I think my husband is crazy

[ColeThornton]

3 minutes ago, graphicguy said:

2.  It has to be a direct flight, with at least one later flight as back up that gets me to the pier on time for SAILAWAY

 

I think you probably mean "non-stop" flight instead of "direct".  Different things.

[zzdoug]

59 minutes ago, European_CruiseGirl said:

Men usually tend to believe in hard cold facts. 

Hmm. Is this accurate? Also: What do women and trans people usually believe in? 

 

Anyway, Puerto Rico is fabulous. I suggest flying in 2 days early so you have time to enjoy it. Take a trip to Vieques, visit the rainforest, eat at the Lechon highway, or at Bobos restaurant, walk around old San Juan and the fort, etc.

Edited December 23, 2022 by zzdoug
Correction

[graphicguy]

4 minutes ago, ColeThornton said:

 

I think you probably mean "non-stop" flight instead of "direct".  Different things.

Correct.  Also meant no connections.

[PATRLR]

1 hour ago, European_CruiseGirl said:

Men usually tend to believe in hard cold facts. If you give me the flight number I could check from flighradar the last 3 month statistics of that flight. Perhaps that would help too. I am quite positive the flights are almost always delayed nowadays…

Good point.  I am pretty sure I know what flight he is looking at, so I went to get the flight number and look what I see on Google Flights:

[phillygwm]

Reminds me of my employer.  They had offsites each January but somewhere sunny would have been out of budget.  So we went to Albany or Newport RI.  Predictably, we got snowed in several times and whatever savings they would have derived was offset by an extra hotel night, with us ordering filet and running up bar bills while snowed in 🙂

 

But you're right.  The only port I'll do same day is NY and that's because it's a train ride which I could drive if necessary.  Even without weather considerations, stuff happens.  Saving $500 is not worth elevating my blood pressure on vacation.

 

 

Edited December 23, 2022 by phillygwm

[wil e coyote]

We fly out of BDL regularly, and I am a guy (if that matters.) I wouldn't take that flight to SJU if I wanted to be confident of getting on the ship, even in the summer. You only need to be late by about an hour before you're really in jeopardy of making the sailing. With national on-time rates for US airlines at about 77% this year, you're looking at a 1-in-4 chance of running like crazy to make it to your cruise vacation or missing it altogether.

There really isn't a good alternate airport in Puerto Rico if you need to fly into somewhere else for flight options - as compared to Miami, where you can also fly into Fort Lauderdale or even Palm Beach if you had to and rent a car.

All that together - we would (and did) fly in a day early. Less stress and good insurance.

[ChiefMateJRK]

15 hours ago, Grumpella said:

We did fly to San Juan last month for a cruise the day before and spent $500 more between hotel, food, extra cab rides. 

We always fly in day before and have never come close to spending an extra $500.  We just book a reasonable hotel with included breakfast and order a pizza the night before.  As an example, on AK cruises we stay at a Hyatt in Seattle with points and grab a Zekes pizza (great pizza!) for around $20.  The extra travel "leg" (Uber/Lyft to port) costs about $15.  $35 total to eliminate a whole lot of stress and get a drink and burger in The Local before noon. 😎

[BirdTravels]

17 hours ago, Grumpella said:

We are booked on the Epic leaving out of San Juan at 7pm in January.

 

We are buying our plane tickets tomorrow.  He wants to fly in that day.  4 hr direct flight, from Hartford, CT, we would land at 3:30 if all goes well.  I think this is crazy.

 

We did fly to San Juan last month for a cruise the day before and spent $500 more between hotel, food, extra cab rides.  We arrived on time, is his point. 

 

We did buy the insurance so we would get back 90% fcc if we miss the boat.

 

Help me.  lol

Flying from the NE isn’t working today, but you’ll have better luck in January.
 

Read very carefully about the distinction between cancelling a cruise and no showing in your insurance and NCL’s FCC offer. 

Edited December 23, 2022 by BirdTravels

[Cruiseingbug]

Now most Guys are football fans. Just tell him the NFL requires that traveling teams must travel at least 1 or 2 days in advance of game day. Now if that is a NFL requirement it should be good enough for him as well to leave early. No sane male can go against NFL logic, right?

[Lemony32]

The snowstorm that started around 7AM this morning reminds me why we pay extra to fly in the day before and book the earliest non-stop flight.

 

On a group cruise, my friends thought my husband and I were crazy to book the first flight out and they booked flights later in the day or on the day of. There was a major snowstorm the day we flew out. My husband and I got to the airport early while the roads were clear and we had breakfast and hung out in the airport lounge until we boarded our 6:30AM flight. When we landed in SJU, we discovered our friends had missed their flights because they were stuck in traffic because the roads hadn’t been plowed. Fortunately, they got onto another flight later that evening but it had an overnight stop over.

 

The couple who flew in on the day of, didn’t make it for embarkation and they joined us on the last 3 days of the cruise. They couldn’t get flights into the ports we visited for the first half of the cruise.

 

I hope you have good travel insurance.

[JGmf]

"I think my husband is crazy"

 

Not crazy, more like an irrational gambler with your vacation on the line.  Not worth the gamble.

[eileeshb]

If it’s paying for a night in San Juan you can get cheaper accommodation options outside the old city and the embarkation pier is not one of the old city piers either. 
I stayed at a BnB pre cruise and an Air BnB after my cruise, 5nights total cost about €500.

Both were within walking distance of local eateries that were relatively cheap and I even got Uber eats delivered to the BnB. There’s plenty of Uber drivers around with varying sizes of vehicles.

[Grumpella]

We bought tickets today for the day before. No worries (but a lot of nagging) lol

[ChiefMateJRK]

1 hour ago, Grumpella said:

We bought tickets today for the day before. No worries (but a lot of nagging) lol

Did you tell him that nine out of ten Cruise Critic posters said that plan A was crazy?

[barb65]

You have how much already invested in a cruise and he's worried about another $500? We always fly in a day before even during nice weather just for peace of mind and less stress.

[GeezerCouple]

duplicate - sorry!

Edited December 23, 2022 by GeezerCouple

[GeezerCouple]

19 hours ago, Babr said:

 

If you plan to use the CFAR provision, remember that you have to cancel before the ship departs. If the ship leaves without you, it is too late to cancel.

 

It might be worse that this.

At least some CFAR (Cancel For Any Reason) policies require that you cancel at least 48 hours before planned departure.

 

GC

[GeezerCouple]

Uh oh... Triplicate!!

😡

Edited December 23, 2022 by GeezerCouple

[Travelling2Some]

9 hours ago, skeeter195 said:

When we travel, I am in charge of all the getting there and returning from details, no questions asked.  I am a planner and my wife or travelling companions have little say. 

 

With that being said and reading this thread I am now going to write up a contract stating that if I EVER  tried to fly in day of and land in the afternoon that I will be immediately removed from my planning duties.  

 

I know things are not cheap anymore flying in the day before but make the best of it and just think of it as extending the vacation.  

Same here.  After 40 plus years of marriage and traveling together my husband has developed a level of sacred trust in my planning which I would never damage.  I am a lunatic over-planner because I enjoy it.  Such is his trust that he once asked me on the way to the gate, "So, where exactly are we going?"  Needless to say, flying in the same day as the cruise is completely out of the question.  Out of the northeast in the winter is not just out of the question, it's nuts.

[J0Y0US]

Flying in to SJU in January but we have a layover overnight at MCO and we are the first of 4 flights that can make it to SJU in time for boarding.

 

Could we have flown in the day before? Sure but the total cost would have been probably a good $1500 more total.

 

I feel like my plan makes the best of it and if we miss the cruise it would stink but would be in Orlando so possibly just find a place for the week and hit up WDW instead (we have APs).

[wcook]

For what it’s worth, I flew BDL -> SJU yesterday. As I’m sure the news reports pointed out, it seemed like half the flights in the country were cancelled or delayed. I hear there’s some sort of storm going on (It’s 78 and beautiful here in San Juan on board the Epic.) We were only delayed 90 minutes, but that would not have been fun if flying in with a quick turnaround 

Edited December 23, 2022 by wcook

[Travelling2Some]

5 minutes ago, J0Y0US said:

I feel like my plan makes the best of it and if we miss the cruise it would stink but would be in Orlando so possibly just find a place for the week and hit up WDW instead (we have APs).

Having a Plan B that is almost as good as Plan A works.

[asmit4]

I don't get landing at 3:30 either. Don't you have to be on the ship by 4 or 5? That's just NUTSO.

[cruiseny4life]

1 hour ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

Did you tell him that nine out of ten Cruise Critic posters said that plan A was crazy?

But...did he care what we think? Mine typically doesn't when I tell him something I've read on here. Of course that could be because I'm reading the daily scandalous posts.

[complawyer]

i wont accuse your husband of being crazy, but it seems he certainly likes to live on the edge. one cruise, we were booked on delta airlines, connecting to atlanta, taking the red eye ( i dont remember where we were departing from ) but the flight was supposed to leave lax at 9:00 p.m. it was delayed until after mid-night, and naturally, the connecting flight in atlanta wasn't anywhere near the gate where we landed.

 

the only reason we made the connection, is because the captain was also delayed. i was cursing up a storm, and really sweating it. tell your hubby, pop for the few extra $$$, book an inexpensive hotel for the prior night, then grab a cab to the ship on departure day, it will allow everyone to breathe a lot easier