immigration delays at mco?

[isabelle25]

Hi ! Im french and prepare my trip to wdw in next august 2014 in POR. I gonna book my flights soon to have good prices but wonder what layover is best for international tfravellers. I mean do you know if orlando mco airport has long delays for immigration and customs? Is it best to take atlanta? If anyone has just passed through international customs and immigration in july or august could tell me the delays i need to expect. Thank you very much for your help. Xxx.

 

[jsilvers]

CBP provides wait time data for airports at http://apps.cbp.gov/awt/. The waits can vary enormously based on the day of the week, hour of the day, and terminal (MCO has two international facilities, in Airside 1 and Airside 4). For July 2013, the highest average wait time seems to have been 37 minutes and the maximum wait time 92 minutes. Bottom line: It's unlikely that any delay at MCO would be severe enough that it would be worth your time to connect over another airport instead of flying nonstop to Orlando.

 

[Rainforest]

Bonjour isabelle25!

If you're flying from Paris, I don't think there are direct flights to Orlando (MCO) from there. So that means you have to change planes in USA, where you clear immigration and customs and catch your connecting flight, or change planes somewhere like Frankfurt (FRA) and fly from there to MCO (where you would clear immigration and pick up your bags).

Re layover in ATL or somewhere - I would suggest 2 hours as a minimum. I have changed in places like IAD, ORD, DTW, MSP, JFK, and ATL, and have found ATL and MIA more laid back and easier to get around, so my advice is to try for connections at ATL or MIA (Miami).

Someone on the UK planning thread had a query, and I posted this response, so have a look at this for info :

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3158554


Don't worry about long delays/lines for immigration at MCO - you would have arrived at your final destination, and don't need to catch a connecting flight so who cares!

Although your query is transportation-related, strangely enough, I believe this question is better answered by us on the UK forum; there are even some French people on there, too!

 

[isabelle25]

Thanks a lot jsilver and rainforest for your kind answers.
Im sorry rainforest if i have done wrong by posting there i thought transportation mean travelling...oops...problem of translating for me. So I gonna look on the uk side then but uk travellers often have direct fly to mco ..I just wanted to have reports from immigration time from international traveller at summertime in atlanta for instance as i have never made connecting flights and layover and delta airlines or lufthansa suit my own plan.;-)

 

[Rainforest]

No, isabelle25, you did nothing wrong!

I am also a newbie here on DIS Boards, but trying to help. See you in the UK Forum!