Magical Express Luggage Tags Question

[ASweetLov]

I received my Magical Express luggage tags today and I just had a question about them. I have been to Disney twice but honestly dont remember the other luggage tags. The yellow luggage tags I got have a mickey mouse shape head on it and bellow it says POP- Classic, which means Pop Century since thats where I will be staying. Now the mickey mouse shape is like a blue green color with the letters AK inside of it. What do those letters mean? anyone know? I am just curious

[LandFan]

It just means you are on the animal kingdom Magical Express route. THey have 4 different routes that the busses take to drop people off at their resorts. The animal kingdom route drops people off at Pop first, then Coronado Springs (I think), then Animal Kingdom Lodge.

[ASweetLov]

Oh alright, that makes sense. Thanks!

[CleveRocks]

It just means you are on the animal kingdom Magical Express route. THey have 4 different routes that the busses take to drop people off at their resorts. The animal kingdom route drops people off at Pop first, then Coronado Springs (I think), then Animal Kingdom Lodge.Close, but not exactly.

There are no pre-set routes. There are geographic zones. The zones are MK, EC, AK and DD. The AK zone includes a whole bunch of resorts ... Animal Kingdom Lodge, Animal Kingdom Villas, Coronado Springs Resort, Pop Century, and all three All Star resorts.

A DME bus doesn't necessarily carry guests only within a single zone. There are no pre-set groupings of resorts ... it changes all the time based upon the reservations data ... they know about how many people are going where and at about what time, and so they can plan routes and dispatch buses to run differently throughout each day, based on need.

The main way that zones matter is that if a bus stays inside one zone it can carry passengers for up to 4 resorts, but if the bus crosses zones it can carry passengers from a maximum of 3 resorts, to make up for the extra travel time.

As far as the ORDER of the drop-offs ... this is decided solely by the driver himself/herself. Disney/DME tells them which resorts are on their bus for this run, but they don't tell the driver what order to make those drop-offs in.

Another thing about the zones. The zones ARE very closely used for the luggage routing. At DIsney's luggage sorting facility on the grounds of the airport, the first sort is to separate the bags by zones, and from there they separate them by resort. Generally speaking, a DME luggage delivery truck will remain within one zone during any particular delivery run.

[TheRustyScupper]

The yellow luggage tags I got have a mickey mouse shape head on it and bellow it says POP- Classic, which means Pop Century since thats where I will be staying. Now the mickey mouse shape is like a blue green color with the letters AK inside of it. What do those letters mean?

1) The "AK" denotes a luggage delivery zone.
2) When your bags come into Orlando
. . . the bags are off loaded to the separate luggage area
. . . the luggage is sorted by zone
. . . the luggage is sorted by resort
. . . the luggage is sorted by guest name
. . . the guest's luggage is place into a roll-around cage
. . . each cage contains only one guest's luggage
. . . multiple cages can be used if the guest has lots of luggage
. . . the cage is sealed with a numbered tag
. . . the luggage for the resort is then loaded to a small truck
. . . the cage is then delivered to the resort
. . . the DME people at the resort unload each cage and retrieve luggage
. . . the DME delivery CM's take luggage to your room