Tips for using ME

[Guya103]

My family and I will be leaving on the 20th for Disney World. This is our first experience using ME. We were wondering if there is anything that we have to do with our luggage when we land? Do we take our carry on's with us or does Disney take them with the luggage? and also While we are there we will be staying at three resorts on property. How does this work with our luggage? Do they just bring it to our rooms? Any other additional info or tips would be great! :mickey:

[andmomlau]

We used ME for the first time last July and will use it again when we depart in less than 2 days!!! It was really easy...you will put ME tags on your luggage before you depart from home. You won't see your luggage again until it arrives in your hotel room, app. 3 hours after you arrive. For this reason, they suggest that you take something to change into when you arrive in your carry on. (If you are going to want to change clothes) I'm not sure about changing hotels....I don't believe that ME does this for you, but I may be wrong. When you leave, you will drop your luggage off to the ME stand in your hotel and it will meet you when you arrive home. I hope I didn't give you any wrong info....that's how it worked for us last year!

[Guya103]

Thanks so much for all of your help. So if ME does not do the luggage when we switch hotels, who does? We won't have a car so we can not transport it ourselves. Does the resort we are staying at take care of this? Have a nice trip!

[Strmchsr]

I don't remember how resort swapping works, but if you do a search you'll find the answer in previous threads. I do know, however, that there is some help for you with your transfer.

You will need to keep your carry-on with you, though as noted above your luggage you don't have to worry about again once you check it at your home airport as long as the DME tags are on the bag.

[CleveRocks]

My family and I will be leaving on the 20th for Disney World. This is our first experience using ME. We were wondering if there is anything that we have to do with our luggage when we land? Do we take our carry on's with us or does Disney take them with the luggage? and also While we are there we will be staying at three resorts on property. How does this work with our luggage? Do they just bring it to our rooms? Any other additional info or tips would be great! :mickey:
Put the special, bright yellow DME tags on the luggage you will check with your airline.

When you land at Orlando, you get to totally skip baggage claim. You go straight to the Disney Welcome Center and check-in there. You'll be shown to your bus queue, and then to your bus. Your DME bus will stop at up to 4 resorts. You will always have your carry-ons with you ... you can choose to let the bus driver load the carry-ons into the buses cargo bay, and if you do that you'll get them back immediately as soon as you arrive at your resort (the driver will unload them for you).

You check-in at your resort.

Meanwhile, at the airport, your specially-tagged luggage has been pulled from the rest of the luggage, and never went out to the baggage claim carousel. It is being taken to Disney's luggage sorting facility on the airport grounds. It will be sorted by resort and loaded into locked cages. The cages will be loaded into DME luggage delivery trucks. The cages are dropped off at the proper resorts. Once at the resort, the luggage is the responsibility of the resort's Bell Services department. They deliver it to the inside of your room whether you are in there or not (to me, that's the "magical" part of Disney's Magical Express). In other words, you don't have to sit and wait for it ... you should go out and play! They say to allow 3 hours from the time you arrive at your resort (not 3 hours from landing). As mentioned by others, pack your carry-on for your immediate needs (swim stuff, change of clothes for dinner, etc.).

I forgot to mention that the DME luggage tags have barcodes. The barcode of each bag is scanned 5 separate times in the route from airplane to inside of your resort room. In addition, the luggage delivery trucks are tracked by GPS. In other words, Disney knows where your bags are at all times.

Now, about moving from one resort to the next ...

This has nothing to do with DME. DME is strictly transfer of people and luggage from airport to resort. From resort-to-resort, Bell Services takes care of this. In your check-out day, inform them that you are moving on to another WDW resort and request that the bags be transfered ... they do this for free, but of course a tip would be apporpriate.

If there's anything I didn't cover, please ask! There are a lot of people here who will answer your questions.

[CleveRocks]

When you leave, you will drop your luggage off to the ME stand in your hotel and it will meet you when you arrive home. I hope I didn't give you any wrong info....that's how it worked for us last year!Well ... ;)

Not everyone can use Resort Airline Check-in, the service that allows you, ON THE WAY HOME, to drop off your checked luggage in the lobby of your resort and check them through to your home airport, and at the same time get your flight boarding passes. RAC is exactly like curbside check-in, except it's in your resort lobby rather than at the curbside at the airport. Only people flying home on one of the "participating airlines" can use RAC. Otherwise, you take your bags to the DME bus, the driver will load them under the bus, and then give them back to you when you arrive at the airport. You then take them to your airline's ticket counter, or use curbside check-in, just as you would any other time.

[Guya103]

Thank you so much for your thorough response! You have been of great help.:mickey:

[disneyfan328]

[QUOTE=CleveRocks;1712764]I forgot to mention that the DME luggage tags have barcodes. The barcode of each bag is scanned 5 separate times in the route from airplane to inside of your resort room. In addition, the luggage delivery trucks are tracked by GPS. In other words, Disney knows where your bags are at all times.QUOTE]

I will second this. We had 5 bags on our last trip and somehow one of them took its on vacation to the Polynesian, but Bell services was able to track it and knew exactly where it went and got it back to us at the correct resort. While the system may not be perfect - it is very efficient and I give Disney a huge round of applause for this service. I think it is a big time saver!!

[Guya103]

[QUOTE=CleveRocks;1712770]

Only people flying home on one of the "participating airlines" can use RAC.

Do you know if Continental is one of those participating airlines? Thanks for all your help!:mickey:

[SAHDad]

Only people flying home on one of the "participating airlines" can use RAC.

Do you know if Continental is one of those participating airlines? Thanks for all your help!:mickey:

Yes, Continental is a participating airline. I think the current list is:

American
Continental
Delta
JetBlue
United
TED
Alaska
Northwest

[Guya103]

Wonderful! Thanks again.:mickey:

[MILWDIANA]

What happens if you arrive early and your room is not ready????? Will they still deliver the bags to the hotel??? When are they delivered to the room??

[CleveRocks]

What happens if you arrive early and your room is not ready????? Will they still deliver the bags to the hotel??? When are they delivered to the room??DME delivers bags from the airport to the resort. They have no idea what rooms are ready and what rooms aren't ready ... all they know is if a bag has a DME tag and belongs at a certain resort, they deliver it to that resort.

Once the bags are at the resort, the resort's Bell Services department takes over. Obviously, if your room isn't ready yet, they can't bring the bags to that room. They will wait 'til the room is ready and then bring the bags at some other time.

[motherof4]

this is probably a stupid question but we are landing at 11:00 pm and if it takes 3 hours for our luggage to get to our room how will they come inside at 2 in the morning to put them inside when we will be in there asleep? would they come in any way I hope not! or do you think they will leave them at the front desk or something?

[thumperbug]

Hakuna Matata.

When a flight gets in that late, they will hold your luggage until you call bell services in the morning and tell them to bring em on up.

No need to worry about men in uniforms quietly entering your room to deliver the goods.

Make sure your carry on has what you need for the night. Pj's, meds, etc.

[Goes4FastPass]

When you arrive in Orlando and go to ME (as explained in the booklet you'll get with your bag tages) the agent theer will confirm your return. BE SURE to say THEN not only what day and flight you're returning on but from WHICH RESORT. That way they'll know to remind you the night before and more importantly schedule your pickup AT THE RIGHT RESORT.

It's all quite swellegant, actually. It's almost like they do it a thousand times every day:thumbsup: