Winnipegers driving to Minneapolis ?

[FLVacationGirl]

I did my first WDW trip, flying out of Winnipeg a few weeks ago. Now I'm hooked. (Trip report to follow at some point.)

This afternoon, I came up with a plan to fly out of MSP and use Airmiles for our WDW hotel and WDW passes leaving in Sept or Oct 08, before our youngest turns 2 and needs paid airfare. It looks like we would only pay $185 total per person, MSP to MCO. (plus the parking fee at the airport) Our total would be $620. VERY TEMPTING! I ran this by my spouse and oddly he sounds interested. The deal I'm sure would be that we would do our first adults only trip the following spring. (Vegas)

Just wondering, what is the best price you can get on seat sales out of MSP to MCO? I saw $168 in this thread and was wondering if there are ever even better seat sales? I'll totally take $168 - $185, but just want to know the best price before booking.

Thanks!

 

[dhluvsDisney]

9/10 times you can around the $180 - 200 seat sale. The regular price seems to settle in at around $235 ish. If you can go on short notice, sometimes it will drop to $125 (rare). Hope this helps!

 

[FLVacationGirl]

That definitely helps! Thanks!

 

[SaskDisNut]

9/10 times you can around the $180 - 200 seat sale. The regular price seems to settle in at around $235 ish. If you can go on short notice, sometimes it will drop to $125 (rare). Hope this helps!

dhluvsDisney (or anyone else who drives to MSP and flys from there ), what airline do you usually fly out of MSP to MCO? Have you ever flown on Sun Country Airlines? I see that they have one daily flight to MCO and their fares seem comparable to NWA.

 

[starrzone]

I did my first WDW trip, flying out of Winnipeg a few weeks ago. Now I'm hooked. (Trip report to follow at some point.)

Can't wait to read that TR!

In NB, we have kind of the same situation; do we fly from our home airport, or do we drive 6 hours to save money? We choose the drive; on our trip in 2005, we went SWA from Manchester NH for $49 each way (before taxes, of course!). Factor in gas, hotel and the driving time, we still come out way ahead. That just means we can spend more moeny when we get there, of course!

 

[dhluvsDisney]

dhluvsDisney (or anyone else who drives to MSP and flys from there ), what airline do you usually fly out of MSP to MCO? Have you ever flown on Sun Country Airlines? I see that they have one daily flight to MCO and their fares seem comparable to NWA.

We haven't flown Sun Country, but I don't see or hear about any problems with it. We have flown Delta, United and primarily NWA. The reason we usually go NWA is they have direct flights, so the odds of losing luggage are less, and we get there faster. We drive the night before, spend the night at Crowne Plaza Park 'n' Fly for around $99, they shuttle us to the airport and back, and we usually get a morning or early afternoon flight, and are they before checkin time. It is a great way to go, and we prefer crossing the border by land vs standing in line at Wpg airport customs.

 

[morgy827]

We do this quite often. As a family of four we save nearly $1200 and with the dollar being near par it is an even better deal. The last time we drove to Minneapolis and stayed in the holiday inn express airport hotel which offered us free long term parking for 2 weeks with 1 night stay (at about $130 US) this included a hot breakfast ad a free shuttle to the airport. We flew Sun Country and saved a lot. This is the way that I recommend for most people to fly from wpg...Also, have you tried flights from Fargo? Allegiant air flies to Orlando and you can get a great deal sometimes. The drive is only 4 hours and long term parking at the airport is $5/day. I have never done this to go to Orlando but I have flown to Las Vegas this way and that saved me a a lot of money as well.

 

[SaskDisNut]

Thanks for all the info. It is certainly something to consider given the cost of airfare is so much cheaper than flying out of here - even with the expense of driving to Minneapolis.

morgy827, I checked Allegiant's website and Fargo didn't have a flight to MCO but Sioux Falls did.

