Has anyone had a good experience with magic Express?

[d'Isigny]

'cause I'm thinking of just booking QuickSilver and save myself the hassle...

 

[Kingdom Konsultant]

There is nothing quite like Marie head banging to Off Kilter! Love ya! :animwink: We will be hanging at WDW in july.

Pam

 

[Trishnh]

Just got back from Walt Disney World.

We never received our luggage tags prior to the trip. I decided to have my husband grab the luggage while I checked in with DME. Just to let everyone know, the DME is located on level 1 by the rental car desks. This is important to let know if you decide to grab your bags yourself. When I checked in with DME, they gave me a certificate for a free pin and lanyard since we were pulling our bags ourselves and had never received the tags. I thought that was very nice of Disney.

After I went and found my husband at baggage claim, we were back down to DME and were able to get right onto a bus that was only going straight to our resort. We arrived at our resort about 45 minutes after departing our plane.

Is it 'OK' to just get your own bags and have them on the same bus as you? I would feel much more comfortable doing this, especially since we are not arriving until 11:30 pm and do not want to wait until all hours for our bags. Just don't know if Disney approves of this!

Thanks!

 

[jrobinson424]

Quicksilver is absolutely the best way to go. with it, you get a 30 minute stop at a supermarket, a free 10 minute call, and the service is second to none. it is a direct route to your resort and direct to the airport. you don't have to be crammed in a bus or van with everyone else. i was told that it may take you2-3 hours to get to your resort, unless you were lucky enough to be the first stop. take quicksilver. it's worth the money to get there directly, on time, and you don't have to ride with strangers. just you and your party.

 

[WDWScottieBoy]

Just say NO to Magical Express! :wave:

 

[d'Isigny]

Certainly, Disney's heard some of the complaints about ME service and is trying to fix this...

 

[JPVonDrake]

Although there are still some kinks in the system (there will be in any new program less then a month old) Disney has corrected most of the start-up challenges with Disney's Magical Express. Those few challenges remaining are being addressed and are improving daily.

Hundreds of guest daily are using the Magical Express without any problems or issues. Transportation to Disney is averaging about 1 hour from the time you arrive at the airport to the time you arrive at your resort. Luggage delivery is averaging about 2.5 hours (with attached DME tags) or about 4 hours (without the DME tags) from the time your plane lands until it is delivered to your room. These are overall averages, so your individual times may vary.

Disney's goal is to have you at your resort within 90 minutes or less and your luggage in your room before it is assigned if arriving before 3 pm, and within 30 minutes of your arrival if after 3 pm. Slightly longer delivery times are expected for late night arrivals due to the limited staffing of Airport personal, our 3rd party partners, and Disney's Cast Members during these hours.

Hope this helps! :sohappy:

 

[surfsupdon]

Again, the service with the luggage was great, and our return trip to the airport was speedy.

The problem were the stops at Caribbean Beach, BoardWalk, Yacht, Coronado, Music, Movies and then finally Pop. I understood it was 4 stops max, which was clearly not the case here, unless BoardWalk/Yacht is combined and Music/Movies is combined. On paper maybe it looked good, but the 2 hour bus ride was waaay too lengthy.

In reiteration, we had absolutely no problems with luggage, just a lone bus ride. We will use the service again.

 

[JPVonDrake]

Again, the service with the luggage was great, and our return trip to the airport was speedy.

The problem were the stops at Caribbean Beach, BoardWalk, Yacht, Coronado, Music, Movies and then finally Pop. I understood it was 4 stops max, which was clearly not the case here, unless BoardWalk/Yacht is combined and Music/Movies is combined. On paper maybe it looked good, but the 2 hour bus ride was waaay too lengthy.

In reiteration, we had absolutely no problems with luggage, just a lone bus ride. We will use the service again.

This most likely was due to high volume of arrivals and limited number of Mears Drivers. Again this is one of the issues being address between Disney and Mears as you should have only 4 physical stops.

:sohappy:

 

[Melerella]

I have a quick question about Magical Express...

There are obviously many mixed reviews and I was wondering, do you think it matters what time you arrive at the airport? Like are certain times busier than others?

We are arriving in the morning, around 10 (in July). My parents seem to believe since July is a busy time for them, ME may be a little crowded. Any ideas on that?

And also how does it work? I mean how do they line people...according to hotel or area? (ie Epcot, MK, AK)

Thanks! = )

 

[DisKid]

We just got back after using the Magical Express and the departure was much smoother than the arrival.

