What If I Want to Fly In A Few Days Early?

[basketballmom]

What would be the best way to get to Port Canaveral from Orlando? Does Carnival offer pre or post packages? Thinking we would like to tie on some time at Universal and Seaworld while we are down in Florida. Any ideas/experiences would be most appreciated. Thanks everyone :)

[cruztime]

Basketballmom,

 

You have several options:

 

If you're doing the Orlando area first, you can rent a car from Avis or Budget at the airport do your thing in the Orlando area and return it to their offices in Port Canaveral (actually Cocoa beach). It's roughly an hour drive from the Orlando area to Port Canaveral. The directions are a breeze. The offices are just minutes from the ship and they both offer a free shuttle service.

 

If you're doing the cruise first, you can take the carnival shuttle or use one of the shuttle services available from the airport to the ship. I am using Art's shuttle (http://www.artsshuttle.com) since I fly down the day of the cruise. They meet you at the airport and take you to the ship. It's $55 each way for up to 3 people and $10 for each additional person. Once you debark, just grab the Avis or Budget shuttle back to their offices in Port Canveral and rent from there to Orlando and drop the car at the airport.

 

I'm not sure of the cost of Carnival's shuttle. I believe it's about $15 each. I'm sure you could call and get that set up through Carnival for either direction.

 

There are other shuttle services down there as well. I know I've seen a link of these pages somewhere that leads you to all the transportion services available.

 

If you decide to rent a car, make sure you reserve ahead of time. It's usually not an issue at the airport, but the local offices are not as big.

 

I'm sure others will chime in with their suggestions as well. Have a great cruise.

[Nliedel]

I rent a car and drive in from Orlando. I usually book my own accomadations.

[tjohn159d]

We went to Orlando a day early. Took a hotel shuttle to the hotel. Got checked in and then just rode the city bus around town. It only cost around $1.00 each for us. It went down International drive (Main tourist area) and past SeaWorld. We didn't get off, but could have. The buses seem to run about every hour to 2 hours on the same route. You could check the schedules and routes on line to find out which bus to ride in order to get where you want to go. I think they run until midnight. The bus was real clean and even I got to see everything instead of having to watch traffic and try to figure out where to turn and where to park. The next morning we shuttled back to the A/P and caught the transfer bus to the port. We got there early and avoided the rush from passengers arriving for a same day cruise.

[oceantravel]

It is usually far less expensive to book your own accomdations and airfare if needed.