Our trip part 1

[alanm]

Hi All,

With 18 posts under my belt and two trips to Orlando in my life, 11 years apart!!! I feel I must really share my vast knowledge with you all...only kidding...this trip report will come in dribs & drabs as my typing speed can only be described as BRUTAL[msnembarrased] A lot of what I write will possibly be common knowledge but hopefully a tip or two will be of use...where to start? well have to go back to last Christmas morning....The Family, Me Alan, The Boss Denise, Ewan 12yrs and Keelin 5yrs....After the pressies had been opened and things had calmed down we informed them that there was one more pressie, We had earlier placed clues around the house so a treasure hunt began which eventually brought them back to the Xmas tree where all was revealed. Ewan was in shock (coaster nut) as we had promised to take him in 2012, Keelin went into what can only be described as a princess frenzy!!
The next part may be of interest to any of you who are Irish (like us) or possibly those in the UK/Rest of Europe who choose to fly indirect...We booked our flights in November 2010, departing Dublin March 17th[lucky] returning March 31 flying direct into MCO, Total cost for three adults + 1 child = 1824 EUROs or 1608GBP (todays rate) The other bonus of flying out of Dublin is that you pass through US Immigration & Customs in Dublin NOT IN Orlando, newish planes, everybody has their own personal screen, plently of movies / music & games, food reasonable, happy days. Tip - Prices on the Aer Lingus website fluctuate on a regular basis and they have regular sales, I have been watching the prices for the last couple of years and have never seen them cheaper than what we paid.
Arriving in Orlando, off the plane get monorail, collect bags head for car hire.

Car Hire - I booked through this site, an intermediate car with Dollar.
I signed up for Dollar Express before I booked the car,added the Dollar Express number to my booking, I bypassed the que at the Dollar desk, and headed straight to the car park, produced my voucher and was sitting in a New Ford Fusion in less than a minute, 700 miles on the clock, Happy days...I was actually given a choice of two cars, took the one with the biggest boot, there was a VIP hold tag on the car so looks like Dollar Express members could possible get a better car than regular customers. Tip - If you are going to use Dollar, sign up for Dollar Express, all the details of how to do it are in the car hire section on this site, it only takes a few minutes, well worth it and it's free. Would I book a car through this site again? Yes, absolutely, good price, no hassles, smooth, we are on the road.

More tomorrow,

G'nite

[dynomike red]

Look forward to the rest of your report alanm
We did the same with the treasure hunt on Christmas morning which resulted in them finding a Disney promo DVD, the looks on their faces “PRICELESS"
Mike
[msnsmile2]

[LiesaAnna]

nice one Alan!! how very exciting!
looking forward to the next part xxx

[eagleydo]

Great start, great christmas present!!!

[dawn]

Great start Alan and especialy useful as I am flying Aer Lingus from Dublin on Saturday - so thank you.

[Lyn]

Sounds great, but a little confused. how come you can go through US immigration in Dublin, when did Dublin become part of the US?

[alanm]

Hi Lyn,

I'm not 100% sure when this facility became available but going through US Immigration has been in place for quite a while (years) from both Dublin and Shannon Airports, the Customs part I think is relatively new but either way if you fly out of Dublin on a Transatlantic flight you will clear US Immigration & Customs before you fly,I don't think we even showed our passports after arriving at MCO as the Aer Lingus flight is considered a domestic flight.

As regards being part of the US, if you read the business sections of the newspapers you will clearly see that Ireland is now mostly owned by Germany, France owns a little bit, actually Lyn if you are in the UK, you own a chunk of us too

[Lyn]

Thanks for that Alan, will have to look at going via Dublin.

[dolphinv]

Ireland has always had US immigration in Dublin and Shannon, maybe its cause most of the Presidents claim to have irish roots lol ..... customs is part of the new T2 at Dublin airport (not sure if its in shannon. Aerlingus and most if not all of the US airlines are now based out of the New Terminal 2. Haven't tried it yet but looks impressive from the outside.

[jeansusrentals]

When we flew out at the end of January from Dublin, we didn't clear customs - but we also didn't fly out of the new terminal. We had to clear immigration as normal at MCO - a bit disappoionted that we didn't as it would have saved us some time. But we are going out again, via Glasgow and Dublin with Aer Lingus in September - so I hope we do this time! Highly recommend Aer Lingus, by the way - great service, food and nice clean planes[lucky]
Jean