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The perils of flying down the day of the cruise.


one9marine
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We just returned from Allure at Easter. Our flight down on Saturday the 15th was supposed to leave BWI at 1115 AM and arrive at FLL at 145 PM. We were on Southwest who usually is on top of their game, but failed this day. plane problems held our departure until about 315 PM. Did not get into FLL until 530 or so. At least 2 couples on the plane had a cruise on Freedom leaving Saturday afternoon, one couple on their honeymoon, Needless to say they missed the boat, so had to get to next stop on their own. Heartbreaking. To make matters worse the other couple had a 715 flight and cancelled for our flight. IMHO too risky waiting to departure day to get there, we always fly down the day before.

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We just returned from Allure at Easter. Our flight down on Saturday the 15th was supposed to leave BWI at 1115 AM and arrive at FLL at 145 PM. We were on Southwest who usually is on top of their game, but failed this day. plane problems held our departure until about 315 PM. Did not get into FLL until 530 or so. At least 2 couples on the plane had a cruise on Freedom leaving Saturday afternoon, one couple on their honeymoon, Needless to say they missed the boat, so had to get to next stop on their own. Heartbreaking. To make matters worse the other couple had a 715 flight and cancelled for our flight. IMHO too risky waiting to departure day to get there, we always fly down the day before.

 

I couldn't agree more. Arriving the day before departure relaxes me and is worth far more than the cost of one night in a hotel. We've heard too many horror stories of trying to fly-in the morning of departure...

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I also agree and even if your air is provided by the cruise line, they agree to get you to the next port at their expense, but your 7 day cruise can now be a 5 day cruise if the second day is a sea day.

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ALWAYS stay the night before, we live in northern Florid and fly from Jacksonville to Ft. Lauderdale or Miami, its a 50 minute flight and we still will fly down the night before, anything can happen, why take the chance I say, and having the night before the cruise at the home port your going out of, adds another day to your trip and you don't have to rush, simply get up shower and dress and head to the ship, its nice without that traveling and worry the same day.

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At least 2 couples on the plane had a cruise on Freedom leaving Saturday afternoon, one couple on their honeymoon, Needless to say they missed the boat, so had to get to next stop on their own. Heartbreaking.

 

Not really heartbreaking, they have no one to blame but themselves. Hopefully they've learned a valuable lesson about planning.

 

Air France lost our luggage on the way down to Gibraltar for our wedding. Fortunately, we flew down 2 days ahead of time to mitigate any potential issues, but it was still down to the wire as to whether our luggage was going to make it (it did, the night before the wedding). We'd packed our wedding clothes in our carryons, but with the liquid restrictions, most of my cosmetics were in the checked luggage.

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This goes for driving as well. We learned this on the way back from our first cruise. As we were driving North on 95 from Florida, we noticed the Southbound direction was literally a parking lot for miles. We never learned what caused it, but we saw lots of people outside their cars walking around. Had we been driving down that day, there would have been a good chance we might have missed our ship. And if we would be lucky enough to still make it, I guarantee, we would have been stressed big time.

 

Erika

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oh yea we agree too. I try to fly down the day before. Our last cruise we had to fly down the day of because I had a wedding to go to the day before. Everything worked out but you just never know!

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This goes for driving as well. We learned this on the way back from our first cruise. As we were driving North on 95 from Florida, we noticed the Southbound direction was literally a parking lot for miles. We never learned what caused it, but we saw lots of people outside their cars walking around. Had we been driving down that day, there would have been a good chance we might have missed our ship. And if we would be lucky enough to still make it, I guarantee, we would have been stressed big time.

 

Erika

 

Would that have happened to been in March 2015?? You are so right about driving. Below is an excerpt from my review of an Enchantment cruise back in March 2015.

 

So we decided this time to take the drive down to Port Canaveral from Charlotte, NC leaving at 4:00 AM Thursday morning (A day early). With a breakfast stop and a couple of gas stops we were expecting to get into Coco Beach at about 1:00-1:30 PM. Now for the exciting fun part of the drive. Our driver (Me) was going just a little bit too fast on I-95 in the state of Georgia and he looks in the rearview mirror and low and behold there was a big black SUV trailing behind with blue lights flashing. The driver thought hey maybe I should pull over to the shoulder and see what the guy in the big boot camp looking hat wanted. “Where are you headed”? On our way to Florida to catch a cruise! “You were driving ** over the speed limit”. Oh was I going that fast??? So great start to the cruise vacation……Dumb driver! LOL!

