Too late for new luggage tags, told to go to MCO Welcome Centre

[officialtom]

Air Canada cancelled our flight next Wednesday, so we re-booked for Tuesday afternoon. Our main reservation is at OKW starting Wednesday night, and I booked room-only at Pop for Tuesday.

We already have our yellow OKW luggage tags for Wednesday, which are now no good. The CM I spoke to last night said it's too late to send us new ones for Pop on Tuesday. She told us she had recorded our flights and reservation info in "the system," and that we could present our airline baggage tags at the MCO Welcome Centre. Apparently they will arrange for the bags to get from the airport to Pop so we won't have to worry about waiting for them before boarding the DME.

Has anybody had experience with this? I asked the CM what/where exactly the Welcome Centre is -- maybe the Disney CMs at the DME check-in? She wasn't sure...

 

[Weather_Lady]

Air Canada cancelled our flight next Wednesday, so we re-booked for Tuesday afternoon. Our main reservation is at OKW starting Wednesday night, and I booked room-only at Pop for Tuesday.

We already have our yellow OKW luggage tags for Wednesday, which are now no good. The CM I spoke to last night said it's too late to send us new ones for Pop on Tuesday. She told us she had recorded our flights and reservation info in "the system," and that we could present our airline baggage tags at the MCO Welcome Centre. Apparently they will arrange for the bags to get from the airport to Pop so we won't have to worry about waiting for them before boarding the DME.

Has anybody had experience with this? I asked the CM what/where exactly the Welcome Centre is -- maybe the Disney CMs at the DME check-in? She wasn't sure...

The place where you check in for DME is commonly referred to as the "Disney's Magical Express Welcome Center" (or on the diagram below, the "Disney Welcome Center." I'm sure that's where they were indicating you should arrange for your baggage to go to Pop Century.

(If you're nervous about it, you could always skip the luggage transfer component of DME and take the bags along yourself -- the DME bus driver will assist you in stowing it under the bus and retrieving it when you get to your resort.)

 

[officialtom]

The place where you check in for DME is commonly referred to as the "Disney's Magical Express Welcome Center" (or on the diagram below, the "Disney Welcome Center." I'm sure that's where they were indicating you should arrange for your baggage to go to Pop Century.

(If you're nervous about it, you could always skip the luggage transfer component of DME and take the bags along yourself -- the DME bus driver will assist you in stowing it under the bus and retrieving it when you get to your resort.)

Thank you!! We've taken our luggage to the DME ourselves before when we had to leave a day early at the last minute to get ahead of a snowstorm, and it was okay. We would just like to not wait at MCO for our luggage if at all possible.

For some reason I find it strange that if we go to the Welcome Centre with our airline baggage tags, they will be able to "double back" in time to get our bags from the carousel. Maybe it's doable, but I just find it funny. The CM who told me about it couldn't even tell me where to find the Welcome Centre, or whether it was an airport thing or a WDW/DME thing. I think I'll call and speak to another CM sometime this week to confirm they can actually make it happen.

 

[Weather_Lady]

For some reason I find it strange that if we go to the Welcome Centre with our airline baggage tags, they will be able to "double back" in time to get our bags from the carousel. Maybe it's doable, but I just find it funny. The CM who told me about it couldn't even tell me where to find the Welcome Centre, or whether it was an airport thing or a WDW/DME thing. I think I'll call and speak to another CM sometime this week to confirm they can actually make it happen.

Now that I think of it, that does seem strange -- good idea to call and speak to someone else! (Because, of course, if you haven't tagged your bags, how will they know which ones to get? I would think they'd tell you to place the tags on the bags anyway, so the Disney reps at MCO will know to get them at baggage claim, but keep a copy of the tags to give the Welcome Center people so they can send someone to make sure your bags are resorted and rerouted to your new resort.)

