You absolutely should not need to use any toll roads to get from Bonnet Creek to Sanford Airport, or anywhere else in Orlando. You can completely avoid them and this will be a non-issue.
Going back to your flight, is the airline Allegiant? If so, I would be more worried about them than your car. My experiences with them have not been great.
Regarding shuttle service. Even when they still had it, it was not exactly cheap. If you were taking more than a trip or 2 with a family of 4, a rental car became much more cost effective. And also, this is Florida, you need a car to do anything,. People don't understand this, but this state was built around having access to a vehicle.
Ive vacationed in Orlando multiple times and this will be the first time I've rented a car...... Usually its a trip to just disney, just universal, or both universal and disney. in all those cases previously I hired a private transport service to move us to and from the airport and between parks then relied on the parks transportation and for the most part if we couldnt reach it by foot or any of the other offered modes of transport we sure didnt miss it.
And i want to be clear that I personally have no issue driving nearly anywhere, except Atlanta I really dont like Atlanta. The issue comes from the anxietey my wife has which in turn riles everyone else up which significantly adds to my stress level. the very first trip we ever went on as a family we drove to disneyland......... that wasnt pleasant and have flown most places since. she seems fine if we are in a bus or private car. I asked her if shes nervous about MY driving and she said no it was more that I was sitting next to her and distracting and focused on her.
Yes the airline is Allegiant, it was the only carrier that has a direct flight to Orlando anywhere near driving distance to us. I havent had any issues, yet, with Allegiant except they have already changed the flight times for both flights a couple of times and now our flight home is 6:05 am instead of the 10:00 am it originally was when I first booked. At this point it would not surprise me if it changed yet again. Also Im just overly weary of airlines in general, they have one job to do and they cant seem to get it done a lot of times. I have noticed that usualy the earlier you fly the "better" it is for Hiccups. American airlines on the other hand....... Yeah Id rather drive then fly American EVER again. Overall commercial flights on the whole are kinda terrible in general. Then there is the few times we charter private, which had we known at the start we would have had a group this big would have been somewhat cost effective, but at the time there were only 5 of us going when I started booking and the cost just didnt make a lot of sense. Plus private charter rates seem to be UP quite a bit over the last several months. But if i had the means to not worry about the cost having flown private a few times I would always fly that way as I prefer it over the commercial nonsence. But while I can afford it sometimes its sure not something I can afford to do all the time.
Im also aware that there is the option to avoid I4 all together however it seems to be the most direct route. As stated before I typically never got to see where we were going since I usually was talking to my wife in the suv or van we were in. Again if money wernt an issue id just uber or Lytf everywhere, or hire a private driver for all our transportation needs. I have no experience with what Bonnet had before, so thats kinda good to know that the service wasnt so great, I guess.
What it might wind up making us do is to purchase a small, 150 point contract, DVC. Basically, and I admit its a real first world problem but a problem none the less, I have really enjoyed not having to worry about driving when on vacation in the orlando area so far. Those typically were the vacations where I knew I could fully relax most of the time.
