Miami to FLL for 11 a.m. flight?

[taszmom]

Port of MIA to FLL airport for 11am flight = stress.

Factors : Arrival/disembarkation time, customs, transportation, I95 :eek:, airport security. That's a lot of factors that all have to work perfectly for you to make it.

 

You might want to pre-arrange a shuttle van. Carnival's buses will not leave until they are full. And you know how some people like to dilly-dally, getting baggage loaded, etc.

 

Good luck if you choose to take this mission! :D

[sunlovingirl]

After my honeymoon cruise on the Liberty, we used SAS transport to get back to FLL to get a flight home. We had a later flight booked with Southwest. We were at the airport by 10:00 AM. we called Southwest, changed our flight, and were in the air by 11:30 AM. It's totally doable, but I would suggest something more reliable than a company like SAS that will keep doing loops around at the port until it has a full van. That would be my only concern.

 

You can self debark with the very first group of people who get off the boat. If you can't handle all your bags though, that could be difficult. We had tons of luggage (we got married and had 2 weeks on Liberty) and we still were able to get off the boat by ourselves just fine.

 

I would suggest if you are really concerned maybe hire a private car or taxi so you aren't at the mercy of others. One less thing to worry about!

 

 

Good luck!

[hales1284]

It can be done - but why put such pressure on yourself at the end of your vacation? You never know if a medical emergency will delay the ship, or customs does an inspection, etc. Add up the cost of taking a car service/car/taxi to FLL from Miami, and the price difference in flying directly into MIA might be worth it.

 

Well put! Why add stress to the end of your vacation? I was on the Dream in Oct. 2011 and we had TWO medical emergencies. The ship had to slow to allow for a medevac and on our last sea day the ship needed to make an unscheduled stop in Nassau to debark a guest with medical issue. For that cruise I had a 1pm flight out of Orlando which is about 25 to 30 minutes from the dock and I was very stressed as a result. As you all know Carnival is now always forthcoming with estimates for delays but we did manage to pull into the dock about 9am and I made my flight.

 

Bottom line is there are too many things that can go wrong which may delay you and it may be worth it to look into changing flights and/or staying an extra day in Miami.

[QTPieRye]

Thanks everyone. This is why I love my CC friends so much. We will book a flight in the early afternoon :)

[katiel53]

I would say in the past you could have made the flight. In today's world though, with fewer customs/immigration agents, I'd be afraid to take a chance on a flight that early.

 

Having read about how long debarkation is taking in Ft Lauderdale, I am thinking that Miami might not be that far behind. Also, with fewer TSA agents at the airports, it appears check in times are getting longer, so with these factors, I wouldn't try it. JMO.

[mikewrit]

On the other hand, we booked a mid-afternoon flight out of FLL after a cruise than ended in Miami. We carried out luggage off the ship and had pre-arranged transportation, but that fell through. We finally got a cab and rushed to FLL, only to find that we could not check in for the flight until an hour before scheduled departure. So we sat on our bags for three hours in a very crowded terminal waiting to e allowed to check backs and get boarding passes. We wonder why the travel industry including its governmental adjuncts make it so difficult.