Walt Disney World

Disney's Magical Express
Pop Centure Resort
Walt Disney World Transportation System
Extra Magic Hours
Disney's Fastpass System

The vacation starts when you check in at your local airport, or so they say. Well, close. The idea is simple, if you submit to Disney and assure them you won’t spend any of your money elsewhere in Orlando, they will take you where you need to go. This includes too and from the airport, and not only you, but also your bags.

I received our DME packet a couple weeks before the trip, a bit far in advance to do anything with it, but it was a nice reminder the trip was not too far away – not that I wasn’t already completely psyched. I tried to make sense of the pages and pages of instructions though without having been to MCO in almost a decade, it didn’t mean too much. I expected we’d figure it out as we went, all we really needed to be concerned with was making sure they had our flight info, and that their special luggage tags were put on our checked bags before we checked in at the airport. Supposedly, we would see them next in our room. See? Magic.

We made it to MCO and followed the instructions making our way directly the to DME check in counter. It’s akin to queuing up to reserve a shuttle bus, except with a hundred or so hyped up kids – and no bags. There was a decent line, the first one of the trip, but we made it through in 10 or 15 minutes, the visit took about as long as checking bags at the airport. We were then directed to our appropriate bus queue, scanned and lucked out, our bus was already there waiting to go. Luckily we were among the last to board and we were on our way in a matter of minutes. From the time we stepped off the plane to the time the bus left, it was about somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes. Not bad, actually.

The ride was about the same duration. They help pass the time by showing a welcome video with the whole Disney gang. Boy, do they go out of their way to get everyone excited. Do they not already think kids are besides themselves with joy? It was a little cheesy, but it was important to get in that mindset for the week ahead. They talked up the new attractions, the transportation system, etc., etc – basically all the information you really should know way before you’ve gotten to that point.

We had to head out to dinner right after we checked in, so we don’t know what time our bags made it, but they were waiting for us after we returned, as promised. It was obviously a good idea to pack what we needed for that evening in our carry-on.

The departure was just as smooth as the exit. They don’t take your bags from your room (unless you request bell hop service), but they do accept them at the luggage center just outside the lobby. The best part was that they print each and every boarding pass, including for your connecting flights. All we needed to do was drop off our bags with the return luggage tags on them, get on our scheduled bus, and walk right to security. The bags showed up on the luggage carousel when we got to San Francisco. I gotta say, it was pretty slick. I’m sure it doesn’t go quite so smoothly for everyone every time, but we are 1 for 1.

By the way, there is also a video on the return ride, mostly about fun things to do at the airport (this is the least Disney can do after hijacking all the ground transportation business), and also mentioning other fun Disney things to do around the world. There were shout-outs to our beloved Disneyland, all the cruises, Vacations by Disney, and that damn Disney Vacation Club. Boy, were they pushing that.

Back to the top

As I mentioned, our modest budget and aggressive touring didn’t warrant anything beyond a “value” resort. $82 a night is hard to beat, even in Orlando - never mind the free transportation to, from, and around the resort, as well as extra time in the parks. Staying onsite was an easy call, though it was somewhat of a coin flip between this and one of the All Star resorts. I’d like to think things are a little calmer here, but I have absolutely no basis for that whatsoever.

The complex itself is huge; the 15 4-story buildings are divided into 5 decades, from the 50s to the 90s, each with oversized representations of pop culture artifacts. And when I say oversized, I mean oversized, 30, 40, even 50 feet tall. These were rubix cubes, cell phones, bowling pins, basically any stereotypical item that to some extent represents a decade.

As you can imagine, this is not the most refined of resorts. At the Disney hotels, you pay for dignity and class. For $82 a night, we had an enormous statue of Tramp (from Lady and the…) outside our door. This place is beyond tacky, though it’s certainly all in good fun. The colors are bright, the landscaping immaculate, and the buildings themselves are only a few years old. It may not be the most romantic place, but what it does, it does well.

