Anyone missed their cruise lately because of flight cancellations?l

[Lastdance]

 October b2b/TA from Civi:  Flying in 4 days early from west coast

January 2 to FLL:  Two days early, but 45 min connection in Dallas(United changed it)

 

Traveling with my cousins for a Greek Isle cruise their luggage was lost due to a plane change, but it finally arrived in Athens(third port)

 

Connecting in Frankfurt for a cruise, we had to physically "run" to catch our flight, but they waited for us!

[sdnich]

9 hours ago, Essiesmom said:

Lots of trains from PHL to BOS.  EM

I looked at that option! One reason I switched it from Dallas to Philly I figured  we can either drive or get on a train!

[Denny01]

Ill relate one of my favorite fly-the-day stories, which of course isn’t about me,…...ive never messed up…..nooooo! Some thread I’ll share the great ‘special deal’ hotels i picked out…….and you Know how much my wife loved walking by very nice ones just down the street.

 

Good friends who usually traveled with us went on a TA out of FLL to Southampton. They decided that instead of doing what theyd do with us, the husband saved a bundle and set up to fly that day. This is a TA with the next port in Europe! 

 

You Know what happens now…..

 

Late flight out….missed the connection from Atlanta and caught the next one that was full and they were Lucky to get on. It arrived at the time the ship was to depart, but the ship had a bus waiting, only because their flight had a large number of late passengers….a whole group who thought it was a good idea to fly in the day of a TA.

 

needless to say the wife who’d pressed to leave days prior was Very Quiet with him for an extended time.

 

Why waste an extra $200+ on a vacation you’ve spent thousands on already going in early, and you get to add so much unneeded stress to save those few bucks?? 

 

Waiting for the “I’ve cruised 1,417 times, flew in the departure day and never missed a cruise!” Guys……but you’ll notice those posts are dwindling. 

 

Den

[Jim_Iain]

15 hours ago, danv3 said:

 

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.

I can only imagine.    My flight home from Boston in September has been rescheduled  6 times now and each time when I got a short connection they changed to a requested flight when I called. 

 

I've been lucky so far and the airlines have worked with me.    Luckily living close to San Francisco we always get non-stops from overseas.  

[Arizona Wildcat]

54 minutes ago, Jim_Iain said:

I can only imagine.    My flight home from Boston in September has been rescheduled  6 times now and each time when I got a short connection they changed to a requested flight when I called. 

 

I've been lucky so far and the airlines have worked with me.    Luckily living close to San Francisco we always get non-stops from overseas.  

You are indeed lucky to have overseas nonstops.   

[Jim_Iain]

1 minute ago, Arizona Wildcat said:

You are indeed lucky to have overseas nonstops.   

With all the cancellations, I noticed that my flight home from LHR was booked almost a year out and nothing changed from the time I booked.     I'm just about to book a home flight from Amsterdam in May of 2023 -  Yikes the prices are unreal

[cdn_tbird]

5 hours ago, Lastdance said:

 Connecting in Frankfurt for a cruise, we had to physically "run" to catch our flight, but they waited for us!

LOL. When I used to travel for business (pre-marriage), connecting flights were the norm. I lost count of how many times I felt like I was recreating the OJ Simpson car rental commercial to make it between gates.

DW is a nervous flyer so it's direct flights only and we always take the opportunity to fly out at least a day or two early so we can explore. The current situation just gave us an excuse to increase our exploring time. 😁

[FlorenceItaly]

3 hours ago, Jim_Iain said:

With all the cancellations, I noticed that my flight home from LHR was booked almost a year out and nothing changed from the time I booked.     I'm just about to book a home flight from Amsterdam in May of 2023 -  Yikes the prices are unreal

Jim, our DS and DIL live and work in Munich.  We flew both ways to Munich a few months ago.  For our trip next summer we have booked a TA, plus the QM2 back to NY.  Perhaps the QM2 is an option.  Just a thought.

