Luggage was not loaded onto plane on our way home...used RAC at Disney

OP, Did they ever get your luggage to you?

Yes, our bags arrived by 2pm the next day. The tracker said they would arrive at 4pm.

Thanks, everyone, for the great info! We had planned ahead for such an event and didn't miss anything essential with the missing bags so it was more of an inconvenience and curiosity than a crisis. One night without our CPAPs was OK since we needed our carry on space for other important items.
 


One night without our CPAPs was OK since we needed our carry on space for other important items.

Cpaps shouldn't take up space in a carryon.

My husband's cpap has its own carrying case. He takes that on along with his carryon and his personal item (backpack). Since it contains medical equipment it doesn't count towards his carryon.

Cpap machines cost thousands to replace. Don't put them in checked bags. Especially since it doesn't count. Bring your carrying cases for the machines and make use of that exception.
 
This makes me curious on the process after you check your bag at RAC. Does it hang around somewhere at a Disney resort until shortly before your flight, and then sent over to the airport? Do they run all the bags to the airport at one time after the RAC counter closes? Does the airline have a designated holding area for bags that come in from Disney RAC and they pull from there for each flight? I have to assume the bags were with the airline for at least a couple hours, and then someone forgot to put them on your plane or else they were put in the wrong place - perhaps by the RAC person dropping them off. Just curious how it works now!

This is where the bags go after they leave your resort and before they enter the luggage system in the terminal.
http://www.bagsinc.com/rsf

Interesting link!

The last two times we flew to WDW (May and August of this year) we checked our luggage with RAC early in the morning then headed off to have a little more fun before our DME pickup around 3:30 PM for our 6:30 PM flights home. Both times our luggage flew from MCO to Houston IAH on an earlier flight than ours and was waiting for us in a special secured area of baggage claim.

Cpaps shouldn't take up space in a carryon.

My husband's cpap has its own carrying case. He takes that on along with his carryon and his personal item (backpack). Since it contains medical equipment it doesn't count towards his carryon.

Cpap machines cost thousands to replace. Don't put them in checked bags. Especially since it doesn't count. Bring your carrying cases for the machines and make use of that exception.

Yes, we both have CPAP machines and carry them on in their cases in addition to the other normal carry-on luggage we have. It's aggravating to deal with extra items but better that than having them delayed and being without for a night, or worse, having them stolen out of our checked luggage.
 
It's aggravating to deal with extra items...

Absolutely. And you're right; the alternative is worse, that's for sure. DH also doesn't like it because he's a bigger guy and people glare at him anyway thinking that he'll impact their universe, and having THREE bags while getting onboard gets him what he perceives to be looks as well. (though honestly I think he perceives it because he himself is awfully judgy about what people are carrying on the plane...). I've never noticed anyone looking at his rollerbag, backpack, and small cpap bag...

But it's literally a life-saving device, so...
 


How did you get your bags? Some people live quite a distance from the airport.

They use a few different methods. As others have said they use couriers. I have also seen the airlines deliver bags on there own probably because the deliveries were close by. Saw an SUV with a bunch of bags in it, they were in the way back and even a few piled on the seats. When I pulled up next to it It had a Delta Logo on the door and some markings like what a company uses when they have a fleet of vehicles. Depending on the distance it's probably a lot cheaper to pay one of their own employees to dive a company vehicle.
 
We had a screw up with Southwest once when we checked our bags through RAC. We were waiting and waiting by the carousel at the Flint, MI airport and the bags didn't come. So, we went to make our claim with the SW staff member who brightened up and said, "oh, yes, your bags have been here a while." They went on an earlier flight. I didn't think they allowed that, but our bags got to the airport a few hours earlier than we did. That's an entirely different issue than the OP's, but I think it shows that RAC doesn't wait to send bags to MCO until just before your scheduled flight.
 
We had a screw up with Southwest once when we checked our bags through RAC. We were waiting and waiting by the carousel at the Flint, MI airport and the bags didn't come. So, we went to make our claim with the SW staff member who brightened up and said, "oh, yes, your bags have been here a while." They went on an earlier flight. I didn't think they allowed that, but our bags got to the airport a few hours earlier than we did. That's an entirely different issue than the OP's, but I think it shows that RAC doesn't wait to send bags to MCO until just before your scheduled flight.

Similar thing happened to my wife and I. We were coming back from our honeymoon Disney cruise, and when we got to baggage claim in Columbus, we heard my wife's name over the PA. It turns out our suitbag with dress clothes had arrived on an earlier flight. Someone had crossed out the flight number, and wrote in a different number!
 
We had a screw up with Southwest once when we checked our bags through RAC. We were waiting and waiting by the carousel at the Flint, MI airport and the bags didn't come. So, we went to make our claim with the SW staff member who brightened up and said, "oh, yes, your bags have been here a while." They went on an earlier flight. I didn't think they allowed that, but our bags got to the airport a few hours earlier than we did. That's an entirely different issue than the OP's, but I think it shows that RAC doesn't wait to send bags to MCO until just before your scheduled flight.

We as passengers cannot choose to have our bags fly separately. But the airlines can and do choose to do it, and it's not a mess up. It can be confusing, that's for sure, but they do it on purpose.
 
We had a screw up with Southwest once when we checked our bags through RAC. We were waiting and waiting by the carousel at the Flint, MI airport and the bags didn't come. So, we went to make our claim with the SW staff member who brightened up and said, "oh, yes, your bags have been here a while." They went on an earlier flight. I didn't think they allowed that, but our bags got to the airport a few hours earlier than we did. That's an entirely different issue than the OP's, but I think it shows that RAC doesn't wait to send bags to MCO until just before your scheduled flight.

