MCO from Vero Beach for a 10am flight

BirdsOfPreyDave

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I booked with Southwest, yesterday, and automatically booked our normal flights. I put us on the 10:00 am flight, as usual, because (1) it's the cheapest flight, and (2) it's the only direct flight until 8:00 pm. We're returning home on a Sunday and I need to be at work the next day.

It just occurred to me that the last few nights of this trip are at VB. (Our first stay there.) Am I going to regret the 10 am departure time? Mapquest says it's a little less than 2 hours to the airport. Allowing for a gas fill-up, rental car turn-in, bag check, and TSA security checks, that's putting our wake-up call at 5:00 or earlier. I am so not a morning person.

I've been debating whether or not to take our Owner's Locker to VB with us for those last few days. It sure would be convenient to have it, and I've read how others have arranged a meeting with the OL guys somewhere to turn in their lockers the way to the airport. If we're going to be driving at dawn and pressed for time, though, I guess we'd have to do without the locker for the last part of the trip.

The 8:00 pm flight is only $69 more (total for both of us), but it's the last flight of the night. I've been burned by that before when a flight was cancelled. It was not fun finding a room for that night. It's also nice to get home early enough to relax a little before getting back into normal routines. Other flights in the afternoon are cost restrictive.

I'm assuming there are showers and changing rooms at VB if we did decide to spend the day there and head to a later flight? Or I suppose we could stop back at WDW. I'm guessing the OL guys would want the locker before too late in the afternoon.

Or I could really stir things up and change the last VB night to a SSR night.

What to do? What to do? WWUD?
 
We usually try to fly in and out of Melbourne, but when we've done MCO for Vero, we'll often stay at the airport Hyatt the night before. We like to get the first flight out in the morning which always means an early wakeup. I'm not a morning person either, but would rather get an early flight just in case things go wrong.

We stay as long as we want the last day at Vero then take our time going to MCO, have dinner, gas up the car, return it and check into the hotel. Next morning just walk downstairs. There are usually AAA discounts available and if you qualify the senior discount (62+) is very good.
 
We had a 7 PM flight out of MCO from Vero Beach last year. We asked for late checkout, which was until noon. I packed a beach bag with clothes for our trip home and toiletries to shower and change,
We spent the morning on the beach, passed our beach chairs forward to a 3 generation family on the beach, loaded the car and checked out at noon and spent the afternoon at the pool. We showered and changed, and everything fit easily in the top of the suitcase in the car.
The trip to MCO is just under 2 hours.
I think we left Vero around 3PM, leaving us time to get to the airport, drop off the car, check in, go through security and have a sit down dinner at the airport.
It worked well for us and we enjoyed the extra time at Vero.
 
:confused3 I dunno. That's a tough call. 10:00 IS early with a 2 hour drive ahead of you so that you allow time for the car return & security etc... I would probably plan to leave Vero around 6:00 AM. We have also been burned with late afternoon flights getting postponed due to T-storms in the summer. When is your trip? We took our Owners Locker with us to VB a couple of summers ago. It was great to have it since we keep all of our toiletries, sunscreens, beach bags etc. in it and since we rented a car to go to VB we were able to shop & restock it with a few things. But we had a mid-afternoon flight so probably a little less stressful. We stayed in communication with Brian 2 or 3 times throughout the day while we were driving back. I think we told him when we left VB, then we called him again when we were est. about 30 min. out from MCO and again when we stopped for gas right outside the airport. He met us in the car rental return place at MCO. He was waiting for us when we got there. I would probably stick with the early flight & just plan to be showered & fully packed the night before so we could just get up & roll in the morning.
 

It meant cutting our 3 nights at VB down to 2, but we decided to change our last night from VB to BLT. Hey, best of both worlds. We'll spend the full day on the beach after checking out, shower and change, then head to BLT. Magic Kingdom is only open until 10 that night, but we should still have time for one more stroll down Main Street before we leave.

It also solves the Owner's Locker issue and lets us sleep in an extra hour.
 
It meant cutting our 3 nights at VB down to 2, but we decided to change our last night from VB to BLT. Hey, best of both worlds. We'll spend the full day on the beach after checking out, shower and change, then head to BLT. Magic Kingdom is only open until 10 that night, but we should still have time for one more stroll down Main Street before we leave.

It also solves the Owner's Locker issue and lets us sleep in an extra hour.

That is exactly what I would do also, I would be too nervous about traffic, accidents and unknown. Have fun!
 



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