Magical Express is going away on Jan. 1, 2022

[ITGirl50]

To everyone complaining, how did you get from the airport in 2004?

Tiffany Towncar, but we were a young family traveling all at the same time. Now we come in on different flights and I feel that my young adult daughter who is traveling alone, is safe. Also having family members who have never been to WDW can travel alone and easily find their way to the resort. No stress travel.

 

[EYL]

Sorry, but I love this change. My wife and I have been wanting them to charge for ME for a long time. Right now, I am having to subsidize people who use the service even though we always drive. Nothing is truly free, someone’s paying for it. Now, I won’t have to pay for someone else to use the service. The whining going on is laughable. ME has been around less than 20 years. People survived before it and will survive again.

In that same vein, the "free" parking at the resorts when you drive and use your DVC points are being subsidized by others. So, I think it might even out. One can always say "I never drive, so why should I pay for maintenance of the parking lot?" Disney gets us to pay for something that we don't use one way or another...

 

[DVCSunDevil]

This seems like excellent news for Uber/Lyft and rather bizarre news for Disney. The whole "captive audience" argument made a ton of sense to me. To be fair, guests always could've gone offsite with Uber/Lyft even when they took DME to WDW from MCO, but now Disney in planting the seed in guests' minds that they should be utilizing the ride share services, something that will surely inspire guests to travel offsite with some of their money. Will that offsite spending offset the savings of cutting DME? I don't know. Surely Disney thinks not. But we'll see.

Exactly. People on here keep saying they will just take a ride share offsite to eat because of how much cheaper it will be. Number one, they always could have done that so why start doing it now? But a round trip ride to get to good enough restaurants off site will be, what, $60 round trip at a minimum? No way a meal offsite is $60 less than a place at Disney Springs.

 

[WilsonFlyer]

To everyone complaining, how did you get from the airport in 2004?

We ALWAYS rented a car when we used to fly, but we didn't go but every 2-3 years and I Wanted to have wheels. So the obvious answer to your question is that we drive, and we always have, one way or another. To be perfectly honest, I could care less about DME, but we're from NC and we go 3-5 times a year now and honestly, it's way cheaper for us to drive and have my wheels than to fly and have to rent wheels, even at today's mostly ridiculously low rental rates (Sure to change.).

I care a lot more about EMH quite honestly, but we saw the writing on the wall with those 2-3 years ago as they were shortened and for all the other reasons already outlined in other threads.

The funniest thing of all is the one thing that nobody's mentioned in either thread so far, at least not that I have seen. February's surely coming, and guess what historically comes in February? They will either raise them or "in their infinite desire to be understanding of families and these time we are in," they will keep ticket prices the same (for now) and tell us all how big of a favor they're doing for all of us. I'm still betting on the former because that's where the smart money's being played. Don't worry. 15-20% is coming surely as I know my name. And I bet it won't take until February 2022. Takers? I 'spect not.

 

[Kickstart]

I'm definitely bummed about ME going away.

As others have said, WDW should have communicated this better... either explained why it was necessary and/or talked about potential alternatives in the works... instead of saying "hey, looks like this isn't needed any more - you guys are good with ride shares, right?"

It's kind of a head scratcher how poorly this was communicated.

That said, I was already thinking about just getting a Lyft the next time we go. Seems like it's a faster way to get to the resort (I have no data to back this up, but waiting for the bus and potentially driving to another resort first seemed a lot longer than just driving directly).

 

[WilsonFlyer]

Communications ain't their strong suit of late. The track has been well laid for a while now.

 

[WilsonFlyer]

The full operating budget is available online. It will be easy to see if transportation dollars budgeted are less for 2022 than for 2021. We did get a refund for 2019 through a credit because the resorts were closed.

If you'd be so kind as to point me to a link for the line item that references Disney's Magical Express bus service for any resort or even the DVC resorts as a whole, I'd be ever so grateful. I must have missed that. I'll wait.

 

[DVCSunDevil]

I honestly have read so many comments on here in the past that were very critical of the DME:
- waiting forever for the bus upon arrival
- long trips, especially during heavy traffic times
- at times being very noisy when young children in the party were tired from travel
- having your resort be one of the later stops on arrival (especially when the first resort stops are the “cheaper” resorts)
- having to leave four hours early upon departure (that is crazy)
Yet many people are romanticizing DME, as if Tinker Bell herself sprinkled magic pixy dust on each passenger when they arrived. I completely understand that people are used to certain routines, so the DME going away will throw a wrench into many people’s routine. That part stinks, I get it. But everyone will adapt.

At the end of the day, DME is a bus that transfers people to their resort. I am confident there will be alternatives offered by Disney, or the alternative will be offered by another company that sees an opportunity. Either way, everyone will find a way to get from the airport to their resort. Just like we all do on every non-WDW vacation.

 

[New Mouse]

Woah. Airport transportation would have been the difference between spending and not spending $56,000 on a 50 year timeshare?

I get it, this stinks for those who use it, but a timeshare is a timeshare and the only thing our contracts guarantee is the opportunity to book a room.

Thats an increase of $2500 to $5000 over the life of the contract. Possibly more.

 

[New Mouse]

To everyone complaining, how did you get from the airport in 2004?

They took the money they saved on the resort and rented a car or a cab.

