Once you’ve locked in your flights and hotel, the next thing to think about is ground transportation. Most hotels in Orlando offer a shuttle to the major theme parks (check with the hotel for exact schedules), so that part is usually easy. The main remaining question is how to get between the airport and your hotel. In general, there are four common options: public transportation, renting a car, taxis, shuttle service, and Uber. On this trip, I ended up trying the last two. Most seasoned travelers are already very familiar with both, but there are a few money-saving details you may not have noticed.

disneyland-express

Choosing a Transfer Option

Public Transportation

If your trip is focused on the theme parks—Disney, water parks, Universal Studios, etc.—you can relax, because most hotels provide shuttle service to the major parks. If you want to go to downtown Orlando, public transit can save you some money. In our case, though, we were focused entirely on Disney for four days, and our ORD-MCO flight arrived in Orlando after 10 p.m., which meant there was no realistic way to take public transit to the hotel that late. As for getting from the hotel/Disney area to Orlando Sanford (SFB) Airport, although that would have been during the day, the trip was too far and there wasn’t any convenient public transit option anyway (5 transfers, 4 hours). So public transportation was a pass.

Rental Cars and Taxis

At the time, I checked rental prices, and a five-day rental with one-way drop-off (pick up at MCO, return at SFB) would have cost a little over $200. But then I considered: 1. We would only really need the car on the first and last day; in between, we were staying near Disney and already had shuttle service. 2. Both the hotel and Disney charge extra for parking. So I ruled out a longer rental.

As for renting a car for just one day to drive from the hotel to SFB, even the cheapest option was more than $60, and that’s before factoring in gas plus the hassle of pickup and return. At that point, a taxi started to look more appealing. A taxi is a decent fallback option: convenient once you get one, but usually more expensive. So rental car: pass. Taxi: backup option.

Shuttle

To save money, many people choose a shared shuttle. That means the driver picks you up along with other passengers and then drops everyone off one by one based on the route. Naturally, the price is lower. But the most important thing is choosing a good shuttle company—and not just any company, but one with strong local reviews. The vehicles and service quality can vary a lot by city and operator. On this trip, I learned that lesson the hard way.

Uber

Uber is now a very popular ride service. Prices are relatively low, it’s easy to request a ride, and most importantly, there are often a lot of promotions. This time, using Uber from Sheraton/Disney to Sanford Airport turned out to be a great choice. I had also considered using Uber from MCO to the Sheraton, but because our flight arrived around midnight, I was worried about safety and decided to pass.

What I Actually Did and How I Saved Money

MCO-Sheraton (A Painful Lesson)

This time I booked a shared shuttle from supershuttle. The company looked fairly legitimate, the website was decent, and it operated in many major cities, so I went with it. On the website, you can enter your origin, destination, and arrival time, and it will calculate the fare for you. After your flight lands, you can use the link they send you to check in online, and they’ll reply with the place where you should wait (usually a parking spot number). Then you just head there and wait. Final price: $20/person.

What happened in practice: Our flight arrived at MCO at 11:40 p.m. I checked in online right away and went to the designated spot. Then I waited more than an hour before the shuttle finally showed up. During that time, I called 4 times. The first two customer service reps confidently promised the shuttle was already on the way and would arrive within 20 minutes. After 40 minutes, there was still nothing. Meanwhile, shuttles from other companies had already come and gone two or three times.

Later I called another number, and that rep checked and said the shuttle really was on the way and should arrive in about 15 minutes. Then, rather smugly, the rep said, if you want to cancel now, I can refund your money. By then I had already been waiting 50 minutes, so I decided to just keep waiting. In the end, it took another half hour for the shuttle to arrive.

When I asked the driver what happened, he said he had only been called out of bed to start driving about ten-plus minutes earlier. That pretty much proved the earlier customer service reps had not been telling the truth—they clearly hadn’t arranged anything yet. My guess is they were waiting until they had several passengers to pick up together, because two more supershuttle passengers showed up about ten minutes before the van arrived. So if you want to use a shared shuttle, choose very carefully and go with a company that has a strong local reputation. We finally got to the Sheraton close to 2 a.m. Since our original room was sold out, we were upgraded to a suite, which at least restored a little balance to the universe.

  • Money-saving tips:
    • You can often find discount codes online for rides, such as 10% off. Just enter the code when booking.
    • At the end of the booking process, there’s a field for your frequent flyer number. Enter it and you can earn a few miles from the ride.
    • Use the right credit card for payment. Cards like CSP and Premier can earn 3X or 2X points. If you don’t have those, using an EDP card for 1.5X points is not bad either.

Sheraton-SFB (Smooth and Easy)

After the painful shuttle experience, I decisively chose Uber for the return trip.

What happened in practice: We checked out, requested an UberX in the app, and the car arrived in five minutes. It came so fast we didn’t even have time to finish our game. When we stepped outside, wow—the car was nicer than our own.

aa3Once we got in, we chatted with the driver the whole way—about work, life in Orlando, the Uber app, and more. Compared with the grumpy shuttle driver from before, this felt like night and day. So how much did that nearly one-hour Uber ride end up costing?aaa8The -20 promotion was a discount for a new account’s first Uber ride, available if you sign up through someone else’s referral link. Even without the promotion, this long ride was only $38, which absolutely beat the shuttle. On top of that, my Uber account was linked to my SPG account, so I earned extra SPG points. And the discounted total of $18 happened to satisfy an AMEX Offer of 15-5, bringing my final out-of-pocket cost down to just $13.
  • Money-saving tips
    • Sign up using someone else’s referral and you can get $20 off your first ride, such as my referral link,
    • Link your Uber account with your SPG account. For every $1 spent on Uber, you can earn 1 SPG point. If you are staying at an SPG hotel that day, you can earn an additional 1 SPG point: how to link them
    • Use the right credit card to pay, such as CSP or Premier, which offer 2X or 3X points on travel/transit
    • AMEX Offer: remember to check whether you have the relevant offer
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