[Jim_Iain]

25 minutes ago, FlorenceItaly said:

Jim, our DS and DIL live and work in Munich.  We flew both ways to Munich a few months ago.  For our trip next summer we have booked a TA, plus the QM2 back to NY.  Perhaps the QM2 is an option.  Just a thought.

We will have to do that if prices keep going up the QM2 may b cheaper.    On our cruise in April/May of 2023 we are doing a TA combined with a Key West cruise, spending a week in Amsterdam and then doing the British Isles cruise ---- will have to check the fares back when they open for booking.  

 

I'm hoping as the air industry recovers fares may stabilize or begin dropping in key lanes.    Prior to Covid we could fly non-stop to Tokyo, London, Paris and Frankfurt non-stop out of our closer airport San Jose but they all stop the service.    BA just announced they are starting to fly SJC to London again which is a good sign.

[samplecd02]

I understand the need to fly in a day early and stay at a hotel as that was what I used to do on my cruises (last one was in 2009). 
But I am currently working a job now that I just cant take any more time off for the cruise. I am flying out the day before the cruise starting at 11am and wont get into Amsterdam until 6am the day of the cruise. I know I am pushing it and if I get delayed too much I'm going to have trouble to get to the port on time but I have to take the risk due to my responsibilities at home. I just wanted to post this as a gentle reminder that some people just cant afford (whether $$ or otherwise) to fly in days early.

[Honolulu Blue]

My own recent tale of woe is linked below.  WARNING:  Not a cancellation but a delay (causing the same results) and not a Celebrity cruise.

 

[Jim_Iain]

30 minutes ago, samplecd02 said:

I understand the need to fly in a day early and stay at a hotel as that was what I used to do on my cruises (last one was in 2009). 
But I am currently working a job now that I just cant take any more time off for the cruise. I am flying out the day before the cruise starting at 11am and wont get into Amsterdam until 6am the day of the cruise. I know I am pushing it and if I get delayed too much I'm going to have trouble to get to the port on time but I have to take the risk due to my responsibilities at home. I just wanted to post this as a gentle reminder that some people just cant afford (whether $$ or otherwise) to fly in days early.

Can definitely understand and use to (per-retirement) do the same.    I think you will be pretty safe as most of the time the TransAtlantic flights are pretty good about arriving close to schedule time.     The biggest problem lately is connections and under staffing of pilots. 

[Jim_Iain]

While this wasn't recently (actually September of last year).    I know you all remember the Southwest meltdown.     We were on a cruise that as a result of that meltdown about 25% of the already lightly booked cruise missed the sailing.    They were not allowing download boarding so they were out of luck.   I think we set sail on an S-Class with only about 450 passengers.

 

Most that missed the cruise were part of a Group that was holding seminars on living a happier more fulfilling life or something like that.

 

 

[Sabbycat]

On 6/23/2022 at 11:46 PM, Denny01 said:

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 

We always arrive in Europe four days early. Knock on wood, we have never experienced and issue, but we allow for a lot of lag time just in case.  For down south, two to three days early.

[bh6605]

Does it help if you booked flights through the celebrity website? Currently we're booked to fly direct from PHL to SEA arriving noon one day prior to cruise embarkation.

[markeb]

On 6/24/2022 at 2:57 AM, 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 don’t think I’ll forget that. I think half of us on the East Coast were on that thread. It looked possible for a couple of hours, but the snow prediction kept getting worse. Crazy time for you!

[Germancruiser]

Flight problems are  all over the world this year. For European cruises, flying out of Germany - I flew in right on the day of the cruise - which worked. I would not dream doing so these days in the - hm one can not really say - post pandemic world.

Even if the flight is just an hour- I fly in a day earlier and have a nice relaxed embarkation day. For my cruise in October out of Fort Lauderdale I fly in five days prior- but that has more to do with a few days relax time in Ft. Lauderdale.

I appreciate that not everybody can afford to do so.

[bye-seaya]

On 6/23/2022 at 7:38 PM, Loracpin2 said:

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.

