Stuck at the Airport ?

[loyola00]

We are thinking about doing a thanksgiving cruise on Allure. Possibly this year or next, but I have one concern. No AOS and instead we are stuck eating turkey and cranberry sauce in the airport :-(

 

Do most people just cross their fingers and fly in1-2 days early? Of course we should get travel insurance for this trip since we are flying from up north.

[jo24]

We are thinking about doing a thanksgiving cruise on Allure. Possibly this year or next, but I have one concern. No AOS and instead we are stuck eating turkey and cranberry sauce in the airport :-(

 

Do most people just cross their fingers and fly in1-2 days early? Of course we should get travel insurance for this trip since we are flying from up north.

 

I would suggest flying in a day or 2 early... starts your holiday early too ;)

 

I always fly in earlier, especially given that I am coming from the UK, not only too give me some room for any flight issues but because, as I said before, it makes the holiday longer!

[OttoCal]

I always fly in 1-2 days early and get insurance, but I"m a worrier like that. Plus I have been on the wrong end of flight delays with a small town northeast airport more than once. Depends on a couple of things- are you making a connection? If so, your chances of a delayed flight are much greater. Even a little bad weather in the northeast can cause delays of 2-3+ hours, and you could miss your connection. If you are flying around a holiday and miss a connection, you will have more trouble getting on to another flight as they are typically flying at full capacity.

 

But plenty of people fly in the day of and have never had a problem at all. If you are going to be less nervous if you fly in early, it is worth the expense of a hotel to do so.

[PuterMonkey]

Whether to fly in early is totally a matter of opinion. Given that you're looking to travel at one of the busiest times of the year though, I think it will give you a lot more peace of mind to do so. And insurance for sure.

[pasodancer]

Just arrive the day prior, have travel insurance and be sure to monitor weather conditions in case you need to make alternate plans.

[Denise5374]

We did Oasis over Thanksgiving 2 years ago and flew in a day early from Philly. Fortunately we had no weather troubles.

Enjoy your cruise!

[loyola00]

Thanks all good advice. I will definitely fly in early and monitor.

[Onessa]

We've done several US Thanksgiving cruises (2 HI, 3 Med all over T-Giving week). We fly from Wisconsin (so lots of connecting flights and potential weather issues), so we usually fly out with a good two or two-plus days up-front.

 

Only one issue in five Tgiving trips. Our flight from Amsterdam to Barcelona was cancelled. We had booked through a TA, and she was able to cancel our hotel in Barcelona and get us on an 6:00am flight the next day. The airline put us up overnight and provided a meal voucher. So we missed one evening in Barcelona. Some (about 30) of the other folks on the flight had been booked for a Celebrity cruise for that same day -- Celebrity booked the folks who had flight arrangements through them onto flights that brought them into southern France and arranged to get them to the ship. Those who had booked themselves, were on their own. We ran into a couple of them in Monaco and later in Rome -- most had caught up with their cruise without any issues, but there was luggage that took a while to catch up with them and one of the couples who had arranged their own flights did not catch up until three ports later :eek:!

 

I never really worry about the trip home but have not had any issues.

 

As is the case if traveling from/through snow/ice-prone areas in winter, padding your trip with land days can be advisable.

[Big_G]

We fly in two days early because we're coming from the northeast and we love Fort Lauderdale.

 

 

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[Corby114]

When I was younger I would fly down from Northern New Jersey on the day of departure and never had a problem. After reading all of the hard luck stories of Cruise Critic members that missed there voyages I would never consider flying down on the ships departure date. There are numerous threads regarding missed departures due to weather, aircraft mechanical problems, missed flight connections, missing luggage, overworked flight crews, etc. Now that I'm a lot older we always fly down to Florida a few days before the cruise and stay at our condo. We normally only cruise during the summer months because my sixteen year old son loves school and refuses to miss even an hour during the school year. I also refuse to pay the higher flight costs if we wanted to cruise during the Christmas holidays or Easter vacation.

[waterbug123]

Even a little bad weather in the northeast can cause delays of 2-3+ hours, and you could miss your connection.

 

Please understand something- weather in ANY part of the country can affect flights in ANY OTHER part of the country. The storm this week serves as a good example of that. Atlanta was a complete mess. As a result, Delta (whose biggest hub is Atlanta) flights everywhere were affected, even in cities that did not have bad weather. A few years ago I was scheduled to fly CHS-ATL-FLL. Weather in CHS was fine, but ATL was a mess, as it was this week. My Friday a.m. flight was cancelled and the earliest DL could get me out of CHS was late Saturday afternoon. Reason: Flights were simply not leaving ATL, which meant my plane was stuck there. Or my plane could have been stuck somewhere else, unable to get TO Atlanta in order to leave Atlanta and fly to CHS. Likewise, the crew for my flight was stuck who knows where?!