We arrived around 6pm on a Saturday, and found a bit of a wait for the front desk. Luckily the Pop Century was the first stop for the Magical Express, and we were one of the first ones off the bus and into the queue. The lobby is a huge expanse with an enormous check-in/concierge counter along one side, and display cases full of memorabilia along the opposite wall. We eventually checked in, and were able to upgrade our tickets very easily.

Our room wasn’t especially large, but it was comfortable. We somehow ended up with a handicapped shower (meaning no separate shower/tub, just a drain in the middle of the floor and the toilet off to one side.) We briefly considered calling the front desk to change, but we never seemed to get around to it. As annoying as it was to have a pretty wet bathroom floor, by the third and forth day, having the handicapped bench to sit on while bathing was delightful, if not entirely necessary.

The place also has a decent-sized gift shop and cafeteria, both of which we visited every day. The former to play with the Wall-E and Eva robots each night upon returning home, and the latter to grab breakfast “to go” each morning. We did end up picking up postcards and stamps at the gift shop, and there was a decent selection of souvenirs, merchandise, as well as sundries. The cafeteria was also up to par, we mainly went with portable food each morning - juices, pastries, and fruit. There was a good selection of each, and breakfast ran between $10 and $12. We did enjoy a sit-down meal our final morning with waffles and sausage, and that was closer to $20. No, we did not buy those refillable mugs. We were probably the only ones who didn’t.

Transportation to and from the hotel was pretty easy, buses out front went to the four parks and downtown Disney. We never seemed to wait for a bus to or from the hotel for more than 5 minutes or so, though we didn’t always get a seat. The ride to the Magic Kingdom was definitely the longest, about 20 minutes, Animal Kingdom and Epcot were about 15, and Hollywood Studios a mere 10.

Overall, we were quite satisfied. The noise level was not bad. I’m sure it would have been quieter at the Grand Floridian, but there was nothing that kept us awake at night. (Not that even a freight train would have.) Maid service was good, and the staff very helpful. As long as you’re not expecting the Ritz, I think you’ll be more than happy. I would recommend it, and consider staying there again in a similar situation. For what we needed, it was actually pretty perfect.

Back to the top

So now that Disney has stranded us without a car, how are we supposed to get around? Well, on one of the world’s largest private transportation systems. You’ve got hundreds of buses, dozens of boats, and an entire fleet of high-capacity monorails. I can only imagine the complexity of the logistical operations, but I do know that you can always make it from where you are to where you need to go. Somehow. Eventually.

The monorail system is the most straightforward. Obviously it’s good bit more involved than the two-station version over in Disneyland, but it’s still quite manageable. There are two different routes, the Epcot line takes you between the Ticket and Transportation Center and Epcot. The other route takes you around the lagoon from the TTC to the Magic Kingdom. This second route has two lines, an express loop (stops at TTC and MK only) and a resort loop (stops at TTC, Polynesian, Grand Floridian, MK, and Contemporary). Just for fun, they go in opposite directions (Express goes counterclockwise, Resort goes clockwise) – though that only really matters if you’re trying to get from MK to the Grand Floridian, for example. That’d be the 4th stop, but the return trip from the GF to the MK, it’s just one.

From there, it gets more complicated. The buses run from all the resorts to all the parks, from an hour before opening until an hour or two after closing. Keep in mind, not all the parks close at the same time, so you may be able to connect at another park long after your park (usually Animal Kingdom with its sleepy animals) closes. But we’ll get to connecting later. Resorts also link directly with Downtown Disney. These buses run until very, very late from what I hear, 1am or 2am almost every day. We were never out past 11pm, but you can enjoy yourself a good bit past midnight and not have to worry about getting a ride home.