 

[Rob562]

Now that I think of it, that does seem strange -- good idea to call and speak to someone else! (Because, of course, if you haven't tagged your bags, how will they know which ones to get? I would think they'd tell you to place the tags on the bags anyway, so the Disney reps at MCO will know to get them at baggage claim, but keep a copy of the tags to give the Welcome Center people so they can send someone to make sure your bags are resorted and rerouted to your new resort.)

Disney doesn't send a runner down to the carousel. Instead, they just go to the airline's luggage office to claim them.

At every airport, after all the passengers have taken their bags off the carousel, there are invariably bags left over. This could be from people who missed their flight/connection, bags that missed a flight/connection, mis-routed bags, delayed bags finally making it to their destination, etc. An airline employee then collects all those bags and brings them to the luggage office for that airline.

DME then simply sends someone to the airline's luggage office to collect the bags and tag them to go into the DME luggage system. (Additional efficiency is gained because they can handle multiple passengers in one trip to an airline's luggage office, so they probably let them build up and then go every hour or two)

-Rob

 

[Weather_Lady]

Disney doesn't send a runner down to the carousel. Instead, they just go to the airline's luggage office to claim them.

At every airport, after all the passengers have taken their bags off the carousel, there are invariably bags left over. This could be from people who missed their flight/connection, bags that missed a flight/connection, mis-routed bags, delayed bags finally making it to their destination, etc. An airline employee then collects all those bags and brings them to the luggage office for that airline.

DME then simply sends someone to the airline's luggage office to collect the bags and tag them to go into the DME luggage system. (Additional efficiency is gained because they can handle multiple passengers in one trip to an airline's luggage office, so they probably let them build up and then go every hour or two)

-Rob

I see! Thank you for the information!

It's still a good idea for the OP to have their bags tagged or marked in some way, though, no? Otherwise, employees will have to sort through every unclaimed bag to figure out whether it belongs to the OP. Unless the number of unclaimed bags isn't really all that big... perhaps when it comes to what goes on with baggage at an airport, ignorance is bliss. All I know is that I've been burned enough times that we now travel carryon only!

 

[officialtom]

Disney doesn't send a runner down to the carousel. Instead, they just go to the airline's luggage office to claim them.

At every airport, after all the passengers have taken their bags off the carousel, there are invariably bags left over. This could be from people who missed their flight/connection, bags that missed a flight/connection, mis-routed bags, delayed bags finally making it to their destination, etc. An airline employee then collects all those bags and brings them to the luggage office for that airline.

DME then simply sends someone to the airline's luggage office to collect the bags and tag them to go into the DME luggage system. (Additional efficiency is gained because they can handle multiple passengers in one trip to an airline's luggage office, so they probably let them build up and then go every hour or two)

-Rob

Helpful info!! Thanks.

 

[Rob562]

I see! Thank you for the information!

It's still a good idea for the OP to have their bags tagged or marked in some way, though, no? Otherwise, employees will have to sort through every unclaimed bag to figure out whether it belongs to the OP. Unless the number of unclaimed bags isn't really all that big... perhaps when it comes to what goes on with baggage at an airport, ignorance is bliss. All I know is that I've been burned enough times that we now travel carryon only!

It's always a good idea to have a tag on your luggage that has your name and contact info (as well as a copy of that info *inside* your bag).
The passenger's name and flight info is also on the tag that the airline attaches to the handle of your bag.

When the OP gets to the DME desk, they will be asked for the luggage claim tags from the airline (typically these are the stickers that the airline sticks to the boarding pass or boarding pass sleeve when you check in) as well as a description of the bags (style, size, color, etc). If you take a photo of each bag before checking it with the airline it makes this process faster for both you and DME. (Sorry, I meant to include this last part in my original reply, but forgot)

-Rob

 

[officialtom]

It's always a good idea to have a tag on your luggage that has your name and contact info (as well as a copy of that info *inside* your bag).
The passenger's name and flight info is also on the tag that the airline attaches to the handle of your bag.

