Magical Express changes pick up time from 3 to 4 hours prior to flight

[bladiator]

TSA at Mco is shameful. I travel very frequently and have never experienced such rude ineffectual behavior at any airport, repeatedly, over the past years. In March of this year I witnessed a young man be berated for taking a laptop out of his carry on after an agent further back in the line repeatedly yelled at everyone to take all electronics out of their bags. In September, they had started the new rule that you couldn't have food in your carry on, so more berating of everyone without the common sense of posting a sign at the beginning of the line stating the new rule. I'm going to start recording their behavior and posting it. It is so unprofessional and they need to be called out on it.

Well, when you live in a city that has pretty much every cheerful minimum wage worker already working either at WDW or Universal, it's understandable that the rest of the grouchy, power-hungry minimum wage workers will end up with a govt job at the TSA.

 

[Lovinallthingsdisney]

What?! Wait!— you can’t have food in your carry-on bag?!! Everyone brings snacks for the flight home! Can you have them in your purse/backpack/ Messenger bag, but not in your actual carry-on roller-type bag?

There are new TSA regulations that went into affect in October. We had gone to a MNSSHP and they pulled 3 of our four items for further inspection. One bag had cough drops, one had a bag of candy and one had an Oogie Boogie popcorn bucket. All items had to be swabbed...the candy piece by piece. Estimate that 7 out of 10 bags that went through the scanner were pulled based on the backup we encountered. Aside from food, they also told us to take out any books etc.

 

[hllb]

There are new TSA regulations that went into affect in October. We had gone to a MNSSHP and they pulled 3 of our four items for further inspection. One bag had cough drops, one had a bag of candy and one had an Oogie Boogie popcorn bucket. All items had to be swabbed...the candy piece by piece. Estimate that 7 out of 10 bags that went through the scanner were pulled based on the backup we encountered. Aside from food, they also told us to take out any books etc.

Oh good God...books too? iPads I knew about...so basically just unpack your entire bag?

 

[Dug720]

What?! Wait!— you can’t have food in your carry-on bag?!! Everyone brings snacks for the flight home! Can you have them in your purse/backpack/ Messenger bag, but not in your actual carry-on roller-type bag?

Delete

 

[bladiator]

No, "everyone" doesn't. Some of us live quite happily without stuffing our faces ever moment.

As unnecessary as this was, it made me guffaw.

 

[NMAmy]

No, "everyone" doesn't. Some of us live quite happily without stuffing our faces ever moment.

Wow, that escalated quickly.

 

[hllb]

No, "everyone" doesn't. Some of us live quite happily without stuffing our faces ever moment.

Incredibly rude and unnecessary.

 

[SirDuff]

No, "everyone" doesn't. Some of us live quite happily without stuffing our faces ever moment.

Says the person who has started numerous threads asking food at WDW and on cruises.

Back on topic, this does seem like over kill. It will be interesting to see how it goes once it is implemented - people who end up with too much time to kill at the airport, should really let WDW know.

 

[Dug720]

Delete

 

[John Marecek]

Cancelled our ME. This should be great for ride share business. Spending 3 hours of my life in the airport is not how we want to spend our final day. God bless those with the 9 AM or earlier flights. You shouldn't even be charged for the night's stay if you have a 7 AM flight

 

[ArwenMarie]

Wow, some people like myself have to carry my own food for travel days because I can't eat anything at an airport due to a medical condition.

 

[ashnicole]

June 2016 we were picked up 4 hours prior to our flight, made stops at 2 other resorts and had 2 hours at the airport before we could board.
On Wednesday we were the last hotel to be picked up and left 3 hours before our flight. Left the resort at 3:55 got to MCO at 4:35. TSA said line was 20-30 minutes but we were on the airport monorail 1 hour after we got in line. We barely had enough time to get a quick snack and we got to our gate a couple minutes after boarding started. I heard people in line thinking they were going to miss their flight and how it was Disney’s fault for picking them up so late.

 

[kiwi0621]

When we went through security on Nov. 2nd at MCO, it was one of the most chaotic, unprofessional “processes” I have ever seen. Security was no different than before and MCO always has long lines but it was pure chaos. The lines and dividers were all messed up and the employees looked like deer in headlights, absolutely clueless on what was going on. It got to a point where they opened up dividers, but it allowed people that were only waiting 5 minutes to go through while people that were waiting for 45 minutes were still waiting. People were furious understandably.

It probably doesn’t help that out of the 10 or so security stations, only 3 were open. That is unacceptable.

I really don’t think this is a security issue, but a TSA management issue. There has got to be a better process for one of the busiest airports in the country.

And now it’s trickling down into things like Magical Express...

ADDED NOTE - I’m an event planner, organization is my life, and my job is to try to eliminate chaos so I think this just extra irked me!

 

[joules12]

We're at MCO now for a 3:50pm flight. Cancelled our ME ride yesterday when we received notice that they'd be picking us up 4 hours ahead of flight; scheduled a Lyft ride instead ($28). Arrived at MCO shortly 1:30pm and have never seen such short security lines here. Of course, we took a gamble and the lines could have been brutal (as we've often experienced here) but, even if they'd been bad, I still think we would have been fine with our 12:55 Lyft pick-up.

 

[bladiator]

It probably doesn’t help that out of the 10 or so security stations, only 3 were open. That is unacceptable.

This is what I don't understand. Are the 10 security stations for when it's REALLY busy? Cause I know that people travel a lot for the holidays, but like you said, MCO is always busy. Do they just not have the budget for this many paid employees to maybe be twiddling their thumbs during down hours, so they'd rather have the patrons be forced to show up 4 hours early? Why not just have 1 line and 3 employees and tell people they have to be there a day ahead?

 

[Princess_Lisa]

I flew out of MCO back in October on a 9 AMish flight and though I got there more than 2 hours ahead of time, I had trouble finding the Economy Parking and got inside maybe 1:45 before my flight (a little after 7 AM). I made it through security and still had some time to spare before my flight despite being delayed by what I assume was that new swing gate nonsense - they roadblocked everyone between security and the trains until all the arriving passengers had passed through. I was flying first class, so that sped up the check-in process a little (shorter line at the counter), but the regular security line. This was shortly before that new food rule, though.

 

[Sparkly]

Maybe it's just me, but I would rather be there too early and know I'm at the airport rather then trying to get to the airport and stressing about being late or missing my flight. International flights were always 4 hours before anyway.

 

[DWillowBay]

I understand that there is heightened security at TSA because of recent events....but could it be that part of the reason for the guest to be picked up 4 hours before a flight is due to upcoming increased holiday crowds at MCO? I've never been in Orlando during the holidays, but I have waited more than 2 hours in the TSA lines during "normal crowd" times. Maybe it's just pre-cautionary. ???

 

[winthropf]

Wow that’s not bad at all. Thank you

Lyft from Dolphin to MCO on 9/30 late afternoon was $25.56 plus tip.

 

[Super 27]

Has anyone tried calling Magical Express and asking to go later than what they plan? I've done that multiple times in the past and never had a problem, they've always accommodated my request. I'd much rather do that than ride/pay for an Uber.