Walking off the ship.

[CarolynU]

I’m sorry if this question makes me seem very stupid.
If we put out our bags the night before we debark can we still walk off the ship early the next morning and find our bags ready to collect or must we physically walk them off ourselves?
If we take DCL transportation can we ensure that we will be in the airport at around 11am to 11.30 for example for a 1pm flight ? Our departure airport is Rome. I think that the port is about an hour away from the airport. Or would it be safer to get a cab?

 

[Mathmagicland]

I’m sorry if this question makes me seem very stupid.
If we put out our bags the night before we debark can we still walk off the ship early the next morning and find our bags ready to collect or must we physically walk them off ourselves?
If we take DCL transportation can we ensure that we will be in the airport at around 11am to 11.30 for example for a 1pm flight ? Our departure airport is Rome. I think that the port is about an hour away from the airport. Or would it be safer to get a cab?

Re your bags - my experience has been that the bags are not out and available for collection at the early walk-off. So you’d want to carry them off with you if you have a concerns with making a flight.

Bags in the terminal are grouped by a character tag delivered to your stateroom the night before, ie Mickey, Donald, etc. Those with the earliest departures using DCL transport are supposed to be offloaded first based on the tags. However, a bag can be missed or grouped with another character tag - my first time trying to find bags in the terminal, only two of the four were in the correct group. It took over 20 minutes of searching to find our other two bags - there are a LOT of bags and so many the same color or style. If you figure 2000 people and each with 2 bags, that’s 3500-4000 bags to sort and offload, so there’s bound to be a few that are misplaced.

Re DCL airport transportation, Disney would advise if you’d have enough time with their transportation to make a 1pm flight. There is usually guidance as to suggested flights no earlier than a specific time, based on the distance from port to airport & their info re traffic & etc. It is on the DCL site.

 

[CarolynU]

Re your bags - my experience has been that the bags are not out and available for collection at the early walk-off. So you’d want to carry them off with you if you have a concerns with making a flight.

Bags in the terminal are grouped by a character tag delivered to your stateroom the night before, ie Mickey, Donald, etc. Those with the earliest departures using DCL transport are supposed to be offloaded first based on the tags. However, a bag can be missed or grouped with another character tag - my first time trying to find bags in the terminal, only two of the four were in the correct group. It took over 20 minutes of searching to find our other two bags - there are a LOT of bags and so many the same color or style. If you figure 2000 people and each with 2 bags, that’s 3500-4000 bags to sort and offload, so there’s bound to be a few that are misplaced.

Re DCL airport transportation, Disney would advise if you’d have enough time with their transportation to make a 1pm flight. There is usually guidance as to suggested flights no earlier than a specific time, based on the distance from port to airport & their info re traffic & etc. It is on the DCL site.

Thank you very much. That’s very helpful. I’d rather get DCL transport but not if we are sitting on a coach becoming agitated, but walking the bags off is a pain too with little ones.

 

[Marc D]

In any port but Port Canaveral, Disney uses the character tags to call disembarkation groups. They do so because luggage is taken off the ship as the guests are already able to get off, so they prioritize guests based on their flight information and bring their luggage off in the same order. Unlike PP, we’ve never had any trouble finding our luggage since, using that system, the luggage area is never packed with all the luggage and we’ve never had a bag misplaced. Guests get off, grab their bags, and other bags are brought in the terminal.

For Rome, DCL recommends to fly at 12PM at the earliest. You will be fine using the DCL transportation. You might wait a few minutes for the bus to leave until it is full, but they will get you there in time. You will not arrive much earlier using a cab. In our experience, a lot of passengers go back directly to the airport using DCL shuttles in Europe, and the busses tend to fill quite rapidly, especially if you get off the ship early.

 

[CarolynU]

Thank you. I’d rather take the DCL shuttle with a baby and a toddler than sitting without car seats in a cab but I was concerned about time even flying at 1pm but I think this may be ok after reading your advice.