Tampa Airport

[RedRover96]

OK experienced Tampa airport flyers thinking a little far ahead. We will be flying in & out in March, mainly curious about flying out. Even if we are the “last off” the Sun with a 3 o’clock flight we will have plenty of time to hang out at the airport. As I review the airport there isn't the ability to eat at the other terminals (think we fly out of “F”) without going in and out of TSA, correct? If so with plenty of time looks like it will be best to hang around the Main Terminal????

 

Thanks,

 

RedRover96

[JAF1]

We last flew through Tampa in December 2013 and they were doing extensive upgrades to the airport. Over the years we have flown in and out of here several times as we think it is an easy airport to negotiate. There are not a lot of options once you get airside and we normally eat in the main area of the terminal.

[clean1owner]

OK experienced Tampa airport flyers thinking a little far ahead. We will be flying in & out in March, mainly curious about flying out. Even if we are the “last off” the Sun with a 3 o’clock flight we will have plenty of time to hang out at the airport. As I review the airport there isn't the ability to eat at the other terminals (think we fly out of “F”) without going in and out of TSA, correct? If so with plenty of time looks like it will be best to hang around the Main Terminal????

 

Thanks,

 

RedRover96

 

 

We last flew out of Tampa in January, 2013, and at that time, you couldn't go between terminals without going through TSA.

[zqvol]

OK experienced Tampa airport flyers thinking a little far ahead. We will be flying in & out in March, mainly curious about flying out. Even if we are the “last off” the Sun with a 3 o’clock flight we will have plenty of time to hang out at the airport. As I review the airport there isn't the ability to eat at the other terminals (think we fly out of “F”) without going in and out of TSA, correct? If so with plenty of time looks like it will be best to hang around the Main Terminal????

 

Thanks,

 

RedRover96

 

Even being the last off you can make a noon flight without any trouble.

[jticarruthers]

Each terminal is a separate building accessed by a monorail with its own TSA checkpoint. So you cant eat at any of the "other" terminals.

 

The main building has several restaurants, off the top of my head I think a Carrabbas and a TGIF are the two main ones but its been a while since I ate at the airport, and then your terminal will have a couple of options as well. I think F is one of the more recently renovated so it will have a couple of fast food type joints and a bar/restaurant of some kind.

[RedRover96]

Thanks, All,

 

You have confirmed my suspicions when looking at the airport maps! Our flight isn't until 3ish, so figure we will have plenty of time to relax, figure out where to eat, etc. We thought about trying to find something to do around Tampa, decided just to chill at the airport!

 

RedRover96

[rajones007]

We did the post-cruise NCL tour of Tampa. It worked out perfectly for us. We left about 9am and did a tour of the city. It wasn't the most exciting tour in the world but it was interesting, relatively inexpensive, and we didn't have to cart our luggage around.

 

We even stopped for lunch in Ybor City. Some people went to a place that was featured on Diners, Drive-ins, And Dives (Tampa Brewing Company?...something like that), but a few others, us included, decided to walk to the other side of the plaza and go to a popular burger joint (which was awesome).

 

After lunch we went directly to the airport.

 

Funny side-story. Earlier in the day we stopped at some old historic building for an inside tour. Outside of this building was a park with a really old and very huge tree. Underneath this tree was a fairly large statue of JFK and a few bronze plaques and such. The tour guide mentioned something notable happening here in regard to JFK, but I cannot recall what it was.

 

Anyways, as we're leaving the historic building everybody clamored on the bus. We asked the tour guide if we could take a minute or two to see the JFK statue which was only about 50 feet away. (edit. okay, maybe 100 feet. Still, it was less than a minutes walk. /edit). The tour guide encouraged us to go see it. So we walked across the laneway, took a few photos, quickly read the plaques, and returned to the bus....which was now full of perturbed passengers giving us the evil eye and huffing and puffing and mumbling about how we held them up. (My internal response was ----

)

 

Even our guide noticed the aura of negativity, so he made sure to point out everything about the little JFK park as the bus started to pull away and directly asked us how we liked it, did we get many photos, hope you had enough time, and so on.

 

As far as I can figure the bus must have been full of angry Republicans ;).

 

Anyways, sorry about that off-topic bit. At the time it seemed very strange that no Americans were interested in this little monument to JFK, but here we are, a Canadian family, were the only people on the bus who cared to see it. I'm always of the opinion that once a president/leader dies, and especially if they were assassinated, all political affiliations are forgotten and they are treated with reverence and respect. The people on this bus, however, seemed to be purposely ignoring this small monument. Seriously, some even looked the other way when the guide was pointing it out. :confused:

 

Moving on...We were dropped off at TPA about 12:30pm. Our flight was for 3:10pm, I believe. There's a few nice restaurants in the main terminal, so as has already been said, if you want something decent to eat then stay there before going airside. We were in airside B. For food there was one or two bar w/lounges, a couple coffee stands, and a few vending machines. But nothing full-menu with full-service.

Edited February 10, 2015 by rajones007