Help! Experienced FLL Carnival cruisers

[Marmarjudy]

Your opinion: Will we be okay booking an 11 AM flight departure from FLL? We have done this many times after a Princess cruise from FLL, in peak season and on weekends, and never had a problem--we actually had time to spare.

 

We will take a cab to the airport, get first off debarkation time (after registering with the purser,) and we will be returning on Monday, not during the usual mass of returning Saturday or Sunday cruisers. I know that we always have the chance of late ship arrival, etc., but are willing to chance that if, under normal circumstances, we will have no problem.

 

My real question: does Carnival take that much longer to debark than Princess? We have never sailed Carnival out of FLL.

 

Thanks,

Judy

[Catrin]

Judy, we only sailed out of FLL once.. last November.

 

We were able to get VIP tags to leave the ship first, since we had an early flight.

We took a quick taxi and we were at the airport by 9:30. It was the easiest debarkation ever!

 

I know you are risking it, but if you can do it anywhere.. it is FLL.

GOod Luck!

Catrin

[Karter]

This is just my opinion based on past Carnival cruises out of FLL. Carnival has started a new debarkation procedure if you are willing to carry off your luggage by yourself. You will be the first to leave the ship - on the Valor last week (out of Miami) they started letting the self help passengers leave at 7:00 and they were all off by ~8:15. The airport is about 10 -15 minutes from the FLL piers. So if the ship is not delayed getting into port there should be no problem making an 11:00 flight - but you never can tell what may go wrong.

[mac4cruise]

On our cruise last March we were driving from the port (so we were in no hurry) and our cabin was one of the last to be called. We made it to our car and was on our way by 9:30. you should have no problems getting the airport in time especially if you are one of the first to get off the ship.

[ooulio]

We took a cruise out of Fort Lauerdale this past Feb. We were at the airport by 9:15am. Unfortunately, the airport closed down all flights to the East coast. It was the big snow storm we got. Couldn't get thru on the phones to find out. They were booking first class the next day and everyone on coach was 2-3 days out. Don't see any problem at all. You are so close. If it was Pt Canaveral, I never book til 2pm flights from there.