Can someone explain how Resort Airline Check-In works?

Surgie2

DIS Veteran
Joined
Sep 19, 2016
We will be departing from the Poly on an 11:45 am flight (so assuming we will get picked up at 8:45 am). I read on the WDW site about the resort airline check-in. How does the timing for it work at the resort? Do we ask bell services to pick up our luggage from our room the night before or morning of our flight? Since our flight is before noon, does that mean our boarding pass is delivered the night before? (We normally don't print our boarding pass and will be doing our own Southwest check-in the day before the flight).

Resort Airline Check-In

Guests who fly on a participating airline and stay at select Disney Resort hotels are automatically enrolled in the Resort Airline Check-In service when arriving through Disney’s Magical Express. This service allows you to obtain your boarding pass and check your luggage at your Disney Resort hotel, bypassing airport check-in completely. If your flight is after 12:00 PM, your boarding pass will be delivered to your room on the morning of your departure.
 
If you are flying out of Orlando International, it is very slick ( I don't think they do Stanford) . Check at the front desk to see what time they are open and where you need to go to drop off luggage (each place has slightly different hours and locations. That morning, bring your luggage down to that area. They will check your bags and give you the tags. They can also print boarding passes for you. If you will be going to parks for a while and have carry on luggage, you can check it at the front desk until you return. It is really simple. Next time you see your bags is at baggage claim.
 
I believe RAC opens at 5 AM and you’re required to be finished checking your bags there at least 3 hours before your flight. So your deadline to complete the process at RAC will be about the time you’ll need to board the DME bus. If you can get down to RAC earlier (say 7:30 AM) then as PP said you’ll be able to check your bags & not handle them again until you pick them up at your destination airport. But if getting them to RAC that early isn’t feasible for you, you can just bring them with you on DME and check them at MCO.

BTW we check in online and don’t use the paper boarding passes either. If they’re given to us we just take them & say Thank you. We do usually check our luggage with RAC and enjoy getting off of DME & heading straight to Security.
 
Last edited:
It is very easy, but I agree with the previous poster. Get there early. Sometimes, there is a long line. I don't know how strict the three hour rule is, but I wouldn't want to miss it by 5 minutes just because of a line.

We usually try to do it at least an hour before our scheduled ME pickup.
 


You also need to pay any luggage fees due BEFORE you get to RAC.

I usually plan to be there an hour before my ME departure for morning /early day flights. Then when done we eat or do a last exploring of the resort.

For later day flights I either do prior to heading to park in the morning or coming back early and grabbing bags from room at 11a and doing then at checkout.

JetBlue mosaic: Disney checks in all ME guests the day prior . Some times I can not get to choose my free bagsin the app if check in was already completed. You can tell them at RAC you have mosaic. They have codes there and look it up and take care of it. This has happened many times this past year.

In January I got smart and checked in right at 24hrs, I was able to add my free bags.

So keep in mind disney will check you in so maybe do yourself if you want to pay for upgrades, pay for bags etc.
 


I would add that sometimes the personnel at the airports don't like the boarding passes that they give you when checking in your luggage, so we always get the front desk to simply print ours out as we do at home, on simple printer paper. I also second getting there at least an hour early and remember once they take your bags there's no getting them back... until "home" hopefully. (Home being your final destination airport of course.)
 
Last edited:

GET A DISNEY VACATION QUOTE

Dreams Unlimited Travel is committed to providing you with the very best vacation planning experience possible. Our Vacation Planners are experts and will share their honest advice to help you have a magical vacation.

Let us help you with your next Disney Vacation!





Top