Long wait before flight after cruise

[Krikir]

Hi Everyone, it looks like our family is being offered an incredible deal to fly to Orlando where I don't think we can pass up, especially since DD gets really bad car sickness. My issue is our flight home is not until 9:40 pm, so where can we go/what can we do for the day? Is there a hotel we can hang out at with an indoor pool so the kids can go swimming? We plan on flying down 2 days before our cruise to do some sight seeing, so we aren't really interested to do it when we get off the shop.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank You!

 

[hdrolfe]

Depending on the cruise they may offer an excursion on that last day. I believe the hotel at the airport also offers day rooms (You may have to call to get that and it likely depends on if they are all booked up) and I'm sure they have a pool. There are probably other hotels with day rooms near the airport as well.

 

[hardis5]

The Hyatt at MCO does have daytime rates but their pool is outdoor, but it could be a relaxing way to spend the time (and not worry about getting to the airport late).

 

[Krikir]

The Hyatt at MCO does have daytime rates but their pool is outdoor, but it could be a relaxing way to spend the time (and not worry about getting to the airport late).

Ok thanks! It will be January so I doubt it will be warm enough to swim outside.

 

[hdrolfe]

Ok thanks! It will be January so I doubt it will be warm enough to swim outside.

We were at Disney late January and swam outside... the pool was heated and during the day it was ok. But our evening swim was COLD!

 

[Cheerio]

The MCO hyatt pool is heated, we swam January 2012

 

[tgropp]

We did a day stay at the Hyatt this past Feb after our cruise. It was a lifesaver as we had our two young grandchildren (3 yrs and 4 months). For your late flight, this would be ideal

 

[Jordan Chan]

Hi there! We stayed at the Hyatt after we had a late flight and didn't want to drive to Disney late at night. It was very clean and surprisingly not noisy. The pool is outdoors, but is heated so the temperature wasn't a problem for us.

Room Tip: Try and get a room facing away from the terminal as they are less noisy.

 

[samsteele]

Many cruises do offer a combined Orlando airport shuttle/air boat everglades excursion and this might be worth checking out. I haven't done it as an excursion, but I have done an air boat ride to see the gators near Christmas, Fla and it was well worth it. If your cruise offers a combined shuttle/excursion to the Kennedy Space Center in Canaveral that would be great as it is an incredible experience.

The Airport Hyatt has huge rooms with large balconies so a day room is a possibility. I've never tried the pool.

The Orlando Airport itself is a shopping mecca (especially for Canadians) with many different shops than at home. Of course, with the low dollar that could be problematic but still fun to window shop. Maybe check out the Orlando Airport website to get a sense of the different stores available.

 

[Krikir]

Thank you to everyone for all of your tips/advice!

Happy Cruising!

 

[Maddysdaddy]

We were stuck at the Orlando airport for about 10 hours after our last cruise. Due to a lack of pre-planning, I had not booked a car in advance, so when we arrived to the airport, a rental was going to cost close to $150 (most of the agencies were sold out, as this was over Easter). This left us with the decision as to whether we were going to take a cab somewhere and drag along our suitcases for the entire day, or just stay at the airport. We ended up doing the latter.

There is "free" wifi at the airport, but it was the absolute slowest connection I have used in years. Downloading a podcast to listen to, which would normally take 10-20 seconds at my home or office, took close to 30 minutes.