Travel Advice Needed

[lostcarpark]

We're looking at Florida for a honeymoon destination. Probably should have booked it months ago, but you know how it goes. I know there are some frequent flyers here, so I'd appreciate any suggestions. Oh, and if you know someone who has a lot of travel experience, please ask them to have a look.

There aren't any direct flights between Dublin and Orlando, so we're going to have to change somewhere.

I've done some searching on various sites, and depending when we travel the price is generally working out around €650-€800 per person. However, if I book a direct flight to JFK with Aer Lingus, I can get it for under €300 per person. A Delta flight from JFK to Orlando comes in at around $140, so it would add up to a fairly substantial saving when you multiply it by three.

When I look up the price on Expedia, it offers me hotel and car packages and tells me I save loads by booking them together. It works out around $100 per night for a 3.5 star hotel close to Disney, and about $20 per day for the car.

So some questions:

1. Is it a good idea to book the flights separately?
2. Is JFK a good airport to connect in?
3. How long should I leave between flights for baggage collection and check-in?
4. Will travel insurance cover it if one flight is delayed and we miss the other?
5. Is it worthwhile booking flight, hotel and car together?
6. Is there somewhere else I could get a cheaper deal?
7. Any general advice on traveling to the US these days?

Eagerly awaiting suggestions!

Comments

[etherealfionna.livejournal.com]

2. Going through Boston with an Irish passport is not a very good idea, or at least it wasn't back back in my student days when people were trying to get in for summer work illegally.

My suggestion is to look for flights through Amsterdam or Frankfurt (or do I mean Munich? I can never remember - the biggest German airport, anyway). And checking straight through is worth the extra money, because then everything that goes wrong is theie problem.

[lostcarpark.livejournal.com]

I can see how you might be looked at a little more suspiciously by emigration. However, they're got to be letting some people through or there wouldn't be direct flights there, and when you've got a secure job and mortgage to return to, it shouldn't generally be a problem.

An initial search of flights from Amsterdam yields only one direct flight costing $622. All the other airports only seem to offer changes via other US airports.