Magical express luggage delivery

[danikoski]

We have never had an issue getting our bags within the 3 hour window until we landed after 7pm. We called to inquire about our bags around 10pm or so and we were told that it is 3-4 hours after you arrive at your resort not from when you land. We did not get our bags until 1am. I will never use tags again for a flight that lands later than 3-4pm.

We had this happen to us as well. Our flight landed at 6ish, didn't get to the resort until 7ish. Bags didn't show up until 11 pm. Didn't pack PJs in the carry on Learned my lesson. Next time we went, I packed differently so my carry on had 2 days worth of clothes. We landed around dinner time again so when we checked in, I asked for the bags to be held until morning at Bell service. Next morning, went to the parks, popped back in for an afternoon break and had bags brought up. Worked beautifully. If landing after 4 or 5 pm, I'd probably recommend doing that.

 

[AngiTN]

For us there are several "points" to using the delivery feature. Not having to go to baggage claim, not having to wait 20+ minutes for the bags and significantly more if there are storms in the area (see my earlier post). With some airlines you have to go down to baggage claim, back up to the main level and then cross the airport and head back down to dme, add a few suitcases and a couple kids and this can be a hassle. If your arriving before 3ish the chances are good that your room won't be ready, then what do you do with your bags? All that work and waiting just to store them at bell service, (tipped)! Then when you return to the resort go to your room and call for your bags (another tip).

I can avoid all that by using the yellow tags, get off the airplane head to dme and be on our way. Check in and head to the parks pool ds etc.. and let the bags be delivered to our room waiting on our return!

Exactly. I mean, I'm glad those who want to waste their time going to get bags can make that choice but me, nope. Never. I won't even schedule a flight that lands outside of bag delivery hours if at all possible just because it's outside of bag delivery hours. Me? My time at Disney is better spent than standing around watching a bag carousel waiting for luggage to come. It can mean missing an entire bus even. That could delay your arrival at the resort by an entire hour if your timing ends up wrong. Now, getting bags could end up working the opposite too, so you end up walking up just as it's time for a bus to leave but my luck never works that way. I always end up missing a bus. Plus, if I'm not going to need anything in those bags, why on earth am I going to wait on them? Even if I do have a room when we land (and usually we don't but even if we did)

 

[Disneypro1]

Exactly. I mean, I'm glad those who want to waste their time going to get bags can make that choice but me, nope. Never. I won't even schedule a flight that lands outside of bag delivery hours if at all possible just because it's outside of bag delivery hours. Me? My time at Disney is better spent than standing around watching a bag carousel waiting for luggage to come. It can mean missing an entire bus even. That could delay your arrival at the resort by an entire hour if your timing ends up wrong. Now, getting bags could end up working the opposite too, so you end up walking up just as it's time for a bus to leave but my luck never works that way. I always end up missing a bus. Plus, if I'm not going to need anything in those bags, why on earth am I going to wait on them? Even if I do have a room when we land (and usually we don't but even if we did)

In probably 8 trips using MDE and getting our bags at baggage claim then going to MDE bus....we have never missed nor almost missed a bus..Exactly the opposite. Always get there with ample time to spare...im talking 30 min or so before the given bus we are put on leaves. And again unless you plan on going straight to the parks...there is no point in going to the resort and then waiting on your luggage. I mean, if you are going to the resort first....why wouldn't you just take your luggage? Thats simplicity.
And, if for the folks that luggage gets lost by the airline....you wont know it until nothing shows up. Well after you are at disney.. If you take your bags with you..you will know right then if they were lost. Not that this is common that bags are lost.. but it is a suggestion from touring podcasts...to get you luggage and then goto bus with luggage..
If you are going to parks first....then yes. USE DME luggage transfer. but going to the resort first..just take them yourself.

 

[Dean Marino]

.

