Princess Airport Transfer day of cruise...

[CHK]

This is a really dumb question, but for the first time we are flying in on the day of the cruise. We'll be arriving at Miami airport and have purchased a Princess transfer. Others have told us that Princess will have someone at baggage in the terminal with a sign so all we need to do is fetch our bags off the carousel and follow the reps directions. Question: when will we have time to attach our Princess luggage tags? Should we put them on as soon as we get our bags, wait until we arrive at the port? We have purchased luggage tag holders that attach with woven steel loops that attach by screwing the ends together.

[memoak]

Pull your airline tags put in the Princess tags and find the Princess reps takes about  3 minutes

[Rick&Jeannie]

You will almost *certainly* be waiting for a while for other passengers to join the group for the transfer. We have always had time while waiting to tag our bags.

[Tonsoffun44]

Take bags off carousel - take airline tag off and put princess tag on - Makes a little faster in the baggage area chaos if you put the cruise tags IN the tag holder just take them out of luggage/purse/carry-on and screw them on before finding the cruise rep. 

[cr8tiv1]

I always travel with my cruise tag holders attached to my luggage (without Princess inserts).  Be sure they are folded a little smaller than instructed.  Slip them into the holder as soon as you pull your luggage from the carousel.  

 

I love my holders with metal rings.  But they are difficult to put on/take off with arthritic fingers.  So they stay on.  Also...hint...color the screw end (or other end) so that you can "see" that you are moving in the correct direction.  

[TheDawg79]

It takes 8 seconds to attach luggage tags. Never heard of anyone needing to plan for this before!

[cr8tiv1]

Do not attach them before flying. 
 

Bring a stapler or duck tape. 

[Jaymuxman]

Unfortunately, your biggest concern might be the fact that you are flying in the day you are embarking. With all the crazy weather this country has been experiencing I wish you the best of luck. Hopefully, no airline delays or cancellations for you.🙏

[trvlwrld]

We always attach our Princess luggage tags before leaving home.  A gate attendant clued us in a couple of years back…if the airlines see a cruise tag or tour group tag attached, they will do their best to make sure your bag arrives with you because they don’t want to be responsible for trying to get it to you when you are a moving target on your vacation.

[Donwoods123]

We  always use Princess transfers to the ship and attach our princess tag to the bag when we first  meet the princess rep after we picked up our bag from the carousel.  They have a stapler.  We then give the  bag in to the Princess collection people,  and the next time we see the bag,  it is in our room.  Works well.  Before we leave home, we fold the tag and put scotch tape on the paper tag to reinforce it. We don't have special holders.  In 20+ cruises, we never had a problem with our luggage getting to our room.

[Hlitner]

Now that you have been told about how to handle your baggage tags you might consider our simple solution.  We NEVER use cruise line transfers in Florida ports (or most ports around the world).  We simply pick-up our luggage, walk outside, and grab a taxi (or summon an Uber).   No waiting around for others, no sitting in a van waiting for others, no looking for reps, etc.  We simply get in a car and off we go.  And the other benefit is that in Miami and Ft Lauderdale, using a taxi or Uber is generally less expensive than a cruise line transfer :).

 

That being said, we can only repeat the advice given by most frequent cruisers.  Do not fly in to your embarkation port on the day of a cruise!  You are putting your trip in the hands of an airline,  Airlines run late, airlines cancel 10s of thousands of flights every years, airlines lose luggage which can take hours or longer to catch-up, etc.  Yes, we have heard all the excuses why folks fly-in the day of cruises, and most are just excuses!   You want to deal with the anxiety of a last minute flight?  Ok.  

[57eric]

8 hours ago, Hlitner said:

Now that you have been told about how to handle your baggage tags you might consider our simple solution.  We NEVER use cruise line transfers in Florida ports (or most ports around the world).  We simply pick-up our luggage, walk outside, and grab a taxi (or summon an Uber).   No waiting around for others, no sitting in a van waiting for others, no looking for reps, etc.  We simply get in a car and off we go.  And the other benefit is that in Miami and Ft Lauderdale, using a taxi or Uber is generally less expensive than a cruise line transfer :).

