Whatever you do, DON'T use shuttlefinder or mozio. Their phone to call if you have a question is an international number answered by a person whose English is limited. And each person passes you on to another number.
When you say car service, do you mean reserving a town car or luxury car transport?
Yes, exactly. You’ll need at least an SUV for 4 adults.
ok thanks, and I'm assuming that's cheaper (and faster) because you can share that 1 SUV vs. whatever the new bus fares are? I think we only 1 time ever used Uber from MCO but when it was just 2 of us, same 1:30am ish timeframe. Never tried for an XL or another bus other than ME.
It won’t be cheaper than the buses. Sunshine Flyer, however, does not operate overnight. Mears Connect does, but you might wait a while and make several stops.
Thanks. That's a good thought on trying to test a price without executing it from here at 1:30am. I think without us knowing, my wife was afraid that an Uber XL can mean a compact SUV like a CRV/Tucson/Enclave/Edge type rather than the full SUV you got.
The cars were not that big, IMO. I would say mid-size SUVs.
Any XL must have a third row, thus a CR-V is an X, not an XL, as is an edge. In the Orlando area, there are a lot of minivans. That said, I don’t know how availability is at that hour.
If they're complying with the Xl requirement for 3rd row, that seems like it would work. Me in front, the 3 others in back, with hopefully 2 bags in the 3rd row, 2 in the very back. And no one having carry one in lap (which I've done). But as you've said, who knows what's available that late. We tend to get greedy with our park time on flight days and looking to book a late Fri night one that arrives 1:30, which means after monorail, bag retrieval, bathroom, it's probably at least 2 am.
Thanks we will consider renting as an option too. We typically try to avoid renting a car for the extra time involved for pick up/drop off, gas - and only rent a car if staying offsite given parking fees by Disney and to use their buses. We did rent from Alamo from SFB earlier this month for an offsite stay, but we basically had to given the Allegiant SFB flight, no bus transport from motel. Rentals at SFB were really inflated from past prices given current environment. I think our rental was about $515 after taxes/fees onsite ($85) for a week, and we usually shoot for about $300. I think I've seen much lower rates at MCO, a bigger airport.
Mears Connect is basically DME. Mears ran DME. It’s the same buses and drivers without the Disney wraps and videos. It was never guaranteed to be direct; sometimes you might stop at another resort or two before getting to yours.
Thanks. Yes, we're more frugal/crazier than most to not be booking a room that day. I think our timeframe (Sept), typically All Stars/Pop, we've only not been able to get our room early twice (last time Dec. 2019 at Sports). But even then, I stalked people leaving with bags and requested their room, never not gotten it by 6am. The goal is basically to be able to RD that day. Rather than most early flights for our local airports arriving around 10am, and expecting something like an early afternoon park entry. The other thing is we don't really sleep well the night before anyhow (excitement). So getting a room just to leave at like 6 am to make RD isn't what I like to do.
The RT for MARS is , I think around $30.00 per person. Not bad if you only need to get to and from the airport.
that's big savings from $500 to $260. Mears is about $120 for 4 people each way or $60 ea. way, $120 round? I've never looked into a Sams/Costco reservation either. For the rental option, we'd probably compare just the flight days for this trip. But I'll be sure to look at UT in the future. Other than the reasons I gave... we sometimes prefer the convenience of Disney transportation over driving ourselves each day. Even though we know our way, having lived in Tampa.
