Yes, you need extra time at MCO. We went 3 hours earlier at 12:10 pm and our flight was 3:20pm. The car rental return wasn't too bad. I had to drop off hubby, kids, and a ton of luggage. They waited for me at check-in counter. About 20-30 minutes to drive around back to car return inside of the terminal lot, wait for an
Alamo employee to give me a receipt, and walk across the path back into the airport.
SWA check-in was smooth and line not too long. But we had to haul all our luggage to the TSA area (about 10 feet away) and put the luggages in an open area that was roped off for the TSA employee to run the luggages through x-ray machine. Had to haul our car seat to another TSA area about 12 feet away from the check-in counter. My husband wanted to see the TSA agent literally put all luggage on the conveyor belt before walking away. I guess it is better to be cautious. The roped off area is open to anyone walking by, there is only 1 TSA agent putting all the luggage into the machine, and his back was constantly turned away from all the luggage sitting there waiting to be loaded onto the machine.
The worst part was security screening. Holy cow! there were about 6 different lines that hardly moved. Tons of adults and families getting impatient. Once you reached the airport screener that matches your id to your boarding pass, the lines converge to 3 more lines that snake around before you actually reach the x-ray machines. It took about 40 minutes for us to reach the x-ray machines. 40 minutes was lucky because my 2 year old daughter started crying LOUDLY while in line - too hot, too many people, wanted to be held the entire time, wanted to run around the airport the entire time when we held her, and many passengers were pushing to converge into the smaller lines. When my daughter's crying started at least 3 other children in line started crying as well, I think the airport employees realized they had a "baby" mutiny on their hands and quickly opened 1 more x-ray screening area for families with kids.
After x-ray screening, we had to take the monorail? to our gate area. Once we reached our gate area, we breathed a sigh of relief and had a couple of McDonald's Fish sandwiches with fries.
That was our MCO experience on December 12th! Good Luck with yours.
Hoping you have a safe and painless travel!