 

[tjmw2727]

In probably 8 trips using MDE and getting our bags at baggage claim then going to MDE bus....we have never missed nor almost missed a bus..Exactly the opposite. Always get there with ample time to spare...im talking 30 min or so before the given bus we are put on leaves. And again unless you plan on going straight to the parks...there is no point in going to the resort and then waiting on your luggage. I mean, if you are going to the resort first....why wouldn't you just take your luggage? Thats simplicity.
And, if for the folks that luggage gets lost by the airline....you wont know it until nothing shows up. Well after you are at disney.. If you take your bags with you..you will know right then if they were lost. Not that this is common that bags are lost.. but it is a suggestion from touring podcasts...to get you luggage and then goto bus with luggage..
If you are going to parks first....then yes. USE DME luggage transfer. but going to the resort first..just take them yourself.

There is no way of knowing if you just missed a bus - in fact the longer you wait for/on the DME bus the more likely it is that you just missed one.

I am confused as to why you keep saying you have to wait on your luggage at the resort - that's the point; the luggage is delivered to your room regardless of where you are! Our bags always hit the room before we do

If the airlines misdirect your bags then the DME luggage delivery does all the work for you, in most cases you would never even know your bags were lost. In this case you have saved even more time at baggage claim!

OP asked how long the bags take, not if they should use the feature; but personally I use it for the time savings and not having to drag my bags all over the airport when arriving on the other side.

 

[AngiTN]

In probably 8 trips using MDE and getting our bags at baggage claim then going to MDE bus....we have never missed nor almost missed a bus..Exactly the opposite. Always get there with ample time to sore...im talking 30 min or so before the given bus we are put on leaves. And again unless you plan on going straight to the parks...there is no point in going to the resort and then waiting on your luggage. I mean, if you are going to the resort first....why wouldn't you just take your luggage? Thats simplicity.
And, if for the folks that luggage gets lost by the airline....you wont know it until nothing shows up. Well after you are at disney.. If you take your bags with you..you will know right then if they were lost. Not that this is common that bags are lost.. but it is a suggestion from touring podcasts...to get you luggage and then goto bus with luggage..
If you are going to parks first....then yes. USE DME luggage transfer. but going to the resort first..just take them yourself.

Why would you wait on the bags at the resort? No point in that. We get off the bus, drop our carry on bags with bell services and head to the parks. Come back, go to room, and like magic, our bags are there waiting

As to missing a bus or not, you don't know that. Not any more than I do. No one does. It's not possible. You can't see a bus that's already left, obviously, so how would you know if you didn't miss it?

And lost luggage? I know that by the tracking of the bags by the airline. All questions about where it is once it's off loaded at MCO are answered. So I know as soon as it's handed off to Bags Inc. I don't have to wait till nothing shows up to know who's hands it's in

 

[Disneypro1]

There is no way of knowing if you just missed a bus - in fact the longer you wait for/on the DME bus the more likely it is that you just missed one.

I am confused as to why you keep saying you have to wait on your luggage at the resort - that's the point; the luggage is delivered to your room regardless of where you are! Our bags always hit the room before we do

If the airlines misdirect your bags then the DME luggage delivery does all the work for you, in most cases you would never even know your bags were lost. In this case you have saved even more time at baggage claim!

OP asked how long the bags take, not if they should use the feature; but personally I use it for the time savings and not having to drag my bags all over the airport when arriving on the other side.

I meant to state it better....If a family isn't going to the parks...but straight to the resort to check in...why not just take your luggage. You'll have it right then..un pack and go. If you goto a park straight away....then yes, i could see letting dinner schlep the luggage.
I have not ever met anyone that got to their room AFTER the luggage did. If they went straight to the resort. YMMV

 

[tjmw2727]

I meant to state it better....If a family isn't going to the parks...but straight to the resort to check in...why not just take your luggage. You'll have it right then..un pack and go. If you goto a park straight away....then yes, i could see letting dinner schlep the luggage.
I have not ever met anyone that got to their room AFTER the luggage did. If they went straight to the resort. YMMV

Well we usually arrive before 3ish so the chances of our room being ready are slim - so we can't unpack and go.

IME it is not quick or easy to "just take the luggage" its at least a 20 minute wait at bag claim plus the process of taking it back up three levels, across the entire airport and then back down 3 levels to DME.

