How to get to Port. How do you?

[matj2000]

Really? Are they jacking up carnivals and circuses too?

 

I am not sure what you are trying to imply. But I am almost certain that you wouldn't be trivializing my slang wording I use sometimes, would you?

[matj2000]

That's what I am doing. Staying at the raddisson the night before and can leave the car there for the week (no Parking Fees) and drive it back to Ga. Mid size car 300 for 2 weeks.

 

 

Why do people rent cars and not drive their own???

[Nunu]

Why do people rent cars and not drive their own???

 

I've got a full sized car booked for $19/day. I won't put the miles on mine when they're that cheap.

[T. Advisor King]

My family has decided that end of July/Early August we are going on a Cruise. We are going from Port Canaveral and we live in very Upstate NY. With 5 people, I keep telling my parents that we should rent a comfortable car and drive it the 20 some odd hours 1 way, rent another one on the way back and save probably well over a thousand dollars as opposed to flying. We have the time to drive, and 4 legal driving adults who could rotate shifts. I don't see how that would be too bad. Plus, spending 300 minimum round trip per person for flying, when then you'd have to find transportation from airport to coast is kind of silly.

 

How do you get to your port when you are going on a cruise and don't (fortunately) live close enough to just have someone drop you off or something haha

 

Thanks for any input!

 

I want to ask you if you're insane, but you wouldn't appreciate my tone and I don't want to offend. Your flight to the port is only $300 round trip and you're considering driving? We'd probably have to pay at least twice that to get to a warm-weather port (which is why I always comment when some people say that a benefit of a cruise vacation is that it is cheap).

 

While I appreciate that some people might enjoy that drive and not consider it an ordeal, it seems to me that you have the option of paying $300 to save 40 hours of your time. That assumes that the time necessary for air travel compared to the cost of the car rental and gas are a wash, which I doubt. So the question I'd be asking myself is, is my time worth more or less than $7.50 per hour. I know what I get paid and I think I can be pretty sure that most employed cruise passengers are making a lot more than $7.50 an hour.

 

If you value your time, then it makes no sense to waste 40 hours to save a mere $300.

[DocF]

I absolutely loath flying. I detest it more every day. As we have to deal with more idiocy from the TSA Twinkies and their harassing move of the day. I will drive to any cruise departing within two days drive of us. Gee, that means I will drive to all cruises I might book except a trans-atlantic.

 

Doc

[md10074]

I can't imagine such a long drive even if we didn't have kids. We always fly when we go to Florida. If my husband would have listened to me, we could have sailed on a cruise out of NY and not had to deal with the stupid airplanes, but he didn't like the itineraries.

 

So we are going to fly and go in the day before, and then probably hire a shuttle service to get us to the port and then from the port to the airport coming home.

[aquasox]

Doing the math with op saying 5 people were going at $300.00 per person that is $1500.00 or $37.50 an hour on a 40 hour drive. This is well worth driving instead of flying.

[CBTwi]

Why do people rent cars and not drive their own???

 

A tiny kia for 5 people = bad news bears.

[CBTwi]

I want to ask you if you're insane, but you wouldn't appreciate my tone and I don't want to offend. Your flight to the port is only $300 round trip and you're considering driving? We'd probably have to pay at least twice that to get to a warm-weather port (which is why I always comment when some people say that a benefit of a cruise vacation is that it is cheap).

 

While I appreciate that some people might enjoy that drive and not consider it an ordeal, it seems to me that you have the option of paying $300 to save 40 hours of your time. That assumes that the time necessary for air travel compared to the cost of the car rental and gas are a wash, which I doubt. So the question I'd be asking myself is, is my time worth more or less than $7.50 per hour. I know what I get paid and I think I can be pretty sure that most employed cruise passengers are making a lot more than $7.50 an hour.

 

If you value your time, then it makes no sense to waste 40 hours to save a mere $300.

 

Um. $300 per person. There are 5 people in the group. and That's 300 minimum. Right now flights are selling like hot cakes and it's looking closer to 400 depending on the day of the week (any day besides mon-tues). I may only be a college student but I could pull $300 out of my ass right now. I would LOVE to fly instead but it would be thousands more to fly compared to just driving. I was curious as to what others do because I'm sure not all larger families can afford to fly to the port. Especially where prices are today.

