Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine is a shuttle bus between Orlando Airport and Walt Disney World resorts plus on-site third social gathering accommodations and some off-site choices. This transportation evaluate shares our experiences with the paid alternative for Magical Categorical, and the way it’s gotten higher & worse because the merger with its competitor.
Let’s begin with a fast recap. Walt Disney World’s free shuttle service between MCO and the corporate’s resorts, Disney’s Magical Categorical (DME), ended over 2 years in the past. The elimination of the airport shuttle was huge and stunning Walt Disney World information, and continues to anger followers. It’s made the listing of Prime 10 Visitor Complaints About Walt Disney World in every of the final two years, and undoubtedly will once more in 2024 and even 2025 if the service isn’t magically restored forward of Common’s Epic Universe opening.
Rather than that free bus service between MCO and resort accommodations, two paid bus providers initially stuffed the void. One was/is Mears Join, the previous operator of Disney’s Magical Categorical that now makes use of the identical buses and drivers. The opposite was Sunshine Flyer, an upstart service with a enjoyable railroad theme. A kind of is previous tense and the title of this evaluate is “Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine,” so the astute detectives might even see the place that is going…
Mears Join and Sunshine Flyer “joined forces” final summer time to kind Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine. This merger has professionals and cons for customers. Competitors is at all times good for protecting costs and repair aggressive. However on this case, there arguably wasn’t a marketplace for two competing shuttle providers between MCO and WDW.
We used each Mears Join and Sunshine Flyer individually on a number of events, and now have used the mixed Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine a few half-dozen instances. This evaluate goals to handle the considerations raised by readers to find out whether or not Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine is “nonetheless good” in comparison with Mears Join, Sunshine Flyer, or the OG DME.
For many who haven’t used any shuttle service between Orlando Worldwide Airport and Walt Disney World because the demise of Disney’s Magical Categorical–or ever, for that matter–let’s start with a little bit of background. In a nutshell, these are excessive capability coach buses that take you from the assorted terminals at MCO to your on-site resort at Walt Disney World, in addition to a handful of off-site ones within the WDW space.
Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine is engaging to many Walt Disney World followers as a result of it’s the identical firm that operated Disney’s Magical Categorical. The largest promoting level of Mears Join is their declare that it’s the identical dependable, secure service company have been utilizing for many years to Walt Disney World space accommodations. Once more, that is largely a rebranded Disney’s Magical Categorical–it actually makes use of the very same drivers and buses, simply minus the Disney-branded wraps. A number of the buses look very just like the previous ‘ocean-liner’ DME buses, with solely Disney logos and characters eliminated.
Because the merger between Sunshine Flyer and Mears Join, the mixed firm has additionally absorbed the railroad-themed buses into the fleet, and given them new wraps within the fashion of Mears Join, with nautical exteriors and marine life (manatees, dolphins, turtles, and so on.) on the skin. Gone are all traces of the trains.
Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine guarantees quick and handy airport transportation service in excessive occupancy automobiles, restricted wait instances to board a bus, comfy seating, restricted stops to your resort, reasonably priced transportation the place youngsters beneath three experience free, no want to fret about Uber or Lyft rideshare surge pricing, loads of baggage house, and wheelchair accessibility.
It’s straightforward to e-book Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine on-line, and will be performed in a matter of minutes. My slight nitpick is that that is tougher to do through their cellular website, encountering hiccups a number of instances whereas my aircraft is taxiing to the gate at MCO. However it’s nonetheless higher and simpler than Sunshine Flyer was–that required a number of days advance discover. I can actually e-book Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine every time.
To that time, I by no means reserve my experience in period of time upfront. There’s zero incentive to take action, because the pricing is similar upon arrival and buses are dispatched as they replenish–not based mostly on bookings (which makes full sense given flight delays, early arrivals, baggage pickup instances, and so on).
Due to this, I at all times examine the costs of Uber and Lyft from MCO to WDW proper when touchdown. If the pricing premium is simply too steep, I rapidly e-book Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine. As I’ve been flying solo for the final year-plus, Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine has been the higher choice 100% of the time. If it had been each of us, it might be about 50/50.
