The Magical Express

You have arrived and are staying a Walt Disney Resort!  You are going to take the Magical Express (a company that is hired by Disney,  it is NOT a Disney company) to your Disney hotel!  Your vacation is beginning!

Here is the scoop from the Disney website:

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How It Works

1. Reserve Disney's Magical Express Transportation when you book online or by calling (407) WDW-MAGIC or (407) 939-6244. Guests under 18 years of age must have a parent or guardian's permission to call.
    
2. Upon landing at Orlando International Airport, skip baggage claim and proceed to the Disney's Magical Express Welcome Center in the Main Terminal Building, B side, Level 1. Disney's Magical Express service will collect your luggage and deliver it directly to your Walt Disney World hotel room within 3 hours after you check in at the resort. Luggage delivery service provided by Disney's Magical Express is available for flights arriving between 5:00 am and 10:00 pm daily. For airport arrivals after 10:00 pm, Guests may collect their luggage at Baggage Claim and transport it with them on the motorcoach.
    
3. International Guests flying into Orlando International Airport from another country must follow the U.S. Customs and Border Protection process and claim luggage after disembarking the plane. After completing the process, proceed to the Disney's Magical Express Welcome Center in the Main Terminal Building, B side, Level 1. Disney's Magical Express service will recollect your luggage and deliver it directly to your Walt Disney World hotel room within 4 hours after you check in at the resort. Luggage delivery service provided by Disney's Magical Express is available for flights arriving between 5:00 am and 10:00 pm daily. For airport arrivals after 10:00 pm, Guests may collect their luggage at Baggage Claim and transport it with them on the motorcoach.
    
4. Sit back and relax as Disney transports you to your Disney Resort hotel in an air-conditioned motorcoach.
    
5. As your vacation draws to a close, you'll receive a Transportation Notice advising you of the pick-up time and place for your motorcoach ride back to Orlando International Airport. Please note that it is your responsibility to bring your luggage to the pick-up point.

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Ok, so the above details how to do it.   You will also receive the Magical Express yellow tags for your luggage several weeks prior to travel along with information on what to do.

That said, there are things you might want to know.

If you have the Magical Express folks take your luggage (pick it up from baggage claim and transport it "magically" to your room), you can get to your room, sometimes, up to three hours before your bags do.  Sometimes less, and a few times, sometimes longer.  If this is a problem, don't put those yellow tags on your bags (that tells the ME folks to pick them up and transport them)!!!  

Just leave the yellow tags off your bags, go down to baggage claim (level 2), claim the bags, and roll (hopefully, you will have rolling luggage!) them to Magical Express check in on the first level.  Get in line with your bags and roll them up to the bus, and watch the driver put them on your bus.  It's magic!  Those bags will go with you to the resort and come off when you get there (don't forget to tip the driver for this extra loading and unloading).  You take your bags right then and head to the resort check in desk.  Viola', your bags are ready when you are.

When to use the yellow tags and when don't you?  If you are going early enough in the day that you won't need your bags for a while, let Disney do it.  Put on the yellow tags and relax and head to parks after arrival at your resort.  Your room probably isn't ready anyway!  Going to land and arrive after 2 or 3 in the afternoon?  Might as well skip the yellow tags and grab your bags, so you can take them right up to your room, which will probably be ready by then.

Landing after 10pm or before 5am?  You have to go to baggage claim.  Do not use yellow tags!  If you use them but are delayed past 10pm, go to baggage claim.

Last thing!  Magical Express is a privilege of guests of WDW, staying on site at a WDW resort hotel.  The ME goes between the airport and Disney World resort hotels ONLY.  Not to the parks, not off site hotels, not any Downtown Disney hotel (or Disney Springs as it will soon be called), not Swan or Dolphin, not Shades of Green.  

That said, what if you land late and want to stay near the airport or at the airport Hyatt Regency (it's in the Orlando airport and very convenient) and then go in the morning?  You can do that!  Call the Magical Express folks and set it up.  You are a guest of WDW and you are going from the airport to the WDW resort.  All good.  Talk to someone at the Magical Express office though, and not a cast member from WDW.  The ME folks know the exact rules about what you can and can not do.