That’s about the end of the convenience. While Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios are all direct rides to each other, getting between the Magic Kingdom and each of these requires a connection at the TTC. For the MK/Epcot route, it’s just a change of monorail (there is a direct transfer walkway from MK to Epcot, very convenient! Epcot to MK requires walking around.) For HS/MK and AK/MK hops, you’ll need the monorail to/from MK/TTC and then a bus to/from the TTC and your park.

The trickiest is if you’re trying to go from one resort to another. If you’re doing this while the parks are still open, you’ll be ok. Connecting at the closest park isn’t too much of a hassle. If they’re closed (more specifically, if they’re no longer running buses from parks to resorts) you’ll have to connect at Downtown Disney. While this may not be the case in all situations, we found it much easier to connect at a park than Downtown Disney. But if you’re having a later dinner at a resort and need to get back to your hotel, you’ll just have to deal. Hopefully it’s not too cold outside.

As far as boats, well we didn’t take any, so I have no clue what the options are. I know there is a TTC/MK boat, which surely takes longer than the monorail, but is probably quite scenic. Also, some resorts have boat service to some parks. The Wilderness lodge has boat service to MK, and I believe Epcot or Hollywood Studios may also have boat service to certain resorts. It should be a simple matter of checking with a specific resort to see what its maritime options are. As you might expect, Pop Century had no such options.

Back to the top

One of the perks of staying on-site, as Disney loves to remind us, is extra time at the parks, sometimes an hour before they open to non-resort guests and sometimes three hours after they “close” in the evening. I use quotes there because it’s not as though they sweep the park and reopen it, they just require that anyone entering a ride queue show their valid resort ID.

The schedule rotates from park to park, and if you stay an entire week, you’ll usually end up with something close to both a morning and an evening EMH at each park. Usually there’s only one EMH session a day, though occasionally there is two – one morning and one evening, and two different parks. As far as I’m aware, there are never overlapping EMH. This schedule is decided way in advance, though it’s not set in stone, so plan ahead and reconfirm before your visit.

Morning hours are pretty straightforward, you can enter parks an hour ahead of the “official” time. I’m assuming those without resort tickets/IDs simply are not allowed into the park, though we were always enjoying ourselves by the time the official opening came around so I’m not familiar with the procedures. Not everything in the park is open, and in some cases, only certain sections are open. For the most part, the headliners are running, anything you would want to make a bee-line for first thing in the morning anyway. The only “snag” we ran into was that Frontierland and Adventureland are not part of morning EMH at the Magic Kingdom. We realized this at about 8:57am as we coincidentally were continuing our morning loop in that direction. We waited the 3 minutes and had ourselves the second rope drop of the morning.

Evening EMH is slightly different. For one, considerably more attractions are open (though not all dining locations, so plan dinner in advance.) Two, since they can’t (or don’t) control who is in the park, the only way to separate the resort guests is with their IDs or room keys at the entrances to queues. I don’t see any reason a non-resort guest couldn’t enjoy the shopping or dining options or whatever happens to be open besides rides during EMH.

In the interest of full disclosure, EMH may not be all it’s cracked up to be. While we went out of our way to plan our days and our park hopping to take full advantage, this tactic may actually backfire. In fact, the guidebook we used as reference strongly advised guests to avoid EMH wherever possible. I suppose the logic is this, if you were to announce to everyone in a park that “this ride over here has a really short line!” well it wouldn’t be short for long. The fear is that everyone ends up heeding the call for extra park hours, and you end up losing the exclusivity.

It wasn’t our intent to over-think the over-thinkers, but we made a conscious decision to go for it anyway. For one, we were visiting in the low season. Much of the fuss about touring plans, crowd movement, peak capacity - all that stuff goes right out the window when you visit in January. Two, we weren’t really all that worried about getting on rides. Over the course of 6 days we had ample opportunity to do everything we wanted to, so if a surprising crowd popped up during one of these sessions, it was no big deal. Either we had done it already, or would do it later.