So far, you may as well make walk-up reservations for Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine upon arrival. It’s a easy course of that takes lower than a minute, and there’s no disincentive to doing this. So in case you land and uncover that Uber or Lyft are too costly or that your rental automobile reservation has a difficulty or no matter, Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine is a simple pivot.
Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine has two choices: Customary and Categorical. The latter is direct service to your resort and again to the airport, because the assured first cease. Categorical isn’t essentially a personal service; it could be shared. On condition that, reserving Mears Join Categorical is senseless in any respect, as Mears has quite a lot of opponents specializing in precise personal service.
I’ve been positioned on Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine Categorical a number of instances, and on 2 of these events, they clients who booked Categorical had been stunned that it was shared and that they had been crammed in a van with a bunch of strangers. A part of that is on them–Mears Join’s web site makes clear that it is perhaps shared. However the general service they obtained and caliber of the expertise, for my part, was not commensurate with what I do know they paid for it.
Even with out having used Categorical, I might not suggest reserving it. There are higher options specializing in personal transfers. Or simply use Uber or Lyft? Mears’ sturdy go well with is high-capacity transportation options–not service or effectivity–so I can not fathom what they carry to the desk on the Categorical entrance. Regardless of that being a part of the DME title, “categorical” is basically the antithesis of the Mears title.
With Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine, you’ll obtain a boarding move someday earlier than your pickup with a QR code through e-mail. Upon touchdown at MCO, you must also obtain a textual content message reminder welcoming you to Orlando with a hyperlink to the boarding move and arrival directions.
Take this QR code to the self-service check-in stands and scan it. If for no matter purpose that doesn’t work–otherwise you didn’t get a QR code–there’s employees current to help. Whether or not you do self-service check-in or the assisted model, the method is extremely easy. Mears is unquestionably environment friendly at this portion of the method. After this, they ship you in your method to the loading zone.
When this merger was first introduced, plenty of Walt Disney World followers had been involved about lengthy strains for loading and the mixed Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine turning into tremendous busy and inefficient because of this. That has not been my expertise in any respect. On the contrary, the instances I’ve used Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine in 2023 and 2024, the mixed service has been (considerably) much less busy than once we used Mears Join or Sunshine Flyer in 2022 (by means of Spring Break 2023).
That is very seasonal and time-of-arrival dependent, however I’ve but to come across greater than a dozen or so individuals in your complete Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine loading space. Two of my flights had been within the fall low season, however one other two had been doing a standard time, and two extra had been at near-peak instances round Veterans Day and MLK Day. On all events, Orlando Worldwide Airport was not less than reasonably busy. (Like Walt Disney World, there doesn’t appear to be a “sluggish” time at MCO anymore–not less than, not as in comparison with 2019 or earlier.)
The excellent news is that I’ve been nearly immediately loaded onto a Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine bus each time. I might hazard a guess that my common wait time for being loaded is beneath 90 seconds. Perhaps as soon as I waited about 5 minutes, however that was seemingly an anomaly.
The unhealthy information is that the ready time as soon as on the bus will be for much longer as Mears does every thing in its energy to not dispatch practically empty buses. I haven’t really timed these waits, however I’d hazard a guess that the common is 15-20 minutes. There have been a few instances that I’ve waited 30+ minutes for the bus to be dispatched.
Even then, I’ve but to be on a bus that was greater than 25% full. On common, there are 4-5 stops. I’m usually heading to Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort or Disney’s All Star Sports activities, and I’d say about half the time, this has additionally entailed a cease on the off-site Gaylord Palms Resort. That doesn’t hassle me; it’s close by the All Stars and Coronado. There have been different instances once we’ve gone to random resorts on the opposite facet of property–just like the Magic Kingdom space–which is pretty inefficient.
I’m no mathematician, however I assume somebody should be the primary cease when taking these shared shuttle providers from the airport, but it surely’s in some way by no means me. In years of utilizing Disney’s Magical Categorical and now these successor shuttles, I’d reckon that we’ve been the final or second-to-last cease roughly 90% of the time. Perhaps someplace on the market, our Wario and Waluigi counterparts are boasting on their weblog about at all times being first.