 

[Maistre Gracey]

And to think life at WDW existed before DME..

Never used it. Never will.

 

[RoseGold]

These logistics comments are missing the point. DME and EMH were magic.

Sure, we own five figure timeshares. We know how to Uber. Before Covid, I probably took 50 ubers a month, and a lot of them with strollers and car seats and luggage. Not magical. The whole point was that DME and EMH and fireworks and princesses were that above and beyond Disney experience, which I was happy to pay more for.

I’m not sure why we are paying this high of a premium if that Disney experience isn’t there. There are plenty of places to get a decent hotel with a mediocre mattress and no bathrobe, after you unpack your car seats from the Uber. Or I could pay $40 and drive to Six Flags.

 

[striker1064]

Thats an increase of $2500 to $5000 over the life of the contract. Possibly more.

$5,000 is ~8% of the, I repeat, $56,000 buy-in. An even smaller percentage overall of the annual dues paid out in total over the life of the contract.

I'm simply pointing out how weird it is that the elimination of airport service would be the breaking point of $56,000 today plus ballooning annual dues over the next ~50 years for a contract that does not guarantee the availability of airport service.

 

[ITGirl50]

If you'd be so kind as to point me to a link for the line item that references Disney's Magical Express bus service for any resort or even the DVC resorts as a whole, I'd be ever so grateful. I must have missed that. I'll wait.

Login to DVC member website, go to My DVC, click on condo association news, click on condo association notices. You will see the budgets for 2020 and 2021 for the resorts you own. Transportation is a line item. Each resort has a different budget for transportation. For example AKV has a transportation budget of $5.7MM for 2021 out of a $40.9MM budget. BLT $2.3MM out of a $24.1MM budget.

 

[Disneybuckeye]

We added on a resale at CCV and just waiting for the points to get to our bucket and I feel the same way, we wouldn't have purchased more points knowing this.

I feel for you. With the recent point allocations we were going to buy another couple of hundred in the next few months. Now we are on hold waiting to see how this all plays out.

We travel Europe a lot and are can do trains and taxis with luggage, but ME made Disney a much easier to and from that I loved.

 

[DVCSunDevil]

These logistics comments are missing the point. DME and EMH were magic.

Sure, we own five figure timeshares. We know how to Uber. Before Covid, I probably took 50 ubers a month, and a lot of them with strollers and car seats and luggage. Not magical. The whole point was that DME and EMH and fireworks and princesses were that above and beyond Disney experience, which I was happy to pay more for.

I’m not sure why we are paying this high of a premium if that Disney experience isn’t there. There are plenty of places to get a decent hotel with a mediocre mattress and no bathrobe, after you unpack your car seats from the Uber. Or I could pay $40 and drive to Six Flags.

As I said above, there are many people who didn't like DME one bit. There were many complaints about it; it wasn't all roses like you make it out to sound. It was magical for you, and that's great. And I am sorry that it won't be there for your future WDW trips. I really am. But DME was, literally, a bus that went from the airport to WDW. And it was often late. And loud. And took a long time to get to the resorts. Etc, etc, etc. There are TONS of people that either used DME infrequently or never used it at all. And all those people keep going back to Disney because they find the actual magic in the parks...or resorts...or restaurants. I promise WDW has much more magic in it beyond the bus you took from the airport to the resort. Just look...you will find it.

 

[WilsonFlyer]

Login to DVC member website, go to My DVC, click on condo association news, click on condo association notices. You will see the budgets for 2020 and 2021 for the resorts you own. Transportation is a line item. Each resort has a different budget for transportation. For example AKV has a transportation budget of $5.7MM for 2021 out of a $40.9MM budget. BLT $2.3MM out of a $24.1MM budget.

I'm very familiar with that document. I'm looking the LINE ITEM for Magical Express (and the others, for that matter), which was exactly my original point which you apparently don't understand.

 

[heynowirv]

And to think life at WDW existed before DME..

Never used it. Never will.

Being a Floridian I would think you probably drive?

 

[RoseGold]

As I said above, there are many people who didn't like DME one bit.

I never said it was roses. I don’t even use it going back to the airport. But this isn’t about just book an Uber. This is about all of these changes together are turning this into any other hotel. And there are other timeshares and hotels that do things better than Disney, like toiletries and linens and mattresses and campfire s’mores and websites that don’t constantly crash and price.

The point of buying into Disney was a Disney level experience.

 

[DVCSunDevil]

I never said it was roses. I don’t even use it going back to the airport. But this isn’t about just book an Uber. This is about all of these changes together are turning this into any other hotel. And there are other timeshares and hotels that do things better than Disney, like toiletries and linens and mattresses and campfire s’mores and websites that don’t constantly crash and price.

The point of buying into Disney was a Disney level experience.

I understand that. I agree that the Disney level experience is unbeatable. To that point, how do you know that an alternative won't be provided by Disney starting next year? I, personally, believe Disney will offer some alternative. I have no idea what that alternative would look like, but I think there will be one. Again, many people didn't like the DME. I, personally, don't think that Disney eliminating DME is somehow diminishing the overall WDW experience. While other resort and timeshares undoubtedly "do things better than Disney", none of them can offer the WDW experience. THAT is why people bought into DVC, not because of the transportation from/to the airport.