There is one thing to keep in mind about EMH, and I think that if you are aware of this, you will know what to expect. The roller coaster riding community has something called Exclusive Ride Time at many/most of our events. This is time before the park opens and/or after it closes that certain attractions are only open for us, usually a pretty small collection of people. What results goes behind not having lines, it’s getting to stay on a ride and enjoy it again and again and again, as much as you want, for one, two, sometimes even three hours. I’ve racked up ERT sessions where I’ll go on the same ride 20, 30, even 45 times in a row without leaving my seat.

The key to EMH is – it’s not ERT. While this time is exclusive to resort guests, you have to keep in mind that there are dozens of Disney World resorts, and almost all of their guests are intrigued by the idea of some special time. I have no idea what percentage of average daily attendance is made up by resort guests versus non-resort guests, but what really matters is that if 100% of the resort guests are at an EMH session, trying to go on the same 11 rides you are, there is nothing exclusive about it. Hence, your experience may, and probably will, vary.

As we ended up finding, morning EMH was nice, but not significantly different than the first hour of a non-EMH morning. That is, the experience was essentially the same, but it just happened an hour earlier in the day. For evening EMH, the crowds were most certainly bigger than the morning sessions, and didn’t really result in wait times that were either noticeable shorter or longer than what had been encountered during the rest of the day. In the end, it was just like having the park open later – and considering that was all we were really looking for, we were completely satisfied.

One last point about EMH, they affected the Fastpass system in weird ways. For morning EMH, you were allowed to get Fastpasses, but the redemption windows didn’t start until not only EMH was over, but after the park had been open for an hour. (More on Fastpass strategies next). So while you could have your pick of Fastpasses at 8am for example, you both couldn’t use it, and couldn’t get another one until after 10am.

As for the evening sessions, the rules seemed to vary. Sometimes the system was still issuing Fastpasses (where possible), sometimes they were only letting you redeem ones you already had, and sometimes the entire queue was standby. My assumption is that it just depended on the crowds. If Fastpasses were gone, they were gone, if there was no wait time, they closed the Fastpass line (or in some cases, used it for everyone!) We never got any concrete understanding, but the general Fastpass rule applied – if you think you’re going to need one, get one. In many cases, we were glad we did. At least you’ll have it just in case.

Back to the top

I suspect that if people thought of Fastpasses the way they thought of dinner reservations, there would be considerably less confusion. You want to eat. Everyone else wants to eat. But if we all try to go to the restaurant at the same time, they can only seat a small percentage of us, and the rest of us have to wait. That’s what happens at most amusement park rides, and that’s what happens in the standby lines at Disney.

But by making reservations, thus spreading out our seating times in a way that the capacity of the restaurant can better accommodate, we all get to eat, and get to do so with a minimal amount of waiting for our table. That is the simple idea behind Fastpass. Instead of all trying to go on a ride at the same time, we make a reservation, go do other things, and come back when it’s “our turn”. Obviously the execution is considerably more complicated than the theory, but that’s the seemingly illusive “why” that much of the general public fails to grasp.

“How?” is a much more difficult question to answer, and without going into the deep complexities of how queuing theory is applied, I’ll just recommend that people try to familiarize themselves in advance as much as possible. The basic rule is simple. Go to an attraction. If you don’t want to wait in the standby line, get a Fastpass, and come back when it tells you to. Simple, no? No, not really.

There’s always a catch. In this case, it’s that Fastpasses are a finite resource, they are not unlimited. Going back to the dinner metaphor, you have to consider that a restaurant only has so many tables, only has so many chefs, and can only serve so many people at a time. What results is that if they can serve 1000 people in one night, and 1200 people wanted to eat there, you have 200 disappointed people. Here is where people get angry with the Fastpass system. Not everyone can get one.

The good news is that attractions are not Fastpass only. That is, part of the restaurant is used to fulfill these reservations and the other part is set aside for walk-ups. The specific ratio of this split is not entirely known to me, and clearly depends on a number of factors, most importantly capacity. Obviously this impacts the wait that walk-up (or ”standby”) guests will have, but at least they’re not out of luck completely. At Disney, as long as you are in a queue before the park closes, you will get to ride.

