Galapagos Flight Difficult; Connect in Panama?

Hello,

I'm hoping for some advice from my fellow Cruise Critic friends. We need a flight from New York JFK to Quito Ecuador in May for our Galapagos cruise on the Xpedition. There is one nonstop that is out of our budget; it is double the price of most other flights. We are seeing flights with connections in Miami with either 51 minutes or 13 hours to connect, neither is very desirable. There is a flight with a more reasonable connection time that connects in Panama City. I would prefer to connect in the US. Does anyone have any experience with connecting in Panama City? How big is the airport, and is the airport easy or difficult to get through? Also wondering about language and currency, will English and US dollars work there? Will we have to go through Immigration in both Panama and Ecuador? We are very unfamiliar with this part of the world, so any advice is very much appreciated. Thanks in Advance.

We are in Quito....We usually pass through Houston (via united)when flying to the USA or Canada, not sure how that works out for u.

Starting in December, American will start flying out of dallas'Forth Worth Texas direct to Quito

There are other airlines that often don't show up on big search engines, such as Copa and Tame you may want to check out

Make sure u have travel insurance....The Volcano Cotapaxi is showing moderate levels of activity..right now spewing out gas and ash...could stay this way for day..months ....years, or it could erupt....... On a clear day u can see it (turn down volume) http://www.seguridad.gob.ec/volcancotopaxi/index.php/en-vivo-volcancotopaxi/

Quito is at altitude..bothers some peoples others not...read up on altitude sickness and how to combat it. Quito airport is very new, about 30-40 minutes outside of Quito. Very little English is spoken here....American $$$ is the currency.

Suggest you go on to a couple of search sites for flights. Kayak and Cheapo Air are two that come to mind. Would also certainly call Celebrity air. It appears you have not explored too far on your own. Panama uses the US$ for currency and English is spoken by most and certainly would be available at the airport, just like almost every airport in the World. If you stay in the airport and do not leave the terminal in Panama you should not need to clear customs there. Try several searches and you can be an expert on this. FWIW - It took me about 1 minute to find a non-stop and several others.

Thanks to you both for your ideas. Choice Air will not show any flights online, you must call. When we called, they offered us the same flights we had found on our own - 51 minutes or 13 hours to connect thru Miami. Out of NY, there is only 1 nonstop that is too expensive. I'll try to think of some other airlines that might not show up on the major search engines in case there is something else out there. I am leaning towards the Panama City connection, so if anyone has any info on the Panama City airport, I'd appreciate it. Or maybe I should spend a few days in Texas and then fly nonstop from there. Thanks again for your ideas.

Daisy - I did an easy Kayak search and found a nonstop from TAME. Also several good connections through Miami, Bogota and others. COPA (operated or associated with United) has a flight for about $430 thru Panama! The nonstop was $200 more. Seemed a pretty good fare for the security of not needing to change planes and miss a $5000 cruise. I note Kayak showed 9 airlines I had never heard of before.

Az_Tchr - Thanks for the additional info on Copa. The only nonstop I saw out of NY was $1484 on Tame. This cruise is already pressing my budget before the flights. I will look into Copa, I would be comfortable with them since they are affiliated with United. $200 extra for a nonstop would be worth it as long as I can get it out of NY. On my searches, that nonstop was $900 per person more than the others. As for some of the other airlines, I am a bit uneasy about using an airline I never heard of. I thank you and Flames9 for the suggestions.

I can't say much about Panama, but if you are flying to Quito, make sure you plan to arrive at least 24+ hours before your flight to Galapagos. I did a trip to Galapagos a couple of years ago, and our flight to Quito was diverted to Guayaquil (because of weather in Quito) where we spent the night (American Airlines). Because the pilots needed X hours of rest, they were not going to fly us to Quito until Noon the next day. The problem was that my flight to Galapagos was at 10:00 a.m. the next day, and there were no seats on any flight before my ship sailed. I managed to catch my flight directly from Guayaquil (it was a planned stop on my flight), but American wouldn't release my luggage. I had to shop for clothes in San Cristobal. I've since been told that Quito often closes at night due to weather. If you can arrange it, it is safer to fly into Guayaquil.

Panama's Tocumen International (PTY) is good sized airport... grown a lot from when I used to frequent it years ago. I flew there to meet a cruise a little over a year ago. As a side note, PTY is a big hub for COPA. You won't have to go through Panama Immigration if you are changing planes unless you wish to leave the airport. All that said, I would feel better changing planes in the US if I had my druthers. I am not worried about me changing planes... more so the luggage!

Atlanta has one nonstop per day to Quito on Delta. New York to Atlanta has bazillions of non stops to choose from. Do not know what price range you are looking for, but this may work.

I can't say much about Panama, but if you are flying to Quito, make sure you plan to arrive at least 24+ hours before your flight to Galapagos. I did a trip to Galapagos a couple of years ago, and our flight to Quito was diverted to Guayaquil (because of weather in Quito) where we spent the night (American Airlines). Because the pilots needed X hours of rest, they were not going to fly us to Quito until Noon the next day. The problem was that my flight to Galapagos was at 10:00 a.m. the next day, and there were no seats on any flight before my ship sailed. I managed to catch my flight directly from Guayaquil (it was a planned stop on my flight), but American wouldn't release my luggage. I had to shop for clothes in San Cristobal. I've since been told that Quito often closes at night due to weather. If you can arrange it, it is safer to fly into Guayaquil.

New Airport in Quito..well outside the city now

I was flying United from New York to Panama and then Copa Air to Quito.

Copa is same standard as United. Panama Airport easy to navigate. No language problems. US$ will work an no immigration problems!

But as mentioned