Allure. What Time Would You Leave?

[StuLaurie]

Looking for advice. We will be on the Allure during President Week. This is school vacation for many especially the Norteast. What time would you leave the ship on Sunday? We will be using Luggage Valet and walking off with just our carry ons and taking a taxi to the airport. We are flying on American at 12:03PM. We don't want to spend hours at the airport but we also don't want to cut it too short. What would you do?

 

Thanks

[moopetguy]

We don't want to spend hours at the airport but we also don't want to cut it too short. What would you do?

 

My personal opinion is to get off the ship as soon as you reasonably can and endure getting to the airport too early. I'd rather be sure to arrive early and be bored, than stress about getting to the flight on time if something goes wrong or it's super-busy due to the volume of vacationers. I don't like gambling against Murphy's Law. Many things could delay your arrival to the airport gate that aren't under your control.

 

The ship's security computers could break down during disembarkation (yay Windows, they had to reboot/reimage them on Grandeur yesterday morning). The immigration line at the cruise terminal could be long. There could be an accident between the cruise port and the airport. Check-in desks could be slammed at the airport. Security screening could be slow due to the volume of passengers. Etc.

 

Call me a Nervous Nellie if you like. :)

[muppetsguy]

Looking for advice. We will be on the Allure during President Week. This is school vacation for many especially the Norteast. What time would you leave the ship on Sunday? We will be using Luggage Valet and walking off with just our carry ons and taking a taxi to the airport. We are flying on American at 12:03PM. We don't want to spend hours at the airport but we also don't want to cut it too short. What would you do?

 

Thanks

 

Maybe leave the ship at 9:00 for a 12:00 flight? I'll be on Allure then and taking an 11:30 flight. I prefer to err on the side of caution. I'd rather be a little early to the airport, than take the risk of it taking longer than I thought somewhere along the line to get through customs, get to the airport, check in luggage, go through security, and be at the gate when they start boarding 30 min. before the flight time. It's a big ship with thousands needing to be processed through customs and many people looking for taxis. I would rather get to the airport too early and walk around the terminal, than sit for an extended time on the ship until my departure group is called.

Just a few weeks until the cruise!

[StuLaurie]

So do you think leaving between 8:30 - 9:00 would give us enough time even if there are delayes?

[Ashland]

So do you think leaving between 8:30 - 9:00 would give us enough time even if there are delayes?

 

That would be (and has been) my target time frame.

[moopetguy]

So do you think leaving between 8:30 - 9:00 would give us enough time even if there are delayes?

 

My suggestion is to find the recommended check-in time on American's web site (e.g. 90 minutes, 120 minutes, or whatever time they say in advance of your flight), work backwards with the taxi and disembarking, and add a generous buffer, as you've indicated this to be a busy time for travellers.

[TravelerThom]

When we were boarding Allure two years ago, previous passengers were still streaming off the ship at 12:30pm. IF everything goes as it should three hours should be fine, but everything does not always go perfectly so I STRONGLY recommend that you allow more time than 3 hours from leaving the ship. It can easily take an hour from when you get in the departure line just to get to luggage, then it is not worst case to spend an hour to get from there to an immigration officer. You still have to get to the airport, and even if you are using Luggage Valet and have checked-in on-line and printed your boarding pass, you still have Security which can be pretty bad on ship days (when Allure is in port, it and the other ships that day may have over 15,000 passengers - even if only half of these head to FLL, there are still addition non-ship passengers). If you get off early lines tend to be shorter at immigration and at the airport, and you'll say that you left way too early, BUT if you wait you could get caught. I'd get off as early as possible if I had a 12:03. I'd much rather cool my heels in the gate area than miss my flight and perhaps have to wait a day or two for an available seat.

[kalliekae]

This was our experience when we returned Dec 6. We departed the Allure at 8:30am for a 12:25pm flight and used the luggage valet program. The line for immigration was very long and it took us about an hour to get thru it. Taxis were plentiful and the ride to the airport was about 35 minutes, but most of that time was devoted to just getting out of the port area since there was quite a traffic jam. Security lines at the airport were long and if you were not TSA pre-approved, people were standing in line for at least 45 minutes. So that should give you an idea of what to expect. There may be more people at the airport since you are going during spring break.