Disney World Ending Magical Express Airport Shuttle
Walt Disney World is ending its Magical Express shuttle service to resorts from Orlando International Airport. This comes after the company “temporarily suspended” Extra Magic Hours, FastPass+, the Dining Plan, and more.
All of this is still top of mind for many Walt Disney World vacation planners, which is clear to us based on the number of questions we receive asking when the Disney Dining Plan, FastPass+, Extra Magic Hours, etc. will be brought back. In most cases, our expectation is that Walt Disney World will restore these things this spring and summer.
When it comes to resuming normalcy at Walt Disney World, it’s clear that this won’t be a simple matter of reverting to the status quo, pre-March of last year. Instead, Walt Disney World will use this period of abnormal to retire and transition away from various offerings to new things, and offer a “soft reset” on the guest experience. We now have our next glimpse of what that means for later in 2022…
Walt Disney World will end the Disney’s Magical Express service for airport transportation starting with arrivals on January 1, 2022. Disney has attributed this to the expansion of options for guests, including the rise of Uber and Lyft. “Vacationers have more options to choose from than ever for transportation, including ride-share services that save time and offer more flexibility to go where they want, when they want.”
Disney’s Magical Express will continue for arrivals and departures through 2021, but anyone planning a Walt Disney World vacation in 2022 will need to rent a car or plan on using Uber, Lyft, or whatever other options are out there. (Although not yet confirmed officially, it’s entirely possible that Minnie Vans have been permanently retired.)
Note that complimentary transportation options within Walt Disney World — such as buses, monorails, boats, and the Skyliner gondolas — will continue to be available without changes. This only impacts Disney’s Magical Express, the airport-to-hotel transportation service, and does not have any bearing on internal or resort-to-park transportation.
It’s worth noting here that the Disney’s Magical Express airport shuttle service is operated by Mears, not Disney itself. Mears is a transportation company with coach buses and taxis that enjoyed a virtual monopoly on the Orlando market for years…before Uber and Lyft debuted.
Last year, Mears furloughed 83% of its workforce and ended up permanently laying off nearly 200 workers. Even prior to that, the company had run into trouble–Mears has been extensively involved with ride-share lawsuits and other litigation over the past few years.
It’s also possible that the relationship between Disney and Mears soured when Minnie Vans were rolled out a couple of years ago. Up until that point, some guests were reticent to use Uber and Lyft due to horror stories, and still opted for the overpriced Mears taxis. From then on, Walt Disney World had a monopoly on overpriced private transportation–it made almost no sense to pay triple the price of ride-share for a taxi when Minnie Vans offered a more polished and “magical” experience.
This is all to say that there might be more to this story than meets the eye. Disney could see the writing on the wall for Mears, or the relationship between the two companies might’ve been irreparably damaged to the point that they could not negotiate a new contract once the current one ends.
Basically, we have a tough time taking this cut at face value–or being entirely due to the reasons given by Disney. As discussed in our Guide to Disney’s Magical Express, the “free” service is incredibly valuable to Walt Disney World because it makes tourists a captive audience, less likely or able to dine off-site, visit other theme parks, or spend money elsewhere.
Long ago, Walt Disney World determined that the increase in average per guest spending with Disney’s Magical Express plus the perceived convenience and goodwill obtained from offering the service outweighs the average per guest cost of offering the service. It’s unlikely that has changed, especially as on-site food prices have increased and Central Florida theme park competition has become more fierce.
Beyond that, this change is being announced at a time when hotel occupancy at Walt Disney World is abysmal–and that’s even with several resorts still closed. With no convention business, minimal outside events, and a travel recovery expected to take until 2023, cutting Disney’s Magical Express will only exacerbate that problem.
We’ve been discussing Walt Disney World’s Disappearing On-Site Advantage for years now, and the elimination of Magical Express only makes that worse. The airport transportation service has been routinely cited by on-site advocates as one reason to still stay in a Disney-owned hotel. Uber and Lyft are great, and we’ve taken them instead of DME several times, but this is still a big blow for consumers.
