Indirect or too much hassle

[munmun]

I am not a fan of indirect but each to their own.

My only advice was please be very careful in the winter where your stop over airport is. Having lived in Boston I can say from first hand experience that snow can hit in enormous amounts and the airport shuts. Same for Chicago and Philadelphia, try to have your connection in a Southern state.

[Rbecking]

Have done indirect in past and we are again this year. Of course everyone would like to go direct but when it’s £2000 more for a family indirect is fine. The great thing is getting immigration out of the way in shorter queue at connecting airport and can walk straight out of MCO where the immigration queues can be long.

[fiona88]

For me it comes down to a combination of ease, time (including departure and arrival times) and price and only you can say where preference lies between those 3.
I've done indirect once, SFO via LAX with a 3hr layover which was then delayed another 1h45. We'd heard horror stories of LAX immigration taking forever but we were in the departures area within about 40 minutes including collecting our cases for customs and dropping them back off which was really easy and there wasn't a way to go wrong. Which made for a really long and boring wait in a boring terminal but had it not been delayed or customs taken longer it would've been fine.
This time we're driving 5 hours to gatwick to fly direct to MCO. The other options were fly direct to MLB for £200 more pp + £400 extra on the car hire then the drive to orlando, fly to MCO with an airport change in london or flying with 2 stops which just felt like too many moving parts for a similar price.

[petit-pois]

We’ve gone indirect through both Boston and Chicago when our youngest was only 3 and quite enjoyed it in a way. It’s certainly easier to arrive at your destination in USA having already cleared immigration!
This year we’re going indirect again via PHL on outbound as it was significantly cheaper.