Fly into Jacksonville to visit WDW

[silmarg]

We will be visiting WDW in August... actually we are doing a Disney Cruise followed by a WDW trip. I found a very easy was to save $250.

We are flying into Jacksonville airport. One way from JFK... $59!!! WOW! Orlando is 99 or 109.. So we save $50/person. Plus the rental car is $50 less for our trip versus Orlando!!! We are flying back from Orlando. If we flew back from JAX we could save another $120... but we wanted to spend as much time in the parks.

We've flown into Tampa on other trips to WDW.

Something to think about!

 

[Mickey527]

What airline did you find thoise rates for in August? I am going in the middle of Aug and SW hasn't released those dates yet and I can't always count on a DING rate. I haven't booked the flight because if we can't find something low we will drive down. That rate you have is great. Peggie

 

[Seahunt]

Also for those of you who have Air Tran Airways service, they just added flights here in Daytona Beach - we're only an hour + a little away from WDW -depending on I 4 traffic, of course DAB is a nice, small, very unbusy airport....

To celebrate the new service Nascar driver Matt Kenseth drove out onto the runway and led the first Air Tran plane to the gate in his #17 race car, and there were $17 flights on Air Tran first come first serve until they sold out!

 

[Feralpeg]

It is a good two hour drive from Jacksonville to Orlando and the traffic is always pretty heavy, so be prepared.

 

[KLAIT]

We did the exact same thing a couple of years ago. We had frequent flyer miles and could not get into Orlando. Arrived late in JAX and left the following morning. We were prepared for the worst as far as traffic, but it was actually kind of a nice drive. Nothing to complain about. We also flew back out of Orlando.

Have fun!

 

[Schachteles]

The drive from Jacksonville to Orlando SUCKS...and I swear that it was longer then two hours...but I could be wrong...and it wasn't that pretty of a drive, like it is from Tampa or Miami.

But I do sympatize with PPs who talk about flying into other Florida airports to save money or because frequent flier miles cannot get you into Orlando...we have done that before.

 

[cinamin27]

from JIA it will probably take alittle closer to 2 & 1/2 hours to get to Orlando. I'm thinking from the airport, it might be best taking 9A south to 95 south to avoid going through downtown Jacksonville.

I've never found the drive to be bad, I live on the southside & it always takes me just at 2 hours to get there. The only problems is just when you get closer to Lake Mary through downtown Orlando (and around Daytona on I95 if there is something going on like a race). I've found that if I make it to the downtown area of Orlando by about 2:30pm, its not too bad, any time after that & it starts to get backed up. Leaving Jacksonville mornings about 7-7:30am (on weekends) seem to be the smoothest rides.

 

[tor]

$50 a person is good savings well worth the drive in my opinion but if I ask my wife she would never agree.

 

[RayJay]

It is a good two hour drive from Jacksonville to Orlando and the traffic is always pretty heavy, so be prepared.

My experience, and we have driven 4 times in the last 7 years is
3 hours from JAX to the entrance to Disney.

Just another FYI, but that savings may be worth it, congrats on the great fare.

RayJay

 

[ducklite]

It's actually about a 3.5 hour drive from WDW to the Jacksonville airport--each way if you hit any type of traffic--and there's a good chance you will.

It's a LONG drive, with not much to really look at along the way. Once you get onto I-4 the traffic gets downright hellish.

Frankly IMHO it's not worth $250 to have seven hours worth of driving and having to deal with I-4 traffic which is bad any time of the day or night--I was on I-4 at 10:30 last night--a Monday night--and it was still congested and crazy! And if there's an accident that closes the hghway, an unfortunately all too frequest occurence--there's not even another good way to get between the two places. Just last weekend a truck ran a mini-van carrying a family home after a crusie off the road on I-95 and the minivan caught fire and was destroyed, Fortunately no one was seriously injured.

Anne

 

[silmarg]

I've booked may trip and here's where I ended up..

Flying JetBlue to Jax (from JFK) on Aug 25. $59pp. A flight to MCO at the same time would be $134 (it would be $109 a bit later.. and we wouldve flown a bit later to save the $$$). So we saved $200-$340 right here (we are 4 travellers).

We are driving to Port Canaveral from JAX... so the additional drive time to the Port from JAX (vs MCO) is like 90 mins to 2 hours... so savings of $100+/hr is well worth it.

Add the fact that the rental car (10 day rental) was $50 less out of JAX (vs MCO). We decided on a 10 day rental even though the car will be sitting in the Port parking lot for 4 days as the cost of a 1 day rental before the cruise and a 5 day rental after the cruise was actually more than a straight 10 day rental (when you factor in the $12/day parking fee the 10 day is a few dollars more but the convenience of walking off the boat to my own car was worth it).

Since we are doing WDW on the 2nd half of the trip we will be fly back from MCO (we are not AM people and we dont want to drive to JAX after a long hot day in the parks). Flight back from MCO to JFK Sept 5 on Jetblue was $89 (vs $59 from Jax). So I did forego an additional $120 in savings.

There was no added charge for dropping the car off at MCO.

One interesting item to note. When I was looking at the Jetblue fares roundtrip JFK-MCO the prices on the return flight was $99... but when I look for one way fares they came back as $89. Go figure!!!

 

[NotUrsula]

Whenever we have done that drive on a weekday we duck off onto the Greenway at the top end, rather than deal with I4 through Orlando. If I4 is clear it's a faster drive, but I4 is never clear anymore, and most days you end up crawling at least somewhere along the way.

 

[Evil Princess]

I've flown from JFK to Orlando in August for about 140 round trip last year, and I'm doing it in May. I usually have no trouble finding that fare.

 

[Kellydelly]

We've driven from Jacksonville to Orlando twice and it's at least a three hour drive.

 

[MickeyMonstersMom]

This is all good to know. I've always flown into Orlando, but the fares have been scary lately and other family members are really pushing JAX. So now it's a matter of deciding if the hassle is worth the savings...

 

[kathi29]

We did a round trip last Sunday for a dance competition. It took us about 2 hrs 20 minutes on the way down, 4 hours home - but we stopped for a liesurely meal at Cracker Barrel. Without the detour, we would have been closer to 2.5 hours.

It can be done; a lot depends on the day and time.

 

[tor]

We did a round trip last Sunday for a dance competition. It took us about 2 hrs 20 minutes on the way down, 4 hours home - but we stopped for a liesurely meal at Cracker Barrel. Without the detour, we would have been closer to 2.5 hours.

It can be done; a lot depends on the day and time.

We can never seem to get out of Cracker Barrel in less then 1.5 hours. Never seems that long when your in there but when you hit the road again the clock flew by.

 

[Belle5]

About 1/2 the times that we have flown to WDW we have flown into TPA for savings on flights and rental cars. I am assuming you have already checked that option?

 

[kathi29]

We can never seem to get out of Cracker Barrel in less then 1.5 hours. Never seems that long when your in there but when you hit the road again the clock flew by.

Ain't that the truth. It seemed like an hour, tops (including bathroom break and a couple minutes to shop). We were shocked when we realized how much time had gone by.

 

[ducklite]

We did a round trip last Sunday for a dance competition. It took us about 2 hrs 20 minutes on the way down, 4 hours home - but we stopped for a liesurely meal at Cracker Barrel. Without the detour, we would have been closer to 2.5 hours.

It can be done; a lot depends on the day and time.

It's a 170 mile drive, some of the speed limit is 70, some of it is 55-65.

If you use the Greenway that will add about ten miles onto the trip, plus about $6 in tolls each way, but you will avoid traffic SOUTH of the airport. North of the airport during rush hour the Greenway is very busy.

Anne