Disney's Magical Express pickup question?

[quinn]

I am going to be flying in days before my stay at POP. I am going to be using a rental car and it seems the best deal is to pickup and return the car at the airport. I will be dropping the car off the same day as I start staying at POP.

Can I use DME to get to my disney hotel from the airport even though I am not flying in on that day?

How early does DME run? I would like to get to one of the parks by opening time.

[CleveRocks]

YES, you can get a DME ride from MCO to Pop that morning. You are entitled to a ride from MCO to Pop on your day of check-in, and from Pop to MCO on your day of check-out. Whether or not you have flights at MCO on those days makes no difference.

In theory, DME is a 24 hour operation. In practice, it follows the flight schedules. In other words, if the first flight after midnight arrives at MCO at 7:00 a.m., there won't be a bus leaving MCO for any resort at 4:00 a.m., for example.

DME arrangements like this can get complicated. Do youself a favor and call DME directly (866-599-0951) rather than trying to explain this to a DIsney Reservations Center CM. The DME CMs are the ONLY DME experts.

If you get a series of clueless CMs, then you will need to engage in a white lie. Decide when you want to leave MCO and go to Pop. Use a travel website to find any flight from any city that arrives at MCO around when you want to leave MCO. Call DME and tell them you will be on that flight.

WHen you get your DME packet 4-6 weeks before your trip, THROW AWAY your DME luggage tags. They will be of no use to you, since you'll have your bags with you.

Actually, if it's not horrendously out of the way, you'd be smart to drive to Pop early that morning to check in and to have Luggage Assistance store your bags for you (as it is highly unlikely your room will be ready that early, but you can check-in as early as 6:00 a.m.!). This would have to be a lot easier than unloading the bags at the airport, dragging them to the Disney Welcome Center, dragging them to the DME bus, then taking them from the bus to the front desk. Drop them at Pop and be done with them!

By the way, just FYI, DME advance reservations are REQUIRED. They can't take walk-ups, per their contract with the airport.

HAVE FUN!

[Piglet822]

You are entitled to use DME the day you check in/out of your WDW owned resort. You do need to make a reservation at least 10 days prior to your travel date (the Disney check in date, not your few days prior).
Also, DME is a 24/7 operation as far as buses go. Regardless of what time your flight comes in buses are available. Disney keeps track of incoming flights and sometimes they are delayed for whatever reason. We have drivers checking on as early as 2 AM and we have drivers that are still out from the night before so there are always buses on the road. And since we're radio dispatched, contacting one of us to let us know where we're needed is not a problem.
I'm a DME driver and have been so since DME started. If you have any questions feel free to PM me and I'll be more than happy to help you out.

[Tink#64]

Have you given it any thought to renting from one of the companies that has a location on Disney property? Rental company names & numbers are listed on here - under the Info Central tab!I know the rental companies offer shuttle service between their location & the resorts. I have also read that many of the companies will come & pick up the rental from your resort. We haven't done this, but a few years ago, we left from WDW for Cocoa Beach & rented a vehicle on site, with shuttle service to their location & then we returned the rental at the airport. I let WDW know when I was making our DME arrangements that we would only be using that service on arrival. This worked great for us.

Good luck!

[Flower]

Originally Posted by Tink#64

Have you given it any thought to renting from one of the companies that has a location on Disney property? Rental company names & numbers are listed on here - under the Info Central tab!I know the rental companies offer shuttle service between their location & the resorts. I have also read that many of the companies will come & pick up the rental from your resort.

I was going to suggest looking into this as well. Several years ago we flew into St.Petes airport and rented thru National/Alamo. We stayed with the inlaws for a few days and then drove to WDW. Knowing we would not need the car for our Disney stay, we drove the car to Nationals WDW location and dropped the car off for NO ADDITIONAL FEE!!!!! Their shuttle service then drove us back to the Wilderness Lodge. When our WDW vacation was over our inlaws took us to the airport (This was before DME).

National was great and we have rented from them several times.