Disney’s Magical Express Info, Tips & Review
Disney’s Magical Express is free airport transportation for on-site Walt Disney World hotel guests. This guide to the shuttle service offers tips & info about DME, a review of whether it’s worth your time, or renting a car or using Uber/Lyft is better. We’ve used Magical Express 30+ times, and have lots of experience with it. (Updated July 25, 2021.)
Disney’s Magical Express is available to guests staying on property in Walt Disney World-owned hotels only. In other words, if you’re staying at a hotel with the possessive Disney’s in front of its name, you’re good. If you’re staying at a Disney Springs hotel, the Swan/Dolphin, Shades of Green, or “Cleetus’ Luxury-r-us Motel, Now with COLOR TV!” down on I-Drive, you’re out of luck.
As for what Disney’s Magical Express offers, let’s start with a brief overview. The service operates to and from Orlando International Airport (MCO) only, where it is located on Level 1 of the B-side baggage claim area. Disney’s Magical Express runs whenever the airport is open. Whether you have the last flight of the day or the first, you’ll have shuttle service to or from your hotel. In fact, those late and early options are usually the most efficient and least crowded!
To take advantage of Disney’s Magical Express, all you need to do is indicate that you want to use it when booking your hotel reservation, and the agent will automatically walk you through the process. If you want to add it to your reservation after you make it, you can do that online or by calling 866-599-0951.
Alternatively, if you’re like us, you can fail to do all of those things and just show up to the Disney’s Magical Express kiosk where they will scan your MagicBands and let you board the bus. This is the easiest way to go about it for us, especially since many of our trips are last-minute. This is also an option if you lose your vouchers, your flight is delayed, etc.
As long as you’re a registered guest, they will make sure you get to your hotel. So don’t fret–after all, Disney wants you to get to Walt Disney World so you can start spending money…err…enjoying your vacation! 😉
2021 & 2022 Disney’s Magical Express Updates
Before we get into the Disney’s Magical Express basics and review, we should probably cover the significant changes and cutbacks that have already happened in the last year with Disney’s Magical Express, and what else is on the horizon. We’ll start with current issues and changes, as those are impacting anyone visiting Walt Disney World now and planning on using Disney’s Magical Express.
First, luggage delivery for those arriving to Orlando International Airport is no longer available. This means that guests who use Disney’s Magical Express will be responsible for picking up any of their checked luggage from the airport’s baggage claim area, so that it can be loaded onto the motorcoach to their Walt Disney World resort hotel.
Additionally, Resort Airline Check-In Service is no longer available upon departure from your Walt Disney World hotel. This means that you’ll need to have your luggage with you to load it onto the motorcoach, and you’ll need to check it in with your airline once you reach the airport. Basically, all luggage handling is now done by guests. Not having to hassle with bags to and from the airport was a huge convenience for many guests, so this is one big loss that has already occurred.
Second, lines can be very long for Disney’s Magical Express at Orlando International Airport. There’s a bus driver shortage and that compounded with high pent-up demand can mean long lines during peak travel times. Unfortunately, there’s also a rental car shortage and Uber/Lyft driver shortage, meaning higher prices and longer waits for both.
The best way to avoid all of these issues is arriving into MCO in the morning or later in the evening. During the middle of the day is when these problems are most pronounced. At off hours, you might not experience any of these issues at all. While it might seem “extreme” to plan your flights around airport transportation, it really isn’t.
Do not underestimate just how bad these issues with DME buses, rental cars, and Uber/Lyft really are. There have been reports of hour-plus waits at rental car counters and/or Disney’s Magical Express during the midday hours. (I wish I took better photos to fully illustrate just how bad things are at MCO, but after our first negative experience earlier this year, we’ve started taking the very first flight of the day to avoid further issues.)
Now let’s turn to the what’s happening next year: Disney’s Magical Express is ending in 2022. The shuttle service will no longer be offered starting with arrivals January 1, 2022. Guests who arrive at Walt Disney World before this date will still be able to utilize Disney’s Magical Express for transportation to Orlando International Airport following their hotel stay until January 10, 2022.
