by Beth Keating
News
DisneyBizJournal.com
January 11, 2021
Get ready to dig a little deeper for your Disney vacations in 2022. Disney announced today that beginning January 1, 2022, they will no longer be offering Disney’s Magical Express service for airport transportation from Orlando International Airport (MCO) to the resort hotels.
The Disney-run shuttle service between the airport and the Disney hotels allowed guests a convenient, quick and included way of getting from their flights to park property. The service will continue through the end of the year for guests with arrivals in 2021.
The decision to retire the free service will leave guests in the position of having to explore other options for getting to their Disney hotels, perhaps taking a rideshare the 30 minutes or so to Disney property; renting a car for the duration of their stay; or potentially, in the future, taking Brightline’s high-speed rail service that is in the process of being built between the airport and Disney Springs. (See our earlier DisneyBizJournal story here.)
Earlier this year, when the parks reopened following their COVID-19 closure, Disney eliminated the portion of the Magical Express service whereby cast members handled transferring guests’ luggage directly from their flights to their hotel rooms, allowing guests to drop their suitcases at their home airport and not see or handle them again until they arrived in their Disney hotel room. Guests could get right off a flight, bypass luggage pick-up, and head straight to a park to begin their fun without worrying about their belongings.
Disney has stated, “For nearly 50 years, Walt Disney World Resort has continued to evolve the guest experience to best suit the changing times. As we plan for the future, we are looking at how needs and preferences are changing across the travel industry, particularly in the way people want to get places faster, at their convenience. Vacationers have more options to choose from than ever for transportation, including ride-share services that save time and offer more flexibility to go where they want, when they want.”
While they will be eliminating the Magical Express airport services, Disney has assured guests that transportation options within the parks, such as the buses to and from the resort hotels and the four theme parks, as well as the monorails and Skyliner, will remain complimentary.
As a family that has made use of Magical Express many times in the past, this comes as a big disappointment. The perk of having the cost of transportation to our Disney hotel included in the package price of our vacation certainly made a difference in how many days we could spend at the park. When the kids were younger, the ease of not having to collect suitcases at the luggage carousels and struggle out to a rental car with car seats, strollers, and suitcases in tow, all while wrangling toddlers, was definitely a plus for us, and on more than one occasion, tipped the scales toward visiting Disney for a family vacation versus going elsewhere. Disney certainly made it easier to “get there from here,” increasing the likelihood that we would be spending our vacation dollars at the House of Mouse.
Disney also announced today that they will be retiring their rotating “Extra Magic Hours” program, replacing it with an extra 30 minutes early entry each morning, every morning for Disney hotel guests. (Extra Magic Hours did not return with the park reopenings in July, so essentially, Extra Magic Hours will not be returning at all).
Under the new “Early Theme Park Entry” program, which will be available every day, Disney hotel guests will be able to enter any of the four parks a half hour before the park opens to the general public. Previously, different parks were available for Extra Magic Hours on rotating days, but now all four parks will have early access each day. The new access will begin later this year as part of Disney World’s 50th anniversary celebration (specific date to be announced later).
Disney Parks Blog states, “The new early theme park entry benefit helps us better spread visitation across all four theme parks, while providing added flexibility by giving guests extra early park time on each day of their vacation and in the park of their choosing.”
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Beth Keating is a regular contributor to DisneyBizJournal.
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