Anyone missed their cruise lately because of flight cancellations?l

[sdnich]

I am just curious with all of the flight cancellations lately has anyone missed their  cruise?? our last cruise in 2019 we almost got stuck in Dallas because a lightning storm came in! We had a 3 hour layover to give us extra time in case our flight was late but then had to watch the storm move in !! After sitting on the tarmac for a half an hour the flight attendant said we are getting out of here!!Yay 

With all the cancels we are not taking any chances with our Canada cruise in Sept. and we booked 2 nights in Boston before the cruise and have us going from San Diego to Philly !! 

[Jim_Iain]

9 minutes ago, sdnich said:

I am just curious with all of the flight cancellations lately has anyone missed their  cruise?? our last cruise in 2019 we almost got stuck in Dallas because a lightning storm came in! We had a 3 hour layover to give us extra time in case our flight was late but then had to watch the storm move in !! After sitting on the tarmac for a half an hour the flight attendant said we are getting out of here!!Yay 

With all the cancels we are not taking any chances with our Canada cruise in Sept. and we booked 2 nights in Boston before the cruise and have us going from San Diego to Philly !! 

 

We are doing much the same.    Our new normal is to fly in a day early.   Being from the West Coast flying in the day early puts us in late and not much room for a cancellation.

 

Some of the flights I've looked at recently also have some really tight connections of  30-45 minutes.  I purposefully chose one with a 2 1/2 hour connection 

[RollWave]

Not yet but it is a concern!

We fly out to Seattle next week. Have taken as many precautions as possible - flying direct & flying out two days before the cruise departure date. 

I will certainly breathe a sigh of relief once the plane takes off as I will know the next stop is Seattle!

[danv3]

13 minutes ago, Jim_Iain said:

 

Some of the flights I've looked at recently also have some really tight connections of  30-45 minutes.  I purposefully chose one with a 2 1/2 hour connection 

 

All well and good until the airline changes the schedule on you and then there's no realistic availability to reschedule.  Happened to us on our upcoming return from Italy.  From 3 hours at JFK down to 1.5 hours.  Almost no chance we make it through customs and onto the connection.  Airline said "don't worry, it's plenty of time."  Right.

[Loracpin2]

Since it is only a 2 and 1/2 hour flight, we have always flown down to Ft. Lauderdal day before for our annual January cruise. Since United has cut back the daily non-stops to 2 and since we have no faith in connections in January weather,  we also decided to fly two days befor the cruise.

[suzyluvs2cruise]

We had a day before non-stop flight from LAX - FLL for our APEX transatlantic last month booked with Flights by Celebrity until the airline cancelled the flight. We were then given a red-eye flight from LAX-Seattle-FLL arriving at 7am the day of the cruise. I said "no way" as we had friends who had the same flight 2 weeks prior, got diverted to Portland and then had no way to get to FLL. They missed their TA cruise. I told FBC that I wouldn't accept that change but would agree to going in 2 days ahead which they were able to get approved. Meant one more night in a hotel....arriving at 7am...but it was worth it. Flying isn't what it used to be and no one needs all that extra stress!  

[CHEZMARYLOU]

We always flew in one day pre cruise.  Last cruise in March it was 2 days. Next cruise in December it will be 3 days.  If I can't get a non stop flight, rare from Pittsburgh, I look for a 2 hour connection and have a back up plan to the back up plan.

Edited June 23, 2022 by CHEZMARYLOU

[sdnich]

I missed my edit ! sidetracked !!

Then from Philly to Boston so if for some reason our connection doesn't work we will be on the East Coast instead of Dallas!!

[davekathy]

Readers Digest version...This past March we flew JetBlue (👎). 11:50 PM (redeye). Scheduled to land in San Juan at noon on the 12th for a relaxing pre cruise hotel stay. We never made it to San Juan until late afternoon on the 13th. The day of our cruise. Return flight on the 27th wasn't any better. Weather wasn't an issue.. All a JetBlue Cluster!!! We'll never fly JetBlue again. 

[cangelmd]

Welcome all of you to reality we have lived for many years being in one of the poorest served cities for air travel.

