Drive or Fly?

[sperkins921]

I would echo not planning to arrive whether by flight or driving the morning of the cruise, esp for PC. When we went to Disney more, we would sometimes tack on some time at the parks (we have the DVC so we'd use that as our 'hotel') on the front back or both ends of cruises out of PC.

 

We would often leave WDW at no later than 630A, park at the Ramada in Canaveral (they have a HUGE lot for just this purpose- cruisers who want to park there and take their shuttle) or another offsite and then go to the pier. More than once, we have had friends whom were coming in the same way but decided to leave later text us saying there'd been an accident on 528 and they were stuck at a standstill.

 

Traffic accident, if it happens BEFORE the interchange with 520; then you're blocked either way. At least if you know there's something closer to port going on on 528 you can hop onto 520 and circumnavigate. But it always seemed to happen before that point. Add in your travel in August where a storm could lead to delays or re-routes, PLUS the long drive to port? I wouldn't risk it. I would drive in the night before, sleep somewhere, and wake up next day and head to port.

[beachys]

I always prefer driving so I can take as many suitcases as I wish! Seriously though, we typically drive everywhere.

[Beachboy3]

For Port Everglades we have flown once and driven once. The drive is not bad getting there with the excitement but feels much longer on the way way home. For that trip we left late afternoon and stopped for the night in St Augustine. Still had over four hours in the morning to drive. Unlike flying to Orlando, the airport in Ft Lauderdale is literally right next to the port.

Thank you!

[Pratique]

We just parked at PC in the terminal garage for $136 and it was totally worth it. Easy in and easy out.

 

 

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[MandyMooToo]

We live in East Tennessee and prefer to drive down the day before and do a park/stay/cruise at one of the hotels near the port. We have driven and blown and honestly, driving is just so much easier for us. No luggage fees, no worries about bad weather grounding a flight and no issues with taking as much stuff as I want (or with how much I bring home). We have also driven to Ormond By The Sea (or Ormond Beach) and state overnight there as it is only bout an hours drive to the port from there.

[LSUfan4444]

Depends on a few things because we do both but I hate long drives after the cruise if I have to go to work the next day.

[LadyBeBop]

Last cruise, we flew down and back to FLL from Cincinnati. However, it’s nearly a 20 hour trip one way.

 

My brother and sister-in-law drive down from Central NC. Going down, they stayed overnight near Daytona and got to Ft Lauderdale two days before embarking. They enjoyed their condo on the beach. Going home, they drove the 10 hours straight through home.

 

Sometimes, when you fly, you don’t have good choices on flying home. Our flight out of FLL wasn’t until after 4, and we had a three hour layover in Baltimore. We weren’t home until past midnight.

 

Despite the ten hour drive plus stops, my in-laws beat us home by several hours.

[Cru-Zin]

Some of the park & fly hotels also do snooze & cruise. Driving to a cruise would mean tacking 2-3 days on each end, so we fly. We usually do a park & fly package when we do. I've found comparatively good rates with Stay123, BuyReservations, and TrinityReservations --- dot com. I've seen snooze & cruise advertised.

[xpcdoojk]

Really...it's my husband who would drive. He wants to drive through the night arriving Sunday early AM...I prefer to drive down Sat and spend the night - I'm really trying to save him the long drive. The fares aren't looking promising in terms of cost - $500+ to fly plus we have to pay for a shuttle.

 

You are so much smarter than your husband.

 

Go the day before, why show up for a cruise, and I am guessing first cruise, and be exhausted. Lots of fun bars in the harbor at PC to watch ships sail out on the night before, visit Ron Jon’s eat at Fish Lips.... be fully in the holiday spirit when you get on the ship. Plus stuff happens better to have an extra day to deal with stuff.

 

JC

[ReneeFLL]

If you drive and have extra time off then you can do more sightseeing.

