Flights out of Dulles booked through DCL

[Disney1992]

I am trying to decide if DH and I should pay the $100 to book our own airfare rather than rely on Disney's flight selection. We will be flying out in October. Has anyone flown out of Dulles on DCL flight choices? If so, what airline did they use and what time was your flight? We will be leaving on a Sunday.

 

[kplatt]

We had DCL make our air arrangements from Dulles for our Land/Sea package last November. IMHO, we paid way too much for our Delta flights, although I don't have the figures anymore. Our flight to Orlando left about 8:15 am. on a Sunday.

We didn't receive the tickets until about a month before our trip, and found that they booked us on a flight home that didn't leave Orlando until about 4:30 pm, although we had to leave the ship no later than 9 am. We got waitlisted on earlier flights, but nothing became available. Sitting in the airport for 6 hours was not a fun way to end our vacation, and for that reason alone I will not have DCL book our air again.

We booked our own flights in late January through AAA for our March/Spring Break cruise. The cheapest fare to Orlando from IAD at that time was about $320, so we found cheaper flights to Melbourne (with a change in ATL) and booked an airport shuttle to the port. It worked out very well. I think the flight down left IAD about 7am, and the airport was quite crowded when we arrived about 5:30 am. We got to the ship around 12:30 pm.

We are in the process of changing our reservations from a Land/Sea package this November to a 7-day cruise. We are booking our own flights, and are looking at flying down the evening before and staying at the Orlando Airport Hyatt. Having to wake up at 4:30 am to get to IAD and through security guarantees that we start our vacation tired, and this way we can get a decent night's sleep and leisurely make our way to the Magic on Saturday morning.

Karen
Wonder 11/01
Magic 3/02
Wonder (or Magic?) 11/02

 

[Disney1992]

Thanks. My main worry was that the flight would be really early in the morning and we would have to throw in the cost of a hotel the night before too. I've been monitoring the flight schedules and noticed that the flights back seem to be 11:30 in the morning or 4:30 in the afternoon.

 

[Ginny]

Disney1992 -

You probably already know this but if you are in Crofton, BWI has great fares and direct flights to Orlando. When I have checked, they always seem to be considerably less expensive than Dulles or National. We live by 20 minutes from Dulles so we usually opt to pay the higher fare to avoid 2 hours of battling traffic. I use American Express' travel site to check fares.

We have never booked air transfers through Disney. It sounds like your reasoning: we want more control over our flight times. We have flown out of Dulles on direct flights to Orlando three times since October 01. Our fares were great using United out of Dulles for our Halloween Cruise and a special WDW visit in January. I just used Delta Express out of Dulles two weeks ago for a business trip. The times (and fares) worked better for us on United for leisure travel.

Have a wonderful time - October is a beautiful time to cruise.

 

[Disney1992]

I would love to fly out of BWI and we used to do that but now the only airline that flys direct is Airtrans, which used to be Valuejet and both DH and I just can't bring ourselves to fly with them. They also don't have any direct flights back to BWI, at least as of yesterday.

We booked our travel package through AAA, which, in turn, I guess booked through Disney. In the literature, there is a small disclaimer that says if you opt out to book your own flights, you might not get the Disney transfers. This being our first cruise ever and our first trip back to Disney in awhile, we thought the convenience of not having to worry about hauling around luggage, renting a car and returning it would be a nice change.

 

[kramer_clan]

Southwest flies direct to Orlando from BWI.

Vicki

 

[kplatt]

We were able to book the Disney transfers for our trip this November even though our AAA travel agent purchased our flights separately.

When we flew to Melbourne for our cruise in March, I was surprised to see a DCL bus leaving the Melbourne Airport. No one at at the Port knew anything about transfers from that airport. The CM on the ship who was booking future travel speculated that if DCL's arrangements had travelers flying into Melbourne, then DCL was obligated to provide the transfers from there. Otherwise, they do not routinely have buses at that site.

Karen
Wonder 11/01
Magic 3/02
Wonder (or Magic?) 11/02

 

["Ginger"]

Arriving a day or days before the cruise, much more relaxing.
The last time we flew out of Dulles we missed our flight. We were fling with US Air, they changed the departing time 5 times from the date I purchased the tickets, we never got the finally change notice. I even checked out the US Air site the night before we were to leave and it never showed the change. Anyway it was a very scary feeling. They did get us on another flight but it was later and by the time we got to the ship arriving on the last bus it was 2:00 pm. We told ourselves never again.

I have been told in the past by DCL that you may purchase transfers even if you haven't purchased the air through them.

I found the notice in a DCL brochure book current date.
You can leave the driving to us! Ground transfers can be purchased for $63 per person (7 Night Land and Sea Vacation Package) or $46 per person (3, 4, or 7 night cruise vacation package).
*Provided you arrive during standard DCL airport pick-up operating hours.
Which I beleive are 10am - 1:30pm on the day the ship sails, double check these hours with DCL.

Hi Ginny, We're getting ready for another Halloween cruise. Won't you join us????

 

[Ginny]

Southwest was the airline out of BWI I was speaking of regarding the low fares. For fun, I just went to their website: http://www.southwest.com and they had lots of non-stop flights from BWI to MCO (Orlando) with round trip fares ranging from $160 to $260. I just randomly picked dates in October so your specific dates in October may differ but it is worth checking out.

I agree with Ginger about their schedule! We fly down the day before and just relax. That way, if the weather changes or you have a technical problem with the plane, you have lots of time for delays.

We didn't use Disney Transfers; we used the coupon for Happy Limousine on Barb's Website and were very happy with our transfer to the Radisson. The next day, we used the hotel shuttle to the ship with no worries. And, our return trip from the ship to MCO was great.

 

[Disney1992]

Thanks. I was using Travelocity for my flight information and they were only showing Airtrans as a direct flight. I will have to check out Southwest. Thanks Again!