Disney's Magical Express (DME)

Sounds pretty cool doesn't it? So what is it? A monorail driven by Tinkerbell that whisks you from the Magic Kingdom to the magical land of Hook and the Pan? A golden Cinderella stagecoach that takes you to places of your Disney dreams? An Aladdin enchanted carpet ride? No, actually it's a bus. Well, to be more accurate, it's a passenger and baggage handling system that allows Disney to control, in the nicest possible sense, you and your bags from the time you leave your origin airport to the time you arrive home at your home airport. All you do is arrive at MCO (Orlando's McCoy International Airport), check in for your free Disney bus ride to your hotel, ride the bus, get off the bus and your bags will arrive at your room as if by magic --Disney Magic.

How does it work? You make a reservation for your Disney hotel (does not include Shades of Green, The Swan or Dolphin, or any of the Downtown Disney Hotel Plaza hotels). The latter hotels are on Disney property but they are neither Disney-owned nor Disney-operated. You do not have to make your reservation through the Walt Disney Travel Company. You may book your hotel yourself and simply elect to utilize DME.

A couple of weeks before you go you will receive your special DME baggage tags that assist identification of your bags. You put those labels on your bags at origin but don't expect the airline to go ga-ga at that point. Although most airline personnel are familiar with the product, it really is only to assist Disney baggage handling staff at MCO to identify whose bags are going on the bus and whose are not. If everything goes to plan, you will not see your bags again until they appear in your room covered in pixie dust.

Once you arrive at MCO you will go to a preliminary queue area (DME Welcome Center) where your reservation will be checked by a Disney CM. Once they are satisfied that you are a bona-fide, confirmed Disney hotel guest you will be directed to the bus area where there is a second queue area for boarding the buses to the various hotels. You board your respective bus, arrive at your hotel, check-in and your bags should be at your room within a short period of time.

Some caveats:

• DME is not entirely for you if you are renting a car at MCO. You will look pretty foolish with your faced pressed against the window staring forlornly at the Hertz sign on Semoran Drive, whence your rental car comes, as the bus whizzes along 528 for I-4 and all points Disney.

• DME is also not for you, and this is probably obvious, if you are expecting the driver to make a stop at Publix so you can pick up stuff to stock your room fridge. The bus will stop if a) you are in the third trimester and the stork has decided it's time for the baby to make an appearance, b) the bus driver inexplicably omitted to add "check diesel" to his check-list that morning or c) the driver recognizes you from America's Most Wanted in which case you get to ride on the FHP Magical Express instead.

• Reliability? Like most baggage handling systems, DME initially had its teething troubles and bags could and did not make it to the rooms until significantly after you would have expected Tink to do so. Remember that the airlines have been practicing much harder and much longer than Disney's people and they have been losing bags for as long as Pontius has been Pilating (that's a pun not a mis-spelling!). That said, they seem now to have a very good handle on the bag delivery system but, as usual, you should absolutely not put anything in your bags that you might need in the first 12-24 hours of your trip just in case your bags do go AWOL.

• Peak periods will obviously put much more strain on the system than in the quiet times so the jury is out during those peak times as to whether you would be faster to tote your own bags from the belt to your town car, cab, shuttle, limo or rental car or to utilize DME. The mental picture does offer itself of hundreds of people, in the peak summer months, lining up to register with Disney to get in another line of hundreds to wait for a bus to get to their hotel with the picture substituting cattle for people. Perhaps it's Disney's way of acclimatizing everyone for how it's going to be in the parks in summer peak attendance months?

• There is not a specific bus for each hotel so can expect your bus to go to several hotels in the same geographical area. You should probably use the rest-room before the bus leaves.

• A word for our DME International travelers. You have to add one more step on the way in. Remember that you will have to recover your bags off the initial baggage belt before going through Customs. Once Customs have cleared your group, you can put your bags back on the second belt and then you can forget them until they are at your hotel.

The reverse system operates when you return home. You check in at your hotel, get your boarding pass for your airline, drop your bags off and get on the bus. It is recommended that you are doing this at least 4 hours before your flight in the peak periods. Three hours might be sufficient in the quite periods. Nobody ever missed a flight by being early. You should note that you can visit the airline check-in desk at your hotel if you want to pre-check in early to get a seat assignment to keep your party together. This is very much recommended for honeymoon couples who may want to sit in closer proximity than 7A and 30F.

Although the check-in formality at the airport is not now required, you will still have to go through TSA security at the airport so keep that in mind with your timing. Security lines at MCO, especially on the weekends, can be of biblical proportions.

Southwest Airlines does now participate in the DME system.

Should your flight either be scheduled to arrive at MCO on or after 10:00 p.m. (2200 hours) or be delayed to actually arrive at that time, Disney will no longer deliver your luggage to your room the same day. They will deliver it next morning. Disney states this is to prevent folks from being disturbed in their rooms late at night as the baggage arrives.

Last Updated: June 22, 2009