Disney’s Magical Categorical Was Used By One-Third of Resort Friends at Disney World

As lined in Walt Disney World is Anxious About Its Excessive Costs, there are issues about Disney pricing out the center class. That is now a debate inside the corporate amongst leaders, with rising fears about how value will increase and unpopular choices are angering followers and dropping visitor goodwill.

We’ve already mentioned all of that (twice!), however there’s one morsel from the WSJ that we haven’t but mentioned. Shortly after Chapek’s ouster, Iger known as a gathering and requested D’Amaro to give you a listing of issues the corporate may do to win again the goodwill of followers, undoing a few of the harm of the Chapek regime.

Amongst that dialogue, there was this quote: “Disney eradicated some perks that was once free of charge, just like the Magical Categorical airport shuttle and the FastPass ride-scheduling system. It mentioned solely a couple of third of lodge friends had been utilizing the airport service when it was canceled.” Clearly, Disney’s Magical Categorical was not one of many issues Iger picked from the record of visitor perks to be restored, however that is nonetheless the primary time the corporate has ever disclosed ridership numbers for Disney’s Magical Categorical.

Let’s break this down. On January 11, 2021, Walt Disney World formally introduced the choice to discontinue the free Disney’s Magical Categorical airport shuttle service. The corporate defined that “vacationers have extra choices to select from than ever for transportation, together with ride-share providers that save time and supply extra flexibility to go the place they need, when they need.”

In gentle of this transportation desire shift, Disney defined that when lodge bookings opened for stays in 2022, they’d now not supply Disney’s Magical Categorical service for brand spanking new arrivals. Walt Disney World continued to function the service for brand spanking new and current reservations made for arrivals all through 2021, and departures into early 2022.

Disney’s Magical Categorical airport shuttle service was operated by Mears, a transportation firm with coach buses and taxis that loved a digital monopoly on the Orlando marketplace for years. Throughout COVID, Mears struggled. It furloughed 83% of its workforce and completely laid off 200 staff.

Mears got here again from the brink, asserting Mears Join only some months later, in April 2021. The service was launched in direct response to overwhelming demand and inquiries by friends. Mears Join promised the “similar protected and dependable service the corporate has offered thousands and thousands of friends for many years.”

Shortly thereafter, a newcomer entered the sector, with Sunshine Flyer additionally launching in 2022. Whereas it was a implausible and distinctive train-themed twist on airport shuttles, it didn’t final lengthy. Sunshine Flyer and Mears Join merged in August 2023. Though the businesses didn’t state as a lot, the rationale was apparent to me: inadequate demand to maintain each.

The mixed firm, Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine, nonetheless operates as of 2025. In Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine Assessment: Is Disney World’s Airport Shuttle Nonetheless Good?, I point out that the variety of stops has elevated. That evaluation was from precisely one yr in the past, and this subject has solely worsened throughout non-peak occasions.

It’s price studying that full evaluation should you’re on the fence about Mears Join, however the final line is probably the most pertinent half for our functions: “A part of me wonders if the one method an airport shuttle is viable in any respect within the long-run is by being an on-site perk provided by Walt Disney World.”

With regard to Walt Disney World’s assertion that “solely a couple of third of lodge friends had been utilizing the airport service when it was canceled,” the very first thing that stands out to me was it was cancelled in the course of the peak of COVID. If solely a 3rd of friends had been utilizing Disney’s Magical Categorical from July 2020 to January 2021, that’s not indicative of something.

We heard from numerous readers then who had been renting vehicles or driving all the best way all the way down to Walt Disney World for the primary time to mitigate threat. Others opted for personal transportation to cut back their publicity to different friends. This was all pretty cost-effective as a result of not many individuals, interval, had been visiting Walt Disney World on the time. Even inner transportation was barely used throughout that ~6 months.

The underside line is that if Walt Disney World had been making the idea to discontinue Disney’s Magical Categorical on the idea of ridership numbers in mid-to-late 2020, oof. That might be very flawed methodology, to say the least.