 

Such nice weather down here in Florida and after the speeding ticket in Georgia things could only get better from here! As we continue down I-95, laughing and singing to songs on the radio and having a good ole time and now about 55 miles or so from Coco Beach…what is this???? The traffic comes to a slow crawl to about 5-10 mph. An emergency highway sign says there is an accident about 2 ½ miles further down the highway and by this time we have been creeping along for about 30 minutes. Another sign tells us we will have to take a detour at an exit about a mile up the highway……..Oh Joy! After the detour exit and traffic off the exit backed up from here to there still creeping along, I decide to get out of that traffic and let my GPS try to pick an alternate route to Coco Beach. To make a long story short, we did not arrive to our hotel in Coco Beach until about 5:15 PM….remember our original time to arrive was going to be between 1:00 and 1:30! I learned a very valuable lesson from this and that is no matter what, be it driving or flying I will always do as I have done from my very first cruise and that is leave at least a day early. I know here on cruise critic there have been many opinions on arriving a day early or the day of the cruise but if this would have been the day of the cruise we would missed the ship. You never know what might happen on your way!

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If I'm forced to fly Southwest (which after getting burned by them twice is a last resort - as in NO ONE else flies there or everything else is full) I would not even chance the day before. Two days at least. This after being delayed over 5 hours because they electively decided to rearrange their equipment and then on their second-chance flight booked on the voucher from nightmare number 1 we were delayed almost 7 hours (and we almost didn't get out that night at all) because they decided to do something else elective and broke a screw in the process.

 

But thankfully I can't think of anywhere that ONLY Southwest flies. (Plus I like non-stop flights, and they don't like having those to Florida from NYC. You have to go to Baltimore or Chicago or somewhere else to change planes. No bueno IMHO.)

 

But yes. Minimum the day before. And if at all possible the first flight out that day so there is more wiggle room.

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Our first few cruises we flew down to Fla the day before...was/is more relaxing. But, started to rethink that..usually day before was at least a day sometimes 2 off work...extra expenses......had a cruise booked, was seriously considering flying day of cruise, but then I spoke with a client of ours. They had a cruise booked on the Oasis, with a flight down to FLL the day of the cruise, leaving from West Virginia. Their original flights were canceled for plane issues, were able to get rebooked and rerouted to FLL...thinking they'd make it, arrived at Port Everglades, Oasis was still in port, but they were denied boarding as it was well past final boarding. I was like, had that happened to me, I'd been on my way to jail!! Been flying down the day or more before ever since. Hell we're leaving on the Anthem this weekend....Driving from DC up to Cape Liberty....should "only" be about a 3 hour drive Saturday morning....nah...we're driving up Friday....

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Of course flying in the daybefore your cruise will reduce the chances of missing embarkation but the realquestion is how much will it reduce your chances vs. how much does this'insurance' cost you.

Readingabout people missing their cruise and saying it proves that you should alwaysfly in the day before is like reading about someone won the lottery andconcluding that you should always buy lottery tickets because it happened tothem therefore it must happen to you. It ignores the cost of each and it ignores the oddsof the event occurring.

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Our first cruise we arrived at port at 1:00pm for our Disney Magic sailing 10 years ago.

 

No one ever told us to be wary of possible delays of any kind. We were family cruise virgins.

 

Did not know cruise critic existed till after this sailing.

 

Boy we were lucky.

 

Sometimes I wonder if this happens more to newbies than seasoned cruisers???

Do not know, or wonder if work schedules or cost comes into play.

 

Safe travels.

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Would that have happened to been in March 2015?? You are so right about driving. Below is an excerpt from my review of an Enchantment cruise back in March 2015.

Nope, that would have been 2007. But I'll try to remember to keep my speed down (hah, easier said than done) for our next drive through GA.

Thanx

Erika

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Nope, nope, nope. Don't ever do it. I work for an airline that Jets the Blue skies... the bulk of my own flying is up and down the East Coast. Nearly every week I deal with or at least see a family angry and heartbroken they are going to miss their cruise due to weather or mechanical delays.