It’s also potentially going to be detrimental to Walt Disney World. We’re anticipating a ton of negative feedback about this change–likely on par with the addition of resort parking fees a few years ago. As with that change, we can’t help but wonder if Disney will come to regret this move as being one that pushes more guests off-site and ends up costing Disney money in the long run.
We’ve also long been asking Is Walt Disney World Eroding Fan Goodwill? with previous decisions like this. We maintain that they have, but the booming economy has insulated Disney from the negative short-term consequences of so many cuts and guest-unfriendly decisions. Unfortunately, the current hotel woes are pretty easy to hand-wave away given all that’s happening in the world. But we nevertheless question whether occupancy remains low even as park attendance is rising because more guests have already determined staying on-site is simply not worth it.
Finally, while some Walt Disney World fans might point to the Brightline train station at Disney Springs being the eventual replacement for Disney’s Magical Express, that’s still several years away. (The South Florida to MCO link has a scheduled 2022 opening date, but that does not include the Disney Springs station.)
Moreover, that route from the airport to hotels will be convoluted and time-consuming, so it’s not really a viable alternative. To the contrary, the whole reason the Brightline station is being built at Disney Springs instead of the more logical location by the ESPN Wide World of Sports is because Disney did not plan on the train serving as airport transportation for many guests.
We still would not be surprised if Walt Disney World announces a replacement for Disney’s Magical Express before 2022. This just seems like a really ill-advised and short-sighted decision. As discussed above, it’s also potentially a decision that’s out of their hands…
In other breaking news, Walt Disney World announced a permanent replacement for the temporarily-suspended Extra Magic Hours, and has confirmed that EMH will not return. Dubbed Early Theme Park Entry, the new perk will allow Walt Disney World resort guests to enter any of the four theme parks 30 minutes early each day.
Disney indicates that the new Early Theme Park Entry benefit helps better spread visitation across all four theme parks, while providing added flexibility by giving guests extra early park time on each day of their vacation and in the park of their choosing. Please note that guests need valid admission and a park reservation made via the Disney Park Pass system to enter a theme park.
The new Early Theme Park Entry offering will debut later in 2021 and will be promoted as part of Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary offerings. No specific start date has been provided; our assumption is that move is deliberate. Walt Disney World can hold off on rolling it out until hotel occupancy and attendance levels dictate, with the latest debut date being October 1, 2021.
While we’re incredulous about the Disney’s Magical Express news, this announcement we do take at face value. In that same “Disappearing On-Site Advantage” article, we derided Extra Magic Hours as a mostly illusory benefit. Prior to the closure, we actively avoided Evening Extra Magic Hours due to the noticeable spike in crowds as compared to non-EMH evenings.
There are a number of reasons this has happened, but is primarily because the pool of Extra Magic Hours-eligible guests continues to increase. Walt Disney World has cut deals with third party hotels and also built several new Disney Vacation Club properties and otherwise added to its hotel room inventory.
For us, the jury is still out on this new Early Theme Park Entry benefit. We have every reason to believe this will do a better job of spreading out crowds, and could end up being a net positive for guests. Thirty minutes per day is obviously less than than the previous hour, but it’s better than nothing.
There’s also the reality that 30 minutes times 4 parks is a total of 2 hours per day across all of Walt Disney World, which is a net gain as compared to Extra Magic Hours. Obviously, a single guest without the resources for time travel cannot take advantage of that 2 hours, but the point is that this may not be a simple cost-cutting measure by Disney.
It could end up giving on-site guests more time before the wave of crowds hit–or it could amount to being pretty similar to the current unpublished policy of quietly opening the turnstiles before official park opening time. We’ll withhold judgment on this one until experiencing it ourselves.
While the specifics here are not exactly what we anticipated, that Walt Disney World would choose now to make these announcements is not unsurprising. As we covered months ago in What Will Replace FastPass+ at Walt Disney World? we expected these “temporary suspensions” to be a natural transition to new systems.
