MDW questions

[EACarlson]

For those that have recently flown out of MDW I have a couple questions. Where do you park? I really am not giving the City more for parking than I paid for my roundtrip ticket.

And what is open in the terminal? I'm flying out at 0630 and am a diabetic, should I plan on stopping at the all night McDonalds at an Oasis before getting there?

 

[mellvswdw1]

Hi! I recently flew out of MDW in late July. I don’t know what airline you are flying with but we flew with southwest. There were just a few places open and I would suggest you stop at the oasis personally.
We parked in economy and got there about 2 1/2 hours early. I was traveling with my niece(20) and my two kids 4 and 6. We had only carryons. But my niece was not TSA precheck and I didn’t know what would be open to feed my two picky kiddos. Overall the airport seemed clean and we’re flying out of there a few more times in the next few months due to southwest’s super low rates and my annual passes extended expiration dates and DVC points that need to be used.

I will use the economy lot again, but this time we will stop somewhere before we get to the airport for food. Hope this helps!

 

[Ralph&Pam]

Park in the economy lot and take the supplied shuttle to the terminal.

The airport has been remodeling the food service operations for the last couple of years. McDs is gone. In fact, the selections are pretty bad if you have dietary restrictions IMO. My DW is gluten free and has a difficult time finding anything to eat in the way of breakfast foods. With your early flight time, it will be even worse than later in the day, since the few vendors that open early will be offering mainly carb-heavy breakfast sandwiches. I would make that Oasis stop.

 

[EACarlson]

What is the advantage of parking in the economy lot and taking the shuttle compared to parking at one of the off site lots and taking a shuttle? If I park in the economy lot, I'm paying $90 to park for six days to fly on a $95 round trip ticket. And I'm really not a fan of paying the city of Chicago anything I don't absolutely have to at the moment. It appears that the off property companies are about half that amount.

I'll plan on stopping at an Oasis, I'll be happy to get out of the car for a few minutes and us a bathroom by that point anyway.

 

[Ralph&Pam]

No special advantage to using the airport parking, except shuttles may operate more frequently. We only use the city’s economy lot when doing a one- or two-day trip with an early morning departure or late night arrival in order to reduce shuttle delays. The airport shuttles are really frequent and there are separate shuttles for different locations within the economy parking. Some of the off-site garages have a single shuttle with a less frequent cycle to or from the airport. The potential inconvenience is offset by the real savings in parking fees for a longer stay.