Flight Time

[princesscub]

What is a good time to schedule a flight back home on the day returning from a cruise? We will be sailimg from Ft. Lauderdale and found a great price on a flight that leave going back home at 11:00am. Our itinerary says the ship docks back in Florida at 7:00am will we have enough time to get on this flight? Thanks for any thoughts!

[Geema]

On 10 cruises - 5 of which were from FLL - we have always been off the ship by 8:30 at the latest and at the FLL airport by 9:30. We have sailed with RCCL, Princess and NCL. It may be nervewracking if they don't clear the ship early. Tell the Purser that you have an early flight and need to be one of the first off. They will be happy to give you the correct luggage tags.

Good luck!

[TrentS]

Port Everglades and FLL are adjacent, it's a 10 minute cab ride from terminal to terminal. As long as you inform the Purser's office and make sure you're in the first group off the ship you shouldn't have a problem as long as there aren't any Customs & Immigration delays. Do NOT take cruise line transportation, grab a taxi!

[JJPNYC]

You SHOULD be fine. The only caveats are how many ships are docking in Port Everglades that day and how quickly you get off the ship. The one time I was disembarking at Port Everglades, we were delayed getting off the ship until 9:45 or so because of a foreign family not reporting for Immigration.

[greatam]

IMHO, you are cutting it too close. You are flying to CA, right? Not like an East Coast flight where some airline flies up the East Coast every 15 minutes.

 

There are too many things that can happen. Security problems at the airport, getting off the ship in time to make it to the airport, finding a taxi, which can be a nightmare if there are a lot of people in the port. Why stress out the last day of vacation? Please take a later flight.

 

As JJPNYC posted, getting off the ship can sometimes be a major problem. We were delayed in Vancouver 2003, for over two hours after everyone should have been processed, looking for people to settle their accounts and dealing with immigration-foreigners who didn't produce their passports. A few laggards almost made us miss our flight at 1:45PM. I don't care what everyone else's experiences are. You asked for opinions and advice. My advice is BOOK a LATER Flight.