Magical Express

[lynzi2004]

We've never flown to Disney before and obviously never used Magical Express. We are planning to do so this trip. Our flight lands at 7pm. Do you suggest getting our luggage ourselves or letting them do it? We have a 6 year old, 5 year old and an infant. We are bringing a stroller for the infant, but I'm unsure of hauling all that luggage. But if I put pjs in a carryon, I don't want bell services banging on our door at 11pm either! What do you all do?

 

[omniscientmommy]

I assume you are staying on site? When you call to give disney your flight info for magical express about a month before you leave they send you luggage tags to attach to your checked bags. All you do is attach that tag to your bag and they take care of everything. They get the bag from the plane, put it on the bus, and take it to your room! It is so great!!!!! They will even take the stroller. I would say you will get to your hotel about 8.30-9pm as long as you get off the flight and go straight to the bus. It was about an hour ride from the airport to disney.

 

[DisneyWishes14]

We've never flown to Disney before and obviously never used Magical Express. We are planning to do so this trip. Our flight lands at 7pm. Do you suggest getting our luggage ourselves or letting them do it? We have a 6 year old, 5 year old and an infant. We are bringing a stroller for the infant, but I'm unsure of hauling all that luggage. But if I put pjs in a carryon, I don't want bell services banging on our door at 11pm either! What do you all do?

WDW estimates that it can take up to 3 hours after you arrive at your resort to get your luggage. If you land at 7 pm, you may not get to your resort until around 8:30 pm, which puts luggage delivery fairly late at night. You can try asking bell services to hold your luggage until the morning and hope they honor your request (many people report on the Resorts forum that this works for them) or retrieve your luggage and take it on the bus with you. I know, it's not easy to navigate all of that luggage and three kids as well . You may want to post this on the Resorts forum to get more up-to-date experience on arriving in the evening and asking bell services if luggage can be held until the morning.

 

[sponica]

We've never flown to Disney before and obviously never used Magical Express. We are planning to do so this trip. Our flight lands at 7pm. Do you suggest getting our luggage ourselves or letting them do it? We have a 6 year old, 5 year old and an infant. We are bringing a stroller for the infant, but I'm unsure of hauling all that luggage. But if I put pjs in a carryon, I don't want bell services banging on our door at 11pm either! What do you all do?

What most people recommend doing is bringing the carryon with the stuff you need (stuff that should be in a carryon regardless), tag the bags, tell bell services (or luggage assistance at Values) that you'd like your luggage held for the night. You can either call for it in the AM or retrieve it yourself.

It's probably what we're doing as we land at 630.

 

[Shanti]

We've never flown to Disney before and obviously never used Magical Express. We are planning to do so this trip. Our flight lands at 7pm. Do you suggest getting our luggage ourselves or letting them do it? We have a 6 year old, 5 year old and an infant. We are bringing a stroller for the infant, but I'm unsure of hauling all that luggage. But if I put pjs in a carryon, I don't want bell services banging on our door at 11pm either! What do you all do?

Let Magical Express handle the luggage, and when you get to the resort, tell bell services that you don't want anyone to bring the luggage up until morning. That has worked for us.

 

[MrsCobraBubbles]

on our recent trip, our flight landed at MCO at 5:00pm and the luggage didn't get to our room until 8:45-ish.

 

[stace1214]

On our last trip we landed around 6:30 and got to our resort at 8:30. We did not plan ahead very well and didn't have our toiletries or pjs in our carry-ons. We had no choice but to have our luggage delivered that night. It was delivered around 10:30, earlier than I thought it would be. I made sure to call bell services to tell them we wanted our luggage, because the front desk said they wouldn't deliver that late if we didn't request it.

 

[areno79]

On mine and DH's last trip, we had a flight that was supposed to land at 8pm, but due to mechanical issues, was delayed and we didn't arrive to MCO until 9:30pm. We finally arrived at AoA (using DME) around 11, and we were the first stop. Our bags arrived in our room around 1:30am, and we had to be up at 6am. We were NOT happy and vowed we'd not use DME for a late fight again. So, keep that in mind... and you can always use DME and get your own bags from the baggage claim.

 

[SueM in MN]

I would suggest gate checking the stroller. That way, you will have it with you and can use it until you board the plane. Whrn you land, it will be delivered to the gate and you can use it to travel around in the terminal.

If you choose to pick up your bags from baggage claim yourself, don’t put the yellow DME baggage tags on. You den also claim some of your bags and let DME handle the rest. Put the yellow tags on the ones you want to send thru and leave the tags off the ones you want to claim yourself.
There are baggage carts at the area where you claim luggage and there are also usually Skycaps who will load your luggage onto a cart and push it from baggage claim to the DME check in area. The Skycaps work for tips.

The DME staff will load the bags on and off the bus. Once you arrive at your resort, Bell Services can deliver it to your room.

 

[bear_mom]

I would pack what I need in a carry on (which you should do anyway in case the airline loses/misdirects your luggage) and have bell services hold the luggage until the morning. One of the best parts of MDE is skipping having to pick up luggage.