Driving or fly out of Buffalo

[Bertie9396]

We are going towards the end of March I think. Flying out of Toronto is not an option. Its just too expensive. I've found some good flights out of Buffalo but I've never flown out of Buffalo before and I know nothing about their airlines. Actually, I've only ever done any air travel by booking with our relative who is a travel agent so I'm nervous not using her. She's never steered us wrong. LOL

So, DH and I are thinking of driving. We live an hour north of Toronto. The only thing is I can only take one week off of work and I don't want to loose precious Pooh Bear, Mickey and Princess time driving. We could leave in the middle of the night and take turns driving but I don't want to arrive at the hotel exhausted.

We'll be travelling with our 6 year old daughter. I really would rather put my money towards fun at the Parks rather than the actual trip there, kwim? We'll be staying off-site.

Any suggestions? What have you done in the past and what are your experiences? Right now, with the price of gas, I figure it might be just as affordable to fly out of Buffalo then drive.

 

[stefanospops]

Flying out of Buffalo is super easy. Depending on what time your flight is you can either stay at a hotel the night before so you can park your car there for free, or you can park in the airport for about $80 for the week. Staying at a hotel means you aren't worried about border delays or weather and it is not that much more expensive to do so.

If you want to save time, flying out of Buffalo is the way to go. And with Jetblue (our carrier of choice), you can check your luggage at the hotel for the flight back from WDW if you are staying at a WDW resort. Good luck!

 

[Bertie9396]

Flying out of Buffalo is super easy. Depending on what time your flight is you can either stay at a hotel the night before so you can park your car there for free, or you can park in the airport for about $80 for the week. Staying at a hotel means you aren't worried about border delays or weather and it is not that much more expensive to do so.

If you want to save time, flying out of Buffalo is the way to go. And with Jetblue (our carrier of choice), you can check your luggage at the hotel for the flight back from WDW if you are staying at a WDW resort. Good luck!

We won't be staying at WDW - we'll be off site. If we go this route we hope to fly out over the weekend or on the Monday. We'll probably stay at a hotel because we did that last year when we flew out of Toronto and it was just easier. I don't want to be worried about crossing the border or getting stuck in traffic when I already have to worry about checking in for a flight 3 hours before it takes off.

 

[Hemlock]

Have you considered flying out of Niagara Falls N.Y., instead of Buffalo. Spirit Airlines has some awesome deals out of Niagara N.Y. With limited holiday days, I would fly rather than drive. I have never driven to Florida before, but when I do go on a long car trip, I always feel like you get there and have to turn around and come back. No time to relax and then go back to work tired.

 

[Bertie9396]

Have you considered flying out of Niagara Falls N.Y., instead of Buffalo. Spirit Airlines has some awesome deals out of Niagara N.Y. With limited holiday days, I would fly rather than drive. I have never driven to Florida before, but when I do go on a long car trip, I always feel like you get there and have to turn around and come back. No time to relax and then go back to work tired.

What day do they fly out? I can't figure it out. LOL

 

[Hemlock]

I just realized that they don't begin flying out of Niagara N.Y. until January 28. Our TA gave us a quote for this airline for our trip for May 2011, that is why I didn't realize that they weren't flying out of that airport yet.

Anyway the price our TA gave us was for $49 each way, plus $60 membership fee to join the $49 flight club, plus $60 taxes. So the total was around $220 return. It sounded like a great deal, except that the flight left at 1:55 a.m. (bad news), but arrived in Orlando at 8:00 a.m. (good news). However since you were considering driving all night, this might work for you.

P.S. You can also skip the $60 membership fee and pay $99/each way for your flight (plus taxes of course) instead of $49/each way.

 

[Hemlock]

What day do they fly out? I can't figure it out. LOL

Looks like, they will be flying out on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

 

[cslittle999]

Bertie9396, with you only being able to take a week off work your travel options are fairly limited. From Orangeville it's a 21 hour drive. Barrie will be an extra hour. No matter how you slice it, you'll lose two days to driving and be exhausted when you get there.

In terms of costs driving can be quite inexpensive. On our trips with our minivan the fuel costs were around $300. What tends to make driving more expensive is hotel stays and meals on the drive there and back. We figure with a family of four that driving averages out to $900 (we do one hotel stay on the way down and two on the way back).

