Day of disembarkation?

If you can spare the time, it is a whole lot better to fly the day after debarking.

First, you are never certain how long it will take to get off the ship and get to the airport - so, while you might be able to get on a 9:30 flight - you might not. You face risking missing an early flight or having a long wait at the airport if you get there early.

Second, if you fly the next day, you can pick your time precisely, having more flights to choose from, and probably pay less for the flight - perhaps even enough less to cover the cost of your hotel.

Finally, you allow yourself a day off to transition from full vacation mode - rather than rushing to the airport sweating making the early flight .

You will be off the ship before 9 am in most cases. There is seldom a reason to wait a day! We like to book an early flight home. Don't relish the idea of another day with a bunch of dirty clothes and repacking. When the cruise is done, I want to go home.

You will be off the ship before 9 am in most cases. There is seldom a reason to wait a day! We like to book an early flight home. Don't relish the idea of another day with a bunch of dirty clothes and repacking. When the cruise is done, I want to go home.

How do you define “MOST CASES” - and how much time margin is enough?

Why can’t you have one more day’s clean clothes with you?

Depends, we like to go home the same day. We always get a flight out around 12 noon---we allow 6 hours after we dock.

If at all possible, we always try to book cruises with different start and end ports that are interesting enough (even if not new to us) to be worth an extended stay of several days at each end.

Regardless of the port, we also prefer to spend more days in or near the embarkation port prior to cruising (buffer for possible delays in traveling) than at the tail end.

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We fly home same day, then spend a night near our "home" airport, before our 3 hour drive. Since we take an afternoon flight after the cruise, it's usually 9 or 10pm when we get to our home airport, so it's nice to spend the night, and not have to drive until 2 or 3am to get home. It helps extend the holiday feeling.

Decision made - we will stay over night in the Los Angeles area and fly home first thing in the morning the next day. :) We will land early enough to drive home (and be there before dinner time).

The only flights that were after noon were either a lot more expensive or had a departure after 5:00... Decided we'd rather sit by a hotel pool than in the airport. We found a flight that is actually almost half of what we would have paid on disembarkation day!

Thanks everyone!