[TravisP]

My wife ant I are going on HOTS April 14th 2019. We live on the outskirts of Columbia SC. We plan on flying out the day before. The drive down I can handle. It is driving back that distance after being on a ship for a week and making sure I get my money's worth out of my beverage package. Plus I have to be back at work that next day. I would rather fly back and get home with plenty of time to relax. Plus they seem to have plenty of direct flights from Charleston that are reasonably priced.

[Rogueperson]

Mythbusters did a race between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Flying vs. Driving. The left an address at the same time, and had to race to a meeting to another address about 20 - 30 minutes from the airport. Bottom line, Flying won, but only by about 20 - 30 minutes, and its about a 6 - 7 hour drive. The winner really is that Tory (who flew) was more energetic than Grant and Cary (who drove).

 

It looks like its about 9 hour drive between Raleigh (a guess) and Port Canaveral. Cost wise, its cheaper to drive down. However, think about it this way. How much stress and time are you saving by flying?

 

Also, if you're looking for a lower cost option, how about a bus ride? It takes about the same amount of time, however, you won't need to worry about driving or anything. Plus, most Buses have plugs and wi-fi, but i haven't personally used them. Also look into train maybe, though my research shows trains can be just as expensive as flights sometimes.

[gatour]

I would suggest driving down partway the day before, perhaps stopping around Jacksonville. Then driving down the rest of the way, the day of the cruise. You should be able to find some reasonably priced hotels.

 

Just recently I drove from Jax to NC (due to a hurricane evac) and that maxed out my tollerance for driving in one day and feeling some relaxed.

[SmoothFlying]

We live in NC...were planning to drive down to Port Canaveral...but wondering if after a hotel room, paying for parking and gas - if we should just fly. But then I saw that the MCO airport is 40 miles away...meaning we still have to pay for a long ride to port. Which is better!?

 

What do you veteran cruisers think? :-)

 

Depends..;) We've driven from ATL to POC on our past 6 cruises. We usually rent a small SUV, Big enough for 3, along with same number of suitcases and usually 2 carry-ons. Of course you have to figure in gas and price of Turnpike (unless you take the coast road ( I think it's A1A) down through Jacksonville to Cape Canaveral. We usually drive direct to a park-N-stay hotel the day before which includes breakfast and round trip shuttle to the cruise port and parking for the rental. Be careful which vendor u choose, some of them (like the one we chose in New Orleans had us park (on cruise day) off site a block away.:rolleyes: Which meant after the cruise upon the shuttle dropping us at the motel, one of us had to walk down to an public parking lot to fetch the rental. Luckily, it wasn't raining. But it pays to ask when you make the reservation w/the vendor.

 

Mac

[Snit13]

FL Tpk is nowhere near Port Canaveral. Tpk ends in Wildwood south of Ocala in center of state. I95 is the route down the east coast and I75 is the route down center of state of FL. A1A is a scenic route great for a Sunday drive down east coast along Ocean.

[KmomChicago]

FL Tpk is nowhere near Port Canaveral. Tpk ends in Wildwood south of Ocala in center of state. I95 is the route down the east coast and I75 is the route down center of state of FL. A1A is a scenic route great for a Sunday drive down east coast along Ocean.

 

 

 

Turnpike makes sense coming from Atlanta but probably not from Carolinas.

 

 

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[lenquixote66]

We live in NC...were planning to drive down to Port Canaveral...but wondering if after a hotel room, paying for parking and gas - if we should just fly. But then I saw that the MCO airport is 40 miles away...meaning we still have to pay for a long ride to port. Which is better!?

 

What do you veteran cruisers think? :-)

 

If this is in summer I say drive.

[molsonschooner]

If you decide to fly definitely come in the day before. Lots of people will say you will be fine in August, but not always so. We were scheduled to land in Miami and flight was diverted to Orlando because of severe thunderstorms all over the Miami area. We were in a holing pattern over Miami and actually had to be diverted for weather and re-fueling. This was on a weekend and several people on board unfortunately missed Saturday sailings. So happy we were scheduled to spend the night in Miami and sail Sunday.

 

Regardless if you fly or drive remember you have to be on board usually two hours or so before actual sailing.

