Is the villa close to the Orlando airport?

I received an inquiry, from someone asking if the villas are ‘close’ to the Orlando airport. This is one of those situations where the correct answer is “it depends”.

Whether or not you consider the villa to be close to the Orlando airport depends upon how you define ‘close’ and what scale you are talking about. The drive from the airport to the villa takes about 35 minutes.

If we were to speak on the phone, my immediate response to answer your question would be, “Why are you asking? Do you want to be close to the airport? As most guests or visitors to the area certainly do not…”

If convenience and saving time are most important to you, you want to be located closer to where you will spend your time during your week in the villa, and not farther away… but closer to the airport.

The Orlando tourism area is relatively large, and there are few vacation rentals ‘close’ to the airport, as the area around the airport is not zoned for vacation rentals. Most vacation rentals in the area are to the west and south of the Walt Disney World resort property, which itself is 16 miles/26 kilometers (about 25 minutes drive) directly west of the Airport.

Having said that, there are a few legal vacation rentals in the area that are closer to the airport, because they were the very first ones built or created in the area many years ago. Being closer to the airport means that they are farther away from Walt Disney World and the attractions area where most people want to be.

Why would you want to be?

Understandably, guests would rather have a 10-15 minute drive to get to the theme parks within Walt Disney World itself (it’s a BIG property and takes 5-10 minutes of driving just within it to get anywhere you want to go) each day they visit, with a 35-40 minute drive once when they arrive (from the airport to the villa) and once again when they depart (going back), than be close to the airport with perhaps a 15 minute drive to the airport, but then spend 30 minutes each way going to Disney World each day. Or 45 minutes going to Sea World or Universal Studios.

Within a larger scale of all of Central Florida, I would certainly say that yes, the villa is ‘close’ to the airport, but generally speaking I wouldn’t describe it as being ‘close’ to the airport as most people would usually define that in most locations. Part of the reason for this is that things are very spread out in Central Florida, as that is just the nature of how the area developed, and it takes a while to get just about anywhere you want to go. For example, Disney World itself is the size of the city of San Francisco, with its own well developed road network, and isn’t located ‘in’ Orlando, but fifteen miles to the SouthWest of it.

When I drive by those areas where some of those few vacation rentals that are closer to the airport are located, I feel bad for the owners and guests staying there, as I think to myself “Could you imagine staying all the way out here? What a waste of time that would be each day,” and am proud that our Vacation Rental is just two miles away from the Southern Edge of the Disney World Property. I wonder if the guests booked into those other properties realize just how far away they are from where they want to be.

The truth about “Close to…”

I see vacation rentals that are actually relatively far from Walt Disney World being described as “close” to it all the time, and in one sense they are (again it all depend on scale), but they are not close when compared to most of the vacation rentals in the area. Some are as close to Tampa as they are to Disney World, but they’re a lot “closer” to Disney World than someone in Tampa would be! And extremely close compared to someone in Miami!

For more information on the distance from the airport to the villas, check out our location page and view the maps located there. It will give you an idea of the scale of the area and where things are located in relation to each other.

Hopefully all of that makes sense. If not, feel free to give me a call, or send me an email with your questions and I will be happy to answer as best as I can.