10:19 am departure from FLL - can I make it?

[newtocruiseinblue]

The title says it all.....can I make it or no?

[Crazy For Cats]

26 minutes ago, newtocruiseinblue said:

The title says it all.....can I make it or no?

It’s possible but everything has to go correctly for it to happen.  The ship can’t be late arriving to port, immigration and customs must be quick, you will need to self disembark carrying all your luggage and taxis must be ready to take you.  Then you need airport security to go smoothly, not always the case.

We try and go with 11 as the earliest and at times could have made a 10 am flight, other times we would have missed the flight.

[0106]

Yes.  In February, we self disembarked, carrying our own luggage at about 8:30.  Breezed through facial recognition customs, jumped in a cab and were at the airport before 9.  Only caveat, it was a Wednesday.  If it was a Saturday, we probably would have gotten off the ship earlier because there would have been more ships at the port and FLL would have been busier.

[newtocruiseinblue]

11 minutes ago, Crazy For Cats said:

It’s possible but everything has to go correctly for it to happen.  The ship can’t be late arriving to port, immigration and customs must be quick, you will need to self disembark carrying all your luggage and taxis must be ready to take you.  Then you need airport security to go smoothly, not always the case.

We try and go with 11 as the earliest and at times could have made a 10 am flight, other times we would have missed the flight.

You are right! It's not worth the worry!

[CruiserBruce]

Commonly discussed on the Florida Departures board. If you can carry your luggage off, and have no mobility issues, and grab the first taxi...you can do it.

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

That is to tight..

[1025cruise]

While it might be possible, if it were me I'd be sweating bullets.

[0106]

@newtocruiseinblueyou should do whatever makes you feel comfortable.  I am lucky that Southwest has 20+ flights a day to my home airport.  I book the 11 o’clock flight every time we cruise into Port Everglades.  Have never missed the flight.  Have often sat at the gate for 2+ hours.  FLL is about 3 miles from the port.  

[BoozinCroozin]

We have an 11AM out of FLL cruise from Miami. Tons of people that have been able to make it. But, the only ones you hear from are those that missed it. These are the people that had Carnival take their bags, get a late debark time, spend an hour looking for their bag, etc. If you take your own bags, get in the front of the self-assist line (or have FTTF or D/P/S), have a passport and TSA Precheck, you will be fine. 

[DaveOKC]

I would only book this time if I had a good backup plan (like another flight to get on if I missed mine).  Another option, which I have used several times at FLL, is to book a later flight and then get to the airport as early as possible and ask to change to the earlier flight as I am checking my luggage.  This often works at FLL since the early flights are not as fully booked as the ones after 11 am due to the huge cruise passenger demand.

[Cienfuegos]

The Saturday and Sunday late morning cruise passenger surge into the Miami and Fort Lauderdale air terminals is not to be minimized. Bus loads of people being dropped off, lines of people printing tickets at the kiosks, dropping bags, waiting for TSA, etc.

 

A 10 am flight departure requires a lot of things to line up perfectly, but it can be done

[BoozinCroozin]

2 hours ago, Cienfuegos said:

The Saturday and Sunday late morning cruise passenger surge into the Miami and Fort Lauderdale air terminals is not to be minimized. Bus loads of people being dropped off, lines of people printing tickets at the kiosks, dropping bags, waiting for TSA, etc.

 

A 10 am flight departure requires a lot of things to line up perfectly, but it can be done

Easy to combat this. Get off before those busses have to wait to fill up, passengers lollygagging off the ship looking for their luggage. All this while you self-assist off, get an Uber for just yourself by 8AM and at the airport by 8:45AM. Then about 10AM all those busses start to show up and you are already at your gate waiting.

[PMGS247]

I've sailed out of FLL 8 times, and every single time would have easily made it to the airport in time for a 10am flight.  Having said that, even an 11am flight makes me nervous.  Murphy's law just seems like it's waiting to pounce.

[Cienfuegos]

On two of my many trips into Fort Lauderdale and Miami, Customs / TSA dock staff  did not arrive at the expected time. Although we had been told that top groups and walk-offs would begin shortly after 7 am, it was almost 8 am before the process began.

 

I don't know if there was a labor action or just a shortage of staff, but it is one contingency to consider when planning a tight connection.

[Lee Cruiser]

It can be done.  We've only done Carnival out of there, so we're not familiar with the debarkation on other lines.  Last time we cruised from there was in September 2019.  We were platinum and did checked luggage with zone 1, so we were the first group of checked luggage off the ship. Our notes show we were off the ship around 8. We could have been off 30 minutes or so earlier had we done self-assist luggage.  Again, we were platinum on Carnival, so not sure how other lines work.  We did a taxi to the airport. We were through security and sitting at the gate for our 10:30 Jet Blue flight at 8:37.

 

*As a note, we did have a backup plan just in case.  We had a Southwest flight booked later that afternoon that we were able to cancel for future credit.

 

We are doing a similar thing this September.  This time we are cruising out of Miami and have an 11 am Southwest flight out of FLL.  However, we do have another flight booked later in the afternoon just in case.  We paid the extra $52 each to make it refundable.  Both flights are refundable and it takes away the worry of missing a flight and having to scurry to find something else at much higher rates.

 

We've done early flights on numerous occasions (often without a backup plan) and have never had a problem making them.  In 20+ cruises, we've never been more than 20-30 minutes late debarking and that was once.  However, there's always that one time where things could go wrong, so if there's a way, we try to do a backup plan when doing early flights.

Edited June 16, 2023 by Lee Cruiser

[DaveOKC]

Good idea of double booking!  Especially on SW, which makes it so easy to do.  Plus, if you use points for your trip they go back into your account (except for taxes of course).

[0106]

On 6/16/2023 at 1:57 PM, DaveOKC said:

 

Good idea of double booking!  Especially on SW,

You are not allowed to double book on Southwest: Prohibition of Multiple/Conflicting Reservations: To promote seat availability for our Customers, Southwest prohibits multiple reservations for the same Passenger departing from the same city on the same date, or any multiple reservations containing conflicting or overlapping itineraries (such as departures for the same Customer from multiple cities at the same time). Furthermore, without advance notice to the Passenger or purchaser, Southwest may cancel such reservations, or any other reservations that it believes, in its sole discretion, were made without intent to travel

[DaveOKC]

1 hour ago, 0106 said:

You are not allowed to double book on Southwest: Prohibition of Multiple/Conflicting Reservations: To promote seat availability for our Customers, Southwest prohibits multiple reservations for the same Passenger departing from the same city on the same date, or any multiple reservations containing conflicting or overlapping itineraries (such as departures for the same Customer from multiple cities at the same time). Furthermore, without advance notice to the Passenger or purchaser, Southwest may cancel such reservations, or any other reservations that it believes, in its sole discretion, were made without intent to travel

I never knew this, but then again I have never tried it in the first place so it never came up.  I guess that one other approach would be to book different airlines.

 

[Lee Cruiser]

6 hours ago, DaveOKC said:

I never knew this, but then again I have never tried it in the first place so it never came up.  I guess that one other approach would be to book different airlines.

 

Yes, it has to be on separate airlines.