Indeed (Orlando) Melbourne MLB was chosen because it’s near Port Canaveral for the groups TUI Marella cruise ships.
TUI's cruise competitor, Virgin Voyages newish product operates from the Port of Miami.
As a package holiday company this brings passengers closer to their cruises, although it has angered many TUI passengers who fly with the company to visit Orlando for Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando Resorts etc.
The TUI MLB Florida route is now also seasonal: from BFS BHX BRS, LGW MAN, NCL, EDI and GLA, so basically TUI have almost abandoned the year-round land/fly-drive holiday packages for the Orlando area.
To put a spin on Florida/Orlando Holidays ----
These leaves Virgin Holidays as the main dedicated package holiday company to serve Orlando, plus BA Holidays too.
However, Virgin Atlantic have drastically cut back it's MCO flights for summer 2023 from all of their UK Airports,
and have dropped completely their once very popular seasonal flights from BFS and GLA.
Their new Edinburgh to Orlando flights have been pushed back to start at the end of June.
Both BA and Virgin fly into MCO, plus Aer Lingus now fly there from MAN.
Norse Atlantic UK Airways start MCO from LGW on May 25th 2023.
No one goes to SFB Sanford Orlando anymore - what a change there - TUI UK was the last airline, now all gone.
Thomas Cook and Monarch were the previous SFB losses.
(Although Thomas Cook Airlines had shifted back to MCO McCoy just before they went under)
Orlando, Florida, USA is one of the world's premier travel destinations, with approximately 70 million visitors a year visiting its various attractions in a ‘normal’ year.
The times are anything but normal now, and the region's tourist industry has been hit hard by the pandemic, with the prolonged closure or reduced accessibility of attractions, and hotels consistently losing business.
The Magic Kingdom theme park (Walt Disney World Florida) saw visitor numbers fall from 20.9 million in 2019 to 6.9 million in 2021.
Walt Disney World Florida was the most visited theme park in the world in 2019, and Florida had six of the top 12 visited attractions globally in that year.
But, notwithstanding that, it has to be said the costs of holidaying to the USA nowadays have shot up and no is longer affordable to many UK families.
I was last in NYC in summer 2019 and a 'Diner' breakfast in Greenwich Village for two cost me almost $40 without the Tip -
Dinner was over $100 for two -- if you were lucky...
Gone are the days of super cheap Alamo Car Hire, a $5.99 Diner breakfast and leave a Dollar Buck for the Waitress.
I can fully understand Jet2 not crossing the 'Pond' and joining in the Florida game.
Re the TUI 787's being 'long in the tooth' - the majority of 788's are now facing 10 years old, and the first 789 came in 2016, then more from 2018.
The state of them both inside and out, have been the subject of comments both on here, and on Travel Forums.
TUI's crews are overwhelmingly fantastic, but many of the long haul ACMI sub charters flown for them last summer were on pretty old replacements and did not serve TUI's Premium product well. Passenger complaints were high.
TUI's Bristol flights to both MLB and CUN suffered delays and diversions during all of the summer for varying technical and operational reasons but this was not a good look with the locals.
787-9 G-TUIP was brand new and f/f in 2021 but for some reason it is still stored in the desert at VCV.
TUI's major German competitor Condor is taking delivery of the new A330-900N to replace its 767-300 fleet.
Having just flown with them on one of these (to Palma) I can say hands down what a fantastic improvement for long haul charter passengers this is.
2-4-2 Y seating as we know, is way superior to 3-3-3 in the 787, although TUI did at first, have a decent 33'' Y seat pitch in its 787's and was much liked by the customers.
Condor's Premium product is outstanding, up there with Virgin and far superior to BA.
Old 787-8's will be hard to shift and so I guess TUI will hang on to them for years though...