Going straight to the resort has nothing to do with room access - we always go to the resort and have always got to our room AFTER our luggage does - why because the room isn't ready when we check in!

Also DME won't take you to a park, resort is the only choice.

Still confused and still not going to needlessly pick up my bags when DME will deliver them to the room for me while I am at the parks enjoying all my vacation time.

/out

 

[msjprincess]

Well we usually arrive before 3ish so the chances of our room being ready are slim - so we can't unpack and go.

IME it is not quick or easy to "just take the luggage" its at least a 20 minute wait at bag claim plus the process of taking it back up three levels, across the entire airport and then back down 3 levels to DME.

Going straight to the resort has nothing to do with room access - we always go to the resort and have always got to our room AFTER our luggage does - why because the room isn't ready when we check in!

Also DME won't take you to a park, resort is the only choice.

Still confused and still not going to needlessly pick up my bags when DME will deliver them to the room for me while I am at the parks enjoying all my vacation time.

/out

Same here. My favorite thing about DME is not having to deal with luggage. We normally arrive at the resort before noon. Chances are our room won't be ready and we'd then have to store the luggage with Bell Services. I always throw bathing suits and anything we may want right away in my carry-on.

 

[rosiebean]

In my experience (and that of my extended family, who I travel with to WDW on all trips), if you have a flight later in the day, your luggage may very well take more than 3 hours to arrive at our resort. When you arrive earlier (morning to early afternoon, say 2 p.m.), your luggage arrives between 3 to 5 or so hours after arriving at your resort. Even at it's lengthiest time, five hours after a 10 a.m. arrival isn't that big of a deal to us.

However, the times I or my family members flew in during early evening (arriving between 5 to 8) and relied on ME to deliver our bags, our luggage did not arrive in our rooms until LATE. Late meaning midnight or after, or not until the next morning.

So, given our experiences, if any of us arrive after 5 p.m., we check our bags and pick them up ourselves before heading to ME.

 

[kylenne]

I meant to state it better....If a family isn't going to the parks...but straight to the resort to check in...why not just take your luggage. You'll have it right then..un pack and go. If you goto a park straight away....then yes, i could see letting dinner schlep the luggage.
I have not ever met anyone that got to their room AFTER the luggage did. If they went straight to the resort. YMMV

My least favorite thing about flying is dealing with luggage, but because I’m a chronic overpacker who needs more hair product than the TSA permits in carry ons, I have to check bags. Any service I don’t have to pay extra for that will deal with it for me? It’s a no brainer.

 

[OfCourseTheresAlwaysMyWay]

I’m one of those people who actually likes to unpack their entire bag when they get to the room. To me, that’s the real start of the fun part of the vacation. All the logistics are over.

I tried DME once and hate hate hated it. Bag took about 3 hours and I much rather would’ve waited for it at MCO.

 

[Disneypro1]

I’m one of those people who actually likes to unpack their entire bag when they get to the room. To me, that’s the real start of the fun part of the vacation. All the logistics are over.

I tried DME once and hate hate hated it. Bag took about 3 hours and I much rather would’ve waited for it at MCO.

Yep...unpacking and getting the room all set up..and doing right when you get there is exactly why we get our luggage and take it on bus with us. Its right there and after checkin..we unpack and maybe eat, pool or whatever ..but we are all set and unpacked.
Gettin g bags at baggage claim and bringing them with us is too easy not to do. And, we HAVE them right there during checkin...and then room. no wait no fuss. baggage claim is always fast. at least with Southwest. I mean the bags are there asap.

 

[Moliphino]

If it's early enough to go to the parks we'll let ME handle the luggage. I have no idea how long the bags take to get there, since we don't come back to the room until park close. If it's late and we're just going to stay in the room the rest of the night anyway we'll generally pick up our own bags.

 

[sponica]

I've only used it three times with wildly different experiences.

