Having travelled to Florida on many occasions, I would like to pass on a few tips that may help the un-initiated.
Most flights to Florida are around midday so you need to check in around three hours before the flight, that’s around 9 in the morning. Don’t forget you still need to add another three quarters of an hour or so to find the parking company you’ve booked and get checked into the car park and catch the bus to the airport.
If you are driving to Gatwick and have an early check in, assuming you are not checking in online, depending on how far you have to travel you will be travelling in the rush hour if you are flying on a weekday. Accidents and road closures can even happen on a weekend.
To save a very early start and the stress of a drive not knowing what the traffic is going to be like it may help to book into a hotel the night before your flight and drive down the night before. One of the hotels near to the airport has sales of rooms that can sleep up to four, for £26 a night. This hotel can be booked online, just look for Gatwick hotels.
The best way to book your parking is to look on the BAA website and link into the long term parking page where you can book online. We got parking for 16 days for just over £54 which was an absolute bargain.
Once you’ve got to the airport and checked in, if you want a good English breakfast we find it best to go to somewhere like Frankie & Benny’s which is in the main shopping and restaurant area before you go through to the departure lounge. If you go into the departure lounge to eat we find that a lot of people are in a rush to get into departures for fear of not getting through on time to catch their plane, and then want to eat so it gets extremely busy.
Once you’ve had breakfast go through the departures security check and this will give you time to have a look around the shops for those last minute items, sun glass’s etc and to get your duty free drinks, cigarettes and perfumes or anything else you fancy.
Most flights to Florida are around midday so you need to check in around three hours before the flight, that’s around 9 in the morning. Don’t forget you still need to add another three quarters of an hour or so to find the parking company you’ve booked and get checked into the car park and catch the bus to the airport.
If you are driving to Gatwick and have an early check in, assuming you are not checking in online, depending on how far you have to travel you will be travelling in the rush hour if you are flying on a weekday. Accidents and road closures can even happen on a weekend.
To save a very early start and the stress of a drive not knowing what the traffic is going to be like it may help to book into a hotel the night before your flight and drive down the night before. One of the hotels near to the airport has sales of rooms that can sleep up to four, for £26 a night. This hotel can be booked online, just look for Gatwick hotels.
The best way to book your parking is to look on the BAA website and link into the long term parking page where you can book online. We got parking for 16 days for just over £54 which was an absolute bargain.
Once you’ve got to the airport and checked in, if you want a good English breakfast we find it best to go to somewhere like Frankie & Benny’s which is in the main shopping and restaurant area before you go through to the departure lounge. If you go into the departure lounge to eat we find that a lot of people are in a rush to get into departures for fear of not getting through on time to catch their plane, and then want to eat so it gets extremely busy.
Once you’ve had breakfast go through the departures security check and this will give you time to have a look around the shops for those last minute items, sun glass’s etc and to get your duty free drinks, cigarettes and perfumes or anything else you fancy.