MCO like a local

[rere101399]

Flying out of MCO on an 8am flight on United, so terminal B. Will be parking at the airport garage. Looking for any and all advice…first time at MCO and the anxiety is making me We have children and PreCheck. What time should we get to the garage? How long will it take to get in the airport? Where should we check bags…I read online there are bag check stations inside the parking garage. Should we bet on that or pull up to curbside check-in, check in luggage, then pull around to park in garage? Would love someone to walk me through step by step how to arrive at the airport like a local. Thanks!

 

[MM1102]

Hopefully another local who flies more than I do can advise, but every time I've checked the airport website (over the past several months), it has said that A&B are full and people should use the C garage. Maybe that's to try to encourage people to use C or the economy lots to take the pressure off A&B? We parked off-site on our last trip--cheaper and reasonably handy for the two of us, but probably more of a chore with kids and all their gear.

 

[jimmymc]

I've only parked in the economy lots and don't have children, so take this with a grain of salt. If you're parking in the B garages, I would be pulling in the garage 2 hours before the flight. It looks like the walkway over to the terminal is on the 3rd floor right near the center of the garage, maybe someone can confirm the floor. If you want to park in economy, add an extra 20 minutes. If you have Sunpass or EZ Pass, you can also use that to pay by driving through the correct lane (the furthest to the left).

When you walk in they will probably have self-tagging machines running, so just use the touch screens and print out your own tags for the checked bags. They hop in the bag drop line, which may look huge but it moves fast. From there, MCO precheck has always been good for me, even when the rest of the airport was packed.

 

[MrKnight]

Considering you are both parking and checking bags, I would recommend arriving at least 2.5 hours before your flight just to be safe. Follow these instructions:

1. When you arrive, drive directly to the terminal B parking garage and enter through long-term parking lane. You can either use your Sunpass/E-Pass device or pull a ticket from a kiosk machine.
2. INSIDER TIP: Once inside the garage, I would recommend going up several levels and following signage in the garage to "Terminal Top" which is the garage located above the terminal building, this garage has direct elevators into the terminal building which is extremely convenient, especially with checked bags and children.
3. Take the elevator down to the Ticketing level, this will be marked in the elevator.
4. Go to United ticket counter and check your bags there
5. After you check your bags, follow signage to security checkpoint for gates 1-59
6. Since you have TSA Pre-Check, make sure you enter security through the Pre-Check lane
7. After clearing security, walk towards the LEFT to the automated trams going to gates 30-59 (Gates for United, American, and Sprit)

Hope this helps!

 

[Bianca and Bernard]

Flying out of MCO on an 8am flight on United, so terminal B. Will be parking at the airport garage. Looking for any and all advice…first time at MCO and the anxiety is making me We have children and PreCheck. What time should we get to the garage? How long will it take to get in the airport? Where should we check bags…I read online there are bag check stations inside the parking garage. Should we bet on that or pull up to curbside check-in, check in luggage, then pull around to park in garage? Would love someone to walk me through step by step how to arrive at the airport like a local. Thanks!

For domestic flights, arrive a minimum of two hours ahead. MCO is a oddball; sometimes an hour is enough and sometimes three hours isn't. Sometimes you get hung up checking bags and getting boarding passes; sometimes it's a TSA mess. There are so many people who fly from there who aren't regular fliers, so they don't know all the rules about having shoes off, no liquids, etc...or they just forget they had that bottle of water in their hand...or they want to argue that the Gogurt is not liquid...or they are wrangling a toddler and an infant, two car seats, a double stroller, and 8 bags (2 for each of them, even though the toddler and infant are lap kids)... Or they don't understand how to use a kiosk to get bag tags and boarding passes. Or they want to argue about their seats, because they didn't get sat together when they bought the cheap tickets that specifically state they are getting whatever seats are available, and those are usually the middle seats in the back of the plane....

(Why, yes, I've encountered all of that flying out of MCO....thanks for asking)

Run by parking B to see if you can get in there; it's the closest to Terminal B.
Take a look at the map, beforehand. There is signage everywhere, so that helps.


If you have two adults, I would drop the bags and the 2nd adult and two kids (if old enough to not have to be wrangled by an adult constantly, say...5 and up), then go park the car. Just because I hate dragging luggage through the parking garage, lol. United is at the farther end of the terminal, after you drive up to it

 

[hrhdhd]

Just a note that if you end up in Economy parking, you will need to park in the South lot to catch the shuttle to Terminal B. The economy shuttles used to run to both A & B from the North and South lots, but now North goes only to A and South only to B.

The suggestion to park offsite isn't a bad one. Then you can do the wrangling at the parking place and get dropped off at the door for United.

Definitely allow at least 2 hours, maybe almost 3.

 

[holden]

I can speak to PreCheck...

We've flown out of MCO many times with PreCheck. The line has always moved quickly for us. We have been held up by our kids having random stuff in their bags (old water bottle, etc.). The last time we flew DD15's friend had her bag searched because of a souvenir she bought. They had to take it out of the box and examine it thoroughly. It was some kind of Marvel thing with crystals? Not sure, but it was a big deal to TSA.

All of this to say, TSA seems to be very thorough so that can take a little extra time if you get bags pulled.

 

[_19disnA]

I would assume MCO has some of those off-site 'park & fly' places like most major airports. Those are very convenient and they have 24 hr shuttle busses that pick you up right at your car and drop you at the departure areas. Way more convenient then parking at the airport and dragging your luggage to the departure area. They tend to have lower prices then the airport parking. Part of the issue with airport parking is you just never know how full the garage area might be or how far you have to walk to the terminal.

My experience with on-site busses at most other airports is they only circulate infrequently and you never know when/if there will be another bus or how long you have to wait.

Due to Disney & Universal you tend to get a LOT of families with small children who apparently don't fly very often. Departure areas always seem very crowded with people unfamiliar with where to go or what to do. These means you need to allow MORE time to get through check-in/security. 3 hours at the entrance seems like good advice since you just never know how crowded it is going to be. Having TSA pre-check reduces your time going through the security area but won't change how crowded it is prior to that.