Disembarking and Flying Out Same Day???

[crashtlr]

Hey ya'll this will be my first cruise and I will be traveling alone with a 6 year old at the start of the cruise and a 7 year old by the end of the cruise.

 

I am already planning to fly in the day before so that we can avoid stress of possibly missing our boat....which we do not want to have!

 

But my question is, is it better to stay another night at a hotel or fly home same day as disembarking? If we fly out same day, what is a reasonable time to search for outbound flights? I don't want to disembark at 8am and not fly out til late evening, but I don't want to set it up too early either and have to be so rushed that we are stressed, especially when I expect him to be exhausted!

 

Thanks for the help!

[LHT28]

If the airport is close to the port try for a NOON departure

Most cruise lines want you off by 9am

 

Depends on what port you are disembarking at

 

If it were for Rome I would book later in the afternoon

Miami you are probably OK for noon

[obnurse]

You have to follow your gut feeling. We always fly home the same day. Everything's packed and it seems logical to just go home. We did stay an extra day one time and we were sorry we did. It just prolonged the inevitable.

[KirkNC]

Hey ya'll this will be my first cruise and I will be traveling alone with a 6 year old at the start of the cruise and a 7 year old by the end of the cruise.

 

I am already planning to fly in the day before so that we can avoid stress of possibly missing our boat....which we do not want to have!

 

But my question is, is it better to stay another night at a hotel or fly home same day as disembarking? If we fly out same day, what is a reasonable time to search for outbound flights? I don't want to disembark at 8am and not fly out til late evening, but I don't want to set it up too early either and have to be so rushed that we are stressed, especially when I expect him to be exhausted!

 

Thanks for the help!

 

I assume those are the same children with a birthday involved? :D

 

If you have the time, it is always better to stay at least one night on disembarkation. It makes for a more relaxed journey home!

[Keith1010]

If you can let us know the port you will be ending the cruise at and the airport you plan to leave from we can give you advice.

 

There is no right or wrong on this other than not booking a flight so early you can't make it or will stress over it. At the same time if you think you will arrive home very late that might be a benefit of flying the following day.

 

Keith

[crashtlr]

Sorry - still learning about this posting - we are going on Carnival Ecstasy - Port of Miami. However, we are flying in/out of Ft. Lauderdale because the cost is nearly double to fly in out of Miami. Hotels are more spendy there as well.

[Keith1010]

If you don't want to feel stressed, book a flight 1:00 PM or later.

 

Keith

[crashtlr]

Yes, it is the same kid that I started with - Little Man turns 7 mid-cruise - looking forward to his birthday excursion of swimming with the dolphins in Cozumel!

[mtwingcpa]

Your cruise line probably has a recommendation on this depending on the port in question. But the most common time I've seen is usually 1:00 PM.

 

Sometimes I've stayed overnight when there just wasn't any other way to schedule a convenient flight, but I'd say that extra night wasn't particularly fun. I've also had to kill time until an evening flight (say, 6:00 PM) but that wasn't fun either. :-(

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

Try to fly home the same day ..

[OCruisers]

We get there at least a day before ... but when the cruise is over, we are ready to go home. We don't like to feel stressed about making the plane so never book any sooner that 1 or 2.

Have a great cruise! :)

LuLu

[celebrity]

We get there at least a day before ... but when the cruise is over, we are ready to go home. We don't like to feel stressed about making the plane so never book any sooner that 1 or 2.

Have a great cruise! :)

LuLu

 

Same here..arriving a few days early is always great. Once I am off the ship, I am already feeling let down so must as well get home and start doing laundry and planning my next adventure. :) I would shoot for 1pm.

[navybankerteacher]

If you can spare the time (and the extra expense) it is better to fly home the next day. This permits you to leave the ship in a leisurely fashion and go to a convenient motel near the airport you will be flying from - which will probably have a pool. You will not have to worry about having enough time to get to your flight (since time of debarkation can be anything from 7:00 to 10:00 AM, or having to kill a lot of time at the airport with a child. A real plus is that you can book a flight the next day at whatever time you want from early in the morning to afternoon - often saving enough on air fare to pay for the cost of the motel.

[navybankerteacher]

Considering the cost of a hotel and meals, any flight savings seen by flying out the day after May be negated. We fly out the day of. Anything noon and later is fine.

 

Actually, it is worth checking out. Just as an example I picked a Sunday in June at random - on Jet Blue FLL to New York a 6:30 AM flight would be $216 per, an 8:45 flight would be $246 - everything later would be $351. A savings of $210 to $270 --- which could easily cover the cost of the motel and meals --- while guaranteeing an arrival at home earlier in the day.

 

Different destinations would work out differently - but in my experience it ALWAYS is less expensive (as well as more relaxing - especially if traveling with a child) to hang out and fly home early the next day.

