Has anyone *actually* Ubered from MCO area to Port Canaveral?

[elmojessi]

Has anyone actually Ubered from the MCO area to Port Canaveral?

 

Trying to weigh our options for our first trip out of Port Canaveral in a couple of weeks and I'm intrigued by just taking an Uber.  I would be willing to pay extra to have the ease of someone picking us up directly from our MCO area hotel and taking us straight to our ship on our time frame.  I understand that Cortrans has shuttles that will do this, but don't really want to have to stop at other ships or wait for other passengers at other hotels.  Plus, we are *finally* platinum and want to get there nice and early to maximize our time on the ship. 

 

My concern would be whether it is difficult to get an Uber driver to go all the way out to the port.  I imagine that it may be harder to pick up a return fare from there given that most passengers from the previous cruises would have left the area already, so drivers may not want to go out to the coast?  I don't want to count on an Uber and then have to wait 30 minutes to find a driver willing to take us.  

 

If anyone is willing to share their experience with this, I'd appreciate it!

[cruising forever]

Following...… sorry I cannot help but looking for the same information...…………………   late flight into MCO and sailing out of Canaveral the following morning (next August)………….hope to get some answers...……  or does anyone know how late the hotel shuttles run?

Edited October 8, 2019 by cruising forever

[GTO-Girl]

I have heard Uber mentioned many times.  You can also do an Uber estimate to get an idea how much it will cost.

 

Cortrans is a great reliable company that gets many positive reviews...so I wouldn’t hesitate to use them either...

[elmojessi]

39 minutes ago, GTO-Girl said:

I have heard Uber mentioned many times.  You can also do an Uber estimate to get an idea how much it will cost.

 

Cortrans is a great reliable company that gets many positive reviews...so I wouldn’t hesitate to use them either...

 

Agreed about Uber, but I don’t know if anyone has ever actually tried it!  It all seems anecdotal...  I have checked the estimates for both Uber and Lyft and am totally comfortable with the quotes, I just don’t want to be left high and dry if drivers don’t want to  take the fare, you know?  

 

I’m 100% happy to use Cortrans if I don’t get any confirmation that someone has had success, but hoping someone has experience so we can all learn from it!  😀

[johnrich]

We used Uber last time we sailed out of Port Canaveral two years ago. We stayed at the Comfort Inn Orlando Airport and took an Uber to the Port around 9:30 AM. The cost was only around $45 for the three of us. It was very quick and convenient. We got to the port around 10:20. The trip back to the airport was a little more - I believe $54. We got off the ship around 8:00 AM and were sitting at the gate at the airport at 9:30 AM. 
 

We are departing from PC in 41 days and are planning on using Uber again. 

Edited October 13, 2019 by johnrich

[alabamadaisy]

We had friends who did this on the day you posted- Oct. 7.  Late night flight into MCO on the 6th, overnight at hotel, uber to port in the morning, 4 people.  Return at the end of the week.  No problems.

[Cruiser Who Knows Nothing]

On 10/7/2019 at 2:50 PM, elmojessi said:

Has anyone actually Ubered from the MCO area to Port Canaveral?

 

Trying to weigh our options for our first trip out of Port Canaveral in a couple of weeks and I'm intrigued by just taking an Uber.  I would be willing to pay extra to have the ease of someone picking us up directly from our MCO area hotel and taking us straight to our ship on our time frame.  I understand that Cortrans has shuttles that will do this, but don't really want to have to stop at other ships or wait for other passengers at other hotels.  Plus, we are *finally* platinum and want to get there nice and early to maximize our time on the ship. 

 

My concern would be whether it is difficult to get an Uber driver to go all the way out to the port.  I imagine that it may be harder to pick up a return fare from there given that most passengers from the previous cruises would have left the area already, so drivers may not want to go out to the coast?  I don't want to count on an Uber and then have to wait 30 minutes to find a driver willing to take us.  

 

If anyone is willing to share their experience with this, I'd appreciate it!

The Uber drive finds out where they're headed AFTER they accept the ride.  They know they take a chance of driving far.  

[Tapi]

6 minutes ago, Cruiser Who Knows Nothing said:

The Uber drive finds out where they're headed AFTER they accept the ride.  They know they take a chance of driving far.  

Are you positive about that? I once asked an Uber driver about this because my destination was a good 30 miles away. He said that he lived close to where I was headed and it was the end of his day, so at that time he would only accept ride requests from people headed to the general vicinity of his home. That makes me think that Uber drivers can see destinations before accepting a rider. 

[Cruiser Who Knows Nothing]

16 minutes ago, Tapi said:

Are you positive about that? I once asked an Uber driver about this because my destination was a good 30 miles away. He said that he lived close to where I was headed and it was the end of his day, so at that time he would only accept ride requests from people headed to the general vicinity of his home. That makes me think that Uber drivers can see destinations before accepting a rider. 

No, that's their whole claim to fame is that they will take you where ever you want to go and pick up people in underserved areas where taxis won't go.  Now maybe they can set a radius or whatever.  I do remember an Uber driver telling me how they've figured out ways to outsmart the system, but I was a bit ummm "under the weather"  to remember  lol.  I've taken Ubers as far as 50 miles in Florida and never had an issue.  

Edited October 23, 2019 by Cruiser Who Knows Nothing

[jdvmd]

Correct. I have had this discussion with several drivers now. They do not know where they are going when they accept the rider.

[Lionesss]

We  just returned from a land vacation to Disney on Oct 26.

 

While killing time the DH pulled up the UBER account to see how much it would cost to go to Port Canaveral from MCO.

He did this at 9am.

For an SUV it came up $78.

We have two cruises booked out of Port Canaveral next year, and do not have our transportation booked from MCO yet.

 

Just saying.

 

Safe travels.

[mysparky]

One other option is to utilize the "schedule a trip" feature in the uber app.  This is available in most cities and you can schedule a ride up to 30 days in advance.  Check out the uber website for details.  I use this service regularly from home when I have an early morning flight and want to be sure that a driver will be available to take me to the airport.

[flipflop59]

We plan on the "schedule a trip" in Feb directly from our hotel near Disney to Port Canaveral.  It would cost more to Uber back to MCO and then hop on a shuttle.  Although this is the first time we will have used that feature, I would think once a driver accepts, it becomes a committed pickup.

[Tulsacoker]

Also check Lift vs. Uber, most driver subscribe to both. In my experience Lift is slightly less expensive than Uber.

[2wheelin]

When we were in FLL a couple years ago, we called for  Uber from hotel to PE. When he arrived and asked which terminal, I told him Carnival and he said “oh, I thought you were going to the AIR port. I am not licensed to enter PE. We’ll have to call another car.” I would think that if there are still limitations on which drivers can enter PE, they would need to know before committing or people would get upset having to call another car.

Also took a shared ride from airport to hotel and I would think that would be difficult if one party wanted to go 40 miles in one direction and the other wanted to go the other direction.

Since you put your destination in the app, they should know where you are going. Haven’t used it in a while so maybe things changed.

[elmojessi]

Just as a followup to my original post, we did indeed schedule a ride prior to leaving and it showed up right on time.  He took us to the port with no problems.

 

Since that time, I've asked a couple of Uber drivers about how things work on their end.  It sounds like they receive vague distance and direction guidance before the accept the fare, so if they don't want to go approximately 40 miles to the east, they can easily just not accept the fare.  One Uber driver I talked to said he prefers longer fares versus shorter ones, so all in all, I felt better knowing that I likely didn't strand an Uber driver in the area with no return fare.