Walt Disney World attributed the decision to the rise of Uber of Lyft, saying there has been an the expansion of transportation options for guests: “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.”
Following that, guests will need to utilize private transportation or ride-share services. Disney’s Magical Express will also have a spiritual successor in Mears Connect, which begins service in 2022. Mears is the vendor that currently operates Disney’s Magical Express, so there should be good continuity of service. The only difference between how the transportation works in 2021 v. 2022 is that there won’t be Disney branding and you’ll have to pay for Mears Connect directly.
If you don’t want to rent a car or use Uber/Lyft, Mears Connect will be your main option for the next several years. 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. Construction hasn’t even started yet on the MCO to Disney Springs line, and the tentative target opening year for that line is 2026. Given the delays to date, we’d bank on it being finished late, not early—and certainly not next year!
With all of that out of the way, here’s basic info about Disney’s Magical Express…
Disney’s Magical Express Info
The Disney’s Magical Express buses are coach-style buses operated by Mears. They have restrooms and on-bus displays that go through a video covering the basics of Disney’s Magical Express and Walt Disney World that’s pretty fun. There’s also an hour-long background music loop that plays on the bus (which is also conveniently available online–it’s nice background music to put on at home!).
If you’re “fortunate” enough to still be on the bus after this video finishes, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck shorts play after it. In total, the commute from your plane (via walking and an airport monorail) to the Magical Express area will take about 10-12 minutes, the wait from the time you arrive in the Magical Express area until your bus departs will be about 10-30 minutes, and the commute from the airport to the Walt Disney World main entrance is about 30 minutes.
After that, add about 7 minutes for each hotel at which the bus stops. In other words, plus 7 minutes if you’re stop 1, plus 28 minutes if you’re stop 4. The whole process will take a minimum of about an hour and a maximum of just under two hours. Oh, and trying to bribe your bus driver with a generous tip will not get you there any faster (although it is customary to tip them, regardless).
If you would prefer a private ride but don’t want to rent a car, Uber or Lyft airport pickups are now an option at Orlando International Airport. How long that’ll take and cost depends largely upon demand and traffic. Arriving at off hours will always be your best bet.
The whole Disney’s Magical Express process is similar when leaving Walt Disney World resort. You will need to schedule your DME ride in advance, and you will receive a voucher slipped under your hotel door the day before you leave with a pick-up time about 3 hours before your domestic flight or 4 hours before an international flight.
Security at MCO can get really backed up during busy travel times on normal days, and the holidays are downright chaotic. If you have it, you’ll be very thankful for TSA PreCheck. In terms of procedure for using Disney’s Magical Express for your return trip to MCO, it’s pretty simple.
Simply go out to enjoy the parks on that precious last day of your vacation. Make sure you give yourself plenty of time to get back to your hotel to catch your assigned bus. Unlike the ride to Walt Disney World property, Disney is not nearly as flexible in accommodating you on the way back to the hotel.
If you’ve never used it before, it can sound complicated, but it’s actually incredibly easy to use. It’s actually fairly idiot-proof, too. As long as you can find Level 1 in the airport, you’re set. Someone there will help you with the rest of the details and herd you to your hotel.
Review
Some of you are probably wondering how something that’s “free” might not be worth it. Well, free is in quotes at various places in this article because it’s truly not free. You probably don’t need a reminder of this, but Disney is a for-profit company that doesn’t offer things out of corporate benevolence. Don’t let those cute characters fool you.
As such, there are a couple of costs associated with Disney’s Magical Express. The first is your freedom. This is the big reason Disney offers the service, as it makes guests much less likely to rent cars when visiting Walt Disney World, and thereby makes them less likely to visit competing theme parks, eat off-property, or even go to the grocery store.
In short, it makes tourists a captive audience, and Disney has determined that the average increase in 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. There’s probably a bit more to Disney’s calculations than that, but that’s the basic gist of it.
If you plan on spending your entire vacation on Walt Disney World and thus don’t really care about your freedom, this is not really a cost at all. Even if you do care about having some freedom, services like Uber and Lyft have made it so much easier to go off-property at a relatively low price. These days, we don’t really view “freedom” as that great of a cost.
