Help! We are spending 3 nights in Bay Lake Towers and then cruising 2/21-2/25. We can use the Magical express from the airport to Hotel. I'm trying to decide between being driven (Disney ground and Town Car rental both coming out at $210 for my family of 3) and trying to rent a car to drive ourselves from Hotel to ship and ship to airport. The car rental should be about 1/2 the cost, but how much hassle is involved? I would especially love to hear from people who have gone the car rental route and any companies they loved or would avoid.
We have used
DCL transportation, Happy Limo and rental car to PC. While DCL is most expensive, they include all luggage handling which is very convenient. We've never spent the night before in a WDW hotel but I know at the Hyatt MCO, you just leave your luggage in your room and it magically appears in your stateroom.
The nice part about Happy Limo (or any private service) is that you can choose what time you want to be picked up. This would apply to rental cars as well though I've only done the rental car trek from PC to MCO. If you're staying at a WDW hotel and using DCL transfers, you get picked up much later since the buses are busy picking up guests from MCO. Double check with someone on the cruise boards but IIRC I hear you don't get to the ship until 1 pm. To us, that's kind of late esp if you're trying to get an upgrade at the port (way cheaper than booking the more expensive category.)
So many say the rental car method is so easy and don't mind it, but I found it a PITA. (Tried it end of our 3rd cruise.) A porter carted our luggage thru customs and showed us to the rental car queue, but once there we had to lug it all up on
Budget's shuttle bus, while others behind us in line were trying to duck under the queue tape to jump on quickly.
The shuttle was packed so everyone was rushing to get their things off. Then had to cram all of our luggage in the trunk. Later lug it again from the rental car area to check it. Overall way more luggage handling than I like.
OTOH, if you're flying a participating airline, you can use DCL's free 'Onboard Check in' service. (Free, but must be using DCL transfer for at least PC to MCO.) Your boarding passes are delivered to your stateroom the day before, then you simply put your bags outside your door the last night of the cruise. You don't touch/see them again until you arrive at your home aiport. With boarding passes in hand, you don't need to check bags, simply head to the security line. We did this last year and
loved it.
Loved it so much we only use participating airlines to return home and always buy one way DCL transfers from PC to MCO, $35 pp for one way. Keep in mind, you'd have 1 carry on for PJ's etc. that you wore the night before since you don't have access to your luggage pre flight.
As far as car rental companies, you don't have a lot of choices. Budget,
Avis, and Thrifty have offices in PC and MCO but Thrifty charges a hefty one way fee. We never used Avis in PC but on mousesavers.com, their office is described as slow and disorganized.
I don't know how true that is.
hth
