Florida's port

[Richjoxyz]

There is ALWAYS a chance of a flight delay.

 

If it were us, we would book a hotel for Friday Night and either take the Thursday night redeye, or a flight first thing Friday morning.

 

Once on a redeye, we had a connection in Dallas at about midnight. That plane had mechanical failure. They put us in a hotel and flew us out on "the next available plane" the next day! They put us in a hotel and we made it to our destination a day late. If this had been a cruise, we would have missed the ship.

 

We ALWAYS give ourselves an extra day to account for this possibility.

[CRUISING71]

Now I think why West Coasters give up on cruising out of Florida. LOL So much to think about and so much planning.

 

Great idea...taking red eyes flight on Thursday's night...that way we can sleep on Friday and be fresh when we board the ship on Saturday.

 

I am one of the people that can't sleep at all during red eyes flight. It is a direct flight for us.

[CalaDragonflyLady]

I'm also on the "left" coast and usually cruise the Caribbean via Fort Lauderdale. This time I'm taking a redeye Friday night for a cruise out of Miami on Saturday.

 

I wish I had read the boards and/or looked at a darn map before I booked my flights; it's significantly cheaper to fly to Fort Lauderdale than it is to Miami, and there are several shuttle/taxi options that are inexpensive (lots of good reviews regarding SAS).

 

As other posters have mentioned, if you like the itinerary of ships calling Fort Lauderdale, it seems to be the closest to the cruise port and the three times I've been there, everything went very smoothly!

[gtalum]

Port Canaveral is the toughest, it's about an hour from the Orlando airport to the port. TPA, MIA, and FLL are all easy to get from airport to port.

 

I recommend TPA as the absolute easiest cruise boarding experience you can find.

[CRUISING71]

I'm also on the "left" coast and usually cruise the Caribbean via Fort Lauderdale. This time I'm taking a redeye Friday night for a cruise out of Miami on Saturday.

 

I wish I had read the boards and/or looked at a darn map before I booked my flights; it's significantly cheaper to fly to Fort Lauderdale than it is to Miami, and there are several shuttle/taxi options that are inexpensive (lots of good reviews regarding SAS).

 

As other posters have mentioned, if you like the itinerary of ships calling Fort Lauderdale, it seems to be the closest to the cruise port and the three times I've been there, everything went very smoothly!

 

Direct flight on Virgin Airline right? We narrow it down to Freedom or Liberty and can't decide which ship. I wish I can do back to back, might as well since we have to fly across the country to cruise, but unfortunately kids are in HS and can't pull them out for a week.