Late Night Flight vs Very Early the next Morning

[NALA 24]

We are planning a short 4-night trip to WDW in January. We are debating between flying after work on Thursday with a scheduled potential arrival at MCO anytime from 10 pm to after midnight or departing on Friday morning before 7 am with a scheduled arrival at MCO around 9 am. With the evening flights, we are concerned with flight delays or cancellations due to weather. With the morning flights, we anticipate that we wouldn't arrive at the parks to almost midday. Either way we would be staying overnight on Thursday either at the departure airport hotel or maybe Disney Springs?

Thoughts?

 

[GBRforWDW]

If you're planning to stay somewhere anyway, might as well fly at night to give yourself more time the next day.

Our very first trip to WDW a few years ago, we booked first flight of the day and they couldn't get out plane started due to the cold. They kicked us all off the plane to wait for a mechanic, said it'd be an hour, then 10 minutes later they got it going, but due to the delays we weren't able to make our initial connection, so got to Orlando way later.

So those delays can happen regardless of time of day.

 

[spiders]

I would take the evening flight but it would also depend on the origin.

 

[Gitelfor]

Realize that the later in the day your departure time, the greater the chance that your flight will be delayed or cancelled. That is especially true, when departing from the northern climes, during the winter. You may want to check out www.flightmapper.net to see if your flight number shows other stops, prior to your departure city. If prior stops are not in areas subject to winter storms, the chance of delays or cancellations should be reduced. Flight delays can cause crews to time out, triggering flight cancellations due to no crews.

 

[NALA 24]

Thank you for the great advice. I think we are leaning toward the evening flight. Now we are trying to decide if we should depart from Philadelphia or Newark. Both airports are about 100 miles from our home. Any thoughts?

 

[spiders]

Philly - less delays.

 

[_19disnA]

Weather delays can happen in the morning as well as the evening. Snow/ice storms don't only happen in the afternoon. If you are 100 miles from whatever airport you plan to use, any flight departing before 7 am means you have to get up at 2-3 am in order to get ready, pack the car and drive to the airport in sufficient time to get through security. Any bad weather would also mean it will take longer to drive to the airport. Think you will already be exhausted by the time you arrive at Disney. If the evening flight happens to get cancelled, you could stay overnight at the airport hotel and at least you are already on-site ready to travel early the next day. I would choose the evening flight.

 

[Darcy03231]

I'd take the evening flight.

 

[sam_gordon]

To me cost factors in and can be the deciding point on when to leave. I would also factor in the cost difference on the hotel.

All things being equal, I'd probably leave the night before. I've had first flights in the morning delayed because of de-icing, causing me to miss my connection.

 

[KristaZ]

I'd go for the evening flight. We often fly out early in the morning and can make it to a park by about 12 (we always plan Epcot for the first day because they open the latest, so we lose the least amount of time there). However, it makes for a very long and exhausting day. I'm always happier when we can fly out later the night before.

 

[RogueX]

When I do trips like that I usually go for evening flights. The risk for weather issues run both for evening and morning, but with an evening cancelation, you have the option of getting booked for a flight in the morning.

 

[Frwinkley]

Morning. It's like making a doctor's appointment. The further on in the day you go, the more likely you are to delayed.

I also hate waiting around all day for an evening flight.

 

[NALA 24]

Thanks for your input. We are definitely leaning toward the evening flight so that we can get our vacation started.

 

[Anthony1971]

Good luck with Newark and I am sure Philly is not far behind for late night flights. Last time we did a night flight from Newark got to Disney around 5AM should have arrived around 10:30PM.... I will say most flights we took into Newark (work) later in the day are always delayed by an hour or 2. Last week suppose to arrive at 10:45 arrived at 12:45 and waited another 20 for a gate to open so after 1AM only a delay of 1 hour and 16 minutes so they said....all different airlines and months never mattered. Early morning flights never had an issue even when there was 30 minute delay arrived close to on time due to being pushed up on take off order -- they add a lot of runway time. However you could also be fine... but I would plan for a delay of at least an hour.