The answer to the question, "do we have a shot of making it in time?" is yes. You have a shot at it.
If your flight is delayed or there are delays after you land, you stand the risk of losing your nonrefundable $20 California Grill reservation fee.
You can increase the chance of successfully arriving at California Grill for your reservation by doing the following:
- Pack a carry-on with the clothes you want to wear to California Grill.
- Before you check your bags at your home airport, use the yellow DME luggage routing tags so that you can skip baggage claim at MCO.
- Use the airplane lavatories before landing so that you can go quickly and directly from your arrival gate to DME.
- Have your DME packet ready when your get to DME. You might be able to skip the check-in line and go directly to your motorcoach queue.
- Be prepared to board and depart immediately or to wait up to half an hour. It's just a matter of luck. If you've followed the first three steps above, at least you won't be kicking yourselves because you missed a departure to your resort 5 minutes earlier.
- When you get to POR, check in. (Ideally, there won't be a long line, but there can be.) You need to check in so that your checked bags can be delivered to your room.
- If all has gone well so far, there should be time to go to your room, leave your carry-on bags there, clean up, and change.
- If there have been delays, you can skip going to your room and leave your carry-on bags with bell services. That way, you can depart immediately for the Contemporary.
- Yes. A cab will be faster than taking Disney Transportation. But if you have enough time, you can save money by taking a bus to the Magic Kingdom (if it's open) and walking or taking the Resort Monorail to the Contemporary.