Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine Review: Is Disney World’s Airport Shuttle Still Good?
Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine is a shuttle bus between Orlando Airport and Walt Disney World resorts plus on-site third party hotels and a few off-site options. This transportation review shares our experiences with the paid replacement for Magical Express, and how it’s gotten better & worse since the merger with its competitor.
Let’s start with a quick recap. Walt Disney World’s free shuttle service between MCO and the company’s resorts, Disney’s Magical Express (DME), ended over 2 years ago. The elimination of the airport shuttle was big and surprising Walt Disney World news, and continues to anger fans. It’s made the list of Top 10 Guest Complaints About Walt Disney World in each of the last two years, and undoubtedly will again in 2024 and even 2025 if the service isn’t magically restored ahead of Universal’s Epic Universe opening.
In place of that free bus service between MCO and resort hotels, two paid bus services originally filled the void. One was/is Mears Connect, the old operator of Disney’s Magical Express that now uses the same buses and drivers. The other was Sunshine Flyer, an upstart service with a fun railroad theme. One of those is past tense and the title of this review is “Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine,” so the astute detectives may see where this is going…
Mears Connect and Sunshine Flyer “joined forces” last summer to form Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine. This merger has pros and cons for consumers. Competition is always good for keeping prices and service competitive. But in this case, there arguably wasn’t a market for two competing shuttle services between MCO and WDW.
We used both Mears Connect and Sunshine Flyer separately on several occasions, and now have used the combined Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine about a half-dozen times. This review aims to address the concerns raised by readers to determine whether Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine is “still good” compared to Mears Connect, Sunshine Flyer, or the OG DME.
For those who haven’t used any shuttle service between Orlando International Airport and Walt Disney World since the demise of Disney’s Magical Express–or ever, for that matter–let’s begin with a bit of background. In a nutshell, these are high capacity coach buses that take you from the various terminals at MCO to your on-site resort at Walt Disney World, as well as a handful of off-site ones in the WDW area.
Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine is attractive to many Walt Disney World fans because it’s the same company that operated Disney’s Magical Express. The biggest selling point of Mears Connect is their claim that it’s the same reliable, safe service guests have been using for decades to Walt Disney World area hotels. Again, this is largely a rebranded Disney’s Magical Express–it literally uses the exact same drivers and buses, just minus the Disney-branded wraps. Some of the buses look very similar to the old ‘ocean-liner’ DME buses, with only Disney logos and characters removed.
Since the merger between Sunshine Flyer and Mears Connect, the combined company has also absorbed the railroad-themed buses into the fleet, and given them new wraps in the style of Mears Connect, with nautical exteriors and marine life (manatees, dolphins, turtles, etc.) on the outside. Gone are all traces of the trains.
Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine promises fast and convenient airport transportation service in high occupancy vehicles, limited wait times to board a bus, comfortable seating, limited stops to your hotel, affordable transportation where kids under three ride free, no need to worry about Uber or Lyft rideshare surge pricing, plenty of luggage space, and wheelchair accessibility.
It’s easy to book Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine online, and can be done in a matter of minutes. My slight nitpick is that this is more difficult to do via their mobile site, encountering hiccups a few times while my plane is taxiing to the gate at MCO. But it’s still better and easier than Sunshine Flyer was–that required several days advance notice. I can literally book Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine whenever.
To that point, I never reserve my ride in amount of time in advance. There’s zero incentive to do so, as the pricing is the same upon arrival and buses are dispatched as they fill up–not based on bookings (which makes complete sense given flight delays, early arrivals, luggage pickup times, etc).
Because of this, I always check the prices of Uber and Lyft from MCO to WDW right when landing. If the pricing premium is too steep, I quickly book Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine. As I’ve been flying solo for the last year-plus, Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine has been the better option 100% of the time. If it were both of us, it would be about 50/50.
To this point, you can also make walk-up reservations for Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine upon arrival. It’s a simple process that takes less than a minute, and there’s no disincentive to doing this. So if you land and discover that Uber or Lyft are too expensive or that your rental car reservation has an issue or whatever, Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine is an easy pivot.
Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine has two options: Standard and Express. The latter is direct service to your resort and back to the airport, as the guaranteed first stop. Express is not necessarily a private service; it may be shared. Given that, booking Mears Connect Express makes no sense whatsoever, as Mears has a number of competitors that specialize in actual private service.
I’ve been placed on Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine Express a few times, and on 2 of those occasions, they customers who booked Express were surprised that it was shared and that they were crammed in a van with a bunch of strangers. Part of this is on them–Mears Connect’s website makes clear that it might be shared. But the overall service they received and caliber of the experience, in my view, was not commensurate with what I know they paid for it.
Even without having used Express, I would not recommend booking it. There are better alternatives that specialize in private transfers. Or just use Uber or Lyft? Mears’ strong suit is high-capacity transportation solutions–not service or efficiency–so I cannot fathom what they bring to the table on the Express front. Despite that being part of the DME name, “express” is essentially the antithesis of the Mears name.
With Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine, you’ll receive a boarding pass sometime before your pickup with a QR code via email. Upon landing at MCO, you should also receive a text message reminder welcoming you to Orlando with a link to the boarding pass and arrival instructions.
Take this QR code to the self-service check-in stands and scan it. If for whatever reason that doesn’t work–or you didn’t get a QR code–there’s staff present to assist. Whether you do self-service check-in or the assisted version, the process is incredibly smooth. Mears is definitely efficient at this portion of the process. After this, they send you on your way to the loading zone.
When this merger was first announced, a lot of Walt Disney World fans were concerned about long lines for loading and the combined Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine becoming super busy and inefficient as a result. That has not been my experience at all. To the contrary, the times I’ve used Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine in 2023 and 2024, the combined service has been (significantly) less busy than when we used Mears Connect or Sunshine Flyer in 2022 (through Spring Break 2023).
This is very seasonal and time-of-arrival dependent, but I’ve yet to encounter more than a dozen or so people in the entire Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine loading area. Two of my flights were in the fall off-season, but another two were doing a normal time, and two more were at near-peak times around Veterans Day and MLK Day. On all occasions, Orlando International Airport was at least moderately busy. (Like Walt Disney World, there doesn’t seem to be a “slow” time at MCO anymore–at least, not as compared to 2019 or earlier.)
The good news is that I’ve been almost instantly loaded onto a Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine bus every time. I would hazard a guess that my average wait time for being loaded is under 90 seconds. Maybe once I waited about 5 minutes, but that was seemingly an anomaly.
The bad news is that the waiting time once on the bus can be much longer as Mears does everything in its power not to dispatch nearly empty buses. I haven’t actually timed these waits, but I’d hazard a guess that the average is 15-20 minutes. There have been a couple of times that I’ve waited 30+ minutes for the bus to be dispatched.
Even then, I’ve yet to be on a bus that was more than 25% full. On average, there are 4-5 stops. I’m often heading to Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort or Disney’s All Star Sports, and I’d say about half the time, this has also entailed a stop at the off-site Gaylord Palms Resort. That doesn’t bother me; it’s nearby the All Stars and Coronado. There have been other times when we’ve gone to random resorts on the other side of property–like the Magic Kingdom area–which is fairly inefficient.
I’m no mathematician, but I assume someone must be the first stop when taking these shared shuttle services from the airport, but it’s somehow never me. In years of using Disney’s Magical Express and now these successor shuttles, I’d reckon that we’ve been the last or second-to-last stop approximately 90% of the time. Maybe somewhere out there, our Wario and Waluigi counterparts are boasting on their blog about always being first.
Back in my younger days, this used to really bug me. I was impatient and excited, happy to be back “home” at Walt Disney World but overly-eager to hit the ground running and get to the parks. The time from the first to last stop felt like forever. Now that I’m older and wiser (not really), you could say that I’ve mellowed out a bit. Or you could say that due to the abundance of empty seats, I sit in the back, pull out my laptop and use the Mears bus as my workstation to get stuff done. This is probably the more accurate assessment, as I’m still accused of being impatient and intense–just not when it comes to buses, I suppose.
The moral of the story is that Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine has become more time-consuming, on average, than Disney’s Magical Express or even circa-2022 Mears Connect or Sunshine Flyer. But this is not due to the lack of competition, as some Walt Disney World fans fear.
To the contrary, it’s due to lack of demand. This problem would be even worse had the companies not merged, as there’d be the same number of customers spread over 2 shuttle services. They would still not want to dispatch nearly-empty buses, so they’d wait longer in the loading area, reduce the number of buses, increase the number of stops, etc.
Even if my half dozen experiences have all somehow been outliers (pretty hard to believe since I also used Mears Connect and Sunshine Flyer during their waning days and those separate ‘results’ weren’t materially different), the point still stands. Demand is an issue, and there are not enough riders to sustain two separate shuttles. Even if there are long lines and packed buses during peak season (I’m skeptical of this), the existence of what I’m describing–on many occasions–points to unsustainability overall.
