Disney Cruise Line Ground Transportation To and Fro

We’ve posted an overview of Disney Cruise Line transfers in the past, but I’ve got a firsthand account with some numbers to share from my recent voyage.

My family and I sailed on the Disney Wish last December and decided to leave the driving to Disney. We spent the night before our cruise at Disney’s All-Star Music Resort and we were staying at POP Century on the night of our return. Hence, we booked a round trip transfer.

The Price

Ground Transfers from our Walt Disney World Resort to Disney Cruise Line’s terminal 10 at Port Canaveral were $45 per person each way for a total of $270. This is the standard, published rate at the time of this article. We did not book the ground transfer with our fabulous Disney Travel Advisor (Hi, Bethanee!) when we booked our cruise, but you certainly can.

We all know ride share prices vary based on lots of factors, but the shot above shows a sample of pricing from Lyft for the same drive one way.

Check-In, Load, Wait, Ride, Repeat

Two days before our cruise, I received an email detailing our ground transportation process.

The email outlined a few important details:

1. We needed to have our luggage ready and tagged with the DCL tags we got in the mail a few weeks before our voyage. If you didn’t get tags, forgot them, or need more, there are several Cast Members in your Disney Resort lobby that will have extra.
2. Luggage is supposed to be ready for collection at 7:00am but the time will vary depending on the size of your resort, and where you are in the pick-up order. Our luggage was collected at 8:30am with a knock on our door. Side note- this is one of the times you’ll want cash on hand to tip. You can carry your own luggage if you like, but you’ll need to keep track of it, load it onto and off the bus and then board the ship with it in tow. I learned on my first Disney Cruise that a backpack with essentials and a change of clothes for each person in my party was the easiest for our family.
3. We were in the lobby at 9:30am along with lots of other folks who were on our same voyage. Not everyone was staying at All-Star Music – we just happened to be the departure resort. Once we got to the lobby, I checked in with the DCL representative in the lobby. They’re holding big signs – you can’t miss them. They verified out reservation number, passports, id, and made sure we had completed the online check-in.
4. Bags! Our bags were already on their way to port in a fleet of vans dedicated to luggage transport. We would not see them again until later that afternoon when they magically appeared outside our stateroom door.
5. Load up – We grabbed seats on the DCL coach and were swiftly on our way. There were Disney cartoons playing – remember Magical Express?- and the entire trip took 72 minutes.
6. Keep some of that cash to tip your driver, too. You got to nap and watch cartoons while they got you to your port safe and sound.

Next, it was time to have the most fantastic MerryTime Cruise ever.

Insert Love Boat musical interlude here.

Debarkation and Back to Our Disney Resort

Debarkation was very easy and is exactly the same as any other Disney Cruise exodus with one exception. We still left our luggage outside of our door the night before, just like everyone else.  Make sure you take a picture of your luggage tag character so you know where to find your bags when you get off the ship. We grabbed our bags and followed the signs and verbal directions from Cast Members to the DCL bus terminal.

We handed our bags over and the driver very kindly loaded them for us. (Tip reminder here) and we found seats on the coach. This is the only grumble I had with the whole ground transportation process. I am an early, anxious arrival person. I will always be early. Too early, even. This meant that I forced my sweet family to sit on the bus for an hour while we waited for everyone to leave the ship and load the bus. My daughter reminded me several times that morning that she could have had second breakfast at the buffet in the time we waited on the bus. Sorry, Gia.

The coach was comfortable, we were exhausted from our fantastic vacation, and there were clean restrooms steps away so the wait wasn’t painful, just not ideal. We were planning to visit EPCOT that afternoon but didn’t have any firm reservation times to worry about, but I could see how that might cause stress.

Please keep in mind that you may not head directly to your resort when driving back via the DCL coach. We stopped at Coronado Springs first and then on to POP Century which meant we were on the bus for nearly 3 hours. Again, we didn’t have anywhere to be that required us to rush, but this is something to remember when booking.

Overall, this was an easy, comfortable way for us to get to and from port. We’re already planning on using DCL ground transportation again when we sail in August. How do you get to port? Do you drive yourself? Ride Share? I’d love to know!