On our Disney vacation, we traveled to Florida by air. As a result, this advice is for those who intend to fly to Florida or California. My best advice is for you to use online resources to comparative shop and purchase your airfare. Travel agents may be helpful, but in my previous experience you can do better on airfare if you shop online yourself. If you have flexibility in departure and arrival times, you should check the fares on the various online services, and then bid for the tickets on Priceline.com. I have included the links to websites that sell airfare at the conclusion of the article. Don’t be afraid to bid 20-40 percent below the lowest recorded price when you visit Priceline.com.
Here is an additional hint about bidding for your airfare on Priceline.com. If Priceline.com refuses your first bid request, you cannot simply bid slightly higher in an attempt to find an airline that will accept your offer. You will need to change one of your flight preferences. There are several flight preferences that you could change. For example, you could add additional airports for which you are willing to depart. My advice is for you to change your preference from a jet aircraft to indicate that you are willing to fly in a non-jet aircraft. Since jet aircraft make the vast majority of trips to major airports, your chances of actually having to fly in a non-jet aircraft are quite low. The point is that you can switch your preferences, raise your bid a bit, and still get what you want. For the record, my family saved about 25 percent of the lowest advertised rate by using Priceline.com.
If you are flying to Disney, and are not renting a car, you will also need to arrange transportation to your hotel. There are several options available. For example, a bus company called Mears provides most of the transportation from the Orlando Airport the Disney Resort Hotels. In addition, as of summer 2005, Disney is providing free transportation from the airport to a select number of resorts. The problem with the free transportation is not included for the Value Resorts (you will want to check before your trip to see if Disney changes this policy). The best deal our family found was through a company called Happy Limo. They charge a flat fee from transportation from the airport in a luxury vehicle. Not only is this a much nicer way to travel (since you do not have to stop and unload at every resort), but the per person cost is less than Mears if you are traveling with five or more people. In addition, Happy Limo includes a free 15 minute stop at the grocery store if you want to pick up some food. This could save you a great deal of money if you follow my advice about bringing food with you to the theme parks. You should make a list of what you want to buy at the grocery store before you leave for your trip. That way, you don’t waste any time at the grocery store.