How long from landing to check in?

[Vickyrowe]

Hi we are flying into MCO, next September (23rd) and staying at Saratoga Springs.

We would have already cleared customs at Altanta and we are set to land at 5.30 PM.

How long does it roughly take from landing to checking in at your resort?

Would it be possible to make a dinner reservation at the House of Blues @ DTD, for 9 PM / 9.30 PM.

Thanks Vicky

 

[wayneg]

Yes it would be possible time wise but personally I would never book a meal on first evening. The most we have ever eaten is a McD's but usually all we want is a few crisps or share a sandwich from Walgreens.
If you get seated at 9:30pm you will maybe eat around 10pm, thats 3am in the morning for you UK time, by the time you have eaten 4am. You really are past wanting a big meal by that time, all you want is bed.
I would advise waiting til you get there, get into your room, see how you feel.

 

[Vickyrowe]

The time difference won't be such a problem for us as we rarely get to bed/sleep before 3 am in this country anyway ( up again at 8) , plus we find keeping going on the first night till late then we'll be up at a sensible time in the morning .

Last time we crashed as soon as we got to the room then struggled to sleep past 5am as we were still on UK time.

It is our first time staying on site and using the ME so didn't know how long to allow before we got to the resort.

Thanks for your help.

 

[flortlebap]

I usually leave 3-4 hours between flight landing and dinner.

However, on our last trip, the plane landed early and we went from leaving the plane, through immigration, straight onto ME (our bags were the first off) and were at the hotel less than 90 minutes after landing (and only 60 minutes after we were officially due to land!)

Whilst that has to be some kind of record, the down side was as soon as we sat down at the bar to wait for our dinner reservation, we both ended up exhausted and couldn't wait for food to be over! If we had booked earlier we would have been fine but we were so tired. Next time we will opt for QS I think

 

[wilma-bride]

It is hard to say how long it could take. Even if you've cleared immigration, it could take a while for your luggage to be unloaded. Are you picking up a rental car? Or getting DME? You could be waiting a while for DME to leave also and no guarantees you won't drop off at other resorts first.

I'm with Wayne - we never make reservations for the first night, especially not now with the new cancellation policies.

 

[Mrs Doubtfire]

We went in October and cleared immigration in Philidelphia. The flight was due in at MCO at 6.30 pm. We landed more or less on time and had to collect luggage. We picked our car up from Dollar at 7.18pm (we didn't have to go to the desk, just the kiosk at the garage).

We called in at Publix for some shopping at the store near Celebration as we got off the 417 there and were done and back in the car for 8.20pm.

Hope this gives you an idea of the timescales involved. You should easy make a reservation for 9.00pm if everything is on time

 

[2Tiggies]

Vicky, the other posters on here have pretty much answered your question but just to add my September experiences, having done 3 in a row, we had some or other delay every single year that saw us arrive later than expected. In 2011 we cleared immigration in Newark so thought it would be plain sailing which it was until one of the engines failed as we were preparing to taxi and we were towed back to the gate and offloaded. When we landed at MCO 3 hours later than scheduled, we touched down in a thunderstorm and all the ramps were closed so no luggage was processed through the system for nearly 90 minutes .....

Thunderstorms have had us see a delay every September/October thus far at MCO, partly down to the time of day that we tend to land I'm sure. A tropical storm has also been a culprit.

So we don't make any firm plans for arrival night, but rather have a set of hope-to-do's, which always include a CS meal of some sort

 

[orangetiggs]

Last week took us three hours from landing to picking car up was nightmare

 

[Minniesgal]

We have been 3 times in the last 18 months and it has taken us anything from 50 minutes to 3 hours it is highly variable depending I think on how many immigration officials are on duty and how close to each other the flights land.