WDW Trip Part One: Flights

I am in the final stages of planning a trip for 2 adults (my Mom and myself) to Orlando for the week after Thanksgiving: Tuesday, November 29 to Sunday, December 4.  

I couldn't possibly remember everything, but here is the breakdown of our costs, planning and tips we’ve picked up over our years of traveling to Orlando.

This post has Four Parts:

Part One: Flights

Part Two: Resorts & Hotels

Part Three: Park Passes
Part Four: Transportation

Part One: FLIGHTS

We started looking at flights early (June/July of this year).  We set up price alerts for every website possible for our dates, and kept a vigilant eye out for deals.

Booking: We booked each leg separately, since we wanted either Southwest (for her) or Jetblue (for me). Her city of origin is Boston, I will be coming from NYC.  We lucked into a fantastic deal on JetBlue - $89 o/w for her, $87 o/w for me. We booked 1^st leg of the flight for each of us on August 2, 2011 (4 months before trip).

Tip: It's much cheaper to travel mid-week!

Cost Flight to Orlando, for both of us: $87 + $89 = $176 (not including taxes/fees)

Even though we will depart from separate cities, we will be arriving together, on the same plane!! Her flight leaves Boston, stops in Newark (where they’ll pick me up), and on to Orlando nonstop from there. Since we used JetBlue we picked our seats so we are next to each other, too! We’ll arrive around 9pm on Tuesday, November 29.

Tip: We never check any bags. Absolutely not necessary for us, we are very conservative packers and don’t want to waste any time waiting for luggage, anywhere, ever! And so many airlines charge extra fees, totally not worth it.

Booking: We wanted to make the most of our last day in Orlando without getting back home too late, but try as we might we couldn’t find a flight that worked out as well (dropping me off, her continuing to Boston) for our return, so we each booked separately and got great deals.

She is returning on Southwest ($105), I on JetBlue ($95).  I treated myself to an Even More Space seat for an extra $35, since my ticket was so cheap (so $140 total – incl taxes/fees). I’ll let you know if the Even More Space seat was worth the extra expense!

Return Trip Cost, for both of us: $140 + $105 = $245

Total Flight Cost. 2 adults to Orlando: 1 Boston r/t, 1 Newark r/t:  $245 + $176 = $421