Orlando Airport

✅ Verified Review | I can only echo the reviews of everyone else here. This is no way to treat people, especially by a country that is supposedly the most advanced in the world. The slick videos they play in arrivals are the complete opposite to the actual experience. The officer we had was actually pleasant but it takes an age to process each group. The most frustrating thing is that most people coming into MCO are there ultimately to spend a lot of money in the local economy so everything should be done to make the entry process as efficient and welcoming as possible. I for one will never fly into MCO again. Finally, a tip for car renters. Having got through customs over two hours after we landed we then faced the biggest queues ever at the car rental desk in terminal B. Literally two or three people on duty to serve a queue of at least 30 and we all know how long we have to spend at the desk as they try and up sell everything. I went and spoke to one of the other car rental agents as I could see another two hour wait on the horizon, initially to see if I could hire something from them for 24 hours to then come back to collect our pre-pay car the next day. She took me over to Terminal A and said queues are usually much less there than in Terminal B. She was right. One person in front of me and a two hour wait avoided. I told a few beleaguered families at the back of the queue in Terminal B on my return. Always pays to be a fox not a sheep. Don't follow the crowd - look for alternatives.

✅ Verified Review | I travel internationally at least once a month and being that I live in Brevard County, Florida, I always travel through Orlando International Airport. Since October of 2016, each and every single time I have arrived at Orlando International Airport, the flights have been forced to sit on the tarmac or at the gate because the airport’s immigration service is unable to process more travelers. The wait times have typically been between 30 minutes and 60 minutes. When you finally are allowed to arrive in immigration, you will find that the wait times to pass through immigration are very long (unless you have Global Entry, which I have). Be prepared to spend at least 30 – 45 minutes. Once you finally pass through immigration you will enter into the baggage reclaim area. Note that the international baggage claim has only three baggage carousels. Recognizing that this is woefully inadequate, the airport management assigns teams of workers that rearrange and shuffle baggage as it arrives at each carousel. Of course, eventually the carousels become so overwhelmed with baggage that the workers have to remove the bags and start stacking them about the baggage area wherever there is room. Be aware that your bags may be stored on the floor areas along side the carousel. Again, this is not new or temporary. It has been going on without improvement for a very long time. As you’re waiting for your bags – get ready as this can be very long- I experienced times from 30 minutes to 60 minutes. When you finally do get your luggage you will need to head off to the tram that will take you to the main terminal. If it is not working, which does happen, then be prepared to haul your luggage and kin for a half-mile through hot (and maybe rainy) weather. Of course, the airport will tell you that they will provide a bus if this occurs but realize this is not a speedy exercise. The last bit is the on-going renovations inside the main terminal. Currently (mid 2017) the escalators are sporadically available. If you plan to retrieve your vehicle or rental car from the parking area, be prepared. The elevators (3 in total in any one area) will have a load of passengers waiting to move to one of the three levels. When one finally opens for you, the flood gates open. If you are not standing in front of the one that arrives, you probably won’t make it in. The wonderful feature of these elevators is, as people are scrambling to pack into the elevator that just arrived, the remaining elevators will not attempt a pick-up because the last arriving elevator cancels the selection for your floor. You will have to wait for the filling elevator door to completely close before you can attempt to again summons another elevator. Bottom line, if you are arriving from an international flight (especially with a connection) to MCO then give yourself plenty of time (I would say 3 hours), as it will not be a speedy transit time.

✅ Verified Review | What is there good to say about Orlando airport? Nothing. Holiday to Orlando, 'The Magic Place' well let me tell you MCO if there is one thing you're good at is shattering everyone's dreams the minute they land. Everything is slow. Immigration seem to relish in seeing the queue getting larger and asking dumb questions when you finally get to the desk which took well over 1.5hrs. Having kids ask 'are we nearly there yet' and 'why is it taking so long' when you've run out of answers is exasperating. Then picking luggage up and transfering it to the car hire area rather than carrying / pulling it all which took no more than 10mins on foot meant another 1hr wait for the luggage to arrive with 3 other peoples luggage. God help them if they got busy! I've been to better more efficient third world country airports. Being a seasonsed traveller I have to hand it to you for being the worst airport I've ever had the unfortunate experience to use.

❎ Unverified | Terrible airport, security is awful, baggage claim is the worst I have ever experienced anywhere in world. If you can, avoid at all costs. Waited over 1 hour for baggage to arrive, queued for nearly 1 hour for security. Restaurants are all terrible. Pathetic for such a well traveled destination. America you should be embarrassed, this is the 21st century. Will not come back to Orlando.

❎ Unverified | We arrived from Glasgow at 15.40 on 23 June. We were held on the aircraft for more than an hour because the immigration hall was full. That was followed by another lengthy wait in the queue at immigration and then a wait for one of our cases. By the time we left in our hire car, three hours had passed. The airport knows what that's going to be like every day so they need to step up and improve.

