Post-cruise, Port Canaveral > KSC > MCO transport recommendation-Cocoa Beach Shuttle

[chalker]

Just wanted to give some advice / a recommendation on post-cruise, Port Canaveral -> Kennedy Space Center -> Orlando Airport transportation with luggage storage.  I was recently on Oasis of the Seas, which required us to be off the ship on Sunday by ~10AM.  We had late flights out of Orlando Airport (MCO) and didn't qualify for the Royal Caribbean Luggage Valet program that will take your luggage straight from the ship to the airport.   After looking online and calling around a bit, we settled on Cocoa Beach Shuttle to handle our transportation and luggage storage while at KSC.  Below are some details about our experience, which I haven't seen posted elsewhere and hopefully will help answer other people's questions similar to the ones I had prior to visiting KSC:

• I was with a family group of 8 people in total, ranging from my son (8 years old) to my father-in-law (80 years old).  Everyone is generally mobile and doesn't require anything like a stroller or walker, although I could see the shuttle easily accommodating those if we had needed them.
• I tried to made the reservation via their website about 3 weeks in advance.  Unfortunately, they didn't respond after a few days and I ended up needing to call them directly.  They did have a record of my request, but for some reason I hadn't gotten the email from them.  Regardless, they were very helpful when talking on the phone. Total cost for all 8 of us was $370, which included taking all 8 of us from Port Canaveral to KSC, storing our luggage while at KSC, taking 2 of us to MCO ~2PM and the remaining 6 at ~6PM.
• We gave them an estimate on when we'd be off the ship, and decided to pick a later time as we were in no rush to get off the ship or to get to KSC.  We didn't have to be there at a specific time, as long as we left the ship sometime between 7:30 and 10:30 AM.  The contract indicated we'd have a max wait of 30 mins to get on a shuttle, but in reality we didn't wait at all.
• Cocoa Beach Shuttle has a small desk setup in the parking garage at the Royal Caribbean terminal.  It was easy to find once we got through customs and the porter we were using took us straight there.  We were already on the list they had and they were expecting us.  We then were assigned a driver who took us to a large 10-12 passenger van towing an enclosed trailer for the luggage.
• The trip to KSC was about 20 minutes, and dropped us off right in front of the main gates.  They indicated they'd pick us up at the exact same location.
• Cocoa Beach Shuttle had 3 set pickup times from KSC that day:  1:45, 3:45, and 5:45PM.  As I indicated above, 2 of us went on the 1:45 shuttle and the rest on the 5:45 shuttle.  They were able to get the correct luggage with each group.
• For the 1:45 group, the shuttle was about 5 minutes late showing up at KSC, but that didn't cause any issues overall.
• For the 5:45 group, the shuttle was already there by about 5:35.  After picking us up they had to drive down to Cocoa Beach to pick up 2 other people, which added about 20 minutes to the total trip time. 

Altogether, all 8 of us were extremely happy with the experience.  I'd highly recommend Cocoa Beach Shuttle to anyone going to KSC and needing their luggage stored.

[JohninDC]

Thank you for the feedback and welcome to the boards! 😎

 

Did you consider renting cars instead of using the shuttle service? 

[IRMO12HD]

Thanks for the feedback on CBS!  We will be using them to get from MCO to Cocoa Beach on Feb 3 -- our flight gets in at 4:45 pm so we'll be too late for the "standard" shuttles.  The one-way fare they gave me for two of us is $58; I have been checking the CostCo car rental site every day in hopes of "beating" that with a one-way rental, but so far the cheapest I've found is $95.  I'll keep watching, but am not extremely hopeful.  I appreciate your review :-)

[chalker]

22 hours ago, JohninDC said:

Thank you for the feedback and welcome to the boards! 😎

 

Did you consider renting cars instead of using the shuttle service? 

 

Yes, we did consider renting cars, however the pricing would have been more because we would have needed 2 cars/minivans due to the 2 different departure times, and the fact for one group it was 6 people plus all the luggage.