[T. Advisor King]

Doing the math with op saying 5 people were going at $300.00 per person that is $1500.00 or $37.50 an hour on a 40 hour drive. This is well worth driving instead of flying.

 

Yes, but that is $37.50 divided among five people each. If it was $37.50 per person, then you might want to look more closely at your effective after-tax hourly rate of pay (bearing in mind that most people value their time off more than their working time, otherwise they would choose to work more). At $37.50 divided by 5 people, you're still back to $7.50 per hour per person. Could you pay me $7.50 per hour to take a 40 hour return drive with 4 other adults in a car?

 

You could try!

[PunkinsDad]

So far we have always driven to the port.

 

We are lucky, living here on the Alabama Gulf Coast puts several departure ports within easy driving distance (Mobile, New Orleans, Tampa, Galveston, among them). With a family of 4, it's just cheaper and less hassle to drive.

 

To be honest, I'd love to cruise out of L.A or San Juan some day, but I'll wait until the kiddos are grown. :)

 

Cost aside, post-9/11 air travel is such a pain......if it's less than 10 hours.....I would rather drive anyway.....

[CBTwi]

Yes, but that is $37.50 divided among five people each. If it was $37.50 per person, then you might want to look more closely at your effective after-tax hourly rate of pay (bearing in mind that most people value their time off more than their working time, otherwise they would choose to work more). At $37.50 divided by 5 people, you're still back to $7.50 per hour per person. Could you pay me $7.50 per hour to take a 40 hour return drive with 4 other adults in a car?

 

You could try!

 

Especially because we would have to fly on a Saturday which is one of the most expensive flying days of the week. Also, would have to stay overnight in a hotel because a morning flight wouldnt get you there at a good time to embark... so... 300-400 dollar flights a piece for 5 people.. plus 2 hotel rooms... in Florida. OUCH!

 

For those who say renting a car for the entire time and paying to park it is worth it.. why do you think this is so instead of renting a one way and then a one way back? I've never rented so any insight would be appreciated! :)

[aquasox]

We drive from Tennessee each year to Florida for vacation 10 hrs each way. Our family of 4 just breaks up the drive into 2 days. Like I said before if you have extra time you can see alot of great sites on your way down. We have done most theme parks from Florida to NY. 3 or 4 are on the drive from NY to Florida. Also you may want to check on amtrak the have a station in Orlando.

[Joanns6569]

My family has decided that end of July/Early August we are going on a Cruise. We are going from Port Canaveral and we live in very Upstate NY. With 5 people, I keep telling my parents that we should rent a comfortable car and drive it the 20 some odd hours 1 way, rent another one on the way back and save probably well over a thousand dollars as opposed to flying. We have the time to drive, and 4 legal driving adults who could rotate shifts. I don't see how that would be too bad. Plus, spending 300 minimum round trip per person for flying, when then you'd have to find transportation from airport to coast is kind of silly.

 

How do you get to your port when you are going on a cruise and don't (fortunately) live close enough to just have someone drop you off or something haha

 

Thanks for any input!

 

Look into a one way ticket, sometime you can catch them for $49-$99 per person. Drive down and fly home afterwards.

[T. Advisor King]

Um. $300 per person. There are 5 people in the group. and That's 300 minimum. Right now flights are selling like hot cakes and it's looking closer to 400 depending on the day of the week (any day besides mon-tues). I may only be a college student but I could pull $300 out of my ass right now. I would LOVE to fly instead but it would be thousands more to fly compared to just driving. I was curious as to what others do because I'm sure not all larger families can afford to fly to the port. Especially where prices are today.

Whether you look at it in "total" or "per person", you are still faced with the question of whether your vacation time is worth more or less than $7.50 per hour. Mine is worth a lot more than that and I don't think it is just me. Either you're looking at $300-400 per person, with each person spending 40 hours of time in transit. Or you're looking at $1,500-$2,000 for a total of 200 person-hours of driving. It's $7.50 per person per hour either way. I don't think anyone's time is worth that little.

[Texas Realtor]

we never drive. We use our southwest cards for all of our expenses and fly for free to FLL. Of course this next cruise we have to pay a little over a $1000 round trip to go to San Juan. We compared it to an 8 day southern caribean trip out of FLL, but the cabin was 1000 more. So we chose the San Juan cruise and will be saving our free flights for next March for another Southern Caribbean on Mar 11. I am self employed and have calculated the opportunity costs. It wouldn't make sense for us to fly even if we had to pay for our flights to FLL.

