What's the Deal with SouthWest and ME?

[chuckd3]

I thought if you were staying at Pop Century you could send your luggage to SW airlines without checking them in on departure. My trave agent is telling me you still have to take them from ME and check them in yourself. What is correct?

 

[dburg30]

Well, technically, the RAC (resort airline checkin) which is for your bags is in a 'trial run' at POP, so even though everyone hopes it goes into full effect, it COULD be stopped at anytime if they decide they dont want to do it, so that's probably why your TA is telling you that, because, they arent officially a participating airline.

 

[goofy4tink]

Yep, dburg30 is absolutely right. SW isn't considered to be a 'participating airline' officially yet. But, you can check your luggage at POP and the AllStars now. But, again, it's not official, and could possiby stop at any moment.
But...I doubt they are going to stop it. After the trial period at POP, they moved on to the AllStars....to see how it worked there. Seems to be going okay. If that works out, they will probably head to other resorts, and eventually become a 'participating' airline.

 

[seashoreCM]

I thought if you were staying at Pop Century you could send your luggage to SW airlines without checking them in on departure. My trave agent is telling me you still have to take them from ME and check them in yourself. What is correct?

Your travel agent is a little behind the times.

 

[dburg30]

Your travel agent is a little behind the times.

I tend to disagree, they may know about it, but the last thing a TA needs is for the off chance that they stop the SW trial when their client is on vacation.

 

[brianm27]

I just returned from a quick stay at POP. Here is waht was happening as of this last weekend.

We arrived Saturday. Never got our tags in the mail so we just took our luggage claim check to the ME desk with our resort confirmation. We quickly got our documents and were on our way. The documents being handed out clearly state that "we are pleased to add Southwest Airlines to our Resort Check In service during a test for guests staying at Disney's All Star and OPO Century Resorts."

Here is the part I really liked - "On the morining of your departure day your boarding pass will be delivered to your rom prior to 4:30 AM". We checked in on our cell phone at the 24 hour mark. The boarding passes were delivered to our room with the "A" positions we got. If we hadn't check in on the cell phoneI am sure our boarding positions would have been worse. We also got tags for our bags. The boarding passes also had the baggage claim numbers printed on them. When I took the bags down, they just made us show the boarding pass and photo ID and took the bags. We didn't need to stand in line.

 

[PatMcDuck]

Just an FYI, I have checked in via Guest Services at MK, so I assume any park would do this for you........ just bring your info along with you.

 

[yrdlyprincess]

I hope that they are still doing it as of Nov22...So I can check in @ a park??? I was going to ask my sister to go online and check in for me but this would be easier-- I think that last time I had her check me and had DH go to the front desk to pick up our boarding pass, but that was at CBR

 

[pooch]

on our trip in Sept. Flew Delta down with assigned seats that were upgraded to first class at the gate (so spoiled!!!). Packing neatly is easy on the way down so we only checked 1 bag. SWA for our return trip, with 2 free checked bags. Used EBCI to avoid having to check in down there. Loved having the boarding passes waiting on the door the morning of check out & dropping bags at RAC before heading out for our last park day was FABULOUS!!! Never knew what we were missing!!