Why do people take luggage with them on ME?

[clkelley]

OP here. As I said in my original post, we landed at OIA at 11am. We arrived at BLT via ME express about 1:30pm due to a lengthy wait for a bus followed by stops at Polynesian, Grand Floridian, and Wilderness Lodge. These stops were made longer due to the fact that the driver had to unload a ton of luggage at each stop.

Our luggage was delivered to the room by 2:30pm. Why do you expect that it won't be delivered until 7pm? Has that been your experience in the past? In my experience, our luggage has always arrived within 4 hours of landing.

Also, even if they don't get it till 7, if there is something so important in checked luggage that it is needed between the time they land and 7pm, then bring it in carryon

 

[clkelley]

al 3 times when we have booked we were told by disney that we had to transfere our luggage over our selves. So we have never even looked for somewhere to drop them

You have gotten incorrect information from someone.

The Orlando airport arrivals guide http://www.orlandoairports.net/arrive/index.htm states the following:

After exiting the aircraft, international passengers will be required to produce passports at the Immigration checkpoint.

After clearing Immigration you will recover your baggage from the baggage carousel and proceed through the Customs checkpoint.

After clearing Immigration and Customs:
Airside 4 (Gates 60-99): You may either keep your checked bags with you and take the escalator directly up to the AGT station, or place your checked baggage on the baggage belt for transfer to the Main Terminal.
Airside 1 (Gates 1-29): Place your checked baggage on the baggage belt for transfer to the Main Terminal then proceed up the escalator, through the security checkpoint, then walk over to the AGT (train) station.

Then you proceed through the airport just like all other passengers, head down to the DME counter, hand them your claim checks and your bags will be pulled.

(Now, if you arrive at MCO after 10pm, then you have to pull your own bags.)

 

[aussietravellers]

Many international guests don't get ME tags as they don't send them internationally any more so they collect their luggage.

Also in our case we will have more than one check in piece each and we only have one tag each, so we will have to collect the other luggage ourselves. We could give ME the claim tickets for them to collect them, but if they are going around on the baggage claim we may as well grab them.

So I suspect there are many reasons why people collect their luggage. We would love to use ME for all of our luggage but the tags won't arrive in time

 

[Julylady]

These responses are very interesting. I am trying to determine whether more people are taking their luggage with them on the ME bus because they personally have had legitimate issues in the past or whether they have been influenced by a few postings on this and other message boards.

Am I correct that more and more people are taking their luggage with them? It certainly seemed so to me. I will need to say that I have probably taken ME at least 10 times in the past five years and I have never, ever had even one little issue. I always take a carry on bag with essentials just in case, but I have never needed it. Have I just been lucky or is my experience really the "norm" despite what you read on the message boards?

 

[PaDisneyCouple]

I doubt there are many with our example for this fall's trip, but also don't think we're the first or only:

We had a cruise planned.
I'd purchased air fare.
Booked the Hyatt at MCO. Friday arrival for Saturday cruise.
Shazam! A PIN code for DW arrived in the mail. 40% off deluxe!
Now, we're at BC this fall, and the cruise is in 2011.
Analysis of costs of flight changes, extra night at BC, yet another check-in (have 2 already, as PIN code didn't cover the entire vacation) leads us to keep our Hyatt reservation.
Plan now: get up Saturday am, breakfast (free per booking incentive), and first time using ME here we come!

 

[CR Resort Fan 4 Life]

Maybe some guests like having their luggage with them right away and don't want to wait the 3 hours it takes to arrive in their room. If my family and I ever decided to try Magical Express we would seriously consider getting our luggage and brining it on the bus because we would feel better knowing we have it.

 

[clkelley]

I doubt there are many with our example for this fall's trip, but also don't think we're the first or only:

We had a cruise planned.
I'd purchased air fare.
Booked the Hyatt at MCO. Friday arrival for Saturday cruise.
Shazam! A PIN code for DW arrived in the mail. 40% off deluxe!
Now, we're at BC this fall, and the cruise is in 2011.
Analysis of costs of flight changes, extra night at BC, yet another check-in (have 2 already, as PIN code didn't cover the entire vacation) leads us to keep our Hyatt reservation.
Plan now: get up Saturday am, breakfast (free per booking incentive), and first time using ME here we come!

The Hyatt at the airport has a COOL perk. Bring your Yellow tags with you, (but not on your bags). When you check out of the Hyatt, place the yellow tags on your bags and give them to Bell Services. Bell Services will get your bags to the "backstage" DME sorting facility for you!!! You DON'T have to carry your bags on the bus.

 

[clkelley]

Many international guests don't get ME tags as they don't send them internationally any more so they collect their luggage.

Also in our case we will have more than one check in piece each and we only have one tag each, so we will have to collect the other luggage ourselves. We could give ME the claim tickets for them to collect them, but if they are going around on the baggage claim we may as well grab them.