 

To each his own.

[masterbaker]

My family has decided that end of July/Early August we are going on a Cruise. We are going from Port Canaveral and we live in very Upstate NY. With 5 people, I keep telling my parents that we should rent a comfortable car and drive it the 20 some odd hours 1 way, rent another one on the way back and save probably well over a thousand dollars as opposed to flying. We have the time to drive, and 4 legal driving adults who could rotate shifts. I don't see how that would be too bad. Plus, spending 300 minimum round trip per person for flying, when then you'd have to find transportation from airport to coast is kind of silly.

 

How do you get to your port when you are going on a cruise and don't (fortunately) live close enough to just have someone drop you off or something haha

 

Thanks for any input!

 

We live in Florida, an easy commute to all ports and book two one way car rentals when we cruise. Port Canaveral is the easiest of all to use rental cars. Hertz, Budget, Thrifty, Avis & Enterprise, all have drop off locations and free round trip shuttles very close to the port (companies are listed in order of closeness to the port). Check the rate on two one way rentals with several companies. Thrifty usually has a drop off fee, but we never have had a drop off fee with Hertz. With 4 adults rotating driving, the savings on airfare and transportation from MCO to Port Canaveral round trip would be enough for your family to enjoy some fun tours on your cruise. If you have an extra day each way, you could even break up the drive.

[S.S.Oceanlover]

We live in Florida, an easy commute to all ports and book two one way car rentals when we cruise. Port Canaveral is the easiest of all to use rental cars. Hertz, Budget, Thrifty, Avis & Enterprise, all have drop off locations and free round trip shuttles very close to the port (companies are listed in order of closeness to the port). Check the rate on two one way rentals with several companies. Thrifty usually has a drop off fee, but we never have had a drop off fee with Hertz. With 4 adults rotating driving, the savings on airfare and transportation from MCO to Port Canaveral round trip would be enough for your family to enjoy some fun tours on your cruise. If you have an extra day each way, you could even break up the drive.

 

Most companies in FL don't have drop off fees but picking up the car in NY and dropping off in FL I don't think you are going to find any without drop off fees.

 

Bill

[glrounds]

Obviously I always drive to West coast ports (Long Beach 45 min. - San Diego 2 plus hours), but when I leave from the East coast I, of course, always fly. Because of the direction (west to east) I can catch a REDEYE easily leaving around 10:00pm (sleep like a baby on the plane the whole way)and arriving around 6:00am with a return late the day of debarkation. Catch an early breakfast at the airport, shuttle to the cruise port, one of the first on the ship. Coming from So Cal, weather has never been a consideration and I always cruise off-season. :)

 

I've been lucky on my east coast trips done a few years ago - $207 R/T non-stop to Orlando twice, then a $247 R/T non-stop to Ft Lauderdale, and NYC a couple of times around $250 R/T non-stop, but imagine now the prices have escalated.:(

 

Having said all that, if the OP enjoys driving and all the participants enjoy driving/riding then what to heck? Do it. If you made a mini vacation out of it the bean counters coming up with $7.50/hour/person wouldn't matter. I would do it even if I had to drive alone. My truck club travels all over the country and its very enjoyable to me. But, I STRESS, that's just me.:D

[Raven Days]

My family has decided that end of July/Early August we are going on a Cruise. We are going from Port Canaveral and we live in very Upstate NY. With 5 people, I keep telling my parents that we should rent a comfortable car and drive it the 20 some odd hours 1 way, rent another one on the way back and save probably well over a thousand dollars as opposed to flying. We have the time to drive, and 4 legal driving adults who could rotate shifts. I don't see how that would be too bad. Plus, spending 300 minimum round trip per person for flying, when then you'd have to find transportation from airport to coast is kind of silly.

 

How do you get to your port when you are going on a cruise and don't (fortunately) live close enough to just have someone drop you off or something haha

 

Thanks for any input!

 

No offence but that sounds like it would be my own personal version of Hell! I hate driving to Dallas from San Antonio and its only 4 hours. I refuse to be in a car that long. When I moved to Texas from Ft. Stewart, GA I had to break up my trip by stopping for the night in Baton Rouge, LA. Its about a 20 hour trip normally. For my last cruise I drove to Galveston, only because its only about 3 hours. So pretty much if its more then 3-4 hours away, I am flying!

