Flight time advice from MCO

[Minnie368]

I can get a great rate on a flight from MCO to home at 10:55am after cruise. Any way I can make this work with private transportation or is it just too risky?

 

[tee11]

Hm. You could make it work, but there is no room for error. I think DCLs official advice is 11:30am or later? It is on their website.

 

[samily]

Here is what I posted on another thread about how it worked out for us (this was a few years ago on the Dream). I will add that I had also researched back up flights just in case we didn't make ours:


We easily made a 10:45am flight out of MCO last Sunday. I was a bit worried about making the flight and normally wouldn't have booked that early but we wanted to be back home for something that afternoon.

It was just me & DH traveling so that made it easier than if we had the kids with us. Here is what we did:

-We packed in 2 small carryon suitcases so we wouldn't have to stand in line to check luggage at the airport
-We booked DCL transfers to MCO
-We carried our luggage off the ship because I didn't want to have to take the time to locate it at the port
-We lined up in the atrium at about 7:05 and were let off the ship about 7:20-ish
-Went through customs and we were sitting on the DCL bus by 7:30
-By 7:45 the bus was full and we were on our way to MCO
-Arrived at MCO at 8:30
-My FIL had checked us in online from home, so we just needed to print our boarding passes at the Southwest self serve kiosks (the actual line for checking luggage or full service for Southwest was HUGE!)
-Went through security (the line wasn't bad at all - everyone was still in the SW line, lol)
-We were at our gate by 8:55

We were lucky everything worked perfectly for us - I was worried because on the way to the port for the cruise the other side of the highway to MCO had a lot of construction and traffic was quite backed up.

Also, for breakfast went up to Cabanas around 6:30 - they had fruits and pastries out at this time - the full buffet did not open until 7, so we had some fruit and one last chocolate croissant there and ate again at the airport.

 

[adg06]

We flew home last week, and we were not on a tight schedule... but I just wanted to share that the security checkpoint at MCO was the worst I have seen, and I fly several times per year. The line was insanely long (this was at 6 AM) and I found out why when we got up there. They were making everyone remove all kinds of things from their carry-ons. All food, candy, snacks had to be removed to be scanned separately. We had our trick or treating candy in a gallon size ziplock baggie and they dumped it all out, said it had to be in a single layer in their bins. All books had to be removed and go through separate screening. Also one of our backpacks got pulled out because we had a package of baby wipes in it. The baby wipes had to go through a swab test for bomb residue. I have no idea if this is normal operating procedure there, or if perhaps there was some kind of extra threat level going on... but we barely made our flight when we normally would have had plenty of time to leisurely eat breakfast and wait for our boarding time after the security line.

 

[asamklove]

MCO security is the worst (slowest, rudest, most drama) I have ever encountered as a traveler!
That said, I think it’s do-able if you walk off & book private transport good luck!!!

 

[Minnie368]

Thanks for all your input. I have some thinking to do...

 

[dcassetta]

I can get a great rate on a flight from MCO to home at 10:55am after cruise. Any way I can make this work with private transportation or is it just too risky?

Pack light and get off the ship as soon as possible. Have a backup plan.

We flew home last week, and we were not on a tight schedule... but I just wanted to share that the security checkpoint at MCO was the worst I have seen, and I fly several times per year. The line was insanely long (this was at 6 AM) and I found out why when we got up there. They were making everyone remove all kinds of things from their carry-ons. All food, candy, snacks had to be removed to be scanned separately. We had our trick or treating candy in a gallon size ziplock baggie and they dumped it all out, said it had to be in a single layer in their bins. All books had to be removed and go through separate screening. Also one of our backpacks got pulled out because we had a package of baby wipes in it. The baby wipes had to go through a swab test for bomb residue. I have no idea if this is normal operating procedure there, or if perhaps there was some kind of extra threat level going on... but we barely made our flight when we normally would have had plenty of time to leisurely eat breakfast and wait for our boarding time after the security line.

I guess it was about 10 years ago, and we were flying back from London when there was a serious terrorist threat. They banned all carry-ons. The only thing we were allowed to take onto the plane with us was our passports. The security lines went very quickly as no luggage was scanned.

 

[panda123]

If you have time to do so before your trip and you travel with some regularity, highly recommend enrolling in tsa pre check or global entry. It's good for 5 years and if you have kids under the age of 12 traveling with you on the same reservation, they're covered too. You'll go through a much shorter security line and won't have to take off shoes and light jackets. Also, you can leave your quart size liquids bag and laptop in your luggage. And because everyone else in that line doesn't have to take those things off or out, the line goes much faster too.

