It’s Day 3 of Spring Break flight cancelations at the Orlando International Airport. We know that some Disney fans can think of no better place to be stranded than in Orlando, but there are a lot of folks out there who just need to get home.
Orlando International Airport
Here’s a look at what’s behind all the travel delays.
This whole thing started with severe weather on the East Coast. The weather led to the start of the flight cancelations early Saturday, March 12th. But now we know that a whopping 204 flights were canceled between Saturday, March 12th, and Sunday, March 13th. And now, nearly two dozen flights have been canceled on Monday, March 14th, too!
The skies over Cinderella Castle were dark much of the day on Saturday as severe weather moved through the area.
It’s a mess — one that may take a couple of more days to straighten out, as MCO spokeswoman Carolyn Fennell told the Orlando Sentinel. But the weather has cleared up, right? So why are there still delays?
Orlando Airport
CROWDS. Crowds are a big part of the delays. You might think that the December holidays are the busiest time at the Orlando Airport, but, friends, you’d be wrong. The busiest time of year at the airport is right now — Spring Break.
It’s the busiest time of year at MCO.
Airport estimates released last week predicted that about 300,000 people would travel through MCO this Saturday and Sunday. Between the sheer numbers of passengers and those staffing shortages we keep hearing about, it has been difficult for the airlines that had to cancel flights this weekend to recover.
Can we get a button celebrating “being stranded” at Disney World?
Airport officials say they expect 7 million travelers to pass through the terminals at MCO before it is all said and done this Spring Break/Easter season. That’s up about 35% over last year! We’ll keep an eye on this situation and let you know about any updates, so keep following DFB for all the latest news that could impact your Disney World vacation.
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Our flight was delayed by 7 HOURS on Friday, well before the storm! We have two young children, including an infant, who had to stay up to take a 12am flight and get home at 4am. It was MISERABLE. Kids everywhere were crying. Orlando terminal B has the worst food options—we were basically all starving and skipped dinner. Hopefully no one else has to experience what we went through!!!
Flight was canceled last night. We had to drive three hours to Ft. Myers to catch a 5:35 am flight home, or we had no chance of making it home until Wednesday. Crazy!
Currently stuck in Florida, flight was cancelled on Saturday and we had already checked out of hotel. We spent all day at a restaurant, using their wifi, to find another hotel for the night, rental car, and flight. Hotel prices suddenly skyrocketed all over Fla, and even then rooms disappeared in a split second. There were no rental cars big enough for family and luggage anywhere in Fla.
Happily, we are finally heading home soon 2 days and lots of extra bucks later. Crazy
Our flight was scheduled to depart at 1:47pm this past Saturday. It was straight out cancelled at 8am. American Airlines told us the next available flight wasn’t until TUESDAY, and our hotel told us they could not extend our stay OR even move us to another resort on property because everything was at capacity. So there we were, my husband, myself and our 4 young children being told we had an hour to leave our rooms because they needed them and also couldn’t extend our checkout any further than 1 hour (they granted the 1 hour extension because that’s when the tornado watch was expiring). We called over a dozen car rental places before we finally found one that would rent us a one way rental, Ubered to the airport and then drove home 15 hours straight through the night to get back to NJ (not to mention, with kids who get carsick!!! Thank god I had packed carsick bags!!!). It was awful. Not only was I furious that the airline wasn’t able to help, but I was also extremely disappointed in Disney, too… the amount of stress we were under that day was astronomical!!
Glad I live on the West coast. No weather delays/cancelations in SoCal 🙂
Our sympathies to those being caught in this. A note of caution for anyone carrying on a Savi’s Workshop Light Saber who experience a delay that results in an overnight in a hub airport caused by a late arrival. Don’t assume that just because MCO security passes through probably hundreds of these a week that another hub airport security will view it the same way. We had a bad experience with this going through Houston.
Unfortunately, I understand the mental anguish of all that were affected by the flight cancelations. My family was fortunate enough to book another resort stay with Disney for two nights. Watching my husband scury about on his phone was the best way to handle the situation. At first, he attempted to call guest services, with minimal help. This was one of the worst weekends for flight cancelations. I’m sure Disney staff was bombarded with concerned and upset people. In the moment you blame Disney for not helping you. Disney has other guests that are depending on them. I found this to be an educational experience.
How early should people get to the airport before a flight?
Multiple issues, MCO is in dire need of expansion / improvement of facilities. Crew shortages, aircraft shortages surging passenger traffic.