Again in my youthful days, this used to actually bug me. I used to be impatient and excited, comfortable to be again “residence” at Walt Disney World however overly-eager to hit the bottom working and get to the parks. The time from the primary to final cease felt like endlessly. Now that I’m older and wiser (probably not), you would say that I’ve mellowed out a bit. Or you would say that because of the abundance of empty seats, I sit within the again, pull out my laptop computer and use the Mears bus as my workstation to get stuff performed. That is most likely the extra correct evaluation, as I’m nonetheless accused of being impatient and intense–simply not on the subject of buses, I suppose.
The ethical of the story is that Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine has grow to be extra time-consuming, on common, than Disney’s Magical Categorical and even circa-2022 Mears Join or Sunshine Flyer. However this isn’t because of the lack of competitors, as some Walt Disney World followers worry.
On the contrary, it’s resulting from lack of demand. This downside can be even worse had the businesses not merged, as there’d be the identical variety of clients unfold over 2 shuttle providers. They might nonetheless not need to dispatch nearly-empty buses, in order that they’d wait longer within the loading space, scale back the variety of buses, improve the variety of stops, and so on.
Even when my half dozen experiences have all in some way been outliers (fairly onerous to consider since I additionally used Mears Join and Sunshine Flyer throughout their waning days and people separate ‘outcomes’ weren’t materially totally different), the purpose nonetheless stands. Demand is a matter, and there usually are not sufficient riders to maintain two separate shuttles. Even when there are lengthy strains and packed buses throughout peak season (I’m skeptical of this), the existence of what I’m describing–on many events–factors to unsustainability general.
In any case, you may anticipate Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine to take about an hour on the low finish and as much as 2 hours on the excessive finish. I might estimate that my time from arriving on the Mears check-in podium to arriving on the resort averages round 100 minutes. Since I’m doing work and never timing the commute, I don’t have a exact quantity–that could possibly be barely off.
I might additionally estimate that the common commute is now ~20% longer than it was with Disney’s Magical Categorical, which is pushed wholly by the longer wait earlier than being dispatched. The drive from the airport nonetheless takes the identical period of time, as do the stops between every resort.
The wildcards are going to be the wait to depart and variety of stops. These are variables for which no single evaluate can account, and even when they might, you’d haven’t any manner of figuring out what your expertise can be earlier than arrival. When you get actually fortunate, it may take 45 minutes on absolutely the low finish; in case you’re actually unfortunate, over 2 hours on the excessive finish wouldn’t shock me.
That is the powerful factor about reviewing Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine, and even Disney’s Magical Categorical earlier than. It’s so dependent upon good or unhealthy luck/timing. Two company may arrive 10 minutes aside however have polar reverse opinions–one simply barely making the bus to their vacation spot and the opposite simply lacking it. One may write effusive reward on-line concerning the shuttle service, the opposite a rant about poor service and delays. Each can be equally true, with mere minutes separating superior(ish) from the terrible.
Truthfully, the experience taking 20% longer for the bus being far much less full is a tradeoff that I’ll fortunately take, because it permits me to drag out my laptop computer and do work in peace and luxury. Because of this, I’ve began utilizing Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine on events when Uber/Lyft are a better name. As a result of not less than with Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine, I do know I’m getting a quiet experience. Rideshares are extra of a wildcard, and I don’t like being impolite or aloof if my driver is chatty.
Clearly, although, all of that is extremely private. When you’re a household of 4, it’s not like “pull out your laptop computer and reply to feedback in your Disney weblog” is helpful recommendation to your 6 yr previous twins. They most likely don’t actually have a Disney weblog but. What they may share with me is a way of impatience and pleasure, and that 20% longer experience could possibly be what brings them to their breaking level.
It must be famous that the above evaluate focuses on the service from the airport to Walt Disney World. I take advantage of Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine for attending to MCO far much less often as a result of I don’t need to be on the airport 2+ hours earlier than my flight. (When you don’t have TSA Precheck, you completely ought to–I’ve seen safety wait instances of 45-60 minutes on a number of current events.)
