No it wasn’t’ Disney employees handling luggage. That was also outsourced. Only Bell Services who took the bags to the room. And I think the company went bust.
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Actually I just heard it was another company, that went out of business during the shut down, that handled all the bags?
Editing to add this is the company they said was used:
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I had this same thought actually, but then dismissed it because I have a tough time believing Disney would be this stupid. But if this was their plan, it severely backfired. Because they went in from a position of weakness and came out looking even worse.
Disney branded the busses (so everyone thinks it’s them controlling this from the top down), made the announcement, and essentially said “you’re on your own.”. Which basically puts the whole onus of the situation on Disney’s shoulders, and then to add to it, Mears put out a release saying “we’ll still send busses to Disney, but for a fee.”. The only “upside” here is that it’s still a year away.
So if this is a pissing contest, I don’t see what Disney hopes to gain as Mears is in control of all the cards. In fact, now, Mears probably love this cause they can now charge whatever they want for transportation instead of the flat fee they were getting from Disney.
The only way Disney could have come out ahead is if the customer base was positive or even indifferent to the reception of killing of DME… and aside from a single comment I saw on the blog, no one is happy about it
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I wonder if there is a business opportunity there? A company to just handle the luggage. Could service non-Disney hotels too, although they’d want to limit it to hotels in close proximity to each other. Since they wouldn’t have people, they could use vans that didn’t have to be pretty. They could mail you luggage tags, then collect your luggage at the airport and deliver them to bell services. Send you a text when they had. Could have tracking like package delivery. I can see this working at Orlando more than anywhere else because of the families vacationing.
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I added this link to my other comment:
Although I was told it went out of business.
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I’ve never used this before, but United advertises this service to me all the time -
https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/products/travel-options/baggage-delivery.html
This. +1
Over the years, Disney created the on-site guest Kraken
with some many different perks. They are trying to determine what added perks actually help generate guest revenue and which one’s do not add enough revenue to cover the costs involved. Can’t let a good crisis go to waste.
Like I posted earlier, pre-Covid, WDW had over 58 Million total visitors, and only 3 Million used DME. If those guests added enough revenue to cover the added costs, DME will continue.
Otherwise, maybe the money spent on DME could go towards something else that would be of added interest to the other 55 Million guests, like bringing back live shows or nighttime shows.
That’s what confused me.
I heard the company that handled the luggage was Bags and that they went bust. But it looks like Bags is still in business. 
But it definitely wasn’t Disney who pulled the bags and transported them, it was a third party. Maybe Disney ended the contract or it was a different company.
In fact, thinking more about this it might have been the airport badge handling company since the bags with tags get pulled before the carousel. So maybe a company like Swissair who do many of the U.K. airports. So perhaps the general drop off in passengers meant the company went to the wall.
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I can find a story where they layed off hundreds of employees but I can’t get free access to the story.
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As I’ve posted earlier I’ve never used DME but I always have watched the activity at the resorts with great attention as I find the process very interesting (much to my wife & daughter’s distress and annoyance).
Pre-Covid, luggage and guests were separated, luggage traveling in trucks and guests on buses. Easier to make sure all luggage arrives in the proper location and speeds up guests getting on/off buses if they don’t have to wait for luggage.
Maybe post-Covid, with limits on passengers on buses, there is now enough room to transport both guests and luggage on the same bus and with less guests easier to accurately load and unload luggage.
Anyone have real life experience about this instead of my WAG?
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Yes, definitely room for all of the luggage in the storage area under the bus in these COVID times. When you arrive at the airport, you have to wait for the driver to unload your bags. When getting dropped at the resort, you also are present to identify your bags and get them from the driver. So luggage is truly your responsibility other than physically putting it on and off the bus.
Thank you.
That reminds me, that Disney stopped the luggage handling service due to Covid concerns. Guests have to handle their own luggage.
So the luggage handling company hired by Disney was no longer needed.
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For international guests though the process has always been different.
If MCO is our US arrival point, we have to collect bags before clearing immigration and customs. So given we already have our bags, the vast majority will take them to DME and have them put under the bus.
Now we can put them back on a conveyor belt after customs if we want, but then we would have to hand DME staff the luggage receipts so they can be pulled the from the carousel. And that is the process is we fly to a US hub first. I’ve done that when flying via Newark. But quite honestly it would have been easier to just get them ourselves than wait late into the night for them to reach our room.
And we can’t use RAC for the return journey either.
So buses still had to wait for luggage to be unloaded at the resorts anyway. And there was always quite a lot whenever we used DME. I don’t think there would be enough room for all the luggage for a full bus load of passengers.
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So here’s a question on this. I thought resorts and the theme parks were different pots of money. Can and would Disney shift money from the resort funds to the theme park funds to cover entertainment?
Edited to add: I thought a big part of why they haven’t done some of the live entertainment (in large groups) and the night time shows was more due to COVID and restrictions.
I agree, I wasn’t sure ours was going to fit at all on our Aug 2019 trip when the bus was almost full.
I think there would. The underbelly of the bus was just fractionally full when we went. Tons of space left. Probably no more than 1/3 or even 1/4 full, even though the bus itself was closer to half. They can get a lot under those things!
ETA: And that was them not even attempting to stack the luggage!
I am with you
I generally only have carryons lately but it always shocks me (one section each resort) how many strollers, golf clubs, and huge bags fit! Sometimes they have had to crawl deep into the hole.
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And if you think about it, that was completely pointless.
The baggage handlers already handled the luggage getting it off the plane.
The DME driver had to put the luggage under the bus and get it out again at the resorts.
And if people arrived in the middle of the day, they would have handed their luggage to Bell Services.
So there were still three sets of people handling luggage as well as the guests.
And Disney terminating the contract also led to people losing their jobs.
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Guilty as charged for sure! I just realized today in 2022 the first CM you may actually speak to may not be until you go to a park. You do Uber to the resort, skip the front desk with online check-in, and go right to your room. Disney is renowned for its customer service and CMs. I wonder if this will affect the overall ‘welcome’ feeling people get when they enter ‘the bubble’?
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