My rules are scarily similar to that social media post that’s going around, allegedly from a flight attendant about flying this summer.

1) Drive to a hub if at all possible, anything final destination 5 hours or less is a drive, not a flight.

2) Always take the earliest flight.

3) Longer layovers are better.

4) Flying overseas? Drive to where the overseas flight originates - it won’t work right now, but we’ve had good luck with one way car rentals- cheaper than parking at airport.

5) Checkin early and stick with one air carrier as much as possible (we haven’t had much of a choice through the years, but despite Deltas recent cancellations, overall it’s been a blessing).

[travlr21]

Someone reported in social media on June 18 that they missed boarding the Edge because of flight delays. They later reported they were able to join the ship at La Spezia a few days later. What a relief for them.

[sdnich]

cangelmd  we have friends we have traveled with over the years and they live in a small town San Luis Obispo in Ca. and there trip are always so much longer and usually filled with some sort of travel drama!

 

davekathy you are on our cruise Sept.21 to Canada !! look forward to meeting you both!! We just paid off today!! Also just realized that our 6 am  flight is now leaving 20 min later so our 2 hour connection just got shorter!!

[sdnich]

16 minutes ago, travlr21 said:

Someone reported in social media on June 18 that they missed boarding the Edge because of flight delays. They later reported they were able to join the ship at La Spezia a few days later. What a relief for them.

That was part of what I wondered is how when you miss the cruise what is the process if you have to catch up to the cruise at another port?

[travlr21]

12 minutes ago, sdnich said:

That was part of what I wondered is how when you miss the cruise what is the process if you have to catch up to the cruise at another port?

The guy reached out on social media since he was having a hard time getting in contact with Celebrity. I guess he eventually did. The first port was a tender port so Celebrity would not let them board there. They also had to retest. 

[cangelmd]

28 minutes ago, sdnich said:

cangelmd  we have friends we have traveled with over the years and they live in a small town San Luis Obispo in Ca. and there trip are always so much longer and usually filled with some sort of travel drama!

 

davekathy you are on our cruise Sept.21 to Canada !! look forward to meeting you both!! We just paid off today!! Also just realized that our 6 am  flight is now leaving 20 min later so our 2 hour connection just got shorter!!

LOL! Yeah, we got drama and stories. From about 2014-15 through to Covid, things had gotten better. Better to the point that we would take an hour layover if we left on first flight in the morning. If nothing happened, baggage handling had improved so that we could reliably get our bags with just the one hour.

One of my fav stories is when we got diverted mid-air on the way to ATL. The pilot came on and in typical cockpit inscrutable speech, said “ah, we can’t land in Atlanta, we’re headed to Shville”. Everyone immediately said “what did he say?” We weren’t sure til we landed if we were going to Asheville, Nashville or Gainesville?! When we got to the terminal, Nashville in case you’re keeping score, the whole plane load of people dashed to same Delta counter and lined up. This was in the days before the app and automatic rebooking. We were some of the people that knew to get right on the phone with delta, even in the line. The lady at the 1-800-delta help, said to me, but you just landed in ATL. I said no ma’am, I’m not 100% certain where we are, but it ain’t Atlanta. In the end, when Delta finally figured out where we were, they had to dead head a plane to Nashville to pick us all up, 6 hours later. We left our house at 4 am for 6:30 flight, got to Boston, our final destination at midnight - but it was the same day at least! And we got to see Nashville… our was it Asheville?

[Arizona Wildcat]

35 minutes ago, sdnich said:

That was part of what I wondered is how when you miss the cruise what is the process if you have to catch up to the cruise at another port?

When we missed our Princess Cruise out of San Juan, American put us up in a hotel (was a really awful hotel), flew us to Barbados the following day, got us cleared thru Barbados customs after 4 hours and a shuttle to the Barbados Hilton.  Finally arrived on board the following day.

[cangelmd]

Crazy tales aside, our next cruise is an October TA out of Civitevecchia and I’m already stressing. Normally when we fly overseas we drive to ATL and either leave our car at the Park and Fly, a hotel or at our friends’ house. When we did a TA before, we did a one way car rental to ATL, then a one way flight to Southampton and a one way all the way back home from FLL.