Trip 1- Bag beat me to my room at Pop. Back when you had to complete check in at the front desk. It's not possible that the luggage got on an earlier flight as I was the first flight out of my airport to MCO. (probably had more to do with it being August 2010 and crowd levels would be a -5 on today's scale)
Trip 2- Felt like I waited forever at POR...also didn't help I was waiting for my traveling party to arrive so I was basically wandering the resort. (I learned my lesson, make sure the bathing suit is IN the carryon).
Trip 3- Landed at 7ish, arrived at POFQ at 830(ish) PM at 1130 PM I called to have the bags held. They were delivered within 10 minutes of my call the next AM.

 

[ktlm]

What time in the evening?

We typically arrive before 5 and have never had an issue getting our luggage within the 3 hour window with arrivals at 5 or earlier; however, night time arrivals are a whole different matter.

It has now been 2 years since this happened, but I still have not forgotten it. Our flight got in between 7 and 7:30. We were staying atYC. At 11:00 p.m. we still had not gotten our luggage, so we went down to the front desk. We were told that when people come in on evening flights if there are not that many people coming in to that specific resort that evening, they hold the luggage until the last flight eligible for ME luggage service that has people coming to that resort arrives (usually 10:00 p.m.). We were told they do that so they do not have to make multiple trips to a specific resort for just a few pieces of luggage. We were told that we could expect our luggage to arrive around 12:30 or 1:00 a.m. They would not have brought it to our room that late and we would just have gotten it the next morning had we not advised we wanted it as soon as it arrived. DH went downstairs when it had not arrived by 12:40 to check on it and stayed down there when it arrived (just before 1:00) and had them give it to him downstairs and he brought it up himself- so we wouldn't have to wait for bell services or have them coming to the room door that late. We have never had an issue with ME luggage delivery before and we were never warned that was a possibility for an evening flight. The CM at the front desk made it sound like this was a VERY common occurrence and that if your flight arrived at 7:00 p.m. or later on a low or moderate crowd WDW time, that it would be pretty expected.

As for why the truck might have still been there at 1:00 a.m., I would guess flight delays? Maybe when there are flights which are supposed to be there in time for luggage service and have yellow tagged luggage, but they are delayed and come in after 10:00, they still wait on those flights and load that luggage instead of leaving it all there until morning? All I know is that our flight got in before 7:30 and we did not get our luggage until 1:00 a.m., and we wouldn't have gotten it until the next morning if we hadn't gone down and asked about it.

 

[AngiTN]

I think though I am not 100% on this, what resort can make a difference.
Hopefully, someone can confirm, or correct me.
I've been told that the Value resorts have a different type of Bell Services system, called Luggage Services there or something along these lines. And may not be available 24 hours a day. I'm not clear on the hours exactly but this could be a factor on why some have had issues with delivery when arriving late. The only times we've stayed at a Value resort has been when we've arrived very late and we've either had to get our own bags due to the hour or asked them to hold our bags and move them to our next resort in the morning.

What time in the evening?

We typically arrive before 5 and have never had an issue getting our luggage within the 3 hour window with arrivals at 5 or earlier; however, night time arrivals are a whole different matter.

It has now been 2 years since this happened, but I still have not forgotten it. Our flight got in between 7 and 7:30. We were staying atYC. At 11:00 p.m. we still had not gotten our luggage, so we went down to the front desk. We were told that when people come in on evening flights if there are not that many people coming in to that specific resort that evening, they hold the luggage until the last flight eligible for ME luggage service that has people coming to that resort arrives (usually 10:00 p.m.). We were told they do that so they do not have to make multiple trips to a specific resort for just a few pieces of luggage. We were told that we could expect our luggage to arrive around 12:30 or 1:00 a.m. They would not have brought it to our room that late and we would just have gotten it the next morning had we not advised we wanted it as soon as it arrived. DH went downstairs when it had not arrived by 12:40 to check on it and stayed down there when it arrived (just before 1:00) and had them give it to him downstairs and he brought it up himself- so we wouldn't have to wait for bell services or have them coming to the room door that late. We have never had an issue with ME luggage delivery before and we were never warned that was a possibility for an evening flight. The CM at the front desk made it sound like this was a VERY common occurrence and that if your flight arrived at 7:00 p.m. or later on a low or moderate crowd WDW time, that it would be pretty expected.

