Cruise air from the great white north?

[ohCanada]

We have currently booked "cruise air" from Toronto to San Juan for the Crown Princess cruise on February 10, 2007 ($599.00 USD)

 

After reading the posts I am considering booking my own air from Toronto, Detroit or Buffalo. Before I do that, does anyone have anthing possitive to say about cruise air? I do like the peace of mind of cruise air (being from the north), but I do not want to arrive late in the day and miss an afternoon on the ship. If the ship sails at 11:00 p.m. what time would they generally try to have you arrive in San Juan using cruise air?

 

Any thoughts?

[canuck rick]

Jet Blue buffalo to Newark to San jaun costs about 330 us. Use the leftover to stay a night in San Juan and still save.

Othe alternates are Buffalo to CLeveland to San jaun early flight is getting us there at 2:oo

[LHT28]

You might get a non stop flight through one of the Charter airlines...not sure who is flying from Toronto to SJ but your TA can advise you.

going throught the U.S. you may get many stops.;)

[DanJ]

There's no guarantee paying $599US from Toronto is going to put you on a non-stop flight either. Near as I can tell, Air Canada has one daily flight YYZ-SJU, and it costs more than $599 US, and arrives at San Juan at 410pm. If that flight has no seats 70 or so days out from your cruise, then Princess isn't going to get you on it, so you will be milk running anyway.

 

I would book Jet Blue from Buffalo in a heartbeat for that kind of flight. You'll change at JFK, not Newark, but still that same area, and I can virtually guarantee a JB A320 will be more comfortable than an AC A320, with more legroom, and TV for at least part of the flight, if not all.

 

And I would seriously look at going a day ahead. If you got that AC flight, you wouldn't be on the ship until 6pm or so on day 1. And after a long day of travel, you probably aren't going to like night 1 much, so there goes 1/7th of your holiday flying. Go the day ahead, make sure all your luggage makes it with you, get a good night's sleep, and get on the ship when they start boarding. You'll have that afternoon to scout the ship out, find your dining room, make any dinner reservations you might want to at Sabatini's or Sterlings, take a Spa tour, get in a few trips to the buffet before dinner time, or simply lounge around the pool listening to the band.

[ohCanada]

Great responces, thank you. How far in advance can you book airfairs, 330 days?

[DanJ]

It varies by airline. Air Canada is 353 days I think. Jet Blue is about 8 months.

[FB]

We flew Toronto - San Juan with Princess.

 

as follows

 

Toronto - Chicago - 1 hour flight 2-1/2 layover.

Chicago - San Juan - I think it was 3-1/2 - 4 hour flight

This wasen't bad.

 

Returning

San Juan - Miami - 1 hour flight 40 min layover - get ready to run

Miami - Washington - 1-1/2 flight another 40 min layover - more running - wait they changed gates lets run some more.

Washington - Toronto - 1-1/2 flight. The plane left all the luggage in washington. LOL, YES, ALL, THE WHOLE PLANE.

Up at 7:30 am to get off boat, landed in Toronto 12:35 am. Not the end of a vacation you want. Loved the cruise though.

 

Another note we were not assigned seats together (this is common with cruise air) as soon as you get the tickets call the airline and ask for seats together they should be able to accomadate you.

 

The problem is it is hard to beat cruise air prices.

 

On another note - we did fly NCL air from Toronto - Maimi for another cruise and ended up with non-stop flights in FIRST CLASS. They booked the air so late it was the only flight and seats left.

 

enjoy FB

[ohCanada]

FB, what time did that put you on the ship going down?

[FB]

I think we got on at about 8:30 - 9:00 pm. We had to wait at the airport for another delayed flight before the shuttle would leave.

 

FB

[travelmoxie]

Oh Canada!

 

We too are from London, Ontario. Last Nov we flew out of Buffalo to Houston (we were part of the Norweigan Sun hurricane shuffle) on AirTran for $57 each way. I cannot say enough good things about this airline. Makes Air Canada look like rude scalpers. The customer service alone when we had to change our itinery (they did not charge us anything to change tickets even though it could have easily doubled the cost). We plan to fly JetBlue from Buffalo to New York this Nov. Less taxes, customs is more efficient, parking is even cheaper than in Toronto (big surprise there). Buying air from the cruiseline is expensive, especially out of Toronto. I've done it both ways now, and did not find booking our flights separately and grabbing a taxi to the pier to be any more of a fuss than paying the cruiseline for transfers.

[travelmoxie]

P.S. Go Knights!!! :D