 

Don't ever do it unless something major gets in your way, and in that case, take the earliest possible deparure even if that means getting up at 2am. The delays are always less likely at the start of a day, and if something happens, you have more chances to get there before your ships departure time.

 

Then again, I frequently come across people who fly on the same day as a wedding (had a father miss his own daughters wedding two weeks ago) a graduation, or even a funeral.

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It is simply not always feasible to arrive the day before. People are not stupid or bad planners because they need to fly in day of. Yes, it is possible you may miss the boat. Just make sure you know the risks and have insurance.

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I am not an advocate of flying in day of, but even if I were, arriving at 1:45 would have been a little too close for comfort for me. Assuming your flight was on time, you still have to get bags and then get to the port (which I know is fairly close but even so). Any kind of delay in arrival, bag unloading, long wait for taxi/shuttle, traffic, etc would stress me to no end.

 

Sometimes even flying in the day before is an issue- especially in the winter. My cautionary tale does not involve a cruise but a football game. We were scheduled to go to Denver last December to see the Broncos/Patriots game. Leaving from Kansas City on Saturday early afternoon. Its a relatively short flight (under 2 hours). The day before there is this unexpected and terrible ice storm but it seems to be okay by the end of the work day. The forecast for the next day is a little bit of sleet in the morning and then some snow late in the afternoon. As we are leaving for the airport, I get an alert that our 1:15 flight was cancelled. I scrambled to rebook the next available, which is like 8:40 p.m. Since we are already packed and ready and the weather is supposed to get worse, we headed to the airport. We arrived there about noon after multiple detours, interstate shut downs and scary moments. By the time we are there, the ice calms down and it snows a little. Flights keep getting delayed, including ours, which got pushed back to 10:00 p.m. They tell us that they are plowing the runway and then deicing the plane (which is there). And about 9 p.m. they tell us all the de-icing trucks are broken down so all United flights were cancelled. We tried to rebook with them or anyone, but the soonest they could get us there would be Monday, unless we wanted to try for standby on a flight with 2 connections, which was supposed to arrive at 2 p.m. (game was at 2:15 or something like that). So, we missed the game, even though we should have been there 26 hours before the game. I was bumbed out about that and it was an outdoor football game in Denver in December (yuck). I could only imagine if it were a cruise- honeymoon no less.

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Cars can have issues too. When we were living in Florida, we drove down to Ft. Myers to take the ferry to Key West. Fortunately for us we drove down the day before. We were an hour into our 2 hour drive when the alternator failed.

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I have flown in the day of both times for my cruises and have had zero problems. You just have to be smart about it. I always get the very first flight out to give us buffer time if we need it. Also, know the weather. If you are flying from the north in February it probably is a bad idea to fly day of. But if you are flying in the spring or summer you are probably going to be ok.

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We sailed Freedom on 4/9 and flew into FLL 4/8. Our flight was supposed to leave BOS at 8:00AM with an arrival at about 11:15. We arrive at the terminal and the second I stepped in the door I got a text from Delta informing me that my 8:00 flight was now 12:15!!!:mad: No worries, I have a whole day to burn. We get to the gate to see a large group pacing the floor losing their mind because they had a cruise out of Miami that was departing at 4:00. I'll never understand why someone would book a flight that lands 4hrs before the boat leaves, and lands 30min from the port!! I wish I could find out if they made it or watched their ship sail off into the sunset.

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Nope, nope, nope. Don't ever do it. I work for an airline that Jets the Blue skies... the bulk of my own flying is up and down the East Coast. Nearly every week I deal with or at least see a family angry and heartbroken they are going to miss their cruise due to weather or mechanical delays.

 

Don't ever do it unless something major gets in your way, and in that case, take the earliest possible deparure even if that means getting up at 2am. The delays are always less likely at the start of a day, and if something happens, you have more chances to get there before your ships departure time.

 

Then again, I frequently come across people who fly on the same day as a wedding (had a father miss his own daughters wedding two weeks ago) a graduation, or even a funeral.

 

Hi Jeff,

What is the persentage of your flights (for your airline) that are cancelled or fail to arrive withing 2 or three hours of their scheduled time?

Thanks,

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