upgrades

[DOPEY321]

When DCL is upgrading passengers from the higher catagories, what kind of systemdo they use. Is it a first book first upgrade, or do they upgrade castaway club members first, or is it all done randomly?

2ND QUESTION:

I'm thinking about renting a car from the airport to the port instead of spending $400. on trans for my family of 5. Is the car rental place at the port like it's at the airport, or would I still have to find a way to the port after returning the car. I've never rented a car on any vacation b4,so any info in tat department would b helpful.

Thanks

[DOPEY321]

oops,accidentally posted 2x sorry

[GreenBeetle]

I can't comment on the first question, as our cruise hasn't happened yet.

But I may be able to shed a little light on the car situation. I, too, had a hard time justifying the cost of Disney transportation this time around. I rented a car from Avis at the airport. (I was able to get great rates with the help of coupons found online). The Avis office near Port Canaveral is very close by. When you drop your rental off with them, they will shuttle you (free) to the cruise ship. I spoke with the office directly and was told their shuttle runs continuously to/from the Port all day beginning at 7:30am. I did a 1/2 day rental on the way back to the airport too.

[ElenitaB]

Upgrades seem to be done on a very random basis, and the first upgrades would more than likely go to those who have booked a "guaranteed" room in a given category when that category has been fully booked. By doing this, DCL makes way for more people to book at cabin at the lower rates. Other than that, I think it's just a matter of where the pixie dust falls.

As for your second question, are you going directly from the airport? I had looked into this for when we were planning on spending one evening at WDW and then heading out to port. I chose Budget because their airport location is actually IN the airport and you don't have to take a shuttle off property to get the car. In Port Canaveral, all car rental locations are not at the port itself. I know that Budget does have a shuttle to port though, and to tell the truth, their prices were very reasonable. And if you have uPromise, they have a very nice discount code on their site AND you get to put away a little money for your child(ren)'s college education while you're at it.

So that you can see the rates yourself, you would drop off at Budget's Cape Canaveral location (code CC5 / zip is 32920). With a party of 5, I imagine that you'd want a minivan or a full-size SUV to accomodate both people and luggage. Looking at a random date (well, not exactly random... the dates I'd use for our upcoming cruise which is in early December), a minivan would run you 87.99 and an SUV 90.99, without any discount codes in place. They run a shuttle to the ship continuously from 7:30 am to 4:00 pm (now that would be cutting it close ); two shuttles during the week and three on Saturday (their agent there didn't mention Sundays for us 4 night cruisers); they are located 2 miles from port.

Hope that helps!

[Tavel]

When my family cruised in Feb. 2006, we were upgraded from a cat. 8 to a 6 -- still in connecting rooms. We only booked 2-3 months prior, all first time cruisers, so no idea why the upgrade. Glad it happened though! I'm going to go for the cat. 6 this time around since we loved, loved, loved having the balcony.

[PAYROLL PRINCESS]

If you do rent a car, make sure you drop the family and luggage off at the port terminal and then take the car back. That way only you are on the shuttle and you don't have to shlep all your bags.