The second cost is your time. As you can see from the information above, using Disney’s Magical Express can be a time-consuming proposition. It’s usually going to take more time using Disney’s Magical Express than it will take to pick up a rental car and drive directly to your hotel. Unless you are awesome at getting lost in Orlando.
Depending upon how you value your vacation time, the cost of these couple hours on the front and back of your trip may not be worth it. You may see better value in just paying for a rental car for the duration of your trip. These are the two main costs of Disney’s Magical Express. When planning your Disney trip (or living life in general), it’s sometimes important to remember that there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
As for the service itself, we generally like Disney’s Magical Express. That much should sort of be a given, as we use it almost every time we travel. Efficiency with DME can be hit or miss; sometimes we wait 10 minutes from the time our MagicBands are scanned until the bus departs, sometimes we’ve waited 40 minutes. We’ve been taking red-eye flights lately that arrive into Orlando at around 5:30 a.m., and our average wait this early has only been around 15 minutes, and often we have a bus nearly to ourselves–not bad!
Even though it does take longer when using Disney’s Magical Express than when not using it, we believe the difference is negligible. You’re probably looking at a grand total of two hours of vacation time (round-trip, and that’s at the absolute most), which isn’t a big deal to us. Granted this time is at the front and back of the vacation, when you’d do just about anything for “one more hour” in the parks, but in the grand scheme of a trip, it’s not much.
The big benefit of Disney’s Magical Express, as we see it, is convenience. All we have to do is show up, and we’re put on a bus and dropped off right at our hotel. We can even sleep on the way there. Of course, sleeping means you miss out on the video on the way there. Watching that video has become a tradition of our vacations, and although the video itself is a bit corny, it always makes us smile. Disney’s Magical Express, in general, has become such a part of our trips that vacation doesn’t really start until we get on that Magical Express bus.
When discussing Disney’s Magical Express, it seems the topic of renting a car instead always comes up. Aside from the above (using the rental car instead of Disney’s Magical Express to get to and from the airport), it’s important to remember that using Disney’s Magical Express and renting a car for your trip aren’t mutually exclusive. You can take Disney’s Magical Express, and then rent a car once at Walt Disney World for just a few days of your trip (or the whole thing, if you really want).
If you’re on the fence about renting a car for your Walt Disney World vacation, getting to and from the airport shouldn’t really be a consideration either way. Since this is a Disney’s Magical Express review and not a post weighing the merits of renting a car, I won’t go any further down the rental car road in this post. Additionally, taking Uber instead of Disney’s Magical Express can be an option (with some caveats). We touch upon that and some other transportation issues in our Walt Disney World Transportation Tips article.
Overall, we believe that Disney’s Magical Express is still a useful service that offers a fun way to start out your vacation. Granted, it’s not a “signature” experience like riding the monorail, but it still has a “Disney feel” that we’d miss if we didn’t take it. As far as efficiency goes, it’s unquestionably less efficient than renting a car and driving directly to your hotel, but the trade-off is convenience and lack of additional out of pocket cost. It’s not going to be for everyone, and rent-a-car die hards are unluckily to change their ways due to Disney’s Magical Express, but for everyone else, Disney’s Magical Express is a good service that’s worth using. Because of this, all things considered, we recommend using Disney’s Magical Express.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
Your Thoughts…
Are you a fan of Disney’s Magical Express, or do you prefer to get yourself to the hotel? What have been your experiences using Disney’s Magical Express? Disappointed that DME no longer handles luggage? Upset that the service will end entirely in 2022? Planning on using Mears Connect next year? Do you agree or disagree with our review? 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!
Maybe someone alrady ask this, i understand that if i’m staying at a downtown hotel I can use this service?? Is that correct?? I mean like hilton lake buenavista, i can use magical express??
Thanks for answear!!
No, only the Disney hotels (as in ones owned by Disney) are eligible for Disney’s Magical Express.
