Airfare to MCO is Prohibitive

[kes601]

I was just looking at flights for June, and good grief. Even sprit and frontier are over 400 pp.

Spirit is $1100 for the two of us round trip right now.....that's without bags or seats. This is mid June to early July (I know they haven't dropped prices yet for July, but still ridiculous). Frontier is not as bad -- $388 for the two of us, but again that is w/o bags or seat assignments. Allegiant is the best. We could do them for about $350 w/bags but then you have to factor in transportation costs from SFB so it ends up being a wash pretty much.

Also, we are in VA so only a 2 hour flight.....

 

[barkley]

Yikes! I just started checking airfare to MCO for our trip in July. The only non-stop from SF area is United (and they only have 2 a day) and with 2 little ones in tow we like to go redeye straight through. Well, Thursday morning, the fare was $705 as I recall (it had come down a couple of dollars from Tuesday). I was hoping it would drop some more, because that still seemed awfully high - then in the afternoon it shot up by almost $150!!! I thought wow, did they sell out most of the seats already? Then I saw what happened - they changed the plane, so instead of 289 passengers they now only have seats for about 170 to 190. Ugh! I guess if I get lucky enough for it to drop even a little I had better jump on it! Kicking myself for not having bought those tickets at $705 now that I'm looking at $842!

i feel your pain-when we lived in the bay area and wanted to go to orlando i spent so much time trying to figure out the best way to do it-via oakland, san francisco or sacramento. sac was my favorite to do b/c it was (at least back then) so much smaller and easier to navigate than the 2 others. well, at least you've got options-i'm in the land of only one airport and there's no such thing as a non stop flight to pretty much anywhere (except the hubs that every other flight has to stop at).

 

[RoseGold]

We drive half the time. I have been checking prices out of Newark for months. Nothing less than $800 - $900 for the two of us without luggage. We are leaving in less than two weeks. We were set on driving.

Trenton is less than $100 on Frontier. I mean, it's Frontier, but it's still a plane.

 

[gardenrooms]

Thank you all for all your wonderful suggestions. I am working through them one by one. I have been watching flying into Tampa and flying out of SJO. I try to avoid Oakland. We lost a whole day in Hawaii because of a serious problem with Alaska Airlines and Oakland being so small we could not get another flight out. But that's a story for another day. Suffice it to say I will never fly with Alaska again!!!

 

[sadiecatie]

Flights everywhere seem to be a nightmare right now - we were just looking last night at flights from Dayton to Atlanta for May for a family event. We were hoping to use miles, and any reasonable time was 100k miles per ticket! Dollars were $500-600/seat and up. We will be driving. I feel for you!

 

[dez1978]

Spirit is $1100 for the two of us round trip right now.....that's without bags or seats. This is mid June to early July (I know they haven't dropped prices yet for July, but still ridiculous). Frontier is not as bad -- $388 for the two of us, but again that is w/o bags or seat assignments. Allegiant is the best. We could do them for about $350 w/bags but then you have to factor in transportation costs from SFB so it ends up being a wash pretty much.

Also, we are in VA so only a 2 hour flight.....

We are in Mo, so it's 2h 15 min for us. SW ends up being cheaper than any of the budget airlines by the time you factor in bags. Even with just carry ons. But still triple the cost of last year.

 

[kes601]

We are in Mo, so it's 2h 15 min for us. SW ends up being cheaper than any of the budget airlines by the time you factor in bags. Even with just carry ons. But still triple the cost of last year.

Not here. It's pretty much equal and Southwest only has direct service to MCO on Sat/Sun here now. They used to have it 7 days a week and it was the first flight out so we always took it. Then COVID happened and they changed their service model. Doesn't seem to be only here either in terms of direct to MCO.

ETA: Southwest is resuming daily MCO service from our airport in October. Sounds like they are doing this at other places as well.

 

[cvjw]

ouch!....for that i would drive for roughly 6 hours

Agreed. But younger son wanted to fly with his older brother, so I paid it! The rest of us are driving. From atlanta, you can just about drive to Orlando in the same amount of time that flying takes.

 

[amylevan]

Transportation from SFB to WDW eats into some of the savings.....

When Magic Express existed, sure, but now that you have to pay for transportation from MCO also, there isn’t as much of a difference. Uber pricing estimator shows minimal difference between the airports.

 

[kes601]

When Magic Express existed, sure, but now that you have to pay for transportation from MCO also, there isn’t as much of a difference. Uber pricing estimator shows minimal difference between the airports.

Our flights into SFB typically arrive around midnight and leave early in the morning so we won't plan to Uber / Lyft as who knows if somebody will be available for that drive. So that leaves a car service which is about $350 for the round trip service.

We also don't Uber or Lyft from MCO, instead depending on when we arrive / leave we'll either do one of the bus services or a car service. The car service is about $125 less out of MCO than out of SFB. And the bus for the 2 of us is $64 round trip. That's a big difference.

You also have to remember if you have larger parties then a regular Uber may not be an option, or if you have a car seat, etc.