When we arrived, it took us just as long to get to AKL as our flight took to get to Orlando! Two hours!!! (That seems like a bit too long of a ride if you ask me)

And our luggage (which was tagged) arrived at our resort four hours after we had arrived in Orlando. Four hours also seems like a bit too long of a wait to me as well. Now if we didn't have our ME tags on them, that would have been a different story, but we did have them on.

Coming back it took an hour to get to the airport. But the best part was that we were able to skip the luggage check because we were able to do it in the room.

 

[Bravesfn1]

From the research I have been doing, from Chicago it is cheaper to fly an airlines like Southwest for example that is not part of Magical Express, and pay for either Mears, taxi, or town car transportation to the resort than it is to fly a participating airline for magical express. Granted you don't have to worry about getting your own bags with the Magical Express, but I am leaning toward not doing the Magical Express. It will save me money, and maybe even time depending on what travel options from the airport we choose.

 

[stuart]

We are going to go to our travel agent tomorrow and try book it through them. If not ill try phoning direct again, they said to try our travel agent, despite us being in the UK. Well hopefully they will sort it out tomorrow or when we get to the travel agents. Also im guessing that there is little hope of getting ME tags sent out to us when we live in Scotland. There is time with 4 weeks until we go but i dont think the logistics and the way things are going with the documents wil mean that we would get tags. Ill update tomorrow if we get down to say what happened. And again when in July when we hopefully use the service.

Here is a question though has anyone here from the UK actually used the service yet?

 

[wannabeBelle]

Hey there Bravesfn1, Are you aware you can fly a non participating airline (Such s I did I was on Spirit Air) and still take advantage of Magical Express? The only difference is that you have to check your own luggage on the way home at the airport with your airline. I did that and didnt find it terrible. Same thing as to what you would have to do if you hire a towncar service, taxi or whatever. On the way in though you wont have to even see your bags until you get to your room!!! The taxi, Towncar etc cant offer that at all!!! Give it a shot!!! Belle

 

[dismedic]

We didnt use ME but I truly have heart for those poor guys and gals at POR, what a mess we saw for the first few days prior to them installing screened tents up to put and sort thru the luggage, Prior luggage was astrew in the rear of the building. Now it appears there is some sort of order in that mess with alpha tags to show were to sort the cases. Most persons who used it had no compaints but others simply had nothing nice to say about it while we were there. Mabey in time things will truly become magical with the express.

 

[Bravesfn1]

Hey there Bravesfn1, Are you aware you can fly a non participating airline (Such s I did I was on Spirit Air) and still take advantage of Magical Express? The only difference is that you have to check your own luggage on the way home at the airport with your airline. I did that and didnt find it terrible. Same thing as to what you would have to do if you hire a towncar service, taxi or whatever. On the way in though you wont have to even see your bags until you get to your room!!! The taxi, Towncar etc cant offer that at all!!! Give it a shot!!! Belle

Thanks for the tip, Belle! I was not aware about that, however what is the time span on getting from the airport to your resort? I want to get to the resort as quick as possible. Some people are saying that it is taking two hours to get to your resort, it really shouldn't take that long.

 

[wannabeBelle]

Just to give you an idea, I got off the plane and into the terminal at 1:45. I still had to get to the Main Terminal building, go check in for DME, get to the bus. board the bus and I was at Riverside( the last of three stops) at 3pm which was an hour and 15 minutes grand total!!!! I will get you a link to my exact times at each part which was nicely posted for me by Duke Earthwalker. I met him on Sunday May 22 and so I wanted to get this info to everyone as soon as possible!!! I found it was actually quite a bit quicker than Mears had ever been!!!! Take a look back at Post #44 on this thread for my exact times!!! Thanks again to Duke for posting while I was at the World!!! Belle

 

[Bravesfn1]

Thanks Belle! Your help is greatly appreciated!!

 

[JaSnake16]

I am leaving next Thursday and have nor recieved my ME tags as of yet. Should I call to check the status, should I worry, should I be patient. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[AngryEyes]

12 days and 10 hours before departure, just got our DME tags via FedEx. So, we have all our travel documents from Disney and Universal in hand with plenty of time to spare!:sohappy:

 

[Mustangjohn]

Perfect!

10 days to go and our tags arrived via FEDEX as promised! since this is a "free" service I am not going to sweat the small issues and am looking forward to a great time!