 

That being said, we can only repeat the advice given by most frequent cruisers.  Do not fly in to your embarkation port on the day of a cruise!  You are putting your trip in the hands of an airline,  Airlines run late, airlines cancel 10s of thousands of flights every years, airlines lose luggage which can take hours or longer to catch-up, etc.  Yes, we have heard all the excuses why folks fly-in the day of cruises, and most are just excuses!   You want to deal with the anxiety of a last minute flight?  Ok.  

While I'd generally agree with you, given that the OP apparently lives in Florida, I think their risk level is reasonable.

[Steelers36]

8 hours ago, Hlitner said:

Now that you have been told about how to handle your baggage tags you might consider our simple solution.  We NEVER use cruise line transfers in Florida ports (or most ports around the world).  We simply pick-up our luggage, walk outside, and grab a taxi (or summon an Uber).   No waiting around for others, no sitting in a van waiting for others, no looking for reps, etc.  We simply get in a car and off we go.  And the other benefit is that in Miami and Ft Lauderdale, using a taxi or Uber is generally less expensive than a cruise line transfer :).

This.

[lahlah57]

20 hours ago, CHK said:

This is a really dumb question, but for the first time we are flying in on the day of the cruise. We'll be arriving at Miami airport and have purchased a Princess transfer. Others have told us that Princess will have someone at baggage in the terminal with a sign so all we need to do is fetch our bags off the carousel and follow the reps directions. Question: when will we have time to attach our Princess luggage tags? Should we put them on as soon as we get our bags, wait until we arrive at the port? We have purchased luggage tag holders that attach with woven steel loops that attach by screwing the ends together.

OMG.....that is a stressful moment cause those buggars are a feat to screw together. That is exactly what we will be doing in may so hoping that they will be waiting for a few people to give us time to get those stinkers on.

I'm starting to think about replacing with a ziptie. 

[JSandage]

17 hours ago, trvlwrld said:

We always attach our Princess luggage tags before leaving home.  A gate attendant clued us in a couple of years back…if the airlines see a cruise tag or tour group tag attached, they will do their best to make sure your bag arrives with you because they don’t want to be responsible for trying to get it to you when you are a moving target on your vacation.

We always do this too and never heard that we shouldn't put them off before we even leave our house. Seems like the tags might help your bag get where it needs to be if it does get lost

We use the plastic sleeves with the metal rings and they work great

[Rick&Jeannie]

We ordered these from Amazon:

 

 

I will not post a link because there are *hundreds* of choices just by typing in "cruise ship luggage tags".

Edited January 21 by Rick&Jeannie

[CHK]

21 hours ago, Jaymuxman said:

Unfortunately, your biggest concern might be the fact that you are flying in the day you are embarking. With all the crazy weather this country has been experiencing I wish you the best of luck. Hopefully, no airline delays or cancellations for you.🙏

We should be OK since only flying from Tampa to Miami--no direct flights to Ft Lauderdale from Tampa and didn't want to end up stranded in Charlotte or some other transfer point. We used to fly in a day ahead of time but I've developed a severe allergy to polyester (as bad as a peanut allergy would be) and every hotel in the US uses cotton/poly sheets. Thankfully not the cruise line!

 

[CHK]

16 hours ago, Hlitner said:

Now that you have been told about how to handle your baggage tags you might consider our simple solution.  We NEVER use cruise line transfers in Florida ports (or most ports around the world).  We simply pick-up our luggage, walk outside, and grab a taxi (or summon an Uber).   No waiting around for others, no sitting in a van waiting for others, no looking for reps, etc.  We simply get in a car and off we go.  And the other benefit is that in Miami and Ft Lauderdale, using a taxi or Uber is generally less expensive than a cruise line transfer :).

 

That being said, we can only repeat the advice given by most frequent cruisers.  Do not fly in to your embarkation port on the day of a cruise!  You are putting your trip in the hands of an airline,  Airlines run late, airlines cancel 10s of thousands of flights every years, airlines lose luggage which can take hours or longer to catch-up, etc.  Yes, we have heard all the excuses why folks fly-in the day of cruises, and most are just excuses!   You want to deal with the anxiety of a last minute flight?  Ok.  

