Booking Airfare and Transportation to Walt Disney World

The main airport that most visitors fly into is Orlando International Airport (MCO) which is located about 20 miles from Disney World. MCO is designed in a way that the gates are in 1 of 4 "satellite" buildings and visitors ride the tram to get to and from the main terminal.

Another airport option is Orlando Sanford International (SFB) which just serves a few airlines. It is located about 35 miles from Disney World. Rental cars, Ubers, taxis and limos are available to travel from Sanford to Disney World but Magical Express isn't an option.

For finding cheap airfare, I recommend checking Kayak.com and then booking your flight with the airline directly. Another great site is ITA Software by Google.   You can’t book through ITA, but it gives you more options in choosing multiple airports to see if nearby airports might offer better pricing, and allows you to check out a calendar of dates for travel, among other things.

There isn't an airfare research tool that can search the low airfare airlines like Southwest or Allegiant so you need to research those separately. Go to those airlines' websites to look up their pricing.

If you’re not booking a trip for set dates but are willing to travel whenever a deal pops up, another great option is Airfarewatchdog. You can signup for their deal alerts for trips between two cities. We opt for their daily email, which provides listings for the cheapest future airfare to numerous destinations departing out of our home airport.

When visiting Walt Disney World, you’ll also need to determine whether to rent a car. If you’re not visiting other destinations outside of Walt Disney World, you might not need to waste the money on one. Walt Disney World provides complimentary transportation to the parks from your Disney resort and even to and from the airport via Disney's Magical Express, however, keep in mind Disney transportation can take a lot of time.

If you are looking to venture off property once or twice during your stay, an alternative to renting a car is a taxi or an Uber, which would definitely be cheaper than renting a car.

If you are not staying at one of the Disney resorts, your hotel may offer shuttle services to and from the different parks (Disney, Universal, SeaWorld, etc).  Historically our experience has been that these shuttles are very limited in schedule so you may want to look into renting a car.