As for why the truck might have still been there at 1:00 a.m., I would guess flight delays? Maybe when there are flights which are supposed to be there in time for luggage service and have yellow tagged luggage, but they are delayed and come in after 10:00, they still wait on those flights and load that luggage instead of leaving it all there until morning? All I know is that our flight got in before 7:30 and we did not get our luggage until 1:00 a.m., and we wouldn't have gotten it until the next morning if we hadn't gone down and asked about it.

No, I have first-hand experience with this. We had a flight that was delayed in transit and landed 3 hours late so I had to deal with just this issue. I did know to go get my bags but many did not. While I was there getting mine I inquired and found out the process from the airlines. It's really very common.
The folks that handle the luggage service for Disney get off work at 10:00. No one gets the bags after this point. There are no more trucks leaving MCO and going to Disney after this point.
The bags go to baggage claim and are collected by the individual airlines and taken to their baggage offices where they sit till the morning. At that time, the folks who handle the luggage for Disney go to each airlines office and collect all the bags with yellow tags and then they are routed on to the resorts.

 

[ktlm]

I
The folks that handle the luggage service for Disney get off work at 10:00. No one gets the bags after this point. There are no more trucks leaving MCO and going to Disney after this point.
The bags go to baggage claim and are collected by the individual airlines and taken to their baggage offices where they sit till the morning. At that time, the folks who handle the luggage for Disney go to each airlines office and collect all the bags with yellow tags and then they are routed on to the resorts.

That is what I thought too-but it certainly wasn't the case the night we had the issue. At 11:00 p.m. when we went down to find out why we didn't have our luggage yet, they told us our luggage would be at the resort at 12:30 or 1:00 a.m. We know for a fact the truck came at 1:00 a.m. because DH went downstairs at 12:30 and waited until the truck of luggage arrived. He was there when bell services unloaded it and said it was about 1/2 full when he saw it (didn't know what might have already been unloaded at other resorts, or how much was for YC or going elsewhere). This was 2 years ago- but at least at that time at YC they made it sound like this was not an uncommon occurrence.

 

[Toolulu22]

IMHO, its best to just take the luggage yourself. Don't use the tags and the bus driver will place your luggage in compartment. Drop you off a resort and you'll have the luggage right then. Just get your bags at baggage claim and take them to DME. Of course if you plan to goto parks before you check in..then yes you'd need to wait for them.
We always goto resort first..not sure what the OP plan was. but if you are going to check in and all....there is no point in having them delivered to the room. you may as well take them on bus with you.

This is what I thought we’d do for our upcoming trip. We changed flights to arrive in the evening (so we get a full first day instead of a shortened travel day) and plan to pick up our luggage and bring it on DME with us.

Question though— we are playing golf the next morning and have always rented a car in the past. A little nervous about having our clubs sent over via Disney. If we are arriving at MCO at around 6 p.m. Saturday, does anyone know if they will be at the Palm golf center for an 8 am tee time on Sunday?

 

[AngiTN]

That is what I thought too-but it certainly wasn't the case the night we had the issue. At 11:00 p.m., they told us our luggage would be at the resort at 12:30 or 1:00 a.m. We know for a fact the truck came at 1:00 a.m. because DH went downstairs at 12:30 and waited until the truck of luggage arrived. This was 2 years ago- but at least at that time at YC they made it sound like this was not an uncommon occurrence.

There is no doubt whatsoever what time they stop getting bags, which is 10:00.
I am sorry, shouldn't have said any trucks leaving since that can't be right, they still sort after 10:00, since they can't magically finish sorting the bags that are pulled at 10:00 all at once. Who knows how long the sorting takes. I am not sure if they do it all at MCO or if some is done somewhere at Disney. I believe it's all at MCO but not sure. Also, the truck may have arrived at your resort at that hour but by no means does it mean it was just arriving from MCO at that hour. It could have made multiple stops prior to your resort.