So I suspect there are many reasons why people collect their luggage. We would love to use ME for all of our luggage but the tags won't arrive in time

One thing you can do. The yellow tags have identical information on both "sides". You can split them in half and put each of the shorter pieces around a handle. Then you should have enough for each bag to have a scannable bar code. You will just need to carefully peel back a small section of the backing and cut it off manually as there are no perferations so that the ends stick together.

(Does that make sense??)

In the future, just tell your US-based travel agent to request additional yellow tags as soon as they receive the DME packet and forward them to you. They should receive the original packet at about 5 weeks out, then the additional tags at about 4 weeks out, then there should still be plenty of time to forward all of the documents to you.

 

[lacy1101]

With most airlines charging for baggage, I bet there are quite a few people who bring their luggage as carry on items rather than checking it.

When we flew two years ago on Air Tran we each carried a travel suitcase and book bag (as our personal item). When boarding DME the suitcases were stored under the bus. We weren't allowed to take them on the bus.

When we flew Jet Blue this year we checked everything since it was free and the bags were transferred to the hotel by Disney.

I complete agree that having your luggage handled by Disney is a real bonus but that bonus is negated with the airlines charging so much for a checked bag.

This will be us in November. We're flying in on Air Tran, who charges $20 for one checked bag and $25 for each additional. We are traveling with another couple and we plan for each couple to have one carry on and also combining some things into one checked bag.

 

[zuzu310]

Honestly, I had never thought about picking them up before but this year I might. For one thing, I like to have my stuff with me when I arrive. But the #1 reason is that I want to check my room for bedbugs before my luggage gets thrown in there. And yes, while we would arrive before our luggage, our room will not be ready yet. We usually hit DTD or the parks so our luggage would more than likely beat us to the room before we came back from the parks. I prefer to be safe than sorry.

 

[goofy4tink]

Several reasons for luggage going to the bus.
1. guests may have arrived a day early and can't use DME until their reservation starts..so they stay at a nearby hotel and take DME in the morning.

2. international travelers

3. those being dropped at MCO from someplace else but heading to WDW

4. those who just don't feel confident that their bags will arrive via DME

Here's the thing....DME will get your bags to you. A bag or two may go 'off track' but they will get it to you eventually. And, the airline may have misdireceted a late arriving bag, it may not have been the fault of DME at all.
Be sure to pack a carryon bag in any case, with anything you may need to start your trip. Even if you retrieve your own bags, the airlines can, and do, misdirect bags. You may have to wait to get a bag.

I have seen guests standing in the bus line, waiting for their DME bus to come. They have mulitple checked bags. What are they doing at this pointj?? Attaching the yellow luggage tags. Did they not read the booklet?? No need for the yellow tags now. Or they put them on their carryon bags. Amazing.

The one time it took me nearly 90 mins to get to POP was the one time Pop was the third of three stops and there had to be 20 bags to be unloaded at the first two stops. I have never, ever seen so much luggage on a DME bus. It added a fair amount of time at the two resorts vs just spending 5-8 mins there.
But, people will do what works for them. I love not having to lug my bags through the airport and then from the bus to the resort room.

 

[seashoreCM]

One thing you can do. The yellow tags have identical information on both "sides". You can split them in half and put each of the shorter pieces around a handle. .

If the handle is quite fat then the half-tag might not go all the way around and have enough left over to stick together with.

 

[2Tiggies]

I take our bags on ME. I am an international traveler and yes, we can give our airline tags to the ME desk and they will still deliver our luggage for us BUT:

It is almost a 10 hour flight.
We have to check in at the airport around 3 hours before departure.
We have to get up early to get to the airport.
We are 5 hours ahead of EST

So when we arrive at MCO we have already been up and at it for about 15 or 16 hours at the very least. It should be late at night according to our bodies, but it is only late afternoon or early evening. So when we get to our resort, we want to take a shower and change our clothes.

I have to add that if I was doing a domestic flight I would leave ME to do its magic. It is purely because I know we are tired and don't want to be woken at 11 pm (which still feels like 4 am) to have our bags delivered.

 

[DaniB]

We're Canadian, using a TA, and the TA received our ME tags and Mickey Mail. They forwarded it all to us.

Now we're flying out of Buffalo and letting ME handle our luggage. The way we figured is to stuff a couple of backpacks with necessities for us - just in case any of our lugagge is delayed or missing. Swimsuits, PJs, complete change of clothing (maybe 2), medications, electronics, etc, etc.

We really don't want to worry about collecting our luggage and dragging it about with 2 kids!

 

[LovesHerTaurus]

We actually had to bring 3/4 of our carryons with us to the hotel immediately - we had a tux/dress fitting/steaming 2 hours after we landed and with ME that was a huge gamble - I needed our dresses there to steam. Since we had 4 carryons with all our wedding stuff, and only 2 checked bags we just brought them with us.

The family who was in line behind us messed up their ME, so they had to bring their bags with them.