 

[apathetic]

You can easily make that time. Even taking a bus, they leave as they fill to the airport. I've gotten to MCO by 9am without even trying.

 

[sc426]

I got off the Fantasy yesterday morning. We got into port about 5:30am and were in the first group off the ship. We lined up about 6:45am and after carrying our luggage off the ship, going through security, etc., we were boarded on one of the first busses out by 7:45am. But everything ran smoothly for us. One of the people that I got close to on the ship said that by 8am a couple of the busses had some kind of malfunction and even though they got on the bus at 8:30am, they did not leave the port until 9am and didn't get to the airport until 10am. She was glad she didn't book a flight until 1pm. It all depends on what time you get into port the morning of your departure.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

MCO has been babbling about the need to check food for weeks, and claiming it's new procedure everywhere.

Not where I've flown lately it ain't.

 

[Dug720]

MCO has been babbling about the need to check food for weeks, and claiming it's new procedure everywhere.

Not where I've flown lately it ain't.

Don't tell them that. They'll be all "Well, where are you right now?" And when you say "Orlando" they'll say "Well, this isn't [insert your home airport] now is it?"

They are horrible and make their own rules it seems.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

Oh, trust, I would not. I am simply observing that they are making stuff up.

 

[tee11]

We flew home last week, and we were not on a tight schedule... but I just wanted to share that the security checkpoint at MCO was the worst I have seen, and I fly several times per year. The line was insanely long (this was at 6 AM) and I found out why when we got up there. They were making everyone remove all kinds of things from their carry-ons. All food, candy, snacks had to be removed to be scanned separately. We had our trick or treating candy in a gallon size ziplock baggie and they dumped it all out, said it had to be in a single layer in their bins. All books had to be removed and go through separate screening. Also one of our backpacks got pulled out because we had a package of baby wipes in it. The baby wipes had to go through a swab test for bomb residue. I have no idea if this is normal operating procedure there, or if perhaps there was some kind of extra threat level going on... but we barely made our flight when we normally would have had plenty of time to leisurely eat breakfast and wait for our boarding time after the security line.

Wow!!! Books, baby wipes, candy...all in extra bins?!
OMG!
We’ve had a bad experience, too, and that was *with* TSA pre-check.
They *insisted* we stand in the wrong line, and when it was nearly our turn, they pulled us out, and insisted we stand in line again at the proper TSA precheck line- and it was a long line; and the line we originally stood in!!

 

[tee11]

Pack light and get off the ship as soon as possible. Have a backup plan.



I guess it was about 10 years ago, and we were flying back from London when there was a serious terrorist threat. They banned all carry-ons. The only thing we were allowed to take onto the plane with us was our passports. The security lines went very quickly as no luggage was scanned.

Oh my goodness. You had to check everything??
I can’t even imagine going through that with toddlers. And on a transatlantic flight! What about diapers?!

 

[dcassetta]

Oh my goodness. You had to check everything??
I can’t even imagine going through that with toddlers. And on a transatlantic flight! What about diapers?!

I think they did allow a small amount of baby food and diapers, but I do not specifically recall any small children near me on the flight. Yes, we had to check everything - even the book I was planning to read on the flight.

 

[bumbershoot]

Oh, trust, I would not. I am simply observing that they are making stuff up.

I just can’t stand mco. I’ve had the experience of waiting in a long line with the agent screaming for 15 minutes in some sort of bitter sarcastic standup routine like Sam Kinison, or Lewis Black on a bad day, talking about how this isn’t your hometown and you have to stay with your bags and you’re stupid if you don’t... ad nauseum.

And then when the bags were backed up and people tried to do what he had been saying, a different agent (in hearing distance of the other) was yelling at us to just go through the metal detectors. Which meant we were leaving our belongings on the non-secure side, alone, and being out of site from our bags for who knows how long.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

I was wishing we had booked a 10-something flight home from our cruise a couple weeks ago. I was watching people head to the parking garage by 7:25 from my verandah, thinking, dang we could've made that early flight. I was too scared to try it, so we headed to wdw for the night instead of sitting at mco until the evening flight.
Next time I will book the Early flight.

 

[mmouse37]

I hate when TSA says stay with your bag, stay with your bag and then that bags pile up and lag on the belt and they make you go through or the opposite when you stuff goes through and is sitting on the other side of the screening machine and you are held up getting through the metal detector. It makes me so uncomfortable having my stuff sitting at either end without my eyes on it.

MJ

 

[bumbershoot]

Yeo. They make such a big deal about it then abandon it.

It’s like how a 4oz bottle of shampoo is soooo dangerous that they put it in a garbage can that sits next to them for hours.

I’d respect it all so much more if they at least treated “contraband” as contraband.