Best airport for DL?

[whistlinmickey]

It definitely would if not for the rental car surcharges. My rental jumped anywhere from $150 to $700 extra doing it this way. Alamo jumped to over $1,500!!!! Otherwise, I agree...this is what I would do for sure. Thank you for the suggestion.

Yes, the rates skyrocket quickly when switching airports. It may not work for everyone, but one way I've avoided this is to drop off my rental at the first airport on the last travel day and pick up a new car to get me to the return airport. That one-day airport transfer rental is much cheaper than a multi-day transfer. But it is still a hassle that most might not wish to experience.

Order of priority for proximity to DL:

SNA Orange County
LGB Long Beach
LAX Los Angeles
BUR Burbank
ONT Ontario
SAN San Diego

BUR, ONT and SAN should only be last resort airports for a DL trip.

Just did the drive from LAX to DL and back. :45 min with no traffic. Add time exponentially for traffic!

SNA hands down if you can swing it. Even a few hundred dollars difference will be worth it when you factor in extra time and ground travel costs.

SNA is definitely my preferred. It is extremely convenient for security lines, taxi cabs, and car rentals. But I've also had pretty good experiences with ONT. I've driven from Ontario to Anaheim many, many times with very few issues. That may be because I've usually been going the opposite direction of the bulk of traffic though. I've done the drive from San Diego several times too. But I wouldn't recommend that generally. It is pretty tiring for me. But I've been motivated enough to make the drive anyway to stop by the parks for dinner after my work day finished in the San Diego area when in town for business.

 

[DG24]

I personally love long beach and it is about the same as Sna. It is easy in and out. Taxi cost only about $40. Problem is direct flights to either Sna or LGB. If we have to stop in salt lake, we usually add two hours to our time anyway. Jet blue is my prefered flight out and back, but I can't always get it. Delta never has direct flights anywhere, so we get stuck with alaska airlines. So we either fly in later at night or early on a weekend to lax. In jan when I did this, I rented a car of only $10 a night and was at our hotel within 1 1/2 hours. He plus is that rental cars and airfare is cheaper to lax, even if it takes a little longer. But when five are flying and you save $350 on airfare and $150 on rental car, that's $500 to splurge on Disney. I just always figure, two more rides, one on the way and one on the way home, or $500. When I take the $500, like I did for our April trip, Disney gets it, because we are staying on property, concierge. But I will say, check out not only airfare but ways to get to airport, especially if renting a car is not something you want to do, because lax can make it a lot more expensive for taxi, shuttle or bus service.

 

[ImTooExcitedToSleep]

Tony did an awesome podcast segment on Choosing an Airport last month.

You can download it from our show notes page HERE
or listen directly HERE.

 

[bcla]

Yes, the rates skyrocket quickly when switching airports. It may not work for everyone, but one way I've avoided this is to drop off my rental at the first airport on the last travel day and pick up a new car to get me to the return airport. That one-day airport transfer rental is much cheaper than a multi-day transfer. But it is still a hassle that most might not wish to experience.

You never know what prices you might find until you try it out. Thanksgiving Day 2012 we flew into SNA and got a midsize weekly rate of $84+fees from Enterprise. We picked it up with less than 10 miles on the odometer. The previous time I flew into SNA I got a small car at $17/day + fees.

The real convenience is no rental car shuttle and typically short waits. We already had our car in less time than it would have taken to wait for a shuttle and arrive at a remote rental car center.

 

[Carolynleanne]

We love flying into John Wayne (Orange County) It's so much closer and easier! Often times we end up with LAX though - mainly because we have young kids and prefer to fly direct.

 

[MiaSRN62]

Tony did an awesome podcast segment on Choosing an Airport last month.

You can download it from our show notes page HERE
or listen directly HERE.

Thank you everyone! will listen to the podcast, but I am pretty much sold on SNA!

 

[ccb1212]

Here is one more vote for Long Beach. It is a very small airport but it is great to get in and out of quickly. We will always fly into there if we can manage it.

 

[Angel Ariel]

We're likely flying into LAX (looks like a savings of at least $500 to fly there) - what should we aim for, arrival time wise, to try and avoid traffic?