Whereas no poorly-reasoned choices in the course of the Chapek years would shock me, I’ll give Walt Disney World the advantage of the doubt and assume that the one-third stat for Disney’s Magical Categorical was not from late 2020, however quite, late 2019 or early 2020.

That retiring DME had been on the desk for some time, and Walt Disney World used the “cowl” afforded by the tender reset of the phased reopening to lastly pull the set off on what it knew can be an unpopular determination. That is exactly how we ended up with paid FastPass, which had been rumored for years however Disney by no means had the “braveness” to maneuver ahead with beforehand.

By Disney’s personal admission (contemporaneous interviews with Chapek and Parks Chairman Josh D’Amaro), the closure and phased reopening offered a novel alternative for the parks to reevaluate its enterprise practices and make troublesome choices. At the moment, paid in a single day resort lodge parking was pretty latest, and Walt Disney World in all probability was already searching for different methods to enhance margins on its resorts with out rising rack charges.

No matter when the choice to get rid of Disney’s Magical Categorical was made, my response to the one-third ridership statistic was: “wow, that’s a better quantity than I anticipated!”

Not everybody flies to Walt Disney World. Florida residents doing “staycations” most actually usually are not. Identical goes for these in different Southern states for probably the most half. There are a whole lot of common friends, even these dwelling farther north, who don’t fly as a result of it’s not cost-effective or for different causes. My household by no means fly to Walt Disney World after I was a child–we made the lengthy drive from Michigan!

Though the odds in all probability range by season, I might conservatively estimate that 20% of on-site Walt Disney World friends usually are not flying. That quantity may very well be as excessive as one-third, I’ve no clue–it’s not a statistic I’ve ever seen Walt Disney World launch.

Inside the remaining bucket of friends, there are those that don’t need to use an airport shuttle for no matter cause.

Many need to be the masters of their very own destiny by having a rental automobile, permitting them to not be beholden to Walt Disney World transportation. Not simply Disney’s Magical Categorical, however all of it. That is frequent on the unfold out Disney Trip Membership resorts and different accommodations reliant on all-bus transportation. There was a interval between the time Sarah and I had been broke school college students and the rise of rideshare when this described us, and we rented a automobile for these journeys.

Others choose personal pickups. The limo and city automobile firms have performed huge enterprise at Orlando Worldwide Airport for so long as I can keep in mind. It’s at all times been the case that some share of friends most well-liked a personal switch versus a public shuttle.

The underside line is that there’s one other huge chunk of friends airport-arriving friends for whom Disney’s Magical Categorical was at all times a non-starter. For so long as we’ve been visiting Walt Disney World, the lodge parking heaps have seen fairly excessive utilization, taxis had been at all times round, and personal switch firms existed. The rise and fall of Disney’s Magical Categorical didn’t meaningfully change the equation on any of this.

With all of that mentioned, it might be silly to fake that the rise of rideshare didn’t change issues for Disney’s Magical Categorical. It very clearly did.

Uber and Lyft have been massively disruptive not simply to the taxi business, however presumably to demand for Disney’s Magical Categorical. I might hazard a guess that as these rideshare providers turned extra mainstream, so did their utilization round Central Florida. That is one thing we additionally noticed and skilled firsthand.

We had been early adopters of Uber, and seen that for a number of years after we first wrote about rideshare, readers had been nonetheless “discovering” it and debating whether or not to make use of rideshare for the primary time. This would possibly shock some, but it surely is smart. The experiences of those that dwell in Los Angeles, New York, or Chicago are very totally different than these in rural areas. Rideshare remains to be not a “factor” in my hometown.

This isn’t nearly what number of friends had been utilizing Uber or Lyft for transportation to and from the airport, reducing into Disney’s Magical Categorical ridership numbers.

Equally vital, if no more so, was the freedom that rideshare provided. Uber and Lyft opened the door for on-site friends to enterprise off-site, together with those that had used Disney’s Magical Categorical for transportation to Walt Disney World from the airport. This meant doing meals off-site, however extra critically, it meant spending days at Common Orlando and different Central Florida theme parks.

