S/O Would you skip ME and just hire a town car?

[hillview]

Reading Corie's thread on ME -- should we just hire a limo/towncar? Anyone BTDT?
/hillary

[bubbaray]

Personally, no I would not because then I would have to bring car seats. We no longer fly with our car seats (though I'm not adverse to gate checking them).

[hillview]

Ok for us I am pretty sure (like if we left today) DS #2 will be in a radian and DS #1 would be without a carseat but we have a safeguard Go we could take with us.
/hillary

[Momof3Labs]

How expensive is the town car (round trip)? I usually find a car rental for under $100 for a week in Orlando, but I don't travel at peak times. FWIW, we usually rent a minivan, which has run us $225ish for our last two 10 day trips.

[hillview]

So it is 127 rt in a limo and looks like 250 a week for a car. We wouldn't need a car for the rest of the trip. Turns out according to mousesavers that MEARs costs 33 per adult and 22 per child. Seems like a no brainer to me -- limo (town car)!?
/hillary

[hillview]

Oops except MEARs is not magic express, it is (I think) the DL shuttle. SOOOOO Magic Express is FREE. SORRY!
/hillary

[bnme]

How expensive is the town car (round trip)? I usually find a car rental for under $100 for a week in Orlando, but I don't travel at peak times. FWIW, we usually rent a minivan, which has run us $225ish for our last two 10 day trips.

Where do you get yor rental from? The last time I priced a car rental from Orlando airport it was well over $300 IIRC. We rarely rent cars so I always wonder if I know what I am doing when looking.

FWIW in Oct we ending up getting a great deal because we rented from Tampa (not airport) and returned to Orlando airport. We were visiting my parents (in addition to WDW) so they drove us to get the rental car.

Oh, and to OP -I would most likely take the ME just to save the money. We did ME once and it was about 2 hours by time we got there. And we didn't get our luggage until later. If you do ME my tip is to pack bathing suits in your carry-on so you can swim at the hotel before your luggage arrives. If round-trip transfers were less than $100 I might consider hiring a car, especially on a shorter trip. Anymore than that and I would rather put the money toward a car rental.

[egoldber]

Definitely pack snacks and a light change of clothes/bathing suits in carry on. Don't count on getting your luggage for hours, although it can be pretty quick.

My DH likes to rent a car, and we generally are able to get a full size sedan for less than $150 a week. But I really hate dragging the carseats, and the ME makes it very easy.

[jhrabosk]

We got a great deal on our car rental a few weeks ago through Priceline. We needed it anyway to travel to Tampa after Disney, but it was about $200 for a full-size for the whole week (including pickup at one airport and dropoff at another, which is more expensive). We gate checked our car seat.

With rope drop every morning and a child who NEEDED to go back to the hotel midday to rest, I found the convenience of the car worth every penny.

[Momof3Labs]

I watch rental car prices obsessively for about 2 months before our trip, try lots of different coupon codes (mousesavers has a whole page of them), and book and rebook several times to take advantage of price drops. I find that the prices are much higher if I try to book farther out than that, and the prices can fluctuate a lot from day to day. Usually I book through the car rental websites, but once I used hotwire for a minivan (and then a few days later found the same vehicle cheaper directly through the rental company website, but with hotwire, you are committed so I was stuck with my price).

We usually do Orlando/FL for 10 days and have paid well less than $250 for that period for a minivan, but could get a midsize or full size for $125 or less.