This time, partly because of parking construction in ATL and partly because he’s sick of driving 😏, DH insisted we fly to ATL. It was cheaper to book separate reservations on that day, so we have one flight at 9:40 to ATL and our plane to Rome leaves at 20:40, and I’m already fretting, because of fewer flights across the day, having to claim and recheck our luggage for the Rome flight, Yada, yada.

The only way I would fly from our dinky airport was if we left no later than the second flight of the day.My plan is to monitor cancellations and drive to Atlanta if things don’t look good.

[Essiesmom]

3 hours ago, sdnich said:

I missed my edit ! sidetracked !!

Then from Philly to Boston so if for some reason our connection doesn't work we will be on the East Coast instead of Dallas!!

Lots of trains from PHL to BOS.  EM

[Denny01]

Its interesting how many are now (at least those posting recently and here) flying days prior to departure. 

 

We’d always either drove down and stayed overnight, or flew in a least one day prior, now we and all our family are flying to Seattle 3 days prior, will test there, explore a neat city and relax. For our New Orleans trip, we are driving over 4 days prior to enjoy are Really Fun city before and spending time In Civitavecchia 3 days prior to Rome-FLL TA. 

 

We are retired so we have more time to spend and are now using these days to increase our vacation exploration and have found it a major part of enjoying the vacations. One of the things we miss with cruising is you dont get to spend overnights in neat places……this allows you to. 

 

I know working people have tighter schedules, but I remind each to think through how much ‘fun’ you’ll have days prior to your day-of departure flight, looking at how many flights are being canceled or late, what the weather will be and so much stressing over this. 

 

Den 

[abbydancer2003]

My sister and I used to take a Caribbean cruise each August.  In 2018, we were on an 11:30 flight from JFK to FLL.  On the way to the airport it was cancelled.  We both got on the phone with Jet Blue and the best they could do was a 6pm flight from LaGuardia to Boston, and then an early morning flight to Ft. Lauderdale.  

While this was going on I got on the United App, and found a 7:30 flight to Miami out of Newark.  We held onto the JB reservation and took an Uber to Newark.  3.5 hour drive, but we had a lot of time.  On the way there, I changed our hotel from Ft. Lauderdale to Miami, since the cruise was out of Miami and my sister said it was stupid to drive up and back.  

We get to the airport, and the storm that canceled our first flight was raging.  Flight was delayed a few times, but we eventually boarded around 9.  We sat on the plane for an hour, and I actually booked flights to the first non-US stop. 

 

After an hour on the plane, they said they were sending out a test flight.  The next thing we heard, the sweetest thing you can under the circumstances was "Flight attendants please be seated for departure".  We got to Miami at about 1:30 am.

 

Now. we go in two days early.

 

[sergel02]

We almost missed this cruise we’re on from Barcelona. 
 

We fly standby usually so we don’t have a paid ticket and just get in a flight that’s available. During summer with these cancellations there isn’t much space though. We planned to go a few days early anyway to visit and enjoy the city. 
 

First part was making it to Newark and that went surprisingly well (side note but we have the worst luck at that place). The next step was going to Barcelona. The flight that day looked so bad (and was) that we just stayed a night in Newark but didn’t do anything. Next day, first on the list, didn’t make it. There was only 1 flight a day. If we missed the one the next day we’d be cutting it too close for our cruise, so we looked into going to London which we were trying to avoid due to issues Heathrow was having. 
 

Waited all night and had delays and it looked like we might miss our cruise. We got lucky and got on a flight that left at 1:30 AM. However the flight before that to London ended up getting downgraded to a smaller plane due to technical issues so many people had to be compensated or moved to a different flight. Not even sure how we got on tbh. Some people had missed connections already due to the delay so they got vouchers. 
 

Was the most stressful time trying to get to a cruise though. Do not recommend. 
 

I agree with @Denny01 though that’s it’s good to get to port city beforehand and explore if possible. I get vacation/holiday time is hard to get and costs is a factor, but I definitely think it makes for a better trip to explore the port city beforehand leisurely. Plus it helps the local tourist scene and you get to explore places you may not always go otherwise. 