This was the entire cause why Disney’s Magical Categorical got here into being within the first place. Identical to the Disney Eating Plan, it was initially a play to maintain folks on-site. Way back, Walt Disney World decided that the rise in common per visitor spending with Disney’s Magical Categorical plus the perceived comfort and goodwill obtained from providing the service outweighed the common per visitor price of providing the service. It was a ‘tender lock’ in holding folks within the Disney Bubble. Uber and Lyft punctured that.

Though I’ve lengthy accepted the above reasoning about rideshare, I’ve maintained my perception that Disney’s Magical Categorical was nonetheless a internet constructive for Walt Disney World. That it was in all probability a short-sighted determination to finish DME even when rideshare elevated the mobility of friends to circulation off-site.

Nonetheless, the final time I wrote about Disney’s Magical Categorical, we had been a frugal, tech-savvy couple of Childless Disney Millennials. Right this moment, we’re mother and father to a small little one. Being a Disney Dad has modified my perspective on a whole lot of issues, together with Disney’s Magical Categorical.

Earlier than, I overestimated how huge of game-changers Uber and Lyft had been for Walt Disney World transportation. Though I had heard from many households that rideshare wasn’t a viable possibility for them, I in all probability discounted this attitude. And as a frugal couple, we in all probability overemphasized the distinction between rideshare and taxis on the idea of price (and it’s now not the case that Uber is considerably cheaper than taxis!).

Suffice to say, there by no means has been a ‘tender lock’ on the Disney Bubble as a result of taxis have existed so long as Disney’s Magical Categorical existed. Whereas it’s plain that the associated fee, ubiquity and ease of Uber elevated its uptake versus taxis, the extent to which that is true is debatable.

What I now perceive is that there are different elements that create that ‘tender lock’ for households. Automotive seats are a giant one, as neither taxis nor rideshare in Central Florida come outfitted with these. So households with babies must journey with their very own, which is a non-starter for a lot of.

We do journey with a automobile seat and, truthfully, rideshare or taxis have additionally develop into a non-starter for us. One other factor I by no means appreciated till ~16 months in the past was simply how recklessly folks drive. There was like one time, ever, after I was involved for my security in lots of of occasions utilizing rideshare previous to final yr. Now, I’m a nervous wreck every time I get into an Uber or Lyft, and that’s when it’s simply me! (Past the scope of this publish, however being a mum or dad has undoubtedly modified my threat tolerance in a giant method.)

There isn’t any method we’ll use Uber or Lyft with Megatron until it’s an absolute final resort. We are going to “endure” by nonetheless many stops Mears Join throws our method. We’d quite be on the safer and far bigger bus quite than play russian roulette in an everyday automobile with another person behind the wheel.

I now “get” why so many households cherished Disney’s Magical Categorical regardless of it being objectively inefficient. I additionally perceive why households love Minnie Vans, for that matter, regardless of it being objectively way more costly than different rideshares. You possibly can’t put a value on peace of thoughts or your child’s security. Humorous how views change with lived expertise!

I can also plainly see that Mears Join ridership numbers are nowhere close to the extent of Disney’s Magical Categorical when it was discontinued. (I might be shocked if greater than 10% of on-site friends are utilizing Mears Join, on common.) Because the shuttle service has gotten much less and fewer environment friendly, it’s develop into a vicious cycle of individuals abandoning it. Within the case of households, I can solely assume they’re largely opting as a substitute for rental vehicles. And nothing bursts the Disney bubble like a rental automobile!

In different phrases, the “change” from Disney’s Magical Categorical to Mears Join is just not merely a 1:1 change, with Disney seeing the upside of upper lodge margins with none draw back in not providing the “free” shuttle. And it’s not simply that they’re dropping trip time and spending by advantage of those self same households renting vehicles.

They’ve undoubtedly misplaced some households utterly, as the associated fee or inconvenience of paying for airport transportation was their tipping level. Or, it may’ve been the straw that broke the camel’s again from a nickel and diming perspective even amongst households that would afford different airport transportation.

