how much flight time to allow after ft. lauderdale cruise

[queenofcruzin]

I agree with all the wisdom from the other cruisers....I am only doing the 4 day on the EOS getting on when you leave !! But we will fly down on Wednesday, spend the night in Fort Lauderdale. Cruising in winter is heaven, but flights are NOT !! We all have stories of DELAYS, so I only cruise when I can go a day early....HINT, that is the night everyone elso goes to bed early and I get all the scoop from the bartenders...hee-hee

[TrvlPro]

As always there are flight guidelines for each ship and port. You cannot even add transfers if you don't stay within those guidelines. Typically the guidelines are around 4 hours before the ships departure time (remember you have to be in the check-in line a minimum of one hour before). That leave a 3 hour window from flight arrival to when you have to be at the pier. In my opinion even these guidelines are way too tight. Flight delays and changes are all too common today. My last cruise out of San Juan I gave myself 5+ hours. They changed my flight two weeks before the cruise and moved it up an hour and a half. I checked on other flights and the ones available were either horrible times or unavailable. Then we had a delay on the runway which fortunately was resolved in about 15 mins.

If you can, fly in the day before your cruise and get a hotel. You'll be rested and enjoy your cruise more. If not give yourself at least 5 hours. The saved worry and aggrevation is normally worth the cost difference and inconvenience of getting up a little earlier.

Cheers, Neil

[helenraquel]

NEVER say "weather is not an issue" and I don't care WHERE you live. Weather definitely can and has been an issue no matter what part of the country you are flying to/from...I don't care if you live in N.C., New York, Florida, California, Texas, etc...If is isn't snow, it can be rain, winds, fog, ice, thunder, lightning...you get my meaning. Theres NO WAY I'd fly the same day as my ship was leaving. In fact, would have missed our cruise out of New Orleans last April had I not scheduled my arrival to the city for the day before...I live in Buffalo...got out of there ok but our connection in Chicago was cancelled because of weather issues somewhere else...bottom line is that we couldn't get down to New Orleans till the next morning so thank god we had that extra day to "play with"!!

[Dave]

Helen,

Great post! People tend to think of things in their immediate area and don't realize that weather problems in Denver can disrupt air travel in Bangor, Maine. Most of the weather delays I have endured have indeed been for weather in other parts of the country or weather that happened a day or two earlier. Most recently I spent 7 hours at ATL for a 30 minute flight to HSV all because of storms in upstate NY, which played havoc with the equipment needs for my particular flight.

Always schedule yourself to get to the port a day early!

[electech]

I always arrive the day before and was reminded why today when the airline changed our flight schedule for no reason!

[shelby]

They do change flight times and I worry every time we cruise that they will change it while we are at sea.

e finally decided to fly in a day early and fly out a day later. However flying in a day early doesn't alleviate worry. Last time our hotel almost caught fire and I am sitting in the parking lot at 2 am the morning of our cruise with the hotel surrounded by fire trucks and our cruise documents, birth certificates, citizenship docs all inside. NIGHT MARE and I didn't sleep the rest of the night.