[danacline]

I think a lot of it depends on how you grew up. We were in South Texas, and just to get out of Texas was a 10-hour drive. My parents and I spent months each summer driving the Western US to hunt rocks. I later spent 20+ years in Denver, and as those in the Western US know, it takes a long time to get even to the next state. So an 8-hour drive is nothing. Even the drive now from KC to Miami is less than 24 hours, and we usually always drive straight thru. The longest solo drive I've driven was South Texas to Denver, in 15 hours. Since I seldom drive solo any more, it's easy to let my wife drive and grab a few hours sleep. And probably the best part of driving - we are in control. If we have to detour, we detour. Weather doesn't delay us much, no one cares if I take my pocket Swiss Army knife, and as I mentioned in an earlier post, I can bring home all the rum I can carry.

 

Those that grew up on the East coast, where things are closer, may not be as interested in long drives. That's cool - more room on the roads for me <g>.

[cbreed2]

just drive, When I was young we had to drive 7 days from Portland, ME to Portland, OR...twenty hours is a cake walk, not to mention 4 adults who can drive and you will sleep quite a bit in the car.

[dispatch64]

CBTwi, we have driven from Buffalo to both Miami (8 people in a 12 passenger rental Van) and to Port Canveral (in our private vehicle 3 people down 4 back home) both times all things considered gas, rental, etc we saved money because unfortunately we cruise Presidents week in February and the cost to fly out of snowy Buffalo is outrageous, and we plan on renting a van again this February for at least 8 pepople which should cut our cost from $400 plus to a little over $200 per person. If you do your research on hotels near the port you probably will be able to find one that will charge a small fee or free parking during your cruise if you stay there the night before or after you may want to google park sleep and fly, then either use the Hotel shuttle or call Coco Beach shuttle they have a website and you can check out thier prices to the port from the area hotels, although we didn't use them the prices seemed reasonable, friends of ours used them and said they were on time and very helpfull. We actually ended up parking right at the Port even though we could have parked at the hotel, just because it was easier when we were leaving because we were in kind of a hurry to head back home. We were in our vehicle headed home between 9 and 10 am. We drove straight thru both ways with gas stops every three hours top the tank off bathroom something to eat, drink, sretch and change drivers and get going. Broke the trip up nicely. If you are going to rent especially one way watch out for hidden fees, like others have said drop off fees and how many miles you get free and how much they charge per mile over the allowed amount we checked into one way rental one time and only got 4 or 5 hundred miles free. Another thing to keep in mind always get at least the next size larger car than you think you will need sometimes you can find free upgrade coupons on the internet, remember if you rent check with your insurance carrier to see if your insurance will cover the rental so you wouldn't necessarily need the rental insurance, and last but not leaset most rental agencies charge an additional fee per driver (if you tell them) that there are more than one (not sure how this affects your insurance if you happen to have an accident and additional drivers are not listed and they have an accident) sometimes they do not legally allow drivers under 25 either. As others have said all the major car rental agencies have shuttles to the rental offices if you are renting one way. Hope this helps and have a great cruise.

[NYMac4]

My family has decided that end of July/Early August we are going on a Cruise. We are going from Port Canaveral and we live in very Upstate NY.

 

We live in very upstate NY too and in February we went on the Carnival Pride out of Baltimore ... the next cruise we do we'll do the same thing - it's an easy 8 hour drive to the port so we went the night before, spent a nice night there, then were at the port early the next day :) We loved it and will do it again!!

[golfadj]

We usually will cruise the first week of Feb and drive 900 or so miles for Florida.

 

I have my own business and have the option to adjust the day we will leave based on weather.

 

Could not do that if we flew in many cases. We have a small airport that will close for days after snowstorm and airlines are not known for flexibility in changing dates.

 

We typically will leave for Florida on Thursday morning arrive Friday afternoon in Ft Lauderdale and spend time with my sister.

 

Going home we can go thru Atlanta and visit our son.

 

Last few times we have flown it was not at all a pleasant experience given the cancellations and poor customer service we experience.

 

Might be a long drive but we can come and go as we please and not subject to the whims of an airline.