TCD Early LBV Check in Service - Is It Worth It?

[jdybnsn]

Hi

We have just returned from Orlando using TCD and out of interest wondered if our experience of TCD's early check in at the LBV Mall was typical.

When we arrived at Orlando there was some pretty hard selling of the early check in service (for the return flight) by the TCD reps - especially in the Dollar car hire building. We decided to go for it as we were told that we could then turn up at the airport and go straight through customs into the airside lounge - thus avoiding the large check-in desk queues with our heavy cases. It seemed a pretty appealing idea , particularly since we'd have experienced a HUGE check-in queue with Virgin at MCO a couple of year previous.

However, checkin at the LBV wasn't that straight forward as we'd imagined- particualry when it took place inside the middle of a retail shop - I wouldn't say there was a big queue but it took us a while, and wasn't very very easy manovering our suitcase between cluttered isles of clothing.


Later, thatday we returned to Sandford at 3.30pm for our 7.00pm flight - in time to return our hired car , since they are required to be back 3 hours before the flight.

I must admit we were a bit gob smacked by the situation we came across in the terminal....

At the TCD desk ABSOLUTELY NO QUEUE what so ever (I didn't think we were excessively early for our flight).
But here's the bit we were annoyed about ...a MASSIVE queue for customs prior to the air side lounge that took 40 minutes to get through...so much for that 'turn up, and stroll into the airport lounge' we were sold a fortnight earlier.
To make matters worse , as we waited for the customs check the TCD desk remained virtually queue-less and the custom line continued to grow !

We certainly had paid extra to make TCD's job easier that day !

I was just wondering if we were just unlucky ? or whether this is a typical experience ...granted it was customs that held us up so TCD can hardly be held accountable for this......but if this happens all the time then surely TCD are kind of mis-selling this benefit aren't they ?

Interested to know both the positive and negative experiences of other so I can decide whether to bother booking this ever again in future.

Thanks.

 

[Queenie]

Hi,

We did TCD's early checkin last year and had non of the problems you encountered. We always ignore the TCD welcome meet type stuff at the airport so we missed any "hard sells" that may happen, can't say if that's common at all.

On the day we came home we got to the checkin at LBV at about 9.30am, it took us perhaps 10/15 mins to get all our suitcases checked in. The queue was pretty long but the staff were very efficient and moving people to the next free desk so it moved fast - sometimes too fast as you couldn't keep up with the person in front. Our queue went along the side at the left hand side of the store where there was a wide gap so no problems with suitcases.

We got to the airport in time to drop our car off at Dollar (actually about 15 mins late but they didn't care.) Walked up to customs and basically straight through, only a few people ahead of us, maybe 5 mins to get through including all the checks and Scott getting beeped because of his shoes!

We had a great experience and have booked to do it again this year. Sporry you had such a bad time with it and I hope your story is uncommon.

 

[crux]

We used it last year and found it very useful, just so we didn't have the suitcases with us all day. As we were going Sunshine First we had priority at LBV check-in and we were in and out in 2 minutes - it was a bit strange dropping the cases in a shop, but we'd recommend it. We will be using it again this year.

 

[Desire 2b a princess]

Hi

Here is my experience.

We checked in at LBV and we turned up pretty early, can't quite remember how early but it must have been around 8.30am as we went straight for breakfast after dropping the luggage off.

There was NO queue....in fact nobody was around apart from the 'check in' staff so we had no wait.

We arrived at the airport and there was a BIG queue at customs and it took about 30 mins to get through which was a bit of a nightmare with a 3 year old but we coped.

 

[tony64]

Ditto to Qeenies experiance no problem apart from a small queue at customs.