Flight arrives at 2:30, ship departs at 4:00..enough time?

[Latrobean]

We are flying into Miami around 2:20 and the ship departs at 4PM. According to the Carnival website, the cut-off time for an arrival is 2:30...so we just made it, but I am still nervous. I know that the airport is 8 miles from the port and I am thinking of booking ground transport with Carnival itself hoping that it will ensure getting us to the ship on time. Any advise, suggestions or comments from someone that has done this before would be helpful...thanks

[just4kixx]

You may want to check out the thread linked to this thread... http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=391501If

 

I always schedule to fly in a day early.

 

Is it possible to make it? Yes... if absolutely everything is on time and goes off without a hitch. What time of year are you flying? What airline are you flying? What if the flight is delayed just 1/2 hour?

 

Is it worth it? Not in my opinion.

 

Good Luck!

A~

[greatam]

I think you are taking a REALLY big chance of missing your cruise. Look what happened this morning in LA. Air traffic control glitched out again. Backed up flights all over the US. Had nothing to do with bad weather.

 

My best suggestion if you insist on taking this flight-travel VERY light (carryons only) and RUN to a taxi. You may just make the cruise.

[wrp96]

You have to be checked in by at least 30 minutes, if not an hour before the cruise - check with Carnival to see what their cutoff is for letting people check-in. It's at least 20 to 30 minutes to the Port of Miami from MIA. The only way you might possibly make it is if you don't have any checked luggage.

 

So you land at 2:20, but unless you are in first class, it will probably take you about 10 minutes to get off the plane. So now you are up to 2:30. If you come in at a far gate (which is usually what happens when you are in a hurry), give yourself at least 10 minutes to get to ground transport (assuming no checked bags), so now you are up to 2:40. Catch a taxi to the port, and even if the ride only takes 20 minutes you are now up to 3pm - and if the cut-off for check-in is 1 hour before, then you've just missed your cruise.

 

And this is without any delays at all. Last time I flew into MIA, we actually landed early but there were no gates available so we ended up getting to the gate about 20 minutes after we were supposed to arrive. If you need to check luggage, then you need to add at least 30 minutes to an hour to your timeline.

[janetz]

No, that is too late. If you have a delay your out of luck. Try to switch to an EARLY am flight. The best thing to do is fly down the day before. ;)

[Desert Cruisers]

As others have said, you are better off taking an earlier flight or flying in the day before. Miami is a big and busy airport. Aside from flight delays, you may find the traffic around the airport quite congested.:)

[betcat]

It seem we just had a thread like this over the last few weeks. They lucked out and made it by 10 min. Lets pull up a chair and start getting our bets out on the table. I start with 50$ they don't make it.

[wrp96]

It seem we just had a thread like this over the last few weeks. They lucked out and made it by 10 min. Lets pull up a chair and start getting our bets out on the table. I start with 50$ they don't make it.

 

At least that family gave themselves 2 hours to make the ship - and they weren't flying through MIA. They were flying through FLL and going to Port Everglades, which is a lot closer together than MIA and Port of Miami.

[steve20832]

We flew in the night before and spent the night in a hotel. We felt much more comfortable doing that just in case flight was delayed or the luggage got lost. We were also able to sleep in on boarding day and grab lunch on the ship.

[Latrobean]

Thanks for everyone's help...there are actually 10 of us going and 6 of us did book a flight the day before (about one month ago)...it was the other 4 that I was worried about. But they did rebook the flight from Sunday to Saturday and we are all staying in South Beach that night.

On a side note, Airtran had actually pushed back the Miami flight arrival time (on Saturday)...although the added time would have only been about 20 minutes, the other 4 in our group would have definitely never made it to the ship on time. I have to commend Airtran because they allowed them to change their reservation and waived the $50 fee. I know for a fact that other airlines would never had done that without a major fight. We will fly Airtran again just because of the no hassle alone...so everything worked out...thanks again!

[just4kixx]

I am relieved to hear that you could convince the 4 to change their flights, and delighted that Airtran came through for you!

 

Last summer I had a similar experience with Airtran, where I misbooked 1 person in my party's flight (by a whole month :eek: )... anyways, when I caught my error, I figured I would just eat the change fee since it was my own stupid mistake... turns out Airtran wiaved the change fee AND gave a credit for the price difference in the new (correct) flight! :D

 

Enjoy your relaxing trip!

A~

PS... howdie neighbor... I'm from Langhorne :)

[PoohUnderstands]

One thing you or anyone could do. This happened on our last cruise.

 

There were about 14 people on a flight to FLL from NY area that came in alittle late. These people would have missed the cruise except for one thing. Two young girls traveling together had purchased the cruise line's transfers, not their air, just the transfers. Because of that, the ship was help and a big bus was there to pick up not only those two but the other 12 who really owed mucho thank you drinks to those two girls!!

 

So if for some reason you have to fly in that close, ask about transfers and if they hold for you or maybe the above was just a fluke, albeit a nice one!

 

Pooh

[BEAV]

I used to work in an airline call center. Schedule changes were always situations where you could get penalties waived if you needed to make a change. When the airline notifies you of a schedule change that doesn't work for you, pick up the phone and call them and have them rebook you to an itinerary that is suitable (on the same dates, that is). I have since put this into practice myself a number of times and have never been assessed a penalty.