In any case, you can expect Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine to take about an hour on the low end and up to 2 hours on the high end. I would estimate that my time from arriving at the Mears check-in podium to arriving at the resort averages around 100 minutes. Since I’m doing work and not timing the commute, I don’t have a precise number–that could be slightly off.
I would also estimate that the average commute is now ~20% longer than it was with Disney’s Magical Express, which is driven wholly by the longer wait before being dispatched. The drive from the airport still takes the same amount of time, as do the stops between each resort.
The wildcards are going to be the wait to depart and number of stops. Those are variables for which no single review can account, and even if they could, you’d have no way of knowing what your experience would be before arrival. If you get really lucky, it could take 45 minutes on the absolute low end; if you’re really unlucky, over 2 hours on the high end wouldn’t shock me.
This is the tough thing about reviewing Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine, or even Disney’s Magical Express before. It’s so dependent upon good or bad luck/timing. Two guests could arrive 10 minutes apart but have polar opposite reviews–one just barely making the bus to their destination and the other just missing it. One might write effusive praise online about the shuttle service, the other a rant about poor service and delays. Both would be equally true, with mere minutes separating awesome(ish) from the awful.
Honestly, the ride taking 20% longer for the bus being far less full is a tradeoff that I will happily take, as it allows me to pull out my laptop and do work in peace and comfort. For this reason, I’ve started using Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine on occasions when Uber/Lyft are a closer call. Because at least with Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine, I know I’m getting a quiet ride. Rideshares are more of a wildcard, and I don’t like being rude or aloof if my driver is chatty.
Obviously, though, all of this is highly personal. If you’re a family of 4, it’s not like “pull out your laptop and respond to comments on your Disney blog” is useful advice to your 6 year old twins. They probably don’t even have a Disney blog yet. What they might share with me is a sense of impatience and excitement, and that 20% longer ride could be what brings them to their breaking point.
It should be noted that the above review focuses on the service from the airport to Walt Disney World. I use Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine for getting to MCO far less frequently because I don’t want to be at the airport 2+ hours before my flight. (If you don’t have TSA Precheck, you absolutely should–I’ve seen security wait times of 45-60 minutes on a few recent occasions.)
Nevertheless, I have used the return service about a half-dozen times (and here, I’m also lumping in past experiences with regular Mears Connect, pre-merger). It is generally better. What I really appreciate about this is that they text you a link with real-time tracking of your bus, so you can hang out in the lobby or wherever, and only go out shortly before the bus arrives.
I’ve also noticed that Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine is more efficient and the buses are fuller on those return trips. Granted, it’s a relatively small sample size, but I assume that’s because Mears is able to use capacity management and allocation systems to arrange pickup times and dispatch buses accordingly.
Nevertheless, I prefer using Uber or Lyft for getting back to the airport. It also helps that I almost always leave on the exact same flight, and the average rideshare cost is predictably low when I need to leave at around 1 p.m. (seemingly the sweet spot between the morning and afternoon rushes).
On the service side, I have zero complaints about Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine. Staff at the airport has been courteous, and the drivers are always friendly. Some try to liven up the bus ride with an upbeat attitude and Disney-related commentary. No issues or complaints whatsoever–they do as good of a job as can be expected.
With that said, the issue for a lot of Walt Disney World fans is that Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine does not have that inarticulable Disney quality to it. Disney’s Magical Express had a lot of flaws, but it was easy to overlook them because DME was a magical way to start their vacation. Being greeted by Mickey Mouse in his captain’s hat, a memorable and quotable video on board, and various little Disney touches all made it easier to overlook what was otherwise an inefficient method of airport transportation.
It wasn’t that Disney’s Magical Express was good, it was that it was Disney. An immersive experience from the moment you landed in Orlando, all the while building anticipation aboard the bus and ultimately exiting at your themed resort. It was exciting and distinctly Disney–even while being operated by Mears. It was a bittersweet end to the trip, but one that already began planting the seeds for your next visit. Unsurprisingly, Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine doesn’t have any of that X-factor. Maybe you care, maybe you don’t, but it is what it is.
Ultimately, that’s been my experience with Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine post-merger of the two airport shuttle services. Whether it’s “still good” depends on whether you thought it was ever good in the first place. If yes, then probably still yes. If no, then almost certainly still no.