[Cruisin' Chick]

If you can find a flight that's noon or later, then it might be fine. I just wouldn't want to stress out over an earlier flight especially with a 7-year-old, just in case there's a delay due to customs and immigration (that would be out of the hands of the cruise line and no one can leave until the government officials say so). Another variable would be weather that could affect your drive to the airport or even flights leaving. Always check out the Plan B alternatives.

[gooch47]

In our 60+ cruises, due to delayed debarkation we've been forced to stay overnight and change airline reservations twice. One time we just had to catch a later flight. That was many years ago. In order to avoid the stress of having that happen, depending on the port we now stay a minimum of one extra day.

 

We recently had to change our plans to fly home the same day because of a family emergency and I didn't like that one bit.

Edited May 26, 2014 by gooch47

[griffy116]

In the past, if we flew to the port, we flew home on the same day, booking a flight no earlier than noon. On a fairly recent cruise, we drove to Port Canaveral. At the end of the cruise, one of our bags was missing. It took over an hour and a half, after the last piece of luggage was delivered for us to locate the missing piece of luggage. We then had to get to the car, pack the car with the luggage and head out. Had we flown, we noticed that we would have missed the flight we had talked about taking. In fact, we would have missed a 1 pm flight. On our last two cruises, we have been unable to find a flight leaving soon after 1 pm so we have opted to stay overnight before heading home. We talked to a couple that had disembarkation delayed because of customs so we've changed our way of thinking just in the last couple of years.

[cb at sea]

I want to get home after the cruise...no reason at all to wait an extra day, with luggage full of dirty laundry! Depending on your home port, you should be able to book a flight around 11am or so, and get yourself home!

[SparkleBee]

really depends on the accessibility of the port, but I would think a flight 1:00 or later you would be quite safe.

[gooch47]

The rule is, yes, you will probably make your flight the same day.

 

It is exceptions that kill you. Look at all the problems they had last winter at Houston. Our cruise was delayed a whole day. We were boarding an NCL ship in NOLA that didn't arrive until 5:00 pm. You can figure most everyone missed their flight.

 

I can't count the times I've sat on a ship saying, "come on, come on, please, please" call our color tag so we can get to the airport.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Your cruise is out of Miami.

Your flights are cheaper by using Ft Lauderdale.

Have you thought about how you are getting from Ft Lauderdale to Miami, etc.? Using a taxi will be very expensive.

Ask questions at this link about transportation between the 2 cities:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=495

[gooch47]

We finally decided that the cost of taking taxis from Ft. Lauderdale to Miami wiped out any savings we had on airfare. Yes, I know there are shuttles that cost less, but we think they are inconvenient since we always stay a day extra before and after cruises and don't like riding around to a half dozen other hotels. It seems like we are always the last ones to be dropped off.

[leaveitallbehind]

Sorry - still learning about this posting - we are going on Carnival Ecstasy - Port of Miami. However, we are flying in/out of Ft. Lauderdale because the cost is nearly double to fly in out of Miami. Hotels are more spendy there as well.

 

We have sailed out of Miami but flown in and out from FLL several times in the past and have always flown home same day. FLL is only about 45 minutes from the port of Miami and there are several shuttles available that will get you there in plenty of time for an afternoon flight.

[Zach1213]

The rule is, yes, you will probably make your flight the same day.

 

It is exceptions that kill you. Look at all the problems they had last winter at Houston. Our cruise was delayed a whole day. We were boarding an NCL ship in NOLA that didn't arrive until 5:00 pm. You can figure most everyone missed their flight.

I can't count the times I've sat on a ship saying, "come on, come on, please, please" call our color tag so we can get to the airport.

 

As a regular on the Cruise Air section and someone who is still undecided about how much I really like cruising, this is one thing that I just don't get. Why the heck are so many cruisers so anxious to end their vacations? It just seems like that sometimes...book such early flights (and I know sometimes it's money related, but not always) that they can't wait to get off the ship and get to the airport to go home. You don't see that as often with land-based vacationers.

[leaveitallbehind]

As a regular on the Cruise Air section and someone who is still undecided about how much I really like cruising, this is one thing that I just don't get. Why the heck are so many cruisers so anxious to end their vacations? It just seems like that sometimes...book such early flights (and I know sometimes it's money related, but not always) that they can't wait to get off the ship and get to the airport to go home. You don't see that as often with land-based vacationers.

 

Many reasons. As many cruises end on a Sunday, many people may not have the option to wait an extra day to return as they only had the one week off, even if the cruise ended on a Saturday perhaps they want Sunday at home to regroup before work on Monday, or would not want to spend the extra money on hotels / meals / additional transportation, cost of alternative flights, flight schedule availability with destination airport, maybe the departure port city is not interesting enough to want to extend a visit, matters at home with pets in kennels or other issues, maybe kids have to get back to school or other activities, etc......