When the OP gets to the DME desk, they will be asked for the luggage claim tags from the airline (typically these are the stickers that the airline sticks to the boarding pass or boarding pass sleeve when you check in) as well as a description of the bags (style, size, color, etc). If you take a photo of each bag before checking it with the airline it makes this process faster for both you and DME. (Sorry, I meant to include this last part in my original reply, but forgot)

-Rob

Even more useful info!

So then a secondary question. Is this how it works for all DME luggage? Do they collect the "leftover" bags from the airline counters? For some reason, in my head, I pictured WDW staff intercepting DME luggage somewhere before it got to the carousel.

 

[Rob562]

Even more useful info!

So then a secondary question. Is this how it works for all DME luggage? Do they collect the "leftover" bags from the airline counters? For some reason, in my head, I pictured WDW staff intercepting DME luggage somewhere before it got to the carousel.

Yellow-tagged bags are separated by the ground crew as they come off the plane. Those with yellow tags never make it to the claim carousel.

-Rob

 

[Monty]

Air Canada cancelled our flight next Wednesday, so we re-booked for Tuesday afternoon. Our main reservation is at OKW starting Wednesday night, and I booked room-only at Pop for Tuesday.

We already have our yellow OKW luggage tags for Wednesday, which are now no good. The CM I spoke to last night said it's too late to send us new ones for Pop on Tuesday. She told us she had recorded our flights and reservation info in "the system," and that we could present our airline baggage tags at the MCO Welcome Centre. Apparently they will arrange for the bags to get from the airport to Pop so we won't have to worry about waiting for them before boarding the DME.

Has anybody had experience with this? I asked the CM what/where exactly the Welcome Centre is -- maybe the Disney CMs at the DME check-in? She wasn't sure...

The Welcome Centre is indeed the DME check-in counter. I've done this in the past:

Take a photo of each piece of luggage if you can and print it. They ask you to "describe" your luggage and/or pick out similar luggage from a large chart of photos of every imaginable suitcase. A photo of each piece sped up that process a lot. They'll also take the luggage claim tags to identify the bags, but if they know what bags they're looking for it helps.

They took the info and my bags were in my resort room later in the day. I don't know if it took significantly longer than normal, since they were just there when I got back from having fun.

IIRC it only added five minutes to my time from the aircraft to being in line for a bus. Chances are it won't impact what bus you're on.

 

[Flalex72]

I see! Thank you for the information!

It's still a good idea for the OP to have their bags tagged or marked in some way, though, no? Otherwise, employees will have to sort through every unclaimed bag to figure out whether it belongs to the OP. Unless the number of unclaimed bags isn't really all that big... perhaps when it comes to what goes on with baggage at an airport, ignorance is bliss. All I know is that I've been burned enough times that we now travel carryon only!

It seems like most airlines will check unclaimed bags against the DME system in Orlando. On a number of occasions I have seen guests with items that don't have yellow tags, but do have ID tags get sent into DME and show up in the room. This means someone at the airport is looking at luggage tags, comparing them to Disney hotel guest lists, and sending matches to DME.

Theoretically, OP could tag their bags with the tags for OKW and they should show up in their room at POP, as the barcode is just a link to the reservation. Might want to write POP on them and cross off OKW though, to eliminate some confusion.

 

[Rob562]

It seems like most airlines will check unclaimed bags against the DME system in Orlando. On a number of occasions I have seen guests with items that don't have yellow tags, but do have ID tags get sent into DME and show up in the room. This means someone at the airport is looking at luggage tags, comparing them to Disney hotel guest lists, and sending matches to DME.

Theoretically, OP could tag their bags with the tags for OKW and they should show up in their room at POP, as the barcode is just a link to the reservation. Might want to write POP on them and cross off OKW though, to eliminate some confusion.

I would suggest *not* using tags for the wrong resort. The Pop reservation is a totally separate one from OKW. You'd risk the bags going to the wrong resort, or getting stuck in some sort of DME "limbo" because by what the scanner sees, the bags would be arriving a day earlier than what was expected.

If you want to know how the non-yellow-tagged baggage is handled, scroll up and read the couple posts made by me. I explain it out rather well...

-Rob