Good reason to fly in early for cruise

[JR42]

we booked flight for Sept.5 with a hotel in Amsterdam the night of the 6th and boarding the Prinsendam on the 7th.

It is now Sept 6 th and still in Atlanta Airport. Hopefully flying out at 5:50pm. Let this be lesson to fly in early. Never know what the weather will be!

 

Janet

[rafinmd]

Good luck. It will be at least September 7 when you arrive. If you miss, good luck with a puddle jumper to Dover (London) or Newcastle.

 

Roy

[Lady Arwen]

I hope that all goes well for you and your flight is not delayed any further. Enjoy your cruise on Prinsendam. Thank you for your very good advice.

[knittinggirl]

We always fly in early, because airlines are so undependable.

 

So much less stressful when we fly and board on different days.

[JR42]

Good luck. It will be at least September 7 when you arrive. If you miss, good luck with a puddle jumper to Dover (London) or Newcastle.

 

Roy

 

Thanks Roy

We should land at 8:30am if we don't run into more bad weather

 

Janet

[esimon]

Amen

[Krazy Kruizers]

Wish you luck on making the ship.

Hope your weather improves.

[Veronicat]

Seattle Pacific Science Center had the

from China.

 

(Space Needle and Pike Place Market were included with the transfer from ship to airport / city tour on the way home.)

 

Too many times a travelling companion's travel agent booked a multi—segment flight on the day of the cruise. Missed flight connection; missed ship. I can attend a museum exhibition on my own perfectly well. But I am without the company of a friend at dinner.

[DeeniEncinitas]

Good luck! I hope all goes well for you and so enjoy your cruise too. We always fly any where from 3-5 days prior to our cruise depending on the time of year. We are retired now which gives us the opportunity

To fly earlier.

Take care and smooth sailings!

Denise:)

[kazu]

we booked flight for Sept.5 with a hotel in Amsterdam the night of the 6th and boarding the Prinsendam on the 7th.

It is now Sept 6 th and still in Atlanta Airport. Hopefully flying out at 5:50pm. Let this be lesson to fly in early. Never know what the weather will be!

 

Janet

 

Oh dear Janet -thank heavens you planned to go early.

 

Saw your post on the new flight have huge fingers crossed (yn) that everything works out and of course that this is the best cruise ever (next to ours next year ;) )

[iflyrc5]

We always go 2 days early. More time for relaxing.

[KroozNut]

Let this be lesson to fly in early. Never know what the weather will be!

 

Janet

 

This has always been a given for us, both for the reason based on your experience, and for the myriad of other reasons that can go wrong with air travel being delayed these days.

 

Happy sailing! :)

[bigwally]

Good advice. Our preference is for arriving 3-4 days in advance of sailing from a foreign port.

 

We have done the day before on sailings from domestic ports, but even then we could have caught up with the ship at the next domestic port before it left US waters.

 

I know it's a bit OT in the context of this thread, but I don't think we would deliberately fly in the day of an embarkation under any circumstance, even if the sailing was from someplace close to our home port like SFO.

[Bentleg]

We always fly in on day 1, have a rest day on day 2 and join the ship on day 3. If we get delayed it affects our rest day only. Also gives us time to get over jet lag before boarding.

 

 

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[DeepWaterMariner]

We started flying in a day early because our luggage didn’t arrive for a circle Hawaii cruise. It didn’t catch up with us until we got to Hilo. From then (2003) on we always fly in at least one day early. For long cruises the extra time gives me a chance to stock up on supplies that would otherwise weigh down my luggage.

[Big Chief]

While flying in early does have some benefit, it's not a protection against bad weather. Let's say you are sailing on a Sunday, you decide to fly in on Saturday. A storm hits and your flight on Saturday is cancelled. No big problem, you say, I'll fly in Sunday morning. Well the way airlines work you can be pretty assured that all the Sunday flights are all mostly sold. So all of the "saturday" passengers will be vying for the few (if any) available seats on the Sunday morning flights. Not a pleasant experience.

 

Last year we had scheduled to fly in 2 days early, and still missed the cruise as there were no seats available the next day and the only seats available on day 2 arrived late in the afternoon (4:40PM), so we booked flights to the first cruise stop (Aruba on cruise day 3, covered by travel insurance).

 

As I said flying in early can allow for sightseeing, relaxed dinners etc. and is sometimes a good idea, but weather will always be an issue.

[KroozNut]

While flying in early does have some benefit, it's not a protection against bad weather. Let's say you are sailing on a Sunday, you decide to fly in on Saturday. A storm hits and your flight on Saturday is cancelled. No big problem, you say, I'll fly in Sunday morning. Well the way airlines work you can be pretty assured that all the Sunday flights are all mostly sold. So all of the "saturday" passengers will be vying for the few (if any) available seats on the Sunday morning flights. Not a pleasant experience.

 

Last year we had scheduled to fly in 2 days early, and still missed the cruise as there were no seats available the next day and the only seats available on day 2 arrived late in the afternoon (4:40PM), so we booked flights to the first cruise stop (Aruba on cruise day 3, covered by travel insurance).

 

As I said flying in early can allow for sightseeing, relaxed dinners etc. and is sometimes a good idea, but weather will always be an issue.

 

Of course... but flying in early always increases your odds of not missing the ship. Based on your so eloquently outlined comments above, flying in the day of is pretty much asking to miss the ship.

[innlady1]

In the winter, we always fly in three days early. We live in the Boston area and if there's a storm predicted, 3 days allows enough time to drive.

 

 

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[northernphoenix]

We book our air with HAL, since it has weather delay insurance as part of the purchase price. Makes the anxiety levels more manageable.

 

 

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[newcruiser1956]

Seattle Pacific Science Center had the

from China.

 

I went there 2 weeks ago and saw the Terracotta Warriors, it was really cool to see :)

 

ALana