✅ Verified Review | Worst airport in the US by far! With thousands of travelers every hour, they have only 3 security lines! In addition, all classes of travel have the same 3 lines, no point in being a FF, points member, first class, etc, it won't do you any good. Plan on arriving an additional hour beyond what the normal anticipated time to get to the airport is, plus an additional half hour if it is raining (freeway is a disaster). In other words, drive to Tampa or Miami and fly from there! Thank you TSA for making MCO the worst airport in America.

Orlando nearly always has huge delays receiving baggage after arrival. Typical wait times (I've flown there more than 15 times in the past few years) are over 45 minutes. Currently, on my last trip, they had half of their monorail terminal to terminal shuttles off line due to airport construction. They forced Terminal B passengers to take the Terminal A train, but then line up to wait for shuttle busses to redirect them from A to B. I was lucky and quick to follow instructions. It "only" took me 45 minutes after passing through security to reach Terminal B. I can't say for sure, but looking at the 250-300 people who were stuck in lines behind me, as well as the slowness of airport staff to instruct people and get them on shuttle busses, I'd guess that many took over 1-1/2 hour just to get to their Terminal after passing through security. The worst part was that the airport clearly knew this was going to happen weeks in advance (they had professionally printed signage to put up) but the staff had no idea what to do, what to say or how to help travelers. I truly felt sorry for passengers with infants or senior travelers who would have been so helpless and fearful. Staff members contradicted each other, didn't know when or where to put up signage, told people to move to other areas that made no sense (imagine being pushed into a Terminal A train when you need to be at Terminal B) and were not prepared for the hundreds of passengers that piled into line for shuttle busses (that took 25 minutes to arrive once we had lined up.). It was chaos and the training the airport team had was not adequate at all.

✅ Verified Review | Avoid this airport at all costs. I travel extensively all over the world, however the last time I had to fly via Orlando MCO was thankfully 2003 as it was pretty dreadful even then! I had the opportunity to visit a friend in Fort Myers and the only flight I could get came into Orlando, so I decided to fly and drive. My flight with Virgin Atlantic came in on time and we were all about to disembark when we were told we had to remain on the plane for an additional 30 minutes due to the fact that 'immigration was so busy'! We all waited patiently, and eventually allowed off the plane, just to join an enormous queue for the passport identification machines. Thinking this would speed things along, I waited a further 20 mins and eventually had my passport scanned and photo taken. We then turned the next corner to discover another snaking queue for the passport security check! After waiting a further 30 minutes, I eventually got in front of the Passport Control Security Officer, who I can honestly say was one of the most rude, acerbic and disrespectful men I've ever had the misfortune of meeting. He basically grilled me for around 10-15 minutes on every aspect of my life professional and personal. I eventually picked up my bag from the carousel, in a room with no air conditioning on day with temperature around 89 degrees, just to discover the necessity to join yet another huge snaking queue to show my documents yet again! This took a further 20 minutes and at this point, people were starting to look seriously unwell, with old people looking faint and babies crying non stop. In total this rigmarole took around 2 hours and all before having to get the shuttle to the other terminal in order to queue yet again to pick up my hire car. Unfortunately, I have to travel through the same airport with my children at the end of June and I can honestly say I am absolutely dreading the experience. Not only will it be even hotter then, but due to holidays I'm sure it will be twice as crowded! If they weren't coping with the volume of passengers in May, I really can't see how they will cope during the annual holidays. On the return flight, the security was yet again in total chaos with massive delays and once I got through this unpleasant part of travelling, there was basically only one restaurant which served table dinning; quite unbelievable for an International Airport. There also appeared to be no flight information whatsoever on the flight departures and the only way to get an update was to go to the actual gate. My advice to anyone with the choice, would be to fly into a neighboring airport, even if it's two hours or more away and just drive. I flew into San Francisco International back in March and the experience, could not have been different. The staff were quick, efficient and extremely polite an helpful. The whole process from leaving the aircraft to leaving the terminal was around 30 mins in total. I can therefore only sum up and say I will make sure everyone I know, avoids Orlando International at all costs. Just don't go there and they will have to review their policies.

✅ Verified Review | Orlando is a zoo! Poor signage makes it difficult to navigate, not enough lifts to cope with the numbers, checking and security takes an age and some staff are not helpful and clearly under pressure. The airport can't cope with the number of travellers so I'll help them out by not using Orlando again, ever.

✅ Verified Review | 5th May 2017 flight from Glasgow to Orlando International, scheduled to land at 14.05 landed at 15.15 due to 1hr + delay at Glasgow, then held on the plane for 3+ hrs due to reduce handling capacity in airport then queued for 2.5 hrs for immigration checks, then queued for secondary security checks then pick up hired car and drove out of airport at 21.30. I would not believe this story if someone else told me it. Welcome to Florida I don't think so.