We used DME when we visted in October 2011. It was wonderful. My boys and I are Disney fanatics, while my husband is a little less enthusiastic, mostly due to the crowds. The DME was great because we didn’t have to go through the stress (or expense) of a car rental and trying to navigate our way through an unknown area. While on property we used the Disney bus system for the most part to get around from our hotel to the parks. (Park hopping we used the monorail and even the ferry once!) While you do need to plan for extra time to use the bus, this again was a life saver to keep my hubby in a good mood. 🙂 The amount of cars driving in was huge, and dealing with parking looked like it would have been a nightmare. We had friends who recently went to WDW and they said Disney even provided a service which took them to the neighboring Universal Studios Harry Potter World, completely eliminating the need for a rental car. Next time we go, we will definitely be using the Magic Express again.
We live in Kentucky and have been to WDW a little over 40 times since 2000. We have always flown and rented a car. For us it is just much faster and easier to get to and from the parks. Not having to stand on a crowded bus at park close is worth it alone. Our kids do not require car seats this year, but always have in the past. I’ll agree that that is kind of a pain to deal with. We also like to get snacks and things from the grocery store for the room, as well as make trips to the Disney outlet store. A trip for us would not be complete without lunch at Sweet Tomatoes upon arrival.
You don’t stand you sit.
Thanks Brian, Tom ,Steve, everyone ; were coming to the two D’s from Aust later in 2014 and I am leaning towards hiring a Dodge (need to google that being some sort of big car) for a family of 6 whilst in WDW area as we are staying for free at Reunion area. Does that sound like a good idea anyone ???
This was so we can go to NASA and Hard rock and some parks although I am guessing there are parking lots at parks for the locals so surely we can drive around. Any tips anyone??
Okay….someone has to say it….someone has to be the person that doesn’t think DME is neither magical or express….it’s me. The loss of freedom is one thing…but the big thing for me is the fact that unless you bring your luggage on with you (which means you’re waiting at baggage claim for your luggage) that your luggage very seldom gets on the bus that you’re riding on and your luggage can arrive as much as 3-4 hours after you do. I DO NOT like the idea of not knowing where my luggage is. To me that’s the biggest negative.
Our first time using the service, we were worried about those issues too, but we carried shorts and t-shirts in our carry-ons, and didn’t give the luggage a thought. We arrived at the hotel around 3 and our room was ready, checked in, slipped on our comfy clothes and were out the door. When we returned for the evening our luggage was there. We actually felt more freedom as we were only weighed down by our camera bags and my wife’s purse from the moment we checked in at home to arrival in our room (although for those concerned about the whereabouts of your luggage, this system could leave you stressed.)
As a family of 5 if we rent a car we need a SUV or minivan because of car seats, a double stroller, and the luggage. These big cars are expensive esp out of mco. the DME saves us about $1000 per week bc we don’t need car. We wouldn’t leave the Disney property anyways and pack small snacks in our luggage. During the peak vacation times we have reserved a mini van but have gotten to MCO and told there are none available and would have to pay for upgrades for a big enough car. Think about how many people fly into MCO needing a van. After the 3rd time stuck at MCO with no car big enough left at any of the rental places and hours of waiting we no longer think renting car is a option we will consider.
I’m going to use the DME for the first time this month and I would like to know better how is the process with luggage.
I’d like to take my own bags. So, if I don’t put the yellow tags on my bags, they will not take them for me?
Thanks a lot!
If you don’t put the yellow tags on your luggage, it will not be picked up by the DME staff and transported to your hotel AUTOMATICALLY. Generally, people who do not use the yellow tags are opting to retrieve their own bags from the luggage carousel and haul them to the DME busses. Once at the hotel, your bags will come off the bus and you will have to get them to your room (either using bell services-or do it yourself). Now, as Tom has stated, if you didn’t use the tags, but want the whole service, you will need to describe the bags to the DME staff at MCO, and they will retrieve them for you and get them to your hotel. I’ve always wondered how many times they accidentally get the wrong bags. So the general rule is…..with tags you drop your bags at your home airport, and the next time you see them, they’re in your room-you don’t need to wait for a bellman and there’s no tipping because you don’t see them arrive. Without tags you have to get your bags yourself and transport them to DME, then handle them again at your hotel OR use the descriptive bag retrieval method.