Nonetheless, I’ve used the return service a few half-dozen instances (and right here, I’m additionally lumping in previous experiences with common Mears Join, pre-merger). It’s typically higher. What I actually admire about that is that they textual content you a hyperlink with real-time monitoring of your bus, so you may hand around in the foyer or wherever, and solely exit shortly earlier than the bus arrives.
I’ve additionally seen that Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine is extra environment friendly and the buses are fuller on these return journeys. Granted, it’s a comparatively small pattern measurement, however I assume that’s as a result of Mears is ready to use capability administration and allocation methods to rearrange pickup instances and dispatch buses accordingly.
Nonetheless, I choose utilizing Uber or Lyft for getting again to the airport. It additionally helps that I nearly at all times depart on the very same flight, and the common rideshare value is predictably low after I want to go away at round 1 p.m. (seemingly the candy spot between the morning and afternoon rushes).
On the service facet, I’ve zero complaints about Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine. Workers on the airport has been courteous, and the drivers are at all times pleasant. Some attempt to brighten up the bus experience with an upbeat perspective and Disney-related commentary. No points or complaints in any respect–they do nearly as good of a job as will be anticipated.
With that mentioned, the difficulty for lots of Walt Disney World followers is that Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine doesn’t have that inarticulable Disney high quality to it. Disney’s Magical Categorical had plenty of flaws, but it surely was straightforward to miss them as a result of DME was a magical method to begin their trip. Being greeted by Mickey Mouse in his captain’s hat, a memorable and quotable video on board, and numerous little Disney touches all made it simpler to miss what was in any other case an inefficient methodology of airport transportation.
It wasn’t that Disney’s Magical Categorical was good, it was that it was Disney. An immersive expertise from the second you landed in Orlando, all of the whereas constructing anticipation aboard the bus and finally exiting at your themed resort. It was thrilling and distinctly Disney–even whereas being operated by Mears. It was a bittersweet finish to the journey, however one which already started planting the seeds on your subsequent go to. Unsurprisingly, Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine doesn’t have any of that X-factor. Perhaps you care, perhaps you don’t, however it’s what it’s.
Finally, that’s been my expertise with Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine post-merger of the 2 airport shuttle providers. Whether or not it’s “nonetheless good” is determined by whether or not you thought it was ever good within the first place. If sure, then most likely nonetheless sure. If no, then nearly actually nonetheless no.
Whether or not the airport shuttle service is best for you is a private query, and hopefully one you may reply in mild of the above details about waits, service, and price. Our view is that Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine is an efficient choice if the maths works out on it (sometimes which means you could have a smaller social gathering measurement).
We’ll be utilizing Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine for Megatron’s first journey to Walt Disney World because of the carseat scenario with Uber and Lyft, because the numbers don’t fairly work on personal switch for us. My view on Mears is that it’s the lack of higher choices choice. Your mileage could range, although. There’s worth in predictability, comfort, and utilizing a longtime service.
After these experiences with Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine within the final ~6 months, my greatest concern now could be that the airport shuttle service could not exist in any respect in 2025 or 2026. I do know that Mears supplied airport buses even earlier than Disney’s Magical Categorical, however the world has modified a lot since then. Rideshare providers are ubiquitous and rental vehicles are extra plentiful.
Fairly quickly, there’s going to be an airport prepare to Common (and so on.) that would additional scale back the demand for these choices, driving down costs and thereby reducing demand for Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine. A part of me wonders if the one manner an airport shuttle is viable in any respect within the long-run is by being an on-site perk supplied by Walt Disney World. I suppose we will see.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you consider Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine? Have you ever already used the airport shuttle service post-merger? If that’s the case, what had been your wait instances and general impression of the providing? Will you employ this, or is it too costly for shared transportation? Will you go for Mears Join Pushed by Sunshine over Uber, Lyft, or renting a automobile? Ideas on pricing, effectivity, or the rest? Any questions we may help you reply? Listening to your suggestions–even whenever you disagree with us–is each attention-grabbing to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas under within the feedback!