 

[morgy827]

Yeah, I just checked and it looks like they don;t fly there anymore. I would have sworn that they did before. I would still definitely recommend flying out of Minneapolis. On a side note...out of all of the airlines I have traveled Sun Country was one of my best experiences.

 

[granolacruncher11]

saskdisnut, my family of 8 drives the six hours from NW Ontario to Minneapolis all the time. The savings are just too good to pass up, even needing to get 2 rooms for all of us. We always get a semi-early flight home and then drive home the same day rather than staying another night in hotel. Works really well for my family. We have flown Sun Country and it was fine, no problems whatsoever.

 

[Shir Kahn]

Ouch, I wish I had known this sooner. I just did a comparison between flying out of Wpg, which we're doing, and driving down to Minneapolis to fly out from there. For the two of us, we would have saved $800. Unfortunately, the flights are already booked and paid for. We're doing another trip in August and it looks like even with gas, hotel and possibly paying for parking, we'll save about $200 by flying out of Minneapolis.

 

[bonjoe07]

Hello there all! I am going for a disney cruise. I have 4 people going in my family, we are driving down to Minneapolis and then flying from there! But I have found some cheap flights. We are going with Airtran for the four of it will cost $956.00, very cheap, also with our disney cruise we got it for soo cheap also! ($1100)

 

[Palendat]

I'm the OP. It's funny this thread popped back up today since I decided to book free dining on Thursday (if it comes up), even though as of last night, I WAS NOT going back this year. If we do end up keeping the reservation, the only way we will be able to afford it is to fly from MSP. There are 4 of us, but I want to take a friend for my oldest son, so that will add to the expense. If there are any more park'n'fly hotels, please post them, since this VERY BUDGET trip will have to cut out EVERY POSSIBLE EXPENSE.

 

[dhluvsDisney]

I'm the OP. It's funny this thread popped back up today since I decided to book free dining on Thursday (if it comes up), even though as of last night, I WAS NOT going back this year. If we do end up keeping the reservation, the only way we will be able to afford it is to fly from MSP. There are 4 of us, but I want to take a friend for my oldest son, so that will add to the expense. If there are any more park'n'fly hotels, please post them, since this VERY BUDGET trip will have to cut out EVERY POSSIBLE EXPENSE.

Lots of good ParknFly hotels.

Here is a list of the ones we have used and have been satisfied with:

Crowne Plaza - Eagen
Holiday Inn - Bloomington
Holiday Inn - Eagen

Call the hotels directly to find what their ParknFly rates are and how long you can stay. The rates do vary from season to season, for example our Crowne Plaza PNF in Dec/Jan (NYE) was $129, but our rate for end of April coming up is $99.

Good luck!

 

[smkiss02]

We've done ParknFly at the Days Inn- Bloomington (right across the street from Mall of America). I think we got it for about $99 a night so we stayed the night, shuttled to the airport the next morning and when we got back just picked up the vehicle and drove home. We didn't have to stay the night we returned. There's nothing too special about it...there's a pool, continental, but it doesn't start until 7:30 I believe, which isn't convienent for early morning flights. There's a shuttle over to MOA or the walk is 2 minutes away. It's fine otherwise just for a night or 2.

 

[FLVacationGirl]

Last night I booked 5 flights - MSP direct to MCO - for $730.80 total. So $146.18 CAD each. This was through NWA for March 3 - 10. NWA has some great fares posted now if you play around with different dates.

Now I just need to book the hotel and park tickets.

 

[Sillyminny40]

What a timely thread to come back up again! I am booking YWG to MCO (Orlando) for 9 days beginning of Feb. 2008.... here is what I found today Dec 31, 2008

Westjet has direct flights on some Wednesdays only (Feb11 and 18) at $179.00 one way. Leaves 10:25 am. $2416.00 total with everything.

We can't leave those days. Darn. Well, I am still hunting down flights via internet. Something good is going to happen, I know!
We are looking at $352 one way for a total of $4316.00 for 5 people with taxes/sc. Jan 30 to Feb 8.