How’s that for a long answer.
Personally, I like leaving it to DME. Other than a lost bag (and I’ve never had that happen), using the service to it’s fullest, is the least stressful method. If you don’t use the luggage part of the service, and you arrive at your hotel with all your bags, they need to go to bell services….in my book, that means a tip to the bellman. Then when your room is ready, you need to be in your room for the luggage to be delivered….another tip to the bellman and possibly a long wait (we’ve waited over an hour during busy periods). Using DME to the fullest, your bags are dropped IN your room when they arrive and you DON’T have to be there.
We always take our own bags, we can’t use that service because we are from europe and we don’t get the labels. But it’s no problem taking it by ourselves. Just take them to the desk and after that take them to the bus and the driver will store it in the bus and you can go and find a great place in the bus. At the hotel you have your luggage inmediately off the bus and don’t have to wait for it!
We love the magical express, have fun at your trip!
I’ve used DME a few times and generally found it pretty good, especially after a transatlantic flight (I’m from England). So nice to not have to think about transport when you don’t even really know what day it is! The flights we usually get tend to arrive about 2pm and we’ve never had to wait long for a bus. Luggage delivery has also always been pretty efficient.
One caveat, we had an awful experience with it this year when we arrived (on an internal flight) late at night. They didn’t have enough buses still on duty and we ended up waiting about 45 minutes to even get on a bus. In the end they put everyone who was waiting onto one bus stopping at almost every on-site hotel (luckily ours was one of the first). I would never use the service at a similar time ever again – it added so much unnecessary stress.
Am I reading your review correctly about the Swan & Dolphin Not having DME service?
That’s right, no magical express to Swan and Dolphin!
Thanks for this article! We are WDW regulars (used to be once a year, now once every 2-3 years) but we’ve always just drove down from NC. This year we decided to fly – an hour and a half in a plane vs 8-10 hours of 6 adults crammed in a car was worth it – and will be using DME for the first time. This made me feel much more confident in our choice. We never move the car once we’re at WDW anyway, and have enough people that a rental car would have to be a minivan or something, so this should be perfect for us.
We love the Magical Express. The only issue is they always seems to loose our flight information or have it incorrect in their system.
Ahh, that stinks. We’ve had that happen a couple of times, too. Fortunately, they usually can correct it pretty quickly.
Always check for errors! 😉
I just wanted to say that we had a terrific driver on one of our recent visits (December 2011). He was probably the most entertaining live show we saw there. He just cracked so many jokes, I was the target of several since I was up in front. Just silly but not super sanitized material.
I remember he was asking me who I was with (my wife and in-laws) and he said over the speakers “Can we please have a moment of silence for Dave up here? He’s with his in-laws and I don’t think there’s enough magic in the parks to help with that.”
Then asked how we get along, I’m telling him we get along great (because we do), but he says “Oh, I’m terribly sorry, please try to work it out before it comes to that.”
He also went on to say how you can tell where people are from by how they are dressed From the north – you’re wearing shorts and a t-shirt, from the south, you have long pants and a heavy coat, if you’re from Maryland (which he knew we were from) – you wear shorts and a heavy coat.
It may fall into the “you had to be there” type of comedy, but he was really good. All other rides, the drivers have been quiet and efficient, just wanted to tip my cap to that guy, and say that they can be fun experiences on their own.
Dave
For my family renting a car probably takes just as long as DME. It is usually 2 hrs by the time we get our checked bags, take care of the car rental paperwork (I can never figure out why this takes so long), install car seats, and drive to our hotel.
Wow! I guess I’m the only dissenter here, but I’ve never tried Magical Express and probably never will. I’m an inpatient person in general, and if I see a better or more efficient way to do things, I get agitated. Having to wait at the airport for the bus to get there, then having to wait for a bus each and every time you want to leave the hotel seems frustrating.
