Park, Sleep, Fly: Make Traveling to Your All Inclusive Resort A Breeze

Living in Wisconsin has a lot of pros, but one thing we don’t have is a big airport.  Luckily for us Chicago O’Hare is only a few hours away, so we fly from there since flights are normally direct and less expensive.  We typically fly out fairly early in the morning to maximize our time at the resort and since we’re leaving in winter weather can be an issue. For these reasons we never drive from our house to the airport on the morning of the flight.  What we do instead is book a hotel for the night before that has an airport shuttle and parking included for the duration of our trip. The first couple trips our travel agent set this up for us, but once we moved on to booking trips ourselves to save money we continued to book the same way using the website Park Sleep Fly. We don’t get an affiliate perk from them, we just love the service because it’s an important part of the vacation package, which is Tip #5 in our post Top 10 Reasons for an All Inclusive Vacation Package

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Staying the night before you fly out has a lot of benefits.  Although we still have to get up pretty early at least we don’t have to get up at 2am to get in the car and drive for a few hours, deal with parking and then fly making the travel day that much longer.  It also helps ease you into vacation mode. In the past because of work we have left later in the day and arrived late evening, which left us feeling rushed to go to sleep right away the night before our flight. I get excited enough before a trip that having some downtime the night before travel day leads to a better night sleep.  This last trip in December 2019 we left work early and got to the hotel around check-in. This allowed us to beat the Chicago traffic, go out to dinner, relax and watch TV before getting to bed around our normal time. It made a world of difference and when we arrived in Mexico the next day, we didn’t just feel like collapsing onto our bed.

Tip: Consider staying a little further away from the airport as the Park Sleep Fly package may be cheaper.

Parking your car is another important part of this equation.  If you have ever parked at an airport you know they can be quite pricey.  We have found this option to be much more economical. Each hotel has different parking situations, so be careful to read what’s on the website, read the reviews or even call the hotel if it’s unclear.  One place I looked at it said that after so many days they would move your car to a different lot and I was like “that’s weird, I don’t want them having my car keys while I’m on vacation!” We also stayed at a hotel that had a parking garage, which sounded nice, except that the garage was several blocks from the hotel and you had to walk.  The last place we stayed had parking right at the hotel, it wasn’t covered, but it was very convenient. This is definitely our preference!

Tip: Find a Park Sleep Fly with onsite parking. Call the hotel to confirm this arrangement.

Now for the fly part.  You have to get to the airport and that’s where the shuttle service at the hotel comes into play.  This is another thing to be careful of when booking and again read reviews and maybe even double check with the hotel.  Some places will have shuttles every hour or half hour depending on the time of day. The last place we stayed you had to book your ride 24 hours in advance.  No matter how they do it we love being able to have someone drop us off at the airport. Most often we have stayed somewhere that has an actual shuttle bus, but this last time they just had a regular vehicle.

Tip: Keep the phone number for the hotel shuttle service and your car keys in a place where you can easily find them when you land after your return flight. 

If you aren’t fortunate enough to live near the airport you’ll be flying out of on your vacation then I highly suggest looking into Park Sleep Fly.  Use it to ease into vacation mode and a chance to get a good night’s sleep.  Enjoy the perk of paying less for parking than you would at the airport and also having someone take you and pick you up from the airport.