading onto WDW buses, so I imagine there's some drivers with little to no experience on utilizing the lift. To your point, in addition to this, we also found that loading/unloading everyone's bags now adds additional time as well. Because Southwest and security lines are so short right now, we still had over an hour to kill before boarding, but I imagine that gap will close when/if airports become busier and RAC still isn't operating.

 

[stinkpickle]

We abandoned DME several trips ago and use Uber (or the occasionally a rental car) instead. SOOOO worth it.

 

[olecow]

Our return trip last week was fine. We left at 3:35PM and people were sitting every other row. Everyone I saw was wearing a mask. We've never had an issue with Magical Express and will continue to use it, but everyone's experience is different.

 

[teach22180]

It really is up to the people on your bus because my experience was that I could choose a distanced seat if I wanted one. Lots of groups had sat together in the front but I just went a little ways back and had plenty of Room. I think they are not filling the bus at least.

 

[gottalovepluto]

It really is up to the people on your bus because my experience was that I could choose a distanced seat if I wanted one. Lots of groups had sat together in the front but I just went a little ways back and had plenty of Room. I think they are not filling the bus at least.

Some buses are definitely full. So it’s YMMV.

 

[brockash]

At this point I would think people should have enough sense to do that with out being told to do so...

Well the problem is you have ppl like "magic mask" who literally either don't believe or don't care about it. Some ppl would have no issue socially distancing on their own, but you also have many others who don't believe there's a need, so they won't.