BA - Gatwick to Tampa

[7SeasSailor]

Another vote for Tampa. Easy to get through from leaving the aircraft to picking up the car. Be sure to stay in the right lane when you leave the airport and if its rush hour then accept that the traffic wont be moving fast until you are on the I4.

[Goosey-Lucy]

Flew into Tampa for the first time in September and now we’ll never fly into MCO again.
We were through immigration a lot quicker then Orlando, and it took us about an 1/1.5 hour to get to our villa which was about a half hour drive to Disney.
Flying home as well there’s much more choice for food and drink once past security then Orlando, it’s a good airport and definitely less chaotic!

[snowbelle]

We have done Tampa a few times from LGW and made the mistake of going back into MCO last year ...I know its hit and miss but it was a nightmare the queue was huge and the hall was roasting and it was late September

Tampa is a breeze in comparison

[tinytots]

Tampa is a great airport. We were very unlucky both ways though on the drive to and from the airport. We arrived into horrendous thunderstorms and hit hideous traffic on the return. It took something like 2.5 -3 hours to get to Orlando/Disney. So just to be aware, it can be longer than planned if things don't go your way. Airport itself is a smooth process and the car hire super quick and no one long queues. We went in August. Not sure how things are now though. I would still choose it again.

[moosha]

We also much prefer Tampa to MCO, it’s much quieter. We flew home from there in 2018 and both ways this February.

Besides being cheaper, we were through immigration in about 10 or 15 minutes on our Saturday at the beginning of half term arrival. There were no other planes arriving when we were in immigration / bag claim which made it quiet and less stressful.

There was a bit of walking and a couple of lifts / monorail between arrivals and collecting the car but because it was quiet and it’s a nice airport, this was no problem at all.

Collecting our Avis car was much quicker than at MCO last year too. About 15 minutes total, there was no queue but the lady serving us had to wait a bit to book out the car as it’s a shared terminal with the other car hire companies.

As for the drive, I would definitely expect it to take an hour and a half. We left the car rental centre at just after 7 pm on Presidents’ Day weekend and it took us just under two hours to get up to Universal. If there is an event on at the Raymond James’ Stadium (which there was that day) this will slow the traffic down. If you were lucky enough to hit a quiet time then maybe it would be closer to an hour.

[Diesel_Staffie]

Thank you everyone, I feel so relieved now. I was worried but we didn’t want to pay the extra to fly to MCO. I’m hoping BA will still keep Gatwick route next year as we should be back to ‘normal’ by then 😬. The flight arrives at 5pm I think so we are hoping to be at Disney for a reasonable time.

[lozkin]

Originally Posted by Tetrarch

Once you've flown to Tampa, you will never want to go back to MCO! Our airport of choice every time.

Debra

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This is great to hear. We are (hopefully) flying to Tampa in August after 2 previous MCO arrivals