A Popular Luggage Service is Returning to Disney World

If you flew from Disney World in the past, you could check your bags for your flight home at your resort before heading to the airport. Disney hasn’t offered that popular free service, called Resort Airline Check-in, for several years. But good news, looks like it’s coming back!

A new “Airport Luggage Transfer Service” has a different name but works exactly the same way. It’s currently only available at Value Resorts and for travelers flying on Southwest from Orlando International Airport (MCO). But if you think it’s not going to roll out to more airlines and every resort, we have a bridge to sell you.

It’s working a little differently right now than it did in the past. (Search “luggage” in the My Disney Experience app to find the instructions.) Guests are being requested to head for Luggage Assistance at the beginning of their stay in order to get the ball rolling, which wasn’t needed before. Once you’ve done that, everything else is almost identical to the old procedure:

1. The day before your departure, you’ll check in with your airline online
2. Drop off your bags with Luggage Assistance (or call from your room to request help) by the required drop-off time
   1. When flying before 1 pm: drop off by 1 am the night before your flight
   2. When flying after 1 pm: drop off at least 4 hours before your flight, but no later than 1 pm

Luggage assistance can receive your bags anytime between 5 am and 1 am. Once you’ve dropped off your bags, head to the airport and skip the check-in counter or the bag drop. And the service is still completely free!

The old service providied check-in and boarding pass printing if you hadn’t done that yourself before dropping your luggage. That check-in piece is no longer included. (We’re guessing that’s part of the reason for the name change from Resort Airline Check-in.) If you need to print boarding passes, many hotels have a business center. Some resorts even have computer kiosks in the lobby where you can do your online check-in and print your passes, like the ones below at Pop Century.

I can’t tell you how much I’ve loving the return of this service. In our family’s most recent trips to Orlando, we’ve waited longer to check in and drop bags than to go through the TSA line. And that’s even with my husband’s tippy-top elite airline status! This will be a huge time-saver for any group that is checking bags.

So, what you want to know: how fast will it be coming to your resort and airline? Well, we’re not Disney. But what we can tell you is that earlier this week the pilot was only at Pop Century and only by word of mouth – no signs. Just a few days later, it’s at every Value Resort and it’s officially advertised. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it expanded to all resorts within the next week or two; Disney doesn’t want to build guest dissatisfaction by offering a perk like this to Value Resorts and not to those staying at tiers with higher rack rates. We’ll have to wait and see a bit on the timeline for other airlines. But you can be reasonably confident that it’s already in the works, however long it takes to get everyone officially on board.

Did you miss Resort Airline Check-in? Are you excited about this news? Let us know in the comments!