Flying on X-mas Eve...How's MCO and IND?

[SCCaguioa]

Hey everybody!

For now, we are planning for a WDW X-mas vacation 2006 and will flying down on the 24th. The idea of flying down on the 24th bothers me but I have been told the 24th can be very slow (next the X-mas) and with little issue.

So can you share your experience with flying on X-mas eve? Are MCO and IND packed like sardines or feather light??

I'm not even going to ask about New Year's Day...I imaged the airports are mad houses.

See ya
Steve

 

[dznyacct]

Hi Steve!

We're from Lafayette and fly out of Indy all the time. In December 2003, my son and I took a pre-Christmas trip to WDW (the $49 AP rate at the newly opened PC was too good to pass up!). We flew home on Christmas Eve and the Orlando airport was absolutely DEAD !! There was no one else in line at the airline check-in counter or the security line. It was like a Twilight Zone episode. We chatted with the security officer and commented at how dead the airport was. She said that the day before (12/23) was a real zoo with very long lines and very grouchy people. I made a mental note to not travel on 12/23 in the future. I don't think you'll have any problem at all. We've flown home on New Years's Eve once (it was the Y2K year and my DH REALLY wanted to be home..."just in case" ) and on 1/2. Neither of those days were bad, but I don't know about New Years's Day itself. I'm sure some other DIS member may be of more help.

 

[stage manager]

I agree. I don't know about MCO on Xmas eve, but IND is about as active as the morgue. My family has to fly on the 24 and 25 a lot due to work schedules, and you will breeze through IND.

 

[SB in KY]

Well....I don't want to be a prophet of doom or anything, but we had an 8AM flight out of IND on 12/24/04 and it was an absolute zoo... we arrived at the terminal about 6:45 and already had boarding passes (thank heavens) or we would NEVER have made our flight....it took almost 20 minutes to get to a kiosk to check luggage and we waited at least 30 minutes in the line to get through security....the line to get boarding passes at SW was literally out the door and down the sidewalk!! The flight had been sold out for weeks yet we took off with probably 20 or 25 empty seats on the plane....and I felt really bad for all those poor people still waiting to get through security when we left without them!!

There was a lot of construction going on then and that may have slowed things down considerably inside the airport....but it made me really glad we don't fly out of Indy very often!!

 

[SCCaguioa]

I agree. I don't know about MCO on Xmas eve, but IND is about as active as the morgue. My family has to fly on the 24 and 25 a lot due to work schedules, and you will breeze through IND.

Thanks for the info everybody. It is good to know that IND on the 24th is slow (of course when I go, IND will be packed...good ol Murphy's law...)

If we're lucky, we will be able to extend our vacation 1-2 days and fly home on the 2nd or 3rd and avoid the fly home rush. We'll see...

Steve