Has anyone used Magical Express WITHOUT their luggage tag?

[Grim Grinning Marathon Runner]

Well, it seems that somehow I got lost in the shuffle, and have not/will not receive my luggage tags for DME.

As the procedure stands, if this happens, you can proceed through the airport as you normally would with DME - check in your luggage at your home airport, and go to the proper concourse and staging area to get on the bus for DME. Teh added step though, is to give the Disney personnel your claim ticket and a description of your luggage (you do NOT get your luggage from the carousel).

From here, the Disney folks will seek out your bags and match them to your claim ticket, then deliver them to your room like they normally would if they'd had the DME tag.

Has anyone ever done it this way? How did it work out?

The wife and I are a little concerned about our luggage making it to us if we go this route, and were hoping someone could share a success story with us.

[r4kids]

Is there anyway to overnight or fedex the luggage tags to you? It seems like a gamble without the tags. I would push for them to get them to you asap.:mickey:

74 days!!!

[Tinkermom]

I traveled with 2 of my friends/coworkers in January and they did not have their DME luggage tags. They were told to do just as you stated. I did have my luggage tag. I waited for them as they talked to the CM at the DME counter. We then boarded the bus. Their luggage actually ended up arriving in their room BEFORE mine! Go figure!

Then in March DH and I traveled with our kids but this time we did not have our DME tags. We did the same procedure as above and our bags made it into our room without any problem.

Have fun and don't worry! We are heading to WDW in 2 weeks - can't wait!:mickey:

[Tink1]

ME! :blush:

I rarely get my luggage tags since I am usually headed down spur of the moment.

You go to the desk, describe your luggage and off you go.

I put a very easily recognizable mark on mine- chalk written first name, but I do that all the time if I have to claim my luggage as well.

They tag it when they pull it off the carousel and it shows up in my room.

Have gone without tags the last 4 trips down and had no trouble.

Nanc

[Tink1]

Is there anyway to overnight or fedex the luggage tags to you? It seems like a gamble without the tags. I would push for them to get them to you asap.:mickey:

74 days!!!

Tags are printed by a third party, not by Disney. They do not even want to hear that your missing tags until less than 10 days prior to departure. With print time, weekends etc, they still may arrive after you leave the house.

Nanc

[mprewitt]

If I didn't have my DME luggage tags, I would rather go to baggage claim in Orlando and pickup my own bags and bring them to the DME counter.

[FantasmicJ]

When I have taken advantage of DME, I have never used the tags. One reason for doing this is that I fly standby as an airline employee, and I'm never definitely going to make it. I have always picked my bags up at baggage claim and brought them to the bus myself. I feel much better about doing this so that I know that my bags are definitely there.

[hokies4life]

If I didn't have my DME luggage tags, I would rather go to baggage claim in Orlando and pickup my own bags and bring them to the DME counter.

This is the route we went with on our last trip because our tags had not yet arrived in the mail. However, we didn't know about the option to give a description of our luggage to the DME attendant. But I think we would still just get our own luggage if we didn't have the tags instead of relying on giving them a description and the baggage claim tag.

:chipdale:

[phillydan]

Last year, there seemed to be a lot of horror stories about long wait times for luggage. I didn't want to worry about it, so we didn't tag the bags. When we landed, we had to pick them up ourselves and take them to DME (minor hassle, but no different than any other place we travelled to over the years). It was no problem for DME and was one less thing to worry about. Our room was ready when we checked-in and we had piece of mind that our luggage was definitely there. I would have hated to get back to my room at midnight to discover that something was missing.

[RockChalkKimball]

We did the same as phillydan. Didn't use the tags and just grabbed our bags at baggage claim. DME handled the bags on to and off of the bus. We thought this was just as easy and eased our minds to know we had our stuff with us when we got there.

[r4kids]

Tags are printed by a third party, not by Disney. They do not even want to hear that your missing tags until less than 10 days prior to departure. With print time, weekends etc, they still may arrive after you leave the house.

Nanc


I didn't know they were printed by a third party. I assumed they came straight from Disney. Thanks for the info. I hope it works out :thumbsup:

[CleveRocks]

The wife and I are a little concerned about our luggage making it to us if we go this route, and were hoping someone could share a success story with us.
Just to try to ease your mind a little, I want you to know that this procedure has been in place since Day One. They didn't just throw it together yesterday, and they are very good at doing it. It might be different and stressful for you, but for the DME CMs who will handle your luggage it'll just be another Saturday at the office. They literally do it every day.