We as passengers cannot choose to have our bags fly separately. But the airlines can and do choose to do it, and it's not a mess up. It can be confusing, that's for sure, but they do it on purpose.

I have had it happen a couple of times that my bags were on a different flight. First time was coming back from Dis. We had a change of planes and terminal. Our bags made it but we didn't. As we came down the escalator we could see our bags and the bag of oranges my dad bought sitting in a roped off area

Another time was Flying back from Mexico through Atlanta. After we went through Immigration/customs we saw we would be able to make an earlier flight home by about 3 hours as we got through very quickly. Went to the desk and they changed us with no issues. When we went to re-check our bags they told us to put my golf clubs in one spot and our regular luggage in another. There was a flight at noon and one at 1p and we were on the 1p flight. In the end my golf clubs made the noon flight and our bags made the 1p flight we were on. Funny part was the noon flight ended up leaving about 25 min after us so I had to wait for my bags that were on an earlier flight. :confused3

Another time when I checked my bags they told me that there was unfortunately no room on the earlier flight for me but when I got to where I was going to go to the baggage office next to baggage claim. I was told they were sending bags that were checked early enough on earlier flights and it might already be there when I got there. It was and I was out of the airport in no time not having to wait for my bags.
 
My husband's cpap has its own carrying case. He takes that on along with his carryon and his personal item (backpack). Since it contains medical equipment it doesn't count towards his carryon.
Yup. A bag containing only medical equipment doesn't count toward your carry on allowance.
 
We as passengers cannot choose to have our bags fly separately. But the airlines can and do choose to do it, and it's not a mess up. It can be confusing, that's for sure, but they do it on purpose.
There was a time when we flew SeaTac into Newark, then to Providence. We had mechanical issues at Newark, so got stuck there for close to 4 hrs. Almost rented a car to just drive back! When we finally arrived in Providence, my dh met us...but he just walked by baggage claim. Seems our bags had arrived about 2 hrs before we did!!! He kept getting updates, so he arrived at the airport a few hours early!!!
If there's space on a flight, they'll add baggage to it. It would be nice if we were told this though...vs standing around waiting for bags to show on the carousel. Sometimes they put the bags out with the arriving bags, but sometimes not!!!
 
My DD and I returned to STL a few years ago on an evening SWA flight. We had checked our bags early that morning with RAC.

There were a ton of people in the SWA luggage office whose luggage wasn't on the carousel. They were all coming from WDW and had used RAC in the morning. We were from different resorts. One man was quite upset as his car keys were in his luggage and he had no way to drive home.

We put in our claim notices and then went to the park/fly hotel, got our car and drove our 1.5 hours home.

Our luggage was delivered FedEx 2 days later. The funny thing is, we determined that our luggage arrived at STL about the time we drove past heading home (on next flight). We could have stopped in and picked it up.

I can't imagine what it costs for 1 day delivery with FedEx for 2 large suitcases (we had been at WDW for 10 days). OUCH.

We have had luggage delayed with legacy carriers also (not from WDW) when we flew into our local small airport. It was delivered by a courier service (if I remember correctly).
 
There were a ton of people in the SWA luggage office whose luggage wasn't on the carousel. They were all coming from WDW and had used RAC in the morning. We were from different resorts. One man was quite upset as his car keys were in his luggage and he had no way to drive home.

It amazes me what people put into their checked luggage. Delayed luggage isn't uncommon. Hopefully he learned an important lesson about not checking something you'll need shortly after landing!
 
i thought the airline/RAC lost my luggage. Luggage did not come out and was on my way to to airline office to file a report and noticed the suitcase already in the office. Appears our luggage made an earlier flight.
 
We were delayed on Delta this week flying out of our home airport. Ended up taking a later flight once we got to our connection in Atlanta. Our bags were waiting for us when we arrived at MCO. We could not get seats on one of the earlier flights but there was room for our bags. (Delta has a ton of flights between ATL and MCO daily.) We got updates on our app regarding our bags.

Years ago, I returned from Europe with my bag delayed. I got a call and I said that I would pick the bag up at the airport the next day (Northwest Airlines). We had a rare snow which really messes up our traffic but well after midnight, I got a knock at the door with my bag being delivered. I was dead tired and I worked at the airport so I really wanted to wait until the next day when I went into work.
 
Southwest blamed us and Disney.
Disney blamed Southwest.

1) Sure, everyone blames others.
2) In this case, I would say it WAS NOT the fault of the airline.
3) I have seen too many instances where the RAC cart was not loaded onto the RAC truck to the airport.
. . . luggage for an individual room is placed in a single roll-around locked cart
. . . more than one cart is used if necessary
. . . each piece of luggage is scanned into the system before loading into the cart
. . . the cart is then scanned to connect the luggage to the cart
. . . the cart is rolled into the pickup area (usually within Bell Services)
. . . the RAC truck (van) picks up the cart and scans the cart tag
. . . in many cases, not all the carts get loaded onto the RAC truck
. . so, in waiting for the next truck, the missed cart could miss the plane
 
I have seen too many instances where the RAC cart was not loaded onto the RAC truck to the airport
In this case, guests whose luggage wasn't on the flight came from several different resorts. Far too coincidental that so many different carts of luggage originating from so many different resorts would all just happen not to get on the truck or trucks, miss the flight, and not arrive at one airport.
 

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