My favorite part of a vacation is taking a few minutes to settle in - unpack the pjys, clothes put away... and hit the ground running

Okay. This is an honest question. My family visits WDW 2-3 times per year. We usually take Magicial Express to the hotel. On our most recent visit in August we noticed that a large number of people in line for the ME buses were toting all of their luggage with them. I think one of the BEST parts of ME is being able to check your luggage at your home airport and not have to worry about it until it is delivered to your room by Bell Services.

My question is, "Why are so many people taking their luggage on the bus with them?" Is ME really losing so many pieces of luggage that this is now common practice? Are people just being paranoid after reading message boards? Are people so unable to be without their "stuff" for a few hours at the hotel? I am fairly sure that most of the pieces were checked luggage since they were so large, but maybe not?

Why do I care? The lines waiting for the buses were long and crowded. With so many families trying to shuffle several large pieces of luggage as well as small children up and down the line, it seemed to really bog things down. In addition, the time it took to load/unload the busses was much longer since the driver had to handle so many pieces of luggage at each stop. The time it took from our plane landing to arrival at our hotel (we were the 3rd stop) was much longer than previous trips and the fact that so many families were transporting all of their luggage seemed to be one of the reasons why.

Any comments?

 

[LovesHerTaurus]

Yes, BUT you can place them on another belt after customs and they will be transferred to the main terminal for you. Then you can give your luggage claim tickets to the DME folks and they will pull your bags for you.

International folks DO NOT have to take their bags to the bus, but many do.

Also, if you're coming from Canada from a decently big center, you pre clear customs before you leave the country. So ME will take your bags right for you if you precleared.

 

[dis_guy]

Also, if you're coming from Canada from a decently big center, you pre clear customs before you leave the country. So ME will take your bags right for you if you precleared.

I don't know the particulars of how JaredsMommy (hope I got it right-typing from memory) travels to Orlando, but I can say that all airlines operating from Edmonton or Calgary do US Customs pre-clearance at your departing airport. We use DME luggage delivery every time we go down.

 

[Elmo007]

Last time I used ME, I arrived at MCO at 8:15pm. My first bag came at 12:15-12:30. The second one came around 1:30. I would have rather pushed my bags then stayed up waiting (twice)

 

[goofieslonglostsis]

Also, if you're coming from Canada from a decently big center, you pre clear customs before you leave the country. So ME will take your bags right for you if you precleared.

Where you clear customs is nowadays not really important any more. Most of us flying into MCO from all corners of the world, will probably not even clear customs on MCO. Some airports offer preclearing, if you have a connecting flight through another US airport, you clear through there. When flying a US carrier, you will get a direct flight to MCO in perhaps 5% of the time, if that much at all since all of the mergers, smoothing schedules etc.

Much more important; WDW no longer sends the DME-tags outside of the US. Not sure about those from Canada, but any of us not from the continent of Northern America; no DME tags since 2009.

After long flights, many of them not arriving until later in the afternoon or evening, being jetlagged, you tend to not want DME having to go on a luggage hunt and have the "can take upto 3 hours to deliver after you've checked in" be considerably prolonged because of the not using a tag.

Last year we used a US-based TA and thus still received tags. One suitcase was without, somehow got pulled off. That suitcase took 3 hours longer to be delivered. Which was about 2.30 am. Somebody did not take notice of our call "hold luggage untill the morning" and the "do not disturb" sign on the door.

This year our flight is scheduled to land at 7.30 pm. With me being the last to deplane, having to take care of some extra things, putting my powerchair back in order etc. etc. it can very easily result in us not getting to the resort until 10.30 pm at least, if all goes smooth. That's 4.30 am as far as our bodies are concearned. After 15 hours of 'airtime'. With an added 5 hours for travelling to airport, getting things arranged, hanging around airport etc. No thank you, no DME luggage service for us, I want my suitcase. I'll take that half an hour longer to collect the bags, tip those that help and be done with it as soon as we hit the resort. If we're not too tired perhaps go as "crazy" as to grab a bit to eat and then right off to bed!

I loved the service DME offered when they still shipped the tags. Used it 100%. Since they stopped sending them, I'll take matters into my own hands. It simply is too much of a burden to our party not too.

 

[goofieslonglostsis]

It is just MHO, but I think the biggest cause for the increased amount of luggage getting noticed on DME is a direct result of many US airlines charging for checked bags.

If we even just look at this transportation board, there are a lot of threads on here about how to cram all things into a carry on to avoid having to pay for the luggage whereas that same family would've done checked luggage previously. There are very little folks on her when compared to the amount of guests that go to WDW. I can't imagine how this seriously changed around the luggage thing for DME. Now if they started offering an alike service for carry ons -who knows if it's possible, but as if you were checking in the carry on seperately when you check in for the DME-, it might be a totally different experience again.

All I can say is I noticed the heavy effects these changed rules have had on overhead bin space on flights of those carriers. Through our European eyes they were full to begin with but since they started charging $ for check in, it seems like 'drag all you can aboard with you' even more. It would not surprise me at all if this had a direct influence on DME and the way they have luggage presented to them.