May Cruisers???

[Mickey527]

Leslie and I have made all the arrangements, and we are ready to go.
Now I have some questions.
I know alot of you are going to stay the night before at the Raddison near the Port. We are arriving in Orlando on the 15th and I wanted to do some stuff at the parks. I figure that if we hang out with you guys the night before you might be sick of us and toss one or both of us off the ship.
Is anyone going to the ship on the 16th? If so how are you getting there?
I am looking into renting a car but we would use it the 15th and 19th only to drive back and forth to the ship. I hate to pay rental and leave it parked in a lot for the whole time.
Maybe we can hitchhike?
But we arrive on the 15th and leave Orlando on the 20th. So we will need a way to get from the airport to our hotel and then to the ship, and then back to the parks on the 19th for another few hours of park-hopping.
What would you suggest? Peggie

 

[Mickey7811]

I alway do the parks before or after the cruise and I found renting a car is crazy because you have to pay all the tolls to the port and then pay for the parking.

reservations@tiffanytowncar We have found Tiffany tours works well.

What we are doing this time is taking Tiffany Town Car Down - the more people the better off you are - and it is still cheaper then using the Disney Cruise Line Bus - which would be about $50 per person round trip.

You can call the cruise line number and make arrangements for the bus.

After the cruise if you want to do Disney, we always go to Avis Car Rental - the shuttle picks you up at the terminal and takes you right there = we make arrangments ahead of time to have a car waiting. The avis is at the Radison hotel and the cars a pretty crummy, but the price is right. After we are done with the car we drop it off at the airport and fly home.

This has worked out for me.

So sometimes we take the Disney bus down to the port - $25.00 - if you arrive the day of the cruise.

And then we get the rental car after if we are doing the parks.

Does this make an sense.

Email me if you have any questions.

Mickey7811@aol.com

Darlene

 

[shoes99]

Our flight gets in at 12:30PM on Wednesday 5/15. We will rent a full size car from National for the week. We go to WDW for the rest of Wednesday then we will drive out to the Radisson after 7PM. Last May we drove the car to the port and paid the 3 day parking fee, then just headed back to WDW for 2 extra nights. This time we are staying at the Swan/Dolphin for 2 nights so we are keeping the car for the entire trip 6 1/2 days, rental base $165.99 less coupons, plus fees = $152.04. Parking at port 3x$8.00.

 

[Perdita&Pongo]

Here's what we did last year for the DizPins cruise and plan to do again this year. We flew in early in the day (noonish) on Wednesday and headed to WDW for a while (it the opposite direction from the port, but so what). This gave us most of the afternoon to go to DTD and check out new pins on the racks, do some trading & shopping, etc.

We headed to the port (about 1 hour from WDW & 45 min from MCO) in order to be there for a 6:00pm dinner & check into the Raddy (nice hotel BTW; go for the one bedroom suite if you can for $119 AAA rate). After dinner, we did the Raddy pre-cruise pin meet (fun! and highly recommended). In the morning you get up and you can see the ship from the hotel - what a thrill! Have breakfast (I would NOT recommend the breakfast at the hotel and there are lots of restaurants in that area) and you are on your way to the port (about 5 minutes away) by 11:00am. You can't board the ship until 12:30-1:00, but the extra time in the port terminal allows you to check in before the rush of the DCL bus passengers and get some time to meet the other pin cruisers, do some more trading, get pictures with Captain Mickey and the other characters, etc.

Regarding rental cars, let's talk Avis. Avis has a counter right at the Raddy and it's the only RAC that let's you do a reasonable one-way rental from MCO to the port. Or sometimes it's the same price as 2 one-way rentals to just keep the car while you are on the ship (that's what we did last year). You can either leave the car at the Raddy (they allow this for guests staying there) and take either the Avis or Raddy shuttle to the terminal (again about 5 mins away) or you can drive to the port and park there for the daily fee. This is what we did and it was very nice to just walk off the ship on Sunday and you car is right there - no need to shuttle back to the Raddy to get another car or pick up the one you left there. You are then on your way back to WDW by 9:00am or earlier.

Any more questions? Just ask!!

~Nancy~ (pin cruise veteran)