Florida car hire and hotels

Annieb

We've just booked our holiday a coach tour of the 'Deep South' in USA. At the end of the tour We are adding on 7 days which we are going to do indepentantly we fly from New orleans to Florida. So my shout for help to all you experinced travellers out there a few questions

Car Hire best to book before we go? or car hire agent in UK

Cheap hotels any suggestions

Also there seems to be two airports in orlando is one domestic and the other international?

Thanks

stan747

there is another thread about florida in the stickies, both sanford (sfb) and orlando international (mco) and the both handle international flights, as you will be coming from new orleans you will probably fly to mco, if your booking a 1 way flight home you will also fly out of here and with a lot of carriers have a connecting flight via chicago or philly (try virgin (direct), us airways or american airlines as a starting point).
i have found the best prices booked with the car hire places directly for anything more than 2 days, i got our last one with alamo, it cost £130 for 9 days for the economy and we upgraded to an suv for an extra £8 per day (fully in insurance) this was for a 1 way rental from sanford to miami.
try hotelopia.com for hotels in the orlando area, it's a pretty big place so you need an idea of what you want to do/see before you pick a hotel. the rodeway inn international and ramada lakeside are in excellent locations and are very affordable.
i have a 10% off code for hotelopia somewhere, i will try to dig it out later, valid until the end of this year.

Annieb

Thanks stan747:T

We are going with Archers Direct so they are handling all flights and the coach tour. (thought it might be easier as we're not very experinced independant travellers)

So taking off the flight days we have 5 complete days in Florida,

So we need to know how best to make use of our time, we want to go to the Space Centre, Keys and the Everglades do you know of any good (buget) hotels for these areas?

Will check out Alamo for car hire, does it seem to make more sense (to get a better deal) to hire a economy class car then upgrade when you pick it up?

Also will check out the website Hotelopia for hotels so if you can tell me more about the 10% off code that would be great.

Thanks for your help