ORLANDO · FLORIDA · THE CITY GUIDE
Orlando has two commercial airports, and they are not the same place. MCO, Orlando International, boarded 27,859,783 passengers in calendar year 2024, the busiest count in Florida, ahead of Miami. Sanford SFB boarded 1.4 million and sits north of MCO. How far north, we can’t tell you: the airport’s own site refused our reads, so no mileage and no drive time from SFB appear anywhere here.
Orlando sits east of the Apalachicola River and keeps Eastern time, while the western Panhandle around Pensacola, Destin and Panama City runs an hour behind on Central. A room in Orange County, where the city and the parks both sit, carries a 6.0% transient rental tax, filed and paid with the 6% state sales tax. We carry no park ticket price at all: Disney and Universal price by date, a figure written today is wrong within weeks, and the theme-park guide takes that decision on.
THE CITY AT A GLANCE · ORLANDO
Fly into whichever of the two airports your fare favors, add 12% in tax to every room rate before you compare it, and keep one morning of the week for Wekiwa Springs, where the gauge read 75.6 °F (24.2 °C) in September and barely moves with the season.
TWO AIRPORTS · BUS RIDE $2.00 · ALL-DAY PASS $4.50 · ROOM TAX 6.0% + 6% · EASTERN TIME
Go for: the parks, plainly, plus a ring of springs that swim at the same temperature in January as in July, and a three-county bus network charging $2.00 a ride with the transfer free.
Think twice before: booking March around a school calendar: family holidays fill the Orlando parks through the month, and there is no single spring break week to dodge.
Fares: LYNX · Boardings: FAA CY2024 · Room tax: Florida DOR · Water: USGS · full sources at the end
On this page
- MCO or Sanford SFBThe two airports, with 2024 boardings
- Orlando without a rental carLYNX fares and what SunRail does not reach
- Hotel tax in Orlando6.0% county plus 6% state
- Springs and swimming near OrlandoWekiwa, Kelly Park, Blue Spring, Silver Springs
- Best month to visit OrlandoMarch school holidays and the winter manatee window
- Springs within an hour of OrlandoThe Florida springs guide
- Where Orlando fits in a Florida tripThe full state orientation
LYNX is the public bus network of three counties, Orange, Seminole and Osceola, not of the city of Orlando alone, which is why its map runs well past the resort corridor. The month pages carry the crowd and weather detail this one leaves alone: December for the manatee season and the holiday parks, March for the school-holiday month.
Which Orlando airport should you fly into?
| Arriving | Figure | What it means on the ground |
|---|---|---|
| MCO · Orlando International | 27,859,783 boarded (CY2024) | The busiest airport in Florida, ahead of Miami, and the default for most fares |
| SFB · Orlando Sanford | 1.4 million boarded (CY2024) | North of MCO. No mileage and no drive time here: the airport’s site refused our reads |
| Brightline from Miami | about 235 miles | Roughly three and a half hours, departures about every two hours, fares by date |
| SunRail | no airport station | Its schedule names DeBary, Altamonte Springs, AdventHealth, Church Street, and no park |
Brightline is the arrival with a published shape: about 235 miles up from Miami, roughly three and a half hours, with departures spaced about every two hours. Fares move by date and class, so the amount comes from the operator, not from us. For the leg out of either airport, a LYNX ride costs $2.00 and the transfer is free. We could not read a numbered airport route or its first and last departures from the pages we checked, so plan on a rideshare or a rental if you land after dark. Flights into Florida compares the entry points.
How do you get around Orlando without a car?
A single LYNX ride costs $2.00, or $1.00 at the discount fare, and the transfer is free. The All-Day Pass is $4.50, or $2.25 discounted, the 7-Day Pass $16.00 or $8.00, the 30-Day Pass $50.00 or $25.00. LYNX prints one instruction in capitals: ask the operator for the All-Day Pass BEFORE putting money into the farebox. Once issued it runs from 4:00 a.m. that day until 3:00 a.m. the next, so a pass bought on a morning covers the ride home from dinner.
SunRail, the commuter train, runs north to south through downtown with stations including DeBary, Altamonte Springs, AdventHealth and Church Street. Its own schedule page names no airport and no theme-park station, so it moves residents between downtown and the northern suburbs rather than visitors to a hotel gate. We could not read a SunRail fare either: the operator’s Fares & Passes page prints no amount and sends the reader to a separate booking module. Everything past the bus map, the springs below included, is a driving errand, and getting around Florida handles tolls and rentals.
What does a hotel night cost in Orlando?
Orange County levies a 6.0% transient rental tax on lodging, filed and paid alongside the 6% state sales tax. Together that is 12% on the rate, applied before any resort fee or parking charge reaches the folio. Compare quoted rates with that in mind, because the same room advertised at two prices can land closer than it looks once both are grossed up.
No series of room prices appears here, and no month is crowned the cheapest. Rates in this market follow dates the operators set, and an average printed today ages badly. For the budget end to end, use what a Florida trip costs, and for the choice of base, where to stay in Florida.
