V-Flyer

OK, so I am blowing 480,000 miles on flying the family (me, Mrs csparker and the two little csparkers, plus my parents) for a two week holiday in Florida in March next year. The four of us are flying out to MCO and back from JFK (availability) and my folks are going out to IAD and back from JFK (they want to visit). In case anyone is concerned / interested the csparker family has to travel in pairs (unless we can get bumps nearer the time).

Anyway, I need recommendations for the best / cheapest / most trustworthy places to arrange:
- Car Hire (ideally from MCO) - we may need a van
- Internal flights from Washington (not necessarily IAD) and to NY (not necessarily JFK), which airlines / airports
- Park Tickets (Disney, Discovery Cove)

Any other advice?
Thanks for your help...

I can only talk from my own experiance, but have found that booking direct with the car hire main companies gets me a good deal.
For example, this November, two weeks MCO-MCO in a Ford Explorer or similar from Hertz is costing me a grand total of £377.64, with Gold Card privilages, i.e car ready for pick up in identified bay, no paperwork to sign, just straight in and away

https://www.hertz.co.uk/

You need to look at the major companies in total, as they all seem to have different deals on different sizes of cars, with one better than another in each sector.

With National/Alamo for example, they are on site and you get to chosse the actual car.

another good company is Holiday Autos
at http://www.holidayautos.co.uk/GBR/index.html

other sites worth looking at (and I am sure others can add to them from personal experiance) are
https://www.nationalcar.co.uk/ukweb/default.jsp

http://www.thrifty.co.uk/cgi-bin/gen5?runprog=thuk

http://www.alamo.co.uk/

http://www.dollar.co.uk/

http://www.autosabroad.com/

http://www.avis.co.uk/

Hope that helps

Check out this thread for some good car hire ideas.

We used Airline Network and had a great rate. A 7 seater van at the moment for next March comes in at 375 pounds with 17 pounds exra buying you a full tank and any number of additional drivers.

Park tickets I find are pretty much the same from most places but there is plenty of good advice (I used it so it muct be good ) on this site and the Dibb.

Enjoy the mouse.

Phil (Buffy)

I agree with Buffy about Airline Network for car hire. On our last trip we found that the best price for the internal flights were directly with the airlines. We booked online with American Airlines.

I'd be tempted to try the Amtrak Acela for such a short hop... no TSA, no long queues and First Class is very reasonable priced.

Nothing for WDW I'm afraid but if you look here
You see seaworld & busch discounts

Also Universal ticketing online is about 10-15% cheaper than at the gate

I usually find airline network the cheapest for car hire.
I flew MCO - LGA with American Airlines that worked really well and was very reasonably priced. I booked on Expedia.

Try http://www.attractionticketsdirect.com for passes, however I booked Discovery Cove directly with them through their website.

Hope it helps

Sorry forgot to add, the best advice is planning, The Simon Veness Brits Guide book is really well worth buying to help with this and tell you what are the busiest days at the parks, so that you can avoid them[y]

We have often flown from New York to Orlando and vice versa (though haven't tried it from Washington). We've used both Jet Blue and Song and both are good. They both have leather seats, very reasonable leg room and in-seat tv monitors with live satellite television. The only real difference is that Jet Blue give a free snack (cookie, nuts or similar), whereas Delta Song will sell you a range of food items. It's a relatively short flight, so I would choose on price / schedule.

Hope this helps.

E

http://www.jetblue.com
http://www.flysong.com

Yup - echo what others have said about airlinenetwork - have booked Dollar through them several times and always by far the cheapest. Look out for their periodic offer of a platinum updgrade for free (all drivers over 25, free tank of fuel). Their insurance really is all inclusive whereas some others quote without cover you really do need.

Attraction passes - I previously used http://www.undercovertourist.com/cart/tickets - good rates and prompt delivery of tickets (real tickets not vouchers).

Regards

Pat

Edited as original link not working

Just to agree with others.
Airline Network have always worked out the cheapest.

For Disney Tickets try http//www.mousesavers.com.

Just used airline network again after much trawling of various sites. The platinum cover upgrade for free is available at the moment.

For Universal I found Teletext holidays (Seligo) had the best price for flexi tickets.

Jilly

Thanks for the advice all. I finally booked the hire car through airline network , GBP 330 for a van for 12 days from Dollar. Internal flights were with JetBlue (USD 100 each, though I could have got better at antisocial hours or had I booked earlier).

I have not yet done the park tickets, but by my reckoning, Discovery Cove looks cheaper through Virgin Holidays, and the other Park tickets look much of a muchness.

Does anyone have more up to date recommendations?

Thanks,

Try this website, http://www.mousesavers.com they have loads of links but the advice that I found best was to try and book car hire direct with the hire company without using discount codes. Saved about $230 on a SUV for 14 nights in March from Dollar. Obviously the closer you are to travel the better offers there are.