You might want to see my reply to another member--would love to fly in a day early and have always done that in the past--but I've developed a severe allergy since 2020, cannot tolerate hotel sheets (they contain polyester) and would end up very sick before even getting on the ship. The only other possibility would be bringing my own sheets, pillowcases and maybe even pillows. Too much to deal with. We only booked the ship transfer because we're hoping that if we do end up with a flight problem, the cruise line would willing to hold the ship. But since our flight leaves at 7 a.m. I sure hope there's little risk in that happening.

 

 

Edited January 21 by CHK

[CHK]

31 minutes ago, Rick&Jeannie said:

We ordered these from Amazon:

 

 

I will not post a link because there are *hundreds* of choices just by typing in "cruise ship luggage tags".

Yes, these are the exact ones we got.

[CHK]

18 hours ago, trvlwrld said:

We always attach our Princess luggage tags before leaving home.  A gate attendant clued us in a couple of years back…if the airlines see a cruise tag or tour group tag attached, they will do their best to make sure your bag arrives with you because they don’t want to be responsible for trying to get it to you when you are a moving target on your vacation.

Wow, that is really interesting! I think we'll do that as well. Thanks for the tip.

[57eric]

3 hours ago, CHK said:

We should be OK since only flying from Tampa to Miami--no direct flights to Ft Lauderdale from Tampa and didn't want to end up stranded in Charlotte or some other transfer point. We used to fly in a day ahead of time but I've developed a severe allergy to polyester (as bad as a peanut allergy would be) and every hotel in the US uses cotton/poly sheets. Thankfully not the cruise line!

 

I realize your plans are already made and I'm sure you have your reasons for flying.  Others in your situation might find it less stressful to drive such a short distance.  Depending on the length of one's cruise, it also may be cheaper to rent a car than pay for parking, since Florida doesn't have drop off charges.

[Lady Arwen]

Flying in the same day in August for Canada New England cruise.  Booked EZAir and Princess transfers.  We have an early morning flight from Toronto to Newark…very short flight.  If something happens to that flight, there are numerous other flights to New York that could be substituted in a pinch.  The very worst scenario is EZAir flying us into our first port the next day.  I doubt that will happen.

 

We never, ever fly in same day, but our dog sitter, who we implicitly trust with our dogs, can’t accommodate us a day earlier.  And no, we can’t get another sitter for even a day.  We are staying in an airport location hotel in Toronto to ensure we get to the airport on time.  So, fingers crossed!

[Abercrombie2019]

Our first cruise ever was a Panama Canal cruise out of Fort Lauderdale on October 5, 2005.  We flew into Miami the day of the cruise and had a transfer from the airport to the ship.  We made it without incident, but we didn't know how lucky we actually were.

 

We didn't know anything about cruising, or hurricane season.  2005 was devastating.

 

We try not to fly in same day anymore - and we always buy insurance (there are too many things that are beyond our control).

[CHK]

Thanks for all of the comments and suggestions. We've done many of the things suggested--arrived a day early and stayed overnight in a hotel (not an option for us anymore due to my allergy)--as well as rented a car and driven to the port on the same day. But we live quite a distance north of Tampa and  it's not really a short drive (5 to 6 hours). Our old backs don't do well with long non-stop driving. Since we have an early non-stop flight we should be okay. On cruises out of foreign ports, we fly in days and even weeks ahead of time but many hotels in foreign countries are able to provide cotton bedding. This will be our 55th and 56th cruise with Princess in addition to many cruises on HAL and other lines. But this is only the third time we've flown in on departure day. One was our very first cruise in 1983 and the second one as escorts with a large group of seniors. I'm sure we'll be fine--and I already have our Princess luggage tags attached to our bags with those stainless steel loops. Glad we attached them in advance because it's tricky to screw those two ends together! Thank you all again

 

[ldubs]

On 1/20/2024 at 3:12 PM, TheDawg79 said:

It takes 8 seconds to attach luggage tags. Never heard of anyone needing to plan for this before!

 

Relax.  They are asking about the process.