Whether the airport shuttle service is right for you is a personal question, and hopefully one you can answer in light of the above information about waits, service, and cost. Our view is that Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine is a good option if the math works out on it (typically meaning you have a smaller party size).
We’ll be using Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine for Megatron’s first trip to Walt Disney World due to the carseat situation with Uber and Lyft, since the numbers don’t quite work on private transfer for us. My view on Mears is that it’s the lack of better options option. Your mileage may vary, though. There’s value in predictability, convenience, and using an established service.
After these experiences with Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine in the last ~6 months, my biggest concern now is that the airport shuttle service may not exist at all in 2025 or 2026. I know that Mears offered airport buses even before Disney’s Magical Express, but the world has changed so much since then. Rideshare services are ubiquitous and rental cars are more abundant.
Pretty soon, there’s going to be an airport train to Universal (etc.) that could further reduce the demand for those options, driving down prices and thereby decreasing demand for Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine. Part of me wonders if the only way an airport shuttle is viable at all in the long-run is by being an on-site perk offered by Walt Disney World. I guess we shall see.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think of Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine? Have you already used the airport shuttle service post-merger? If so, what were your wait times and overall impression of the offering? Will you use this, or is it too expensive for shared transportation? Will you opt for Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine over Uber, Lyft, or renting a car? Thoughts on pricing, efficiency, or anything else? 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!
Our first Mears Connect trip in August (MCO to the resort) was our last. It was ok, but as unmagical (actually, less magical since no Disney branding at all) as the old Gray Line Disney-branded coach shuttles that used to operate between LAX and Disneyland. Without the Disney theming, it’s just a boring wait and a boring ride. Our ride back we ghosted Mears and took an Uber to MCO, and we were floored with how much faster and easier it was. We’ll likely just do rideshare between MCO and WDW from now on. We survived when the Gray Line shuttle went away at LAX, so without the theming we’re going to prioritize speed, instead.
I have used many different types of shuttle however the part I miss the most from the Magical Express is them getting my bags from the airport baggage claim and taking them to the resort for me. With magical express, once my plane landed I was on vacation and could go directly to the park and didn’t have to mess with or worry about getting my bags. I don’t mind paying an additional cost for the old Magical Express benefits.
Exactly this! Dropped my families bags off at airport and I felt like vacation had started knowing everything was taken care of. Also, loved the airport check-in process at the resorts on way home. Checked bags in and knew I didn’t have to worry about them until I landed. I had 3 small kids so this relieved quite a bit of travel-stress.
I see MCO to Disneyworld on Mears is $16/adult and $13/child. For our family of 4, I’m taking Uber/Lyft unless it’s over $100. Much faster and private. I wish rental cars were still under $30/day since parking is free at resorts and parks if you’re staying at a Disney Hotel.
I will always be nostalgic for DME. Our first visit was in 2014 and our girls were 5 and 2. The bus driver asked my oldest if she knew “Elsa’s song” and she proceeded to belt it out at the top of her lungs. Instead of being annoyed, the other passengers actually joined in the sing-a-long. This finished with a huge round of applause for my daughter and the MAGIC of Disney was cemented with our family forever! Never underestimate the power of a bus ride! Ha!
Four*
For a family of for, the paid shuttle doesn’t make sense. That said, I loved DME when it was offered. Our kids are older now, but they LOVED getting to scan their MagicBands when we first arrived for our shuttle. The characters on the buses were cute, and getting to watch Disney cartoons on the ride to our resort was a huge perk for them.
I am one of those people who really take issue with the elimination of DME as a WDW service. I’ve filled out those post-vacation surveys and ranted about the elimination of DME! Many top destinations in the country offer free shuttle service, or at LEAST a service with a fee that they organize. Occasionally (well, rarely), I travel solo, and I feel a lot safer arriving to places like San Francisco and hopping on a hotel shuttle at midnight versus hopping into an Uber alone. When I book a trip on the Disney website and select “include transportation,” it takes me to a car rental site. To me, that’s ridiculous. When families are paying $5,000-$10,000 vacations, it looks really bad (and cheap) to not have a transportation option from the airport organized by Disney.
Spent what seemed like a fortune in September for Express and was completely disappointed on how long it actually took to leave the airport. Waste of time and money.
We used Mears to get to Pop Century last month. We were the second stop after Art of Animation, which really didn’t come as a surprise. It only took about 35 minutes from when we got on the bus, but maybe we got lucky?