Flying can be inexpensive too. You can regularly get $200/person round trip flights or less. The extra costs to consider are parking at the airport and what kind of transportation you'll need in Orlando. Having to get a rental car, and you're staying offsite so you should really have one, tend offset the difference in price between driving and flying. As well if you have an early enough flight you might consider staying at a hotel in Buffalo the night before. Most hotels will give you free parking during your trip so that offsets the cost somewhat.

In the end with a short trip like yours I would fly. Out of Buffalo the key airlines are SouthWest, JetBlue and Airtrans (although SouthWest just bought them so it is likely that they will eventually disappear). All three are good airlines and all of them offer direct flights to Orlando. For rental cars I would check on Mousesavers for discount codes.

Buffalo is a great airport. It's small and everything is close by. Much easier to get around than Toronto. They are really used to Canadian visitors (I bet more Canadians fly out of there than Americans).

 

[OntFamily]

Buffalo is a great airport. It's small and everything is close by. Much easier to get around than Toronto. They are really used to Canadian visitors (I bet more Canadians fly out of there than Americans).

We flew out of Buffalo on SouthWest a few weeks ago. I estimate over 80% of the passengers were Canadian (and, by their comments, the SouthWest crew seemed very accostomed to having Canadians being the majority of their passengers).

 

[Bertie9396]

OK, so here's my SouthWest issue...I've heard a few nightmare stories from acquaintances who were "larger" (like me) and had to buy an extra seat at the last minute. Now, I've flown with AirTransat, WestJet and last year we flew SkyService, just before they went under and although its always cramped, I have had no problem fitting into the seats or the seatbelts. However, one lady who is smaller in the hip/butt area than me said that she was stopped at the gate and was told she'd have to pay for an extra seat. Just like that. She caved because they were going to miss their flight. I'm freaking out about that aspect of it. Is this going to be an issue?

I've honestly never booked any air travel without the assistance of our relative the travel agent so I'm nervous about it. We've never really had any issues come up that we've needed her for. But I am finding packages with air, hotel and car for under $1,200 US. She's quoting me trips more than a $1000 more for the same hotels!! And with the dollars pretty much equal right now....

*sigh*

I think I have to get the family loyalty out of my head for this one. She's retiring soon anyway so next go around, I'll probably be booking myself anyway. People do this all the time, right? LOL

Oh the problems I have.

 

[KingstonGirl77]

We have driven to Florida from Kingston 4 times. We drove to save money and we did. We are also limited to only taking a week off at a time. This December we are flying out of Syracuse as my DH just can't take being exhausted when he gets there. He says it takes him like 2 days to recover from lack of sleep and just general stress of driving. So this time we saved up to ensure we can fly. We are also staying offsite.

This was also my first time booking my own air through jetblue and although we haven't left yet I am fairly confident I did everything right thanks to reading the Disboards

Good luck with your decision!

 

[NancyK]

I love flying out of Buffalo. We've flown Southwest and JetBlue and would fly either again in a heartbeat. The main reason I like Southwest is the fact that you can change your flight plans if necessary.
Have you looked at staying at a value resort onsite? You may find that it is comparable in cost to an offsite hotel. If you fly, you can take Magical Express from the airport saving you the cost of a rental car and the cost of parking every day at the parks. Just a thought.

 

[AndyMcV]

....The only thing is I can only take one week off of work and I don't want to loose precious Pooh Bear, Mickey and Princess time driving....

If I only had 7 days there's no way I'd consider driving. For the price of a flight out of Buffalo (Southwest or Jetblue) I would fly for sure. We've flown twice now with Southwest and it's super easy (we live about 1.25 hours east of Toronto).

 

[AndyMcV]

....Have you looked at staying at a value resort onsite? You may find that it is comparable in cost to an offsite hotel. If you fly, you can take Magical Express from the airport saving you the cost of a rental car and the cost of parking every day at the parks. Just a thought.

Yeah, yeah, yeah... stay on site, stay on site!!

 

[lauracitawita]

We live in Mississauga and flew to WDW with Jetblue out of Buffalo. For the four of us it was just over $700 taxes included.

We loved it so much we are flying out of Buffalo again this weekend to NY.

You can do online check in 24 hours prior and the entire experience is hassle free.