[chemmo]

We always have flown in at least two days early into Europe (we are from the UK) and at least three days early to the US. If we are doing a US tour followed by a cruise we always do that first…Easier to adjust a tour than try to catch up with an already sailed ship!

 

Over the years we have had several mishaps….Once heading for Venice via Frankfurt Italy declared a lightning air traffic and rail strike. Soooo frustrating just sitting in an airport with no information. We had our usual two day pre stay planned so were not unduly concerned about our cruise but a group of 6 Brits we were chatting to were flying to Rome that day to catch a reposition cruise first stop Alexandria. After watching ‘delayed’ flashing on the board for nearly five hours our flight finally had a departure time again but the Rome flight was cancelled. No flight there until the next day. We found out later that RC had delayed sailing until 11pm but that over 30 guests had needed to be flown on to Alexandria.

 

Worst ever for us was when we were flying in three days early for our Reflection cruise. Early March snow storm hit the East Coast. Our wonderful well timed flights Manchester via Philadelphia to Fort Lauderdale were cancelled. Fortunately, in addition to following weather news we followed cruise critic and had a heads up from fabulous Philly residents that our flight would be cancelled before it actually was putting us in the queue for a bizarre rescheduling that involved Manchester, Heathrow, Fort Worth and Miami…Our luggage didn’t all arrive with us, that’s another story, anyone remember my ‘Posh Frock’?

 

To be perfectly honest this year we have chickened out of flying….UK airports have queues to even get in the terminal. We are driving down to Southampton. Next March we have a villa in Orlando booked for 8 days and an overnight in Miami planned pre our Silhouette cruise…surely that is a big enough cushion?

[cangelmd]

2 hours ago, chemmo said:

We always have flown in at least two days early into Europe (we are from the UK) and at least three days early to the US. If we are doing a US tour followed by a cruise we always do that first…Easier to adjust a tour than try to catch up with an already sailed ship!

 

Over the years we have had several mishaps….Once heading for Venice via Frankfurt Italy declared a lightning air traffic and rail strike. Soooo frustrating just sitting in an airport with no information. We had our usual two day pre stay planned so were not unduly concerned about our cruise but a group of 6 Brits we were chatting to were flying to Rome that day to catch a reposition cruise first stop Alexandria. After watching ‘delayed’ flashing on the board for nearly five hours our flight finally had a departure time again but the Rome flight was cancelled. No flight there until the next day. We found out later that RC had delayed sailing until 11pm but that over 30 guests had needed to be flown on to Alexandria.

 

Worst ever for us was when we were flying in three days early for our Reflection cruise. Early March snow storm hit the East Coast. Our wonderful well timed flights Manchester via Philadelphia to Fort Lauderdale were cancelled. Fortunately, in addition to following weather news we followed cruise critic and had a heads up from fabulous Philly residents that our flight would be cancelled before it actually was putting us in the queue for a bizarre rescheduling that involved Manchester, Heathrow, Fort Worth and Miami…Our luggage didn’t all arrive with us, that’s another story, anyone remember my ‘Posh Frock’?

 

To be perfectly honest this year we have chickened out of flying….UK airports have queues to even get in the terminal. We are driving down to Southampton. Next March we have a villa in Orlando booked for 8 days and an overnight in Miami planned pre our Silhouette cruise…surely that is a big enough cushion?

I’ve been on here long enough to hear about the “posh frock”, I think your adventure happened a few months before I became really active on CC the second time.

That was back when most peoples’ worries were unusually bad weather as you had, or, in Italy as above - strikes. 
At least for the summer I think we’re going worry about there just being a plane and a pilot!

[chemmo]

1 minute ago, cangelmd said:

I’ve been on here long enough to hear about the “posh frock”, I think your adventure happened a few months before I became really active on CC the second time.

That was back when most peoples’ worries were unusually bad weather as you had, or, in Italy as above - strikes. 
At least for the summer I think we’re going worry about there just being a plane and a pilot!

….and the pilot having enough hours left to complete the flight…

[Nachosdelux]

I work in the travel industry, and personally would never Non-Rev to a cruise.

 

Maybe it was a viable strategy 5 or 10 years ago, but these days you are asking for trouble.