The layer that stays genuinely cheap is transit. A full day of buses is $4.50, or $2.25 at the discount fare, which is barely more than two single rides. State park entry we could not verify: fees vary by park and by season, and the state’s own park site refused our reads on 11 September 2026, so confirm the amount with the park before you set out.
What is there to do near Orlando besides the theme parks?
Wekiwa Springs State Park is the nearest spring to Orlando. The state’s 2024 facilities inventory counts 325 parking spaces, one designated swimming area, one canoe, kayak and tube launch, 15.89 miles of paddling trail, 13.711 miles of hiking trail and 1,435 feet of boardwalk. On 11 September 2026 the USGS gauge there read 75.6 °F (24.2 °C), the warmest of the swimmable Florida springs the agency monitors, and that reading does not move with the month. The air does.
Rock Springs, the tubing run at Kelly Park north of Orlando, read 75.0 °F (23.9 °C) the same day, six tenths of a degree under Wekiwa. What the parking counts tell you is why popular springs turn cars away on a summer morning: one designated swim area and one launch serve those 325 spaces, and once the lot is full the gate stops admitting vehicles. We publish no opening hour for either park, for the same reason we publish no fee.
Blue Spring State Park, the winter manatee spring, counts 187 parking spaces, 3,050 feet of boardwalk, three observation platforms and six cabins. That boardwalk is the longest at any Florida spring park in the inventory, and the parking is a third of Ichetucknee’s. Its gauge read 74.3 °F (23.5 °C) and 168 cubic feet per second on 11 September 2026. Manatees gather there in winter because the water discharging from the Upper Floridan aquifer stays relatively warm while the river around it cools, a mechanism the manatee guide takes further.
Silver Springs State Park, the glass-bottom-boat spring, is the largest of the four by some margin: 1,686 parking spaces and three launches, against Wekiwa’s 325 and one. That capacity is the practical difference on a busy Saturday. The springs guide sorts them by what you actually do in the water, and weekend getaways from Orlando puts them into a two-night shape.
When is the best time to visit Orlando?
Sources & data for this guide
- LYNX single, transfer and pass fares · LYNX official Fares & Passes page · checked Sep 13, 2026
- All-Day Pass rule and its 4:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. validity · same page · checked Sep 13, 2026
- MCO and SFB boardings, CY2024 · Federal Aviation Administration · checked Sep 13, 2026
- Brightline route, about 235 miles and about three and a half hours · gobrightline.com · checked Sep 13, 2026 · fares move by date, so none are quoted
- SunRail station list · sunrail.com Schedules · checked Sep 13, 2026 · its Fares & Passes page prints no amount, so we quote none
- Orange County 6.0% transient rental tax with the 6% state sales tax · Florida Department of Revenue, form DR-15TDT · checked Sep 13, 2026
- Eastern time boundary at the Apalachicola River · 49 CFR 71.5(f) · checked Sep 13, 2026
- Wekiwa, Blue Spring and Silver Springs facility counts · Florida DEP Recreational Facilities Inventory, 2024 annual report · checked Sep 13, 2026
- Water temperatures and discharge · USGS National Water Information System, stations 02234600, 02234610 and 02235500 · instantaneous readings, Sep 11, 2026
- Winter manatee mechanism · Southwest Florida Water Management District, 2001, revised 2011 · checked Sep 13, 2026
- Admissions we could not verify: no theme-park price (Disney and Universal price by date), no state park hour or entrance fee (the state park site returned an error to our reads on Sep 11, 2026), and no per-spring manatee count.
March fills the Orlando theme parks with family school holidays, while college spring break weighs on the beach towns instead. There is no single spring break week to schedule around: university calendars spread across the month, so a mid-March Tuesday is not reliably calmer than the first Saturday. The March page works those dates properly.
Winter is the animal season, and the reason is hydrological rather than migratory. The aquifer keeps pushing out water at a steady temperature, the surrounding river drops below it, and manatees move into the warm discharge at Blue Spring. We verified no count of how many, at any spring, on any date. December in Orlando and the statewide calendar cover the rest of that window.
In summer the arithmetic inverts. Wekiwa’s 75.6 °F (24.2 °C) is the same number in July as in January, so the identical water reads as cold relief in August and as a warm bath at Christmas. That constancy is what makes a spring the useful second half of a park trip with children, a point the family guide develops.
Departures spaced about two hours apart also make a Miami leg workable without a rental car, with calls at Aventura, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton and West Palm Beach along the way. Pair Orlando with one other Florida rather than four, whether by rail or by road: the road-trip guide lays out the driving version, and things to do in Florida covers what else earns a day.
So: pick the airport your fare picks, gross up every room rate by 12% before comparing it to anything, and say the words All-Day Pass to the operator before your money goes into the farebox. Then hold a morning for Wekiwa. The gauge there read 75.6 °F (24.2 °C) in September and will read close to that in January, which is the one part of an Orlando week nobody has to book.