day room while awaiting flight

[Colleen P]

Does anyone have any experience or info on rooms that could be used to await an afternoon flight after debarking off the Disney Cruise?

Thanks for the help!

 

[disneysteve]

What time is your flight? Most hotels have a 3:00 or 4:00 check-in time. When you figure in the time to get from the ship to the airport and the need to check-in for your flight 2 hours before departure time, how much time will you have to kill? What we've done on departure days from Disney is check out of our hotel and head to one of the local malls - there is a nice mall not far from the airport. We browse around there, have lunch, etc. before heading to the airport.

When we had time to kill in Miami after a cruise a couple of years ago - flight home wasn't until 7pm - we rented a car for the day and drove around Miami, went out to lunch, went to the mall, etc.

Just a couple of thoughts. As for the hotels, if you want to get a room, I'd suggest checking all the airport hotels and just pick the cheapest possible room and requesting early check-in.

 

[Colleen P]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the ideas. The mall is a good one.
Last time we were off the ship and at the airport by 9:10. Our flight was (and is) not until 2:30pm. They would not even let us check our luggage until 4 hours at least before the flight.

Just thought I would see if something like that existed.

 

[disneymom3]

The Hyatt in the Orlando airport does do day rentals. As I recall the cost is about $68. They have a nice pool and decent size rooms. Honestly though, we had a large group waiting for flights at about 5:30 after leaving the cruise. Some things we did:

Make sure you get off the ship as late as you can. We were told we should be off by 9:00 and we were, but not much before.

There is a ton of stuff to do in the airport and many many nice seating areas with comfy chairs and tables etc. Stake one out and have one person in your party stay there while the others wander. Lots of very fun shops and tons of places to eat.

Have one person in your group get lunch and bring it back to your seating area.

If you have little kids, the moving sidewalks are great entertainment.

Rent a DVD player in the airport and eat up some time with a movie.

Bring quarters for the arcade. I think we spent more in the Arcade than the entire time in WDW but our kids were entertained.

The mall idea works great if you have a car to leave your luggage in. We have in the past, rented a car when it was just DH and I. We got off of a cruise in Fort Lauderdale and our flight didn't leave until 6p.m. We rode the ship transport to the airport, they took our luggage at the dock, and we went down and went from car rental counter to counter and got the cheapest car we found. Then went out and toured Ft Laud on our own. Couldn't do that this time as we did not have kids carseats with us, but that was the best day of our trip! So it's an idea if it would work in your situation. Thuogh, I don't know if I would bother for only needed to wait until 2:30.

 

[Lewisc]

Or switch to a later flight and go to the Kennedy Space Center for the day.

 

[disneysteve]

Originally posted by disneymom3
If you have little kids, the moving sidewalks are great entertainment.

I'll second that. My DD loved riding those when she was younger and MCO has some nice long ones.

 

[Roxie A]

We had 2:00 flights on USAir and arrived a the airport at 9:30, they were able to get us on the 10:00 flight, that was great!

 

[Colleen P]

That is all great info! Now I have too much to do and not enough time! LOL.
Thanks to all!!