Arriving a day early than our WDW resort booking

We are arriving a day early in the evening and our WDW resort booking is from next day onwards. We only need a hotel to stay for a night and looking for recommendations.

  • Can our checked luggage be sent to Resort a night before (DME)?
  • What is the best option to drive /travel from airport to off Disney hotel and then from there to Resort the next morning ( very early as we want to avail early park hours for MK).?
  • Is Uber cheaper or there is public transport available near Orlando?

I would definitely recommend Uber or Lyft over public transportation or a cab. Mears taxis are expensive compared to Uber or Lyft. I use Lyft myself, but others use Uber. I get coupons from Lyft, so that’s my go to choice. I don’t know the answer to the luggage question.

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My understanding is someone has to be on DME if your luggage is, so you couldn’t ship it a day early. Now you could still use DME if you show up at the airport the next day - just choose a flight for that day to tell WDW for scheduling. From other threads it sounds like the hotel at MCO is a nice option as you don’t have to travel for it and you can get up and ride DME the next morning without issue. I’m guessing it’s pricier than some options, but once you weigh the cost of getting to the other hotel on your own versus DME, it may be about even.

The other thing to consider is to grab a cheap on-site hotel like Pop or All-Star - use DME and then do a transfer of your luggage to your actual resort so DIS will transfer your bags for you while you go enjoy day one in the parks. Again it’s going to cost more than off-site, but between DME and letting DIS transfer your luggage for you, it may make sense.

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We stayed at the hotel at MCO (the one in the airport) because our flight got in very late at night and I have two younger kids. It worked well for our situation, but it was pricey. If the late hour wasn’t an issue, I would have chosen a cheaper hotel near the airport that provided a shuttle, spent the night there, then taken the shuttle back to the airport in the morning, and then gotten on DME. As @Damavs said, you can just give the MDE people a random flight number that arrives at MCO around the time you want to leave.

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We stayed at the Hyatt MCO last trip as well, due to a late arrival and wanting to get our 3yo into bed asap. It worked well for us - when I booked DME (through DVC Member Services) I just told them that we wouldn’t be using the service until the morning after our arrival and they made a note of it. No problem at all.

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We are staying at the MCO Hyatt the night before we check into WL in less than two weeks. We got a room around $200. Considered doing Pop or a different value, but ultimately decided that with our flight coming in about 8pm, this will be best for us. We will sleep at the Hyatt and then take DME to WL early the next morning.

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Has anyone used Uber/Lyft to drop off to WDW All Start Sports Resort? are there restrictions as to where Uber can drop?

The only restriction on property that I’ve ever heard of is at MK. You have to be dropped off at TTC or at Contemporary (as of Nov '16 anyway). Nowhere else had a problem.

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Thank you all for the valuable responses

Do I have to give a flight # for DME or taking early morning transport to Resort ? or I can simply provide pickup time?

DME asks for a flight # so the general rule of thumb is to provide a “dummy flight” that matches when you want to get on so they have expected load down for the buses. Someone else mentioned (not sure if this thread or another) they just told the DME rep on the phone what they were doing and it was no issue and they marked them for the morning.

I think it just boils down to you need to set Disney’s expectations that they’ll be taking you from MCO in the morning - the easiest way to do that is with a dummy flight number since that’s what their system expects as input.

We traveled the night before and stayed at the Comfort inn airport. Arrived around 11pm. Took their free shuttle to hotel. Had free breakfast the next day and took their free shuttle back to the airport to ride the DME. Just got in line and they took us.Worked well. We did need to carry our luggage with us till we got to the bus. As it was early in the morning we got checkin done, stored the bags and went off to the park. I think the Comfort INN was about $90 for the night. I’d need to look it up. It was still cheaper due to the flights I found plus it gave us a full day at Disney on the first day.

That was me. :slight_smile: And yes, we had no problems at all, the DVC Member Services rep just made a note of it on our Magical Express reservation.

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