SLEEPING in FLL Airport

[Bowie MeMe]

Best of luck....FLL is one airport I hate to spend any extra time at...one of my least favorite's.

 

I was thinking the same thing. Always crowded/chaos/with so many moving in and out and the few times I got stuck there late at night -- all food/beverage sellers were gone by 7:30PM or so. Airport too small for it's huge weekend mobs.

[Bowie MeMe]

My experience lately is that you will not be able to get on the ship much before eleven or eleven thirty. So much comes in and out at the same time that it is impossible to get all the passengers OFF much before ten or eleven and there is that turn around routine. Everybody wants on early (ME TOO) but only a very few actually get their want. We have been getting these "invitations" to board at two or three pm by floor or cabin class and usually don't wait that late -- but the result is mixed -- sometimes a little earlier sometimes with the mob! Status does count in this situation.

 

Waiting at the port to get on is not much better than at the airport -- and there is less opportunity to buy food IMHO.

[StLouisCruisers]

My SIL and BIL spent the night at FLL airport after arriving around midnight. They stayed in baggage claim and said they were moved around three times by people sweeping and vacuuming around those horrible mesh seats/benches. And around 6 am there were huge groups of people arriving from Los Angeles and Las Vegas making all kinds of noise. They literally got no sleep and said there were nine couples there doing this same thing. :eek:

 

Of course, I advised them to get a cheap hotel room and go to the port after sleeping in a little, but no, that's a waste of money. After all, they were going on B2B cruises and a week's stay in Copenhagen afterwards, so I guess their pockets were empty.:confused:

[zoncom]

I did NOT stay in airport proper. Rental car booking kiosks are separate behind SW area with no harassing or flite announcements. I live in Aspen; never can tell if flites will go or no. So it worked fine and would do it again.

[FlyerTalker]

I did NOT stay in airport proper. Rental car booking kiosks are separate behind SW area with no harassing or flite announcements. I live in Aspen; never can tell if flites will go or no. So it worked fine and would do it again.

Perhaps one could say that you were not in a "terminal", but you were most assuredly within airport property. And since the Rental Car Center is attached by a pedestrian bridge to Terminal 1, it's truly part of the "airport proper".

[hun]

Well I did it. Adjacent to SW is rental car compound. Just walked over in back, no exiting. The leather sofas by Avis desk are gone , replaced by steel mesh 3 seater benches. I was only one up there. Rental desks manned 24 hours. Quiet with no annoncements, slept soso. Glad I did it cause my shuttle came downstairs 20 minutes early.

 

 

Thanks for the update - Glad it worked out! [emoji42]

[fbgd]

Well I did it. Adjacent to SW is rental car compound. Just walked over in back, no exiting. The leather sofas by Avis desk are gone , replaced by steel mesh 3 seater benches. I was only one up there. Rental desks manned 24 hours. Quiet with no annoncements, slept soso. Glad I did it cause my shuttle came downstairs 20 minutes early.

 

Sounds chuffing miserable. Just looking at Google without any effort to even price shop there are plenty of reasonable-ish hotels (certainly places that are palaces compared to kipping on sofas near rental car desks!) for $75-$100.

 

Different strokes for different folks.

[travelgma]

Was thinking if it would be better to sleep in FLL too as we arrive from transatlantic flight at 8pm and board another flight at 5:30 am.  It is not about saving money but convenience.  As we would probably not get to hotel til 9:30pm and would have to be up to get to airport about 3:30 or 4am and what transportation can you get at that time.

 

 

[Zach1213]

37 minutes ago, travelgma said:

Was thinking if it would be better to sleep in FLL too as we arrive from transatlantic flight at 8pm and board another flight at 5:30 am.  It is not about saving money but convenience.  As we would probably not get to hotel til 9:30pm and would have to be up to get to airport about 3:30 or 4am and what transportation can you get at that time.

 

 

Most airport hotels will have an airport shuttle that runs 24/7, at least if requested ahead of time. 

[6rugrats]

40 minutes ago, travelgma said:

Was thinking if it would be better to sleep in FLL too as we arrive from transatlantic flight at 8pm and board another flight at 5:30 am.  It is not about saving money but convenience.  As we would probably not get to hotel til 9:30pm and would have to be up to get to airport about 3:30 or 4am and what transportation can you get at that time.

 

 

No, it's not better.  Get a room and take a cab or Uber.

[Zach1213]

42 minutes ago, 6rugrats said:

No, it's not better.  Get a room and take a cab or Uber.