Same for me. I just got home yesterday. We took Mears Connect to Pop Century and then again to the airport. From the airport we were the 2nd stop, Animation being first. It was about a 35 minute ride. Then leaving from Pop Century to the airport, bus arrived exactly 12:35 as scheduled and dropped us at the airport in plenty of time. It was only 2 of us so the $34 fee each way was ok but for a family of 4, I probably would have taken Uber or Lyft.
Tom, do you actually think there’s a possibility now that Disney will bring it back in some capacity. The tone in you’re post sounds more optimistic than in the past. As a parent with two young kids, I’m still disappointed and hoping. We just made the 1000 mile trek from PA to Florida last month to avoid all the headaches of airports, and everything else that comes with it. I’m still 50/50 on which is the easier option but bringing back DME might tip the scale. I’ve felt disappointed in our experience with Sunshine last year.
Optimistic is probably a stretch. To be clear, I’ve heard absolutely nothing.
I’m just thinking about it logically. Pent-up demand is dying down, Universal is about to open a new theme park, and Walt Disney World has nothing prepared to open in 2025. If I’m WDW and worried about losing hotel bookings to Universal (and honestly, that’s the real fear–not so much attendance), what’s my best play? Perks. And what’s a really big perk that also helps keep (some) people on-site? Disney’s Magical Express.
Beyond that, I really wonder if an airport shuttle service is sustainable in the current ‘era’ as a standalone option. It probably wouldn’t be great for Disney to lose Mears Connect entirely–it’s a symbiotic relationship, of sorts.
“Beyond that, I really wonder if an airport shuttle service is sustainable in the current ‘era’ as a standalone option.”
I honestly don’t think it is. It seems the biggest reasons people miss Magical Express are luggage handling and not having to worry about car seats. I can’t the former ever coming back, between how labor intensive it is and the potential liability issues for lost luggage. Car seats are a valid concern, but I’m not sure how large a percentage of the WDW population truly need them at any given time. (I’d be willing to bet the vast majority of kids only take 1-2 WDW trips while car seat sized, despite this blog having a higher percentage of families that go more often.)
I suspect a big reason DME lasted as long as it did was because it was included with hotel stays; when paying out of pocket, it’s a lot less appealing. If you have a large family, the cost of a per person shuttle service is enough that it isn’t that much more to just book a truly private car service. If you are a solo traveler or couple, the shuttle is cheaper, but you’re also more likely to have more disposable income and elect to “treat yourself” to an Uber/Lyft which again, is quicker and private. The extra $20-ish each way only adds up if you are doing multiple visits per year, like our favorite intrepid blogger extraordinaire.
I’ve been using Mears vans since the early 90’s. Back then, seeing the yellow shuttles outside MCO made us as excited as we were later upon seeing the DME – either way, it signaled the official start of our WDW stay. DME definitely felt sexier, especially when you could scan your MagicBand and sail right through to the the 20-minute line for your bus. (Tom, our perpetual experience was being the very first family in line as we watched the prior bus pull away.) I’ve never minded the short detours through other resort port cochères on Mears/DME. It’s always been fun to get a sense of the ambiance and theming at neighboring resorts before reaching “home.” Nowadays I shop aggressively for good rental car deals, but the right option varies by time of year and length of stay.
For me, the disappointment with the lack of DME is that I have to pick up my own luggage. If Mears offered that service, I would happily give up all my gripes about missing DME.
I used Mears for my trip at the beginning of December, and while it wasn’t awful, it was very clear that they had a lot of green staff who didn’t know what they were doing. At MCO, we were loaded onto a bus, and then unloaded from the bus, and then waiting on the sidewalk, and then loaded onto another bus before we actually left. On the way back to MCO, the driver picked up some “early birds” who were meant to be on a later bus, and then ran into a problem when a reservation for our bus had more people than expected; this one is more a guest problem than a Mears problem, but the driver didn’t anticipate any hiccups with her other pickups, and I think that speaks to an unseasoned driver, because people will always suck somehow.
On an MCO security note, I saw on an AllEars video recently that there’s something called MCO Reserve, which is completely free and it’s literally a reservation time to go through security. Might be a great resource for any international guests like me for whom the TSA PreCheck fee isn’t worthwhile.
Thank you for pointing out that no advance registration is required and that you can register once you land after checking rideshare prices! That totally makes sense given the logistics of flights and their timeliness.
In the past, I have been ultra conservative and figured that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush and therefore booked Mears well in advance.
I considered Mears at the height of mid- and post-Covid surge pricing from Uber and Lyft. Now that my kids no longer need carseats (an under appreciated milestone for traveling families), I much prefer the rideshares to the shared buses. I haven’t seen bad surge pricing in a while, though; is it still regularly an issue?