Bringing issues full circle with the commentary to our final publish on Walt Disney World pricing out the center class, all of this pertains disproportionately to households with babies. A lot of what’s mentioned within the few previous paragraphs is our personal previous anecdotal expertise as a childless couple (or me as a solo traveler) versus us at the moment as a household of three with a child/toddler.

Nonetheless, I doubt any of that is distinctive to us. I’ve been listening to comparable sentiment from readers and fogeys for years, it simply by no means totally “clicked.” Simply going off my very own observations, I strongly suspect that extra convention-goers, honeymooners, and different members of the Childless Disney Millennials cohort are utilizing rideshare or personal transportation that had been utilizing Disney’s Magical Categorical or now Mears Join.

The flip facet of that’s that I’d additionally strongly suspect {that a} disproportionate share of Disney’s Magical Categorical ridership was center class households with kids. That one-third quantity could seem low on its face, but when it spikes to two-thirds or extra of all MCO-arriving households with children, that’s really a large share of Disney’s bread and butter! And, as defined above, a giant chunk of these friends nonetheless aren’t venturing off-site even with rideshare–on condition that they weren’t with taxis.

In the end, given what we now find out about inner issues that Walt Disney World is pricing out center class households plus this Disney’s Magical Categorical ridership stat plus my very own life expertise within the final couple years, I’m much more satisfied than ever than ending DME was a mistake.

I nonetheless couldn’t make sense of this determination 2 years in the past, and that’s doubly true as we speak. I’ve mentioned this repeatedly and at size in posts just like the record of Prime 10 Visitor Complaints About Walt Disney World. It’s gotta be a type of issues that made sense on a spreadsheet or as a brief time period increase in the course of the interval of pent-up demand, however is doing incalculable harm to Walt Disney World. I firmly consider the beancounters acquired this one flawed, and the long-term penalties to the corporate in ending Disney’s Magical Categorical will far exceed no matter cash they saved and to no matter diploma it juiced margins for a couple of years.

Eliminating Disney’s Magical Categorical was short-sighted. The transfer will price Walt Disney World on-site lodge stays, visits to different theme parks, meals outdoors the resort complicated, and extra. One in every of Walt Disney World’s biggest strengths was its bubble, and the corporate voluntarily punctured that. The captive viewers that was seen as advantageous for years is gone–and at a time when Walt Disney World’s #1 competitor retains rising and getting stronger.

One other factor that resurfaced with this WSJ article was how, upon returning as CEO, Bob Iger made it clear that he had been “alarmed” by value will increase at Walt Disney World and Disneyland, and was involved that Chapek was “killing the soul” of Disney. Again when Iger’s “alarm” first leaked, we wrote  7 Good Modifications CEO Bob Iger Might Make to “Repair” Walt Disney World.

To his credit score, he has achieved most of that, with solely 2 entries remaining. Because it’s as soon as once more clear that one thing substantive must be performed–past ineffectual press releases–and as Epic Universe is simply months away from opening, it’s time to interrupt the glass and do one of many remaining two issues: restore Disney’s Magical Categorical.

Planning a Walt Disney World journey? Study accommodations on our Walt Disney World Lodges Evaluations web page. For the place to eat, learn our Walt Disney World Restaurant Evaluations. To economize on tickets or decide which sort to purchase, learn our Ideas for Saving Cash on Walt Disney World Tickets publish. Our What to Pack for Disney Journeys publish takes a novel take a look at intelligent gadgets to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Journey Guides will assist. For complete recommendation, the most effective place to start out is our Walt Disney World Journey Planning Information for every little thing that you must know!

Your Ideas

What do you consider the statistic that round one-third of Walt Disney World resort friends used Disney’s Magical Categorical? Increased or decrease than you anticipated? Assume that quantity was disproportionately the very center class households that Disney is now nervous about dropping? Do you agree or disagree with our evaluation? Any questions we can assist you reply? Listening to your suggestions–even once you disagree with us–is each fascinating to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas beneath within the feedback!