 

I can't imagine having to sleep in an airport after a longhaul flight. That sounds truly miserable. I once misconnected in HKG going DFW-HKG-SIN and missed the last flight of the night, and American/Cathay tried to put a bunch of us up in the lounge (and not even a Cathay lounge, some crappy generic lounge). I bailed on that and got a room at the Regal instead because it was the only thing available (I'm wondering if something was going on in HK and they decided that since they couldn't get rooms for everybody, they got rooms for nobody). I returned the next morning for HKG-SIN nicely rested/fed/clean and saw many of the same faces who were clearly coming off of a miserable night with no sleep. 

[travelgma]

I decided to keep the reservation that I have for hotel and just hope that if I prebook an uber that they will show up on time to get me to the 5:30am flight.  Thanks for all of the advice.

 

 

[waterbug123]

3 hours ago, travelgma said:

I decided to keep the reservation that I have for hotel and just hope that if I prebook an uber that they will show up on time to get me to the 5:30am flight.  Thanks for all of the advice.

 

 

another option, if the hotel doesn't operate its own shuttle- ask if they can arrange a cab for you in advance.  Hotels usually have a reliable cab service that they call, which relies on being dependable to continue serving that hotel's guests. 

[Ilovesailaway]

4 hours ago, waterbug123 said:

another option, if the hotel doesn't operate its own shuttle- ask if they can arrange a cab for you in advance.  Hotels usually have a reliable cab service that they call, which relies on being dependable to continue serving that hotel's guests. 

Agreed... I would definately discuss my need for an early, relaible ride with the hotel staff. I am sure they are familiar with this typical problem and how best to handle it.

[waterbug123]

2 hours ago, Ilovesailaway said:

Agreed... I would definately discuss my need for an early, relaible ride with the hotel staff. I am sure they are familiar with this typical problem and how best to handle it.

Absolutely.  We often book this type of ride with a company called welcomepickups.com but if that won’t work, we’ll absolutely talk to hotel upon Check-in. 

[Dancer Bob]

fgbd said it only cost $50 for a room. When I costed it out, it was going to come to more like $300 (I was arriving several days early, so my situation wasn't exactly identical). Can somebody tell me where these $50 rooms are available?

[FlyerTalker]

8 minutes ago, Dancer Bob said:

fgbd said it only cost $50 for a room. When I costed it out, it was going to come to more like $300 (I was arriving several days early, so my situation wasn't exactly identical). Can somebody tell me where these $50 rooms are available?

 

Care to look at the date of fgbd's post?

 

(You can thank the fellow who dredged up an almost 8 year old thread rather than start a new one)

 

 

 

[Dancer Bob]

If I recall correctly, even 6 years ago, it was close to $200. In all the time I've been travelling to FLL, I can't recall a $50 hotel room anywhere close to the airport except long-stay.

Edited March 28 by Dancer Bob

[fbgd]

On 3/28/2024 at 6:23 PM, Dancer Bob said:

If I recall correctly, even 6 years ago, it was close to $200. In all the time I've been travelling to FLL, I can't recall a $50 hotel room anywhere close to the airport except long-stay.

 

Well, since it seems to be my elderly post that's the subject of speculation....

 

Priceline used to allow you to bid on hotels, it'd be by geographic area within a city and "star level" so you wouldn't know the hotel itself right away. You put in all your payment information and if the bid was accepted a non-refundable reservation was made automatically and you got the hotel details. If it was rejected then you had to adjust your parameters (add new geographic areas, or star levels) or wait a certain amount of time before you could bid again on the same locale/star level.

 

The internet being the internet someone decided to draw all the "accepted" data points together on a website so you had an idea about which hotels you could be bidding on and what bids were accepted. The page I linked would have showed the Fort Lauderdale airport hotels page with a list of hotels and winning bids and some must have been around that $50 threshold otherwise I wouldn't have linked it. Alas, when Priceline did away with this the website (biddingfortravel) went away too...

Edited April 8 by fbgd

[FlyerTalker]

54 minutes ago, fbgd said:

 Alas, when Priceline did away with this the website (biddingfortravel) went away too...

 

Bidding For Travel was a great resource for the original PL "name your price" process.

 

Since then, both PL and Hotwire have gone to fixed pricing on opaque hotel listings.  However, there is still an excellent resource for sussing out what hotels you are likely to get with a opaque choice.  www.betterbidding.com

 

Better was originally along the lines of BFT.  However, with the change to PL, they shifted and are still relevant today.