Ultimately, we expect plenty more announcements in the coming months about other, similar changes. As discussed in that article, we’d be shocked to see FastPass+ return without any changes. We’re also expecting the Disney Dining Plan and other experiences will have modifications once they return later in 2021. Then there’s the potential transition from My Disney Experience to Disney Genie (or whatever it ends up being called) which is another can of worms. In short, brace yourself for plenty more changes announced between now and October 2021…
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think about Walt Disney World ending Disney’s Magical Express? Upset that you’ll have to rent a car or use Uber/Lyft, or did you find DME too inefficient, anyway? Thoughts on Early Theme Park Entry v. Extra Magic Hours? Disappointed that the amount of time is being cut, or optimistic that it’ll be less crowded during that time? Other thoughts on this? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
We don’t use the Magical Express. We have always rented a car because we spend 2 of our 7 days at other Florida theme parks (Universal & Seaworld). We also pack light then stop at a grocery store on our way to the hotel. So doesn’t affect me other than perhaps less rental cars available. Although the darn parking fee is irritating . But there you go.
This make me so sad. This was definitely a plus when planning on how many day tickets to get. The time spent getting to and from airport and having to get you luggage. Would probably get at least one days less ticket. Waiting to plan our yearly trip to see what’s going on with COVID vaccine
I like DME a lot. It’s a nice introduction to the WDW bubble, and is always a comfortable, clean and chill ride. I like the videos and music, and the drivers are pleasant. Plus, in the past, depending on where we were staying it was interesting to see the various hotel drop-offs before ours. One thing that never failed to confuse us though was the lack of signage in the airport to help with getting to the buses. We took the the tram both ways one time trying to find them. At that point I was just so happy to be in FL and see the palm trees that it never bothered me.
I’d wager that Disney does have a train stop on property which will be a depot for a new fleet of buses, possibly the new electric and compact ones that Amazon has purchased, and that those will escort people to their respective hotels. But, that adds an additional step, and what to do with luggage?
Like always Tom, I think you hit all of the nails on the head. It may have been somewhat out of their hands but announcing it at this time in this way is not only going to make fans unhappy, I think it may be the tipping point for many who were looking at off-site.
I bet Disney resort prices don’t go down. They started charging for resort parking, now they do away with Magical Express. I would like to thank WDW for making it easier to justify staying off property and saving a ton of money. Being in the bubble was nice, but we can no longer justify the added expense. Depending on where your hotel is, you can Uber back and forth and still spend way less than you would at a WDW hotel.
What a terrible decision!! The whole point of Magical Express for us was not having to mess with luggage and being able to hit the parks right away then go back to our hotel and finding it there…magical indeed! Why would we want to take a train with our luggage in tow and have to hang around the Disney Springs pick-up area to wait for an Uber or Lyft to get to our hotel?? It’s already a hellacious wait for an Uber at DS. And not even to be able to shop or have a drink because of the inconvenience of pulling our luggage with us. Ditto going back to the airport. The early check in and leaving the luggage was one of the best perks for us. I am beginning to be sorry I bought into a DVC. There are plenty of many less expensive and equally nice places to stay if I’m going to have to take an Uber or rent a car anyway. BOOOO. HISS.
With two kids in car seats my alternative changed to renting a car and packing two car seats or taking separate uber/lyfts for my family of four. Which will increase anxiety and lead to more time taken away from the vacation and spent traveling, esp for shorter trips where we got away with carry on until now.
We live in CA so we can drive to Disneyland any time we want, but we’ve enjoyed visiting Disney World because it felt like an all-inclusive. Transportation and dining plan and we always felt safe on Disney property. Magical express definitely helped that feeling. I hate driving on freeways I don’t know and hassling with transportation. Car rentals are no fun. If we have to do that at Disney World now I guess we’ll be heading back to Disneyland for short trips where we drive and stay at a hotel across the street and walk over and eat off-site. Disney World will miss out on our 2 week vacations there (because why travel across the US for a short trip) where we poured money into their parks for restaurants, water parks, etc. Way to lose money Disney! Great job at alienating your loyals.
Thought the same thing. This will give an edge to Disneyland for us. No upside to this decision.
I have read your blog for years now and never felt the need to weigh in until now. I’m very disappointed that WDW is ending magical express. We stay onsite to be in the bubble from the curb at our airport to the carousel when we return….We also go straight to parks on day one and do them the day we leave as well since we don’t have to deal with luggage. As early flights in on day 1, we could now lose that afternoon in the park if our rooms aren’t ready. And we know that we can be tired when we step off the bus at MCO because we just have to zombie to our gate to go home…Not only would I now consider staying off property and finally letting the hub win the “let’s try the other parks” argument but I would cut my park passes down a day on each end. Sad….As a family that is coming down with 3 grandkids, a child and great gramma in tow, we will need to rent a bus or 2 cars to accommodate us and luggage…not realistic….I will hold out hope that by the time we are ready to start planning for late 2021 or 2022 that there will be a replacement option as it will have significant impact on what we do. 🙁
Just wow. I am the driving force behind all Disney trips in my household as my husband is not a Disney guy (he has other good qualities I swear ;P ). We are night owls and west coasters, so a measly half hour before rope drop does us zero good. I don’t think we’ve ever rope dropped at WDW before. You should hear the grumbling when I toss people out of bed so we can make our 10:15 breakfast reservation at Garden Grill (it is the reason I order a Mimosa as soon as we’re seated…) We are that group that closes every park down at night and hits all evening extra magic hours and stay until they throw us out. I’m assuming they are offering it so they can call it a “perk” but know few are willing to get up that early to use it. After all, isn’t that why Tom recommends rope dropping as there are much lower crowds then? I have to assume Tom is right that losing ME is more about contract issues than just wanting to do away with it. If I had a rental car it would be so easy to stay off site or switch to a half Disney half Universal vacation. It is in Disney’s interest to keep a captive audience that thinks going to Disney Springs is something to do when they need a break from the parks. We have a Christmas 2021 (pushed back from Christmas 2020) planned so we’ll still get ME, but the loss of all other on site perks plus the crazy pricing will make it tough to justify keeping this trip…
They are leaving out a whole group of people. There are disabled people who can not drive themselves and rely on Disney Transportation. This move leaves them vulnerable. Yes, there’s Uber and there’s Lyft, but not everyone feels comfortable using these. There’s also a large number of visitors that come from the UK, where they drive on the other side of the road and will not be comfortable driving in the US. I think this is a really bad move on Disney’s part and they’d do better to replace it with something else, even if it was no longer a free service. Some people really don’t have the option of driving themselves, and without providing a shuttle service, they will be forced to stay at lodgings that DO offer that, or they will just opt not to go to Disney at all.
I sincerely hope that Disney has a Plan B in mind for transportation. As a business decision, if Mears is about to go under, then Disney was wise to make a break so that they are not caught completely off-guard. However, I have a feeling that whatever they replace it with won’t necessarily be “complimentary”. There is also the opening for Disney to find a new luggage delivery service, since the previous one went out of business. Maybe they will create some sort of “Premium Transportation Service” where you and your luggage can be taken to your resort in a private vehicle? I have heard rumors that the Minnie Vans were already sold, so it’s hard to say. To be honest, I’ve used rideshare services the last couple of times down because of time constraints, but am planning to use MDE for part of my next trip. As far as Extra Magic Hours are concerned, if I read that correctly, am I to understand that Disney has cut ties with the 3rd party hotels? Honestly, I hope so! There needs to be at least one perk of staying onsite, even if it’s only 30 minutes of park time. An hour would have been a lot nicer.
Tom, what is the best way for getting Disney to actually hear their guests options on this? A huge reason we vacation at WDW is the Magical Express. If I factor in renting a car and paying car parking fees, it has always been a deal breaker to vacation elsewhere. And EMH in the evening is great for us night owls! I know times for a while would be different, but do you think this is permanent??? Once my family and I get a vaccine, we want to try to resume as much as back to normal as possible. If you stay on property and are flying from afar, will they wave the parking fees at the resorts after DME is gone??
Options, should say opinions
I also wanted to add as a person with disabilities, having the luggage magically appear at your room and getting to check it at the resort was so valuable to me and my family. It lifted a HuGE burden from me and made the higher price tag of a resort stay worth it. I really hope they figure out an alternative.
“Tom, what is the best way for getting Disney to actually hear their guests options on this?”
Email: [email protected]
I also wanted to add as a person with disabilities, having the luggage magically appear at your room and getting to check it at the resort was so valuable to me and my family. It lifted a HuGE burden from me and made the higher price tag of a resort stay worth it. I really hope they figure out an alternative. I just call the 407wdisney number and they told me to email [email protected] to tell them. The customer service person sounded as baffled as we feel and mentioned the upcoming train. The Rep expressed my sentiments exactly – you could feel the wtheck are they doing? through the phone!
Thanks Tom! Just saw your reply.
We often drive to WDW, but when we fly, the Magical Express has been a huge benefit to us. Until very recently, both of our kids still needed car seats. We chose not to fly with the seats, so our options when landing are: (1) pay extra to rent a car and pay extra again to rent car seats (P.S. in renting car seats a dozen times on other non-WDW trips, I’ve never once had a smooth pick up – the car seats are either not ready, missing parts, or the wrong size, even when I call ahead as soon as we land to confirm); (2) pay extra to get an Uber with a car seat and, again, you’re chancing whether it’s the right kind and whether it’s installed properly; or (3) take the Magical Express since car seats aren’t required to be installed on buses (same as on property buses). Removing this benefit for families with young children makes a Disney trip even more expensive and will keep us driving from home, instead of flying.
Since DME is not ending until 2022, it makes me wonder if there will be a replacement announced before then. Maybe they just don’t have all the details nailed down yet. Even though we love the ‘bubble’ staying on property offers, it is getting near impossible to justify the added cost with all that is being taken away. But, to be real here, for all of us who buckle under that last straw, there are plenty of others out there who will willingly take our spot. Disney knows this so I don’t think I will be holding my breath, I’ll just keep my fingers crossed, it’s less fatal.
not announcing a replacement at the same time is incredibly bad PR on disney’s part.
Yes, very sad news. The magic of having your luggage show up in your room without having to do a thing.
Definitely will be a missed perk.
As someone eligible to stay at Shades of Green we have opted to stay at Disney resort’s especially with the transportation incentive, free dining, convenience of magic bands. My daughter got married there and we have raised our kids on Disney vacations. Shades is definitely cheaper and after our trip coming up it looks like Disney is forcing us to use that option. The stream from tourism has its limits and I think Disney is about to breach the threshold.
LOL almost impressive the way Disney managed to disappoint EVERYONE today. As an out of state, exclusively on-site visitor, I mourn the loss of Magical Express…and the good news of day (for me), bringing back some form of early entry, angers all the off-site people who wouldn’t have cared about Magical Express but just effectively lost the benefit of Rope Dropping. I almost feel bad for Disney this was so poorly handled… they won’t even get any of the goodwill the early entry returning could have provided them, had this been done differently.
This makes me so gd mad. I try not to say “well that did it I’m never going again” but this really blows. The Magical Express was…magical. and even the Tragic departure version had its charm (the final ‘see ya real soon always makes me cry).
Is Disney eroding fan goodwill? YES. I bought my first AP back in 2019, managed to get that nice 3-digit price, but Covid ruined my 2020 trips. And since then my desire to go has almost disappeared. I guess I have until 2030 to decide, but news like this makes me just want to eat the cost.
Going to be tough for international (I’m from the UK) travellers as we tend to stay for longer and therefore bring more (much much more in my family’s case – no pun intended) luggage and so trying to get that into a Lyft or Uber even XL would be a challenge. Plus we’ll miss the obligatory family photo stood by the door of the bus – very disappointing news
We all need to take our outrage and channel it toward contacting Disney customer service. If everyone who is upset by this contacts them, maybe they’ll get sick of responding to us and do something about it!
Although, to be honest, I think it would take a full on Disney boycott for them to change their minds. And we all know we love Disney too much for that….