We are now doing the same. Normally a 3.5 hour nonstop east coast flight - and fly in 1 day before to FLL or MIA. For our upcoming November’s cruise we are going in 2 days earlier and taking first flight out early a.m. with a connection at a major hub just in case...

[chemmo]

13 minutes ago, markeb said:

I don’t think I’ll forget that. I think half of us on the East Coast were on that thread. It looked possible for a couple of hours, but the snow prediction kept getting worse. Crazy time for you!

I remember arriving at our hotel in Fort Lauderdale at about midnight after the most bizarre day of travel absolutely physically and emotionally drained minus most of our luggage. Despite the exhaustion I logged onto CC to say thank you for the help.  I was overwhelmed at the people following and the good will being expressed! Whilst it probably was our worst travel experience I now remember it for so many positives too…

[markeb]

6 minutes ago, chemmo said:

I remember arriving at our hotel in Fort Lauderdale at about midnight after the most bizarre day of travel absolutely physically and emotionally drained minus most of our luggage. Despite the exhaustion I logged onto CC to say thank you for the help.  I was overwhelmed at the people following and the good will being expressed! Whilst it probably was our worst travel experience I now remember it for so many positives too…

 

The posts only go back a couple of years now. Was that 2016? That was a bizarre weather year on the East Coast. And I remember being guilty early of thinking it might work, but the Philly folks were looking at their local weather and saying find another flight "now"! And then I think we all piled on, and you beat the rebooking rush and made it! Not without challenges and some bizarre routings, but you made it.

 

That was an example of CC at it's finest. No 100 post threads about dress codes/recommendations/etc. or what is or is not in a drink package, or available on the ship. I honestly think that was the best of the CC community, and it ultimately worked out for you!

[chemmo]

12 minutes ago, markeb said:

 

The posts only go back a couple of years now. Was that 2016? That was a bizarre weather year on the East Coast. And I remember being guilty early of thinking it might work, but the Philly folks were looking at their local weather and saying find another flight "now"! And then I think we all piled on, and you beat the rebooking rush and made it! Not without challenges and some bizarre routings, but you made it.

 

That was an example of CC at it's finest. No 100 post threads about dress codes/recommendations/etc. or what is or is not in a drink package, or available on the ship. I honestly think that was the best of the CC community, and it ultimately worked out for you!

I think it was March 2018. Definitely a spell of unexpected weather and odd to cover so much of the US…Ironically we have flown over several times in hurricane season and never had an issue! 
 

As you say, definitely the best of CC. 

[Brimming irk]

I have never really worried about flying on the day to a Europe departure until Covid. I was booked via Celebrity to travel via Schipol this saturday to join the Beyond but when I researched the problems at Schipol and only 2 hours between flights, I decided to pay for another flight to get me there direct the day before. So fingers crossed all goes well this week. 

 

[chemmo]

20 minutes ago, Brimming irk said:

I have never really worried about flying on the day to a Europe departure until Covid. I was booked via Celebrity to travel via Schipol this saturday to join the Beyond but when I researched the problems at Schipol and only 2 hours between flights, I decided to pay for another flight to get me there direct the day before. So fingers crossed all goes well this week. 

 

Only ever risked (in many years of cruising) flying in the same day. Just not a relaxing way to start a cruise. Schipol is not my favourite airport I think you are right to build in a buffer…

[Nyhawkeye]

Pre-retirement we usually flew in on the day of the cruise and luckily never had an issue.  Glad to say retirement is next month and for our October cruise we will be able to fly in early, do some exploring, and then stay for more exploring after the cruise.  Much less stressful than the old days of trying to minimize the time away from work. 😀

Edited June 29, 2022 by Nyhawkeye

[drowelf]

On 6/23/2022 at 9:25 PM, cangelmd said:

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).

#2, #3 and #5 are our primary rules. For decades we lived at a United Hub (IAH) so connections to other Hubs (IAD/EWR) were never much of an issue. While it makes a long travel day, we have no problems spending 5+ or more hours between flights. Thats what the airport clubs are for. We can relax and not be too stressed before our final overseas flight.