My family and I just get ready in the morning, hop in the rental car, and cruise to the park or hotel of our choice. The cost of a rental really isn’t that big of an issue when I weigh it against the freedom I gain. Plus, we always love to drive around during any vacation to get a feel for the local environment, not just the tourist districts, and WDW is no exception. We love to go downtown Orlando and go to the Hard Rock or something if we have time. Plus we love to resort/pool hop on some of the off days, and I imagine having to take a bus from our WDW hotel, to a theme park, just to go to another WDW hotel would be frustrating when the hotel sometimes is just down the road.
And perhaps the biggest perk of not using the Magical Express, are that WDW roads are like the Autobahn. Signs are everywhere to make it idiot proof, hardly any traffic, and you can go pretty fast as I’ve never seen a Disney traffic cop clocking, although I’m sure they are there. Perhaps the new Fastpass+ with RFID will change that though. :/
Hop in a rental car… Then find out it is a terrible car that is way too expensive for what you get.
We’ve used DME every trip thus far. A couple of notes in regards to your review.
– we’ve never waited more then 10-15 minutes to leave the airport. We usually stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge but have also stayed at Saratoga Springs and Old Key West. On average we arrive at the airport between 6-10am and have always been allowed to board the bus without a wait. Average time it takes including, arriving at the Magical Express Terminal, loading, waiting, driving and unloading (other hotels included) maybe an hour, I think the longest we took was an hour and fifteen minutes.
– luggage. We’ve had two or three trips now, where our dme luggage tags never arrive. And we’ve been able to supply our luggage tags given to us from the airline after checking our bags, to DME. They copy the information, get th description and have never once lost our luggage. Every time it’s been there waiting for us.
– even if you plan on venturing to other attractions in Orlando, magical express is great. We’ve take. Shuttles and cabs from our resort to Universal/SeaWorld + and never had a issue. Some (universal+mears) offer specials where if bought together you buy park tickets and transportation vouchers for the same price of the park tickets. Essentially it’s free transportation.
Love love love DME!
We’ve arrived at a variety of different times, and mid-afternoon *seems* to be the worse to us in terms of wait. It’s busier than early morning, but not so busy that they have extra buses (as they do in early-evening). We haven’t arrived in early morning enough times for me to have an opinion on our “average” wait time then. Sounds like it’s usually not bad! Thanks for the feedback.
This was extremely helpful. Do they have to pick up your luggage for you? I would actually prefer to do this myself.
We’ve done it both ways. If you prefer, you can pick up your own luggage and take it with you to the DME. They store it under the bus (baggage compartment), and get it out for you upon arrival at your resort.
We love the DME!
Nope, you can pick it up!
Do they frown upon you picking up your own bags and taking it on to the DME ?
Nope, go for it!
Has anyone ever used the DME on a holiday? We are landing at 1:00 Thanksgiving day and was wondering if historically it has been crowded or difficult on holiday travel?
We love DME. Next trip, we are going to rent a car. Huge family trip and we are staying off property and renting a house. It will be a different experience for sure!
Thanks for sharing such helpful tips with us first-timers! I was really looking forward to joining the Disney bubble and to watching the cheesy videos, but I’m not so sure I’d enjoy a near two hour bus-ride after flying coach for hours and hours. Although it still seems kinda fun.
Definitely do it–it’s fun and an experience you should have at least once. It’s not a 2-hour bus ride and most likely isn’t a 2-hour “total process” either.
We will be using Magical Express for the first time this September. How secure is the Bell Service to check your carry-on bags when you arrive so that you can hit the parks without having to lug along your carry-ons? I am looking forward to trying out this service for the 1st time. It sounds great!!
We always use Bell Services to store our luggage on our last day, and I typically have a laptop, camera gear, and other stuff in there. I’ve never felt any concern over safety.
That said, I’m sure there are stories out there of people having their luggage stolen or something. I just think the likelihood of that happening is slim to none, so it’s not something that worries me. There’s always the opportunity for something going wrong somewhere…
The worst part about using the Magical Express for us was seeing the Disney Cruise Line bus and all the super lucky people getting on that bus. I find myself asking “can I just get on that one instead?” I love WDW but after we went on our first DCL…now it’s just a tease.