Personally, I love the automatic luggage handling feature of DME. It speeds the process. If you go to baggage claim you unnecessarily slow yourself down. It's quite possible that if you had gone straight to the Disney Welcome Center that you would have already left on an earlier bus. It'sa trade-off of time versus peace of mind. Personally, my mind is at peace that Disney will handle my luggage better than the airline did, so I'm happy to save the time and bother.

The other advantage to using DME for luggage is that, in the unlikely but not impossible occurrence that the AIRLINE misdirected your luggage, you won't have to further delay and aggravate yourself by having to deal with the airline baggage office at the airport. If your bags don't show up in the DME database (all the tags have barcodes) in a reasonable amount of time, DME deals with the airline on your behalf to get them to find your bags and fly them to MCO ASAP.

If I may bore y'all a little more, one other important thing to know is that DIsney says your luggage will be in your room within about 3 hours after you arrive at your resort, not 3 hours after you land. I bookmarked a thread from March of this year, with a guy angrily ranting about how his luggage wasn't waiting for him in his room when he arrived. He angrily went on to say that it took the bags an hour-and-a-half to get to his room. He was livid, and swore never to use DME again because of that. I posted back to tell him that if he got his luggage 90 minutes after he arrived at his resort, then the luggage arrived 90 minutes EARLIER THAN PROMISED, and that he was angry about truly exceptional and efficient service.

[mdricks]

I have done it without tags and I just went and got my own bags. My wife and I travel quite a bit for work and our luggage is a mishmash of different pieces (each has its own merit depending on the trip) trying to explain to DME about 4 completely different bags seemed like to much of a hassle so I got my own. They leefully loaded it on the bus for me and carried it into the resort check in. I saw people who flew down with me on the bus to the resort so the wait for my luggage had no appreciable effect on "resort time" and I had my luggage.

I let DME take it to the airport for me on the way back, I'm not a glutton for punishment......:D

[dolphinmickey9170]

When I added my air info to my ressie, the CM told me that I would receive my tags within two weeks of the trip. So....I'm hoping they show.

[Dedivah]

You may get them before. Our trip is still 4 weeks away and I go tmy tags last week.

I say trust Disney. Mark your bags like the other poster suggested.

[Grim Grinning Marathon Runner]

Thanks, everyone!

I think we've decided to trust Disney, but with a bit of a compromise. I don't know if this will help, or be unnecessary on our part, but we're going to follow all the procedures for not having a tag, and we're going to take it a little bit further.

A couple of nights before we leave, I'm going to take a picture of our luggage with our digital camera, then print out the picture of our two bags. When we give the DME folks at the airport our luggage claim bar code and a description of the luggage, we'll also be able to give them a picture of the luggage.

This may not help any, but it will ease our minds a bit.

And as far as that guy ranting about Disney, that's just NUTS!! It never ceases to amaze me how so many people can gripe and complain about the most insignificant things. You're in DISNEY, the HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH, on VACATION!! Relax, mon!:D

[CleveRocks]

A couple of nights before we leave, I'm going to take a picture of our luggage with our digital camera, then print out the picture of our two bags. When we give the DME folks at the airport our luggage claim bar code and a description of the luggage, we'll also be able to give them a picture of the luggage.

This may not help any, but it will ease our minds a bit.It might help a lot. Not in terms of getting your luggage or not, but it'll help that individual CM who's gotta find your bags!:cool:

I used DME on May 8, 2005, its 4th day in existence. On the day before (before the mail came), I called them and said I still didn't ave my tags, what should I do. This really great CM explained the "no tags" method to me, and also suggested, if it would make me feel better, to tie yarn or ribbon around the handle of each piece and tell that to the CM at the Disney Welcome Center when we arrive. My wife went out and bought a few feet of the most obnoxious ribbon she could find (orange with purple polka dots). We tied a piece to each luggage handle, and she decided to to take swatches with her so she could give then to the DME CMs to healp with the search.

Happy ending, our tags came in the snail mail that day from our clueless travel agent -- she sent them snail mail one day earlier from her office 150 miles away.:mad:

Anyway, I know you'll enjoy yourself! :thumbsup: