Carnival transfers...

[MamaParrotHead]

I know that most of the time they get a bad rap and when flying into an airport that's near the port, it's usually more time effective (and from what I've seen, just about the same cost) to take a taxi.

 

We're looking at flying into Ft. Lauderdale to sail out of Miami. To take a private car service it's like $30 pp round trip (and I can't imagine how they fit 4 people plus ALL our baggage into a sedan :confused: ), and for the Carnival transfers it's like $40 pp round trip.

 

How do transfers work? Does Carnival pick up your baggage for you and load it on the bus? Who is waiting, and where, to direct us to the bus? Is our luggage automatically put into the crates dockside, or do we have to sort through it once we get to the ship, and mess around with porters and such? And how does it work on debarkation day? I'm clueless about this, last time we just hopped some cabs. Can someone give me a quick rundown of pros and cons?

 

Thanks!

[palmtre2]

There will be a cruise line representative at the baggage claim area that will direct you to where the buses will come in. A porter (also in cruise line garb) will take your bags from you (do yourself a favor and tip this guy, we did and he put us at the front of the line!!! Thanks - Nelson.) and load them on the bus. The porter will also tell you where to line up to board the bus. At the pier the bus is unloaded and if you had the cruise line luggage tags (filled out of course) on your bags you DO NOT have to touch your luggage again - it is loaded directly onto the ship.

While this has worked well for us in the past, we flew in to FLL last year for a cruise out of MIA and did the private car route that worked great. I think I answered a post of yours on another board. We used TriCounty, right at the airport and arranged for them to pick us up at the port for our return.

[momofzeke]

One thing to consider about the cruise ship transfers is that if anything delays the ship coming into port, it makes the transfers late getting to you because they have to wait around at the pier to get the passengers off the ship and to the airport. That happened to us, and as we sat on the floor of the airport, waiting for the transfer buses to get to us, we were watching Super Shuttles and taxis whizzing by and wishing we were on one of them! It is something that probably doesn't happen very often, but I personally will not use cruise ship transfers again. It isn't Carnival's fault; they had no control over the situation (medical emergency onboard made the ship late getting into Long Beach). Just something to be aware of. :)

[LizaMM]

I know that most of the time they get a bad rap and when flying into an airport that's near the port, it's usually more time effective (and from what I've seen, just about the same cost) to take a taxi.

 

We're looking at flying into Ft. Lauderdale to sail out of Miami. To take a private car service it's like $30 pp round trip (and I can't imagine how they fit 4 people plus ALL our baggage into a sedan :confused: ), and for the Carnival transfers it's like $40 pp round trip.

 

How do transfers work? Does Carnival pick up your baggage for you and load it on the bus? Who is waiting, and where, to direct us to the bus? Is our luggage automatically put into the crates dockside, or do we have to sort through it once we get to the ship, and mess around with porters and such? And how does it work on debarkation day? I'm clueless about this, last time we just hopped some cabs. Can someone give me a quick rundown of pros and cons?

 

Thanks!

 

 

I have sailed out of Miami 2 times, both times I flew into FLL. Once I took the shuttle and once I took a private car.

 

When you arrive at FLL there will be Carnival reps who will tell you where to drop your luggage. In my experience in other airports the shuttle is very close to the baggage claim area but the one time I used the Carnival shuttle from FLL I had to tote our luggage a longer dstance than I would have liked (I was a single mom traveling with 4 kids, 2 of which were quite young and not able to assist much with a LOT of bags). The private car service I hired included a meet and greet for a little but more money my bags were wisked away and I did not have to shlep anything that time :) When we used the Carnival Shuttle in FLL we had to wait for about 45 minutes for enough Pax to arrive before we could even trek over to the bus and then the bus made additional stops at other areas in the aiport to pick people up. My private car took me and my DD right away and wisked us off to where we needed to go.

 

I recently used the Carnival transfer out of MCO and that was a wonderful experience but personally, I had a much better, less stressful experience out of FLL using a private car and it was well worth the extra money!!! I did however use Carnival transfer both times from the pier to the airport on my return and both were good experiences.