The bus is such a great option for families that need car/booster seats. I hope they remain viable.
We have used both Mears and Sunshine in the past when they were separate companies and always had good experiences with both. Our most recent trip in late January was the first time we used Mears Connect Driven by Sunshine and it was terrible. The loading area was chaotic and we waited about 40 minutes for our bus which as about half full. We were unlucky to be the last ones off the bus about two hours later but a big part of that delay was avoidable. At one of our resort stops, our bus was nearly done unloading two people when another Mears bus drove around our bus and blocked us in while he spent 20 minutes unloading half of his bus. Our driver, who was older and had driven for Mears for decades, apologized and said that there used to be etiquette among the drivers but not any more.
Our return trip was equally bad. About an hour after our expected pickup time, a Mears bus finally showed up and dropped off all of their passengers. We assumed this empty bus was ours but the driver informed us that he was not picking up passengers. Only after that driver radioed in did another bus finally pick us up. We barely made our flight – I suspect others on that bus were not as lucky.
Given our good experiences in the past, I guess we were just due for some bad luck but I don’t think we will give Mears another chance on our next trip in October.
The shuttles will likely have our business for any trip we can’t budget the time in for driving (DC to WDW should only a 12 hour drive, but actually ends up being about 400 hours with our little kids.) I use rideshares personally pretty frequently but we gave up on trying to do them with car seats and kids. The number of times a rideshare has started driving off while I’m still buckling the car seat in suggests to me that they aren’t actually very kid friendly (they may be more so in Orlando than here in DC.)
We’re driving this year, on what we’re calling “The Ultimate Disney Road Trip,” hitting up Hilton Head, WDW and Vero Beach. But if we want a trip that isn’t multiple weeks long? Mears or the Disney-replacement we’re all dreaming of will get our business.
I have pretty much had the exact experiences as you did, Tom, but since I never got to experience the glory days of ME its never bothered me one way or another. I take the bus if its just me, i take an uber in a group. I do miss the train buses though and I’m glad I got a bunch of pics of them now! But if Mears is hurting cause it’s unsustainable and Disney is still getting complaints about lack of bus inclusion…I wonder if there is any chance of them striking a new deal?
I’ve used both before their merge, and honestly I’ll stick with Uber for the time being because even if I don’t have a park ticket for my arrival day, I do want to get to my hotel ASAP. Being able to get to my room and unpack helps me relax, and I get antsy waiting on the bus until they decide it’s full enough.
As MeghanR said, the constant trekking around the airport is the drawback. I’ve been in multiple airports now where there are Uber/Lyft stations at all terminals, so it makes it very easy and convenient to wait for my ride.
“They probably don’t even have a Disney blog yet.”
Hahaha!!
The shuttle service when leaving the airport was timely with a nice and efficient driver. The shuttle service collecting us from the resort and returning us to the airport was Late, and then proceeded to speed and drive unsafely in order to make up time. Everyone on the bus commented on his unpleasant driving style with abrupt stops and starts that jostled everyone about. As an aside, I will never use the shuttle service again because we always fly to MCO on Southwest Airlines. The baggage claim and the shuttle service collection point were on two different floors and far from each other. Way too much traversing of the airport. Same with drop off. We had to walk about the entire airport to arrive at check baggage for southwest – from shuttle drop off. I hadn’t experienced this issue before because baggage delivery was part of Disney’s Transportation. I do not mind paying for the service but the paid version should at least include the same level of baggage handling and delivery.
Totally agree. I would pay for the luggage service. I think in hindsight most of us miss that most of all. I miss just heading to the hotel knowing that my bags would be picked up and brought to my room while I went directly to the park. I also miss the airline check in at the hotel. It was so convenient. It made it easier not having to deal with waiting in line to get your bags checked. Disney already that part for you and you had your ticket in hand. So if we could just find someone that would work with Disney to pick up our luggage from the airport, I believe we all would pay that.
Used Mears Connect last year to get to Polynesian, and it was fine – like you said, roughly the same sort of service we’d had previously on DME, just without the convenience of having your bags sent straight to your room. For the return, we left by Lyft directly from Animal Kingdom, so no commentary there. To be honest, had we not already booked Mears Connect, we’d have just rented a car, since they dropped the resort parking fees just before our trip.
What did you do with your luggage while you were at Animal Kingdom? I would like to leave from there as well