Let’s start with two news items that prompted this post.
First, Disney has expanded the Airport Luggage Transfer service to include American Airlines and United Airlines. The service, which allows guests to transfer checked luggage to and from their Disney hotel (avoiding retrieving it and dropping it off at MCO) now operates at all the value resorts and at three airlines: the above two plus Southwest Airlines.
Second, Disney has expanded direct bus access between select resort hotels and the water parks. While most Disney resort guests have to take two buses (via a transfer at either Disney Springs or Animal Kingdom), guests at some hotels have direct buses to the water parks (details are discussed below).
While these are definite improvements for some guests, I think they reflect a growing willingness of Disney to engage in what I’d call “quirky perk” arrangements. Even if Disney has reasons for how they’re doing this, from a guest perspective the combination of perks you’ll get at any resort is a little less clear on the margins.
I’m going to take a look back at how some perks have evolved over the last few years before offering some commentary on what I think Disney is getting right and wrong with these changes.
Extended Evening Hours — Dipping A Toe in the Water of Quirky Perks
Prior to 2020, Disney World offered resort guests the Extra Magic Hours perk. That ended in 2020 and didn’t return immediately when the parks reopened.
In October 2021, as part of the 50th Anniversary celebrations at Walt Disney World, Disney introduced Extended Evening Hours. Unlike its predecessor, Extra Magic Hours, and its sister, Early Theme Park Entry, this perk is available only to guests at Disney’s deluxe resorts. Guests at moderate and value resorts don’t have access to Extended Evening Hours.
While I’d prefer all the hotels just have the same perks, this alignment makes sense for a few reasons:
The deluxe resorts are priced ridiculously high, so it makes sense to give them an extra perk to justify that cost.
Relatedly, it’s very easy to understand if you get this perk or not, and it’s easy for guests who don’t get it to understand why they don’t (because they didn’t pay the extra money for it).
The deluxe resorts also almost all have easy access to at least one park (via walking path, boat, or monorail), making a perk that extends park hours until after midnight reasonable to use.
All Disney resort guests have access to Early Theme Park Entry, so they all already have at least some “extra” access to the parks.
Check-In Day Water Park Access — Now With An Asterisk
The next notable “quirky perk” came with the recent announcement that guests at the Fort Wilderness Campsites would not have complimentary check-in day access to water parks in summer 2027, when every other resort would.
Again, this one is easy enough to make sense of:
Disney doesn’t want guests taking advantage of campsite pricing for free water park visits.
The campsites are a unique, low-cost accommodation, so guests can maybe understand not getting the same perks as other guests.
From a guest perspective, it’s hard to book the Fort Wilderness Campsites without knowing you’re getting into something a little different. And any research into that should readily reveal what you’ll be missing out on in summer 2027.
In the case of this perk, I think the oddest part was making the summer 2027 announcement before summer 2026 even started. That just confuses this year’s guests. Maybe the desire to not have people book campsites and then get mad and change plans was enough to justify this announcement when 2027 bookings opened, though.
Airport Luggage Transfer — Shhhh…It’s Back!
In the background of all this, there was another perk quickly returning in quirky form—Airport Luggage Transfer. A version of this perk, called Resort Airline Check-In, existed at all resorts before 2020. Airport Luggage Transfer launched in a pilot form at just Pop Century and with just Southwest Airlines in early 2025. It expanded to all value resorts, and now in May 2026 it is expanding to American Airlines and United Airlines, but you’ll still need to be staying at a value resort to use it.
Again, it isn’t hard to come up with some justification for this alignment:
They’re slow-walking / testing this perk, which involves a third party, so a small pilot makes sense.
Value resorts have more large families, who have more luggage.
Mr. Owl, How Many Buses Does It Take To Get To A Water Park?
Finally, there’s bus service to the water parks. If you head over to the Disney Transportation page, you’re invited to earn your doctorate in read just a few paragraphs about how to take buses to the water parks. But the bottom line for this post is that while most Disney resort guests have to take two buses to get to the water parks, there are some interestingly worded exceptions (emphasis mine):
“Guests at Disney's Port Orleans Resort - Riverside and Disney's Port Orleans Resort - French Quarter can enjoy convenient more direct bus transportation to and from Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon Water Park.”
“Guests at Disney's Art of Animation Resort, Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort, and Disney's Pop Century Resort can enjoy convenient more direct bus transportation to and from Disney’s Blizzard Beach Water Park.”
“For Guests staying at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort and Disney’s All-Star Resort hotels, direct bus transportation is available to and from Disney’s Blizzard Beach water park.”
So, not only do you want to know whether your hotel offers this special bus service to the water parks, but you may want to know if it offers “direct” or “convenient more direct” bus transportation.
Commentary — Perks Are Good, Quirky Perks Are Less Good
Here’s the good news—it’s good to expand perks! It’s good to improve the guest experience! I want more guests to have access to Airport Luggage Transfer, and I want more guests to have direct bus access to the water parks.
In the case of Airport Luggage Transfer, the outlook might even be great—maybe this is part of the preparation for the possible return of Disney’s Magical Express and the restoration of the “Disney bubble” to its former glory.
In that context, maybe this tiptoe approach makes a lot of sense. Regardless of what we commentators may think, at least some people at corporate thought cutting Disney’s Magical Express made some sense. It’s reasonable that bringing it back requires some thought and care, and this is part of that process.
But this expanding quirky alignment of Disney resort guest perks is becoming a bit of a drag. When your CEO is on earnings calls explaining that trip planning is too complicated but thank goodness AI will save the day—maybe don’t persist in making things more complicated.
What we looked at above are various understandable rationales for why every resort and every perk needs to be a bit different. But these piecemeal rationales add up to an incoherent mess when they’re all taken together. Guests who book a Disney resort hotel don’t need another factor to consider. They certainly don’t need to discern whether they’re getting “direct”, “convenient more direct”, or not direct bus service.
Maybe the buses to the water parks aren’t a big deal, but the situation is exacerbated by Disney’s own marketing strategy of actively encouraging guests to go to water parks during the summer season via the check-in day perk. Marketing has benefits, but it also has costs, and I wish Disney would accept that one cost of the water park push is running more buses.
In recent years, I’ve honestly been surprised at how well the buses have worked for us. I used to dread stays where I’d be relying on buses, but we’ve avoided major problems recently. But Disney still seems to have some operational issues. For example, there was the (maybe justifiable) restriction on Disney Springs buses during spring break season.
I suspect fuel costs play a role in all this. Fuel costs make up a huge proportion of the costs of operating the bus network, so when fuel costs increase the bus network sees its costs increase by a substantial percentage. Increasing routes by something like 40% (two new routes at each hotel on top of the existing five) doesn’t exactly sound appealing.
However much I want to believe I’m just missing something about the cost of near-perfect bus service, it’s not like the Experiences division is lacking money to spend. I’m as excited as anyone for Tropical Americas, Monstropolis, Piston Peak, and Villains Land. I certainly don’t want to see any corners cut on those projects.
But those projects—along with new hotels and the possible return of Magical Express—all aim at the same point: get more Disney World guests to stay in the bubble for a longer period of time. Transportation within that bubble is a fundamental part of the guest experience.
For all the talk about which levers Disney can pull at any time, I’d say that skimping on transportation is one lever they just shouldn’t pull. Improve the guest experience, make it consistent—give us all the direct buses to the water parks!
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