To Check or Not to Check?

[CBMom01]

I’m normally a carry-on person and can pack for a week in my small roller bag. I also normally send a box to myself at our resort.

But…

I have one gigantic suitcase that I normally only use for business or international travel. Thinking of using it as our “overflow” bag and to transport the stuff I would normally ship.

I have literally never checked a bag when flying to Orlando. Is it often a long wait for checked bags?

 

[thanxfornoticin]

The experiences we have had with baggage at MCO have been mixed. But for as relatively poor as our experiences have been getting out of MCO, the trips into MCO, including landing, catching a train to the main terminal, and getting baggage, has been pretty good. Typically, upon arriving in the baggage area, we will wait 5-15 minutes for bags - but it'll really depend how busy they are around your landing time.

 

[CBMom01]

The experiences we have had with baggage at MCO have been mixed. But for as relatively poor as our experiences have been getting out of MCO, the trips into MCO, including landing, catching a train to the main terminal, and getting baggage, has been pretty good. Typically, upon arriving in the baggage area, we will wait 5-15 minutes for bags - but it'll really depend how busy they are around your landing time.

Thanks! We decided not to check mostly because of O’Hare

 

[OKW Lover]

It somewhat depends on what airline you are flying. However the weather can have a huge impact.

We are local but regularly fly Delta on trips. Our experience has always been pretty quick on getting our luggage. The weather issue comes into play if there is lightning in the area. When that happens the airport will not let the baggage handlers outside for safety reasons.

 

[MrKnight]

It varies by airline and weather conditions.. Generally speaking I have rarely had issues with the exception of one weather-delay due to a thunderstorm in the area and even then the delay was not unbearable.. The baggage claim areas at MCO are spacious and designed for high volumes of travelers, once the bags arrive they typically come out fairly quickly on the conveyer belt.. The curbside pickup area is right outside of baggage claim so its typically fairly easy to hop into an Uber/Lyft/Taxi/etc. after retrieving your bag..

In regards to checking your bag upon departure, check-in areas can get very crowded during peak travel times with long lines, however, from my experience the ticket counters at MCO are well staffed especially during peak hours so lines move fairly quickly.. But once again, this really depends on the airline, I typically fly with American and have never had any major issues..

 

[EACarlson]

I have a checked bag everytime I fly in or out of MCO and the only problems I've had were self-induced. Moving clothes from my checked bag to my carryon because my bag was 2 pounds overweight. Otherwise, while the lines seem long to check in they move very quickly if you know what you are doing. I waited longer at my little home airport for my carryon than I ever have at MCO for my checked bag.

 

[CBMom01]

I have a checked bag everytime I fly in or out of MCO and the only problems I've had were self-induced. Moving clothes from my checked bag to my carryon because my bag was 2 pounds overweight. Otherwise, while the lines seem long to check in they move very quickly if you know what you are doing. I waited longer at my little home airport for my carryon than I ever have at MCO for my checked bag.

Recently at O’Hare I had a bag gate checked then forgot to wait for it on the jetway. Talk about self-induced troubles.

 

[spiders]

If the line is long then you can always go outside and use curbside. Now those are skycaps and they will be expecting a tip but it’s money well spent if it’s busy.

 

[Princess Disney Mom]

In 20 years I never had an issue with baggage at MCO.

 

[chicagodisneyguy]

O'Hare is our home airport too. While I rarely check a bag, we usually do for our longer trips to Orlando. I've never found baggage wait times too bad at O'Hare. Orlando is usually faster than ORD.

What I will recommend is if travelling at peak times, like a Saturday morning, get there a bit early to make sure you can check the bag in time. AA and United bag check lines can get nuts sometimes. We usually travel in first class so those lines are shorter. But when in coach we use the checked bag kiosks. They are super easy and save a ton of time.

 

[MICKIMINI]

We tried shipgo.com last month but also spent $105 to ship a 56 lb bag to AKV from NH. It did make it much easier as we could not get a non-stop on SWA and were worried it would get lost somewhere at BWI. It was being held at the desk for us when we arrived at AKV. DH has to deal with the bags at the airport and it just adds stress when we don't need it. We shipped three boxes usps from Celebration to our home (Halloween gear) which cost about $80.

We signed up for owners locker last week and will go that route. I will ship a box or two (myself) to BWV in May and then restock our locker before we leave. In September we will have all the things we need at SSR and just travel with carry on. We did a "pretend" box grabbing things here and filled about 75% of the space. We'll give it a try!

 

[Farro]

Thanks! We decided not to check mostly because of O’Hare

We check bags every time we fly, everywhere we go. O'Hare is where we fly from all the time. We use the kiosks then walk right over to a line to drop off the checked bags. Fast and easy.

We have never had an issue with checked bags at O'Hare and it's usually faster to unload than most of the airports we fly into.