Just my opinion.

 

[gardenrooms]

When Magic Express existed, sure, but now that you have to pay for transportation from MCO also, there isn’t as much of a difference. Uber pricing estimator shows minimal difference between the airports.

Good to know.

 

[barkley]

i know it's an added expense but does the airport inside mco still do day rates? used to be (and granted, this was some years back) you could do a day rate that limited your stay to a certain number of hours so we would look at what were the best rates from our departure point and if it futzed with our hotel check in (like super late the night before check in or early morning of) we would go to the hotel, grab a few hours sleep/kid's slept or watched cartoons w/some snacks. we could do the better priced transportation this way as well. we frequently got our best return trip prices on flights that left early evening so we would do a departure day day rate (checked out of our disney hotel, hit the airport, checked luggage, checked into airport, let kids swim...relaxed till we had to get out and go to security).

speaking of airport hotels-for savings it's worth it to see if ones even very local to your home offer free parking w/one nights stay. we've checked in the night before and availed ourselves of free breakfast, shuttle to the airport, parking in a secure/covered lot, shuttle back from the airport-all for less than the worst airport long term parking lot.

 

[gardenrooms]

I never knew there was such a thing! Checking it out. Thanks barkley.

 

[Maistre Gracey]

Trenton is less than $100 on Frontier. I mean, it's Frontier, but it's still a plane.

But you just might have the best captain in all of aviation.

 

[rtravels]

Yikes! I just started checking airfare to MCO for our trip in July. The only non-stop from SF area is United (and they only have 2 a day) and with 2 little ones in tow we like to go redeye straight through. Well, Thursday morning, the fare was $705 as I recall (it had come down a couple of dollars from Tuesday). I was hoping it would drop some more, because that still seemed awfully high - then in the afternoon it shot up by almost $150!!! I thought wow, did they sell out most of the seats already? Then I saw what happened - they changed the plane, so instead of 289 passengers they now only have seats for about 170 to 190. Ugh! I guess if I get lucky enough for it to drop even a little I had better jump on it! Kicking myself for not having bought those tickets at $705 now that I'm looking at $842!

Not much of a help but Alaska also flies non stop SFO to MCO (once a day).

 

[gottalovepluto]

Have you tried checking Breeze Airways, I've never used them just read that recently they opened non-stop options from SNA to MCO and they seem relatively affordable. As I have no experience with them I don't know what sort of things they may tack on for fees above what I'm seeing with my sample search in July. Perhaps some others may have experience.

https://www.flybreeze.com/home

OP is at SFO which is 6 hours from SNA if you drive in the middle of the night with no traffic (Breeze doesn’t fly SFO-MCO.)

 

[FCDub]

Honestly, I’d just find a different place to vacation in with flight prices like those.

 

[AnnaS]

Trenton is less than $100 on Frontier. I mean, it's Frontier, but it's still a plane.

Considering Trenton is about 90 minutes from us - not that bad. Years ago someone at work flew out of Trenton rather than Newark - but he lived in NJ. BUT

Considering parking our car fee at Trenton (we usually have car service pick us up to Newark), tolls, gas and bridge - (does this include seats and luggage? lo) - not sure if it would all be worth it to us. I hate flying/afraid of flying - but will fly - I get picky with plane, seat, airline, etc. I know it's all in my head.

We just booked our flights to Italy - we will pay a little more - I won't do more than two stops, make the stop at certain countries, picky about seats.......see where I am going with this - definitely not a happy flyer.

Thank you. Great suggestion though!!!

 

[AnnaS]

Honestly, I’d just find a different place to vacation in with flight prices like those.

It might come to that soon - especially for my son - family of five. They have started taking yearly trip to Hershey and Crystal Springs - they love it. Of course it's not the same/no comparison but the kids are young and they get to enjoy a little of the parks, cabanas by the pool and nice restaurants. No hassle of flying (my son does not fly) and he is a DVC member. His last trip was in 2019. Considering next year - he has no idea what the flights cost (his family flies and he drives - yes, crazy).

We are finally going to Italy this year - I might start making this a yearly or every other year trip and substitute one of my Disney trips to Italy. (wish the flight was less hours ).

 

[Sabrina Carter]

Yikes! I just started checking airfare to MCO for our trip in July. The only non-stop from SF area is United (and they only have 2 a day) and with 2 little ones in tow we like to go redeye straight through. Well, Thursday morning, the fare was $705 as I recall (it had come down a couple of dollars from Tuesday). I was hoping it would drop some more, because that still seemed awfully high - then in the afternoon it shot up by almost $150!!! I thought wow, did they sell out most of the seats already? Then I saw what happened - they changed the plane, so instead of 289 passengers they now only have seats for about 170 to 190. Ugh! I guess if I get lucky enough for it to drop even a little I had better jump on it! Kicking myself for not having bought those tickets at $705 now that I'm looking at $842!

Two years ago it was $380 to fly from SLC to MCO. Today it is $700. I set a google alert so I can see the average price and get the best deal. It has certainly changed.