Scottish flight tips

[littlemisshoney]

Anyone got good tips for getting a direct flight from Scotland with rci? Have cruised many times with them and Princess and almost always have a double hop with a really early start and a long layover at Heathrow/Amsterdam and board ship absolutely exhausted! Dont really fancy doing our own flights due to tension about getting there on time, cancellations and lack of flights from Scotland. ideas anyone?

[NorbertsNiece]

For the really long haul flight I figure on getting in to the Port town 2 days before (at least). It has made the world of difference having that extra day buffer so as not to stress about a one day delay / jet lag. If you have to book the flights via RCCL ask for the extra day(s). Personally I prefer to book the flights myself so I can make use of Air Miles to book or upgrade. BA is my preferred carrier but I can earn points within the One World Alliance. RCCL don't offer a wide enough range of fight options for my liking.

[Cotswold Eagle]

You don't say direct flights to where - Med or Caribbean cruises, for example. Unfortunately, it's the way the airline industry is going (has gone), to use feeder flights into big hubs, so perhaps a little unfair to blame RCI.

 

If you are talking about the Caribbean, I would have thought a very few charter/holiday flights to MCO (Orlando) would be about your only options from any Scottish airport, and they may not show up with RCI precisely because they are not scheduled airlines?

 

I can't think what else to say if you aren't happy with the flights RCI have, but don't want to book your own. Maybe if you find the flights and ask RCI if they can book them, rather than hoping they'll find them, but I always book my own travel so have no idea if this would work.

[yummymummy99]

Hi there

 

We have cruised 3x from port canaveral. Flown to Orlando, week there (before or after!) then a week cruise. April this yr did a b2b but had 2 nts pre cruise due to a change in flights from a UK company.

 

We booked once using cruise air type option and would never do it again - unless we know up front a lot more details!! When we got details in from RCI they were flying us from local airport to London, then to Dallas, then another flight to Miami, then to Orlando!!!!!!! We so didn't expect that! Was going to take about 24 hoursto get to MCO! So we contacted them (flights were already costing us about £600 each and that was 2 yrs ago) and we had to pay more to upgrade to a flight direct. We travel with 2 children and had 3 grandparents also travelling! So it was not a cheap deal in the first place but we thought it would be a less risky option - ended up very expensive and we felt very niave :-(.

 

This next yr going to PR and having 5 days there pre cruise, booked with TA in UK but not cruise air due to price and RCI would only give us max 3 nights pre cruise.

 

Look forward to hearing others stories or 'ways round' times and prices!!

[NorbertsNiece]

Just a thought.... Host Elizanessie flies from Scotland....she may pick up this post or you could repost on the Cruise Air board here.

[Albert Ross]

Anyone got good tips for getting a direct flight from Scotland with rci? Have cruised many times with them and Princess and almost always have a double hop with a really early start and a long layover at Heathrow/Amsterdam and board ship absolutely exhausted! Dont really fancy doing our own flights due to tension about getting there on time, cancellations and lack of flights from Scotland. ideas anyone?

Where are you flying to?

Personally I would never book the cruise until they gave me the flight routing they are going to put me on.

[emilygrace]

Take a peek at Choice Air on the RCL site. You get to pick your flights so no big surprises right before you leave home.

[Elizanessie]

I don't know which part of Scotland you would be flying from or where to but l fly from Aberdeen to Heathrow and then Heathrow to Miami.

 

I usually time it that after my 2 hours train to Aberdeen I have around 2 hours at Aberdeen airport before flying to Heathrow..and again then I usually have around 2 hours before flight to Miami. As I normally cruise Nov/Dec then I like to have that couple of hours incase of bad weather delays.

 

Also I like to give myself a couple of days in Miami/Fort Lauderdale before my cruise.

 

I like to book my flights using Airmiles (now Avios) or direct with BA.

[ryansmum]

Anyone got good tips for getting a direct flight from Scotland with rci? Have cruised many times with them and Princess and almost always have a double hop with a really early start and a long layover at Heathrow/Amsterdam and board ship absolutely exhausted! Dont really fancy doing our own flights due to tension about getting there on time, cancellations and lack of flights from Scotland. ideas anyone?

 

Hi,

 

We've not really found any solution from Scotland as there are so few direct flights. We tend to book our own flights so we've got control over them to get best flight times & travel at least the day before. When going to US we've used Continental from Edinburgh or Glasgow as they fly direct to Newarkso then only short flight to Florida or Virgin or BA via Heathrow. If going to Venice we've flown direct with Jet 2 from Edinburgh or to Rome with Ryanair.