 

Driving would mean no worries about overweight bags. Also easier to take wine, etc. on board.

We had the same type of experience last year. Flying into Fort Lauderdale the day before our cruise. We began circling, finally an announcement was made that thunderstorms around FL were severe enough that the pilot decided not to land. Instead we flew to Orlando, landed there and re fueled. Finally we got to FL around 4:30. If this was cruise day we would have missed it

[deliver42]

We lived in SC previously, and would drive down the day before. If you try to drive the same day, you'll both be dead tired for the first day, and might even carry over to the second day.The hotels in PCC are pretty reasonable, and some include parking and a shuttle to and from the port.

[Tatka]

We drive from Massachusetts to Florida at least once a year. With three of us it was much cheaper , but even for two still makes sense.

Takes 22 hours on our way down and overnight in Fort Lauderdale or Boca Raton and 22-23 hours back.

[SheSailsFL]

We live in NC...were planning to drive down to Port Canaveral...but wondering if after a hotel room, paying for parking and gas - if we should just fly. But then I saw that the MCO airport is 40 miles away...meaning we still have to pay for a long ride to port. Which is better!?

 

What do you veteran cruisers think? :-)

 

Before I moved to Florida it was never an option to drive to a FL port for a cruise (from TN) due to the distance and exhaustion factor. I agree with other posts that if you do drive, definitely drive down the day before you sail and stay in a hotel near the port. There are tons of options in Cocoa Beach or Port Canaveral. I always used hotel points from business travels for pre-cruise stays and the hotels there usually have a free or low cost shuttle to the port (if hotel offers free parking that will save $20/day).

[birdylady]

I see lots of excellent replies. I wanted to share some of our way of thinking (at the risk of repeating somethings, sorry).

 

Hubby likes to work with the 8 hour window. If it takes longer than 8 hours to drive, fly. BUT with that said, it also depends what/when/where.

 

We live near Charlotte and have always driven to PC. If it's a weekend get away, we drive down on Thursday after work and stay in Kingsland, GA. There are plenty of affordable hotels (50-100) which include breakfast. Then we hit the road and we're on the ship by 10:30~. If it's a full trip, we drive down the day before and stay at a hotel in PC/Cocoa. As we like to hit the ground running for the long drive home we usually just park at the port. But if we're not in a hurry, we make sure we can leave the car at the hotel and take their shuttle. That ends up being MUCH cheaper as it's one hotel night and no extra parking costs at the port.

 

As we are early birds by nature, we've always gone the day before, but let me suggest a few extra points you can share with your hubby. We were driving home from our first cruise and as we were headed North on 95, we noticed Southbound was at a dead standstill for miles. So bad in fact, many of the drivers were out of their cars. I commented had we waited and drove day of, we could easily have missed our cruise had that been us. And another drive down, we got a flat tire and it just so happened the car we were driving didn't have a spare. Had AAA not been able to help, who knows how late we would have been, and this was the day before. Lastly, if you chose to fly, keep in mind flights get delayed or canceled for all sorts of reasons, weather, mechanical, etc... And as one person stated, if you fly you are limited to luggage size and weight.

 

Ultimately, your choice, but in our case, we hate to see our long awaited vacation get impacted (or missed) due to trying to say that dollar from an extra hotel night.

 

Good luck with whatever you choose.

Erika

[KasinoCrazy]

We are driving from Michigan in January of 2019. It will be about 22 hrs. There are 4 of us. We will leave Friday morning and drive over half way and stay the night and then drive the remaining on Saturday and stay the night. Board the ship on Sunday. I like the fact that we don’t have to worry about luggage weight and fees and hopefully once we get through Ohio we won’t have to worry about winter weather. My 13 and 23 yr old have never been past Ohio and are looking forward to the scenic drive.

[billfish]

this is a good plan! Drive to st augustine the day before, get a hotel, have a nice dinner downtown (historic district), wake up the next morning and continue the 1.5-2 hr easy drive to the port!

 

sounds like a good plan to me