But many people still call the system unfair, complaining that Fastpass system makes their standby wait longer. Well, yes and no. Yes, a portion of the ride’s capacity is going to Fastpass people. But keep in mind that these are people who may have been in line in front of you anyway. Without Fastpass, everyone waits in line. With Fastpass, a portion of would be riders go away, and come back after you’ve already ridden.

Of course there is always the issue of the fundamental fairness. While it’s available to everyone at no charge and with no discrimination, there is still a complaint that any system like this handicaps those who don’t use it. In reality, that is completely true. Fastpass systems favors those who understand it, those who can plan for its use most effectively, and those who are willing and able to do what is physically necessary to maximize it. Basically Fastpass works best for those people who are willing to work the hardest and the smartest to use it. But saying that this is unfair seems to me to be like saying, “It’s unfair that people who get to the parks earlier don’t have to wait in line as long as we do after arriving at 11am.” There is no question the Fastpass system rewards those willing to do both the physical and mental legwork necessary to maximize its utility. If that’s not something that Walt Disney believed in, I don’t know what is.

Just for the sake of commentary, it’s interesting to consider the extreme of what the Fastpass system could be. Not only would you make a reservation for a ride, but you’d make a reservation for a particular day. That way, a park would be able to anticipate the total number of guests, and that’s the biggest variable in the entire system. Once that is known, it’s a simple matter of letting guests pre-select the attractions they would chose to experience, limited only by the experience’s capacity and the day’s attendance. If taken to this extreme, there would, in theory, no longer be ANY waiting for any attraction. You would be given a specific schedule of what to do when, and so long as everyone adhered, there would no longer be any reason to wait in line.

Completely unrealistic, but fun to think about. But the underlying principle is the same, by having a willingness to forgo an attraction at a certain time, everyone’s wait time is decreased. With a little planning and a little effort, you’ll be able to enjoy your experience even more. Isn’t that how vacations work?

Using Fastpasses could not be any easier. You insert your admission ticket(s) into the machine, and get a Fastpass. Obviously you need one Fastpass per person. On the ticket will be printed a return window of one hour, sometime in the future. Depending on demand (i.e., how many people before you have already gotten a Fastpass for the same attraction, the time of day, and the number of Fastpasses the attraction distributes per hour), you return time can vary, from a mere 30 minutes away all the way up to the end of the day. Once you pass the end of the day time window, that’s it, no more Fastpasses for that attraction.

The lesser known fact is that you can hold more than one Fastpass at a time. If you get one and the redemption window is already near, you can get your next Fastpass right when that starts. If it’s for considerably later in the day, you will likely still be able to get another Fastpass in a couple of hours anyway.

This knowledge, when coupled with some insider information, can lead to some severe Fastpass mania. Disney does not enforce the back end of the Fastpass return time window. That is, you will never be turned away for having an expired Fastpass (so long as it’s still the same day of course). You will need to wait until the time window begins before you can use it, but once you get it, you can use it anytime until closing.

Does this somewhat defeat the purpose of a reservation-based line reduction system? Sure. Does this result in the intentional and sometimes excessive abuse of the system? Of course. Does it make you a bad person if you intentionally use an expired Fastpass? In my opinion, no. I’m not going to feel guilty for operating within the rules of the system. If Disney were to change their enforcement, of course I would adhere. But while some may feel that this behavior completely defeats the purpose of the system, and if ever enacted en masse would bring the Fastpass system to its knees (which, in theory, it could) I’m of the mind that whatever population of people who know this and actually do this on occasion are not going to ruin it for the rest of us. In reality, these attractions handle thousands of people per hour, and among the small percentage of people who know about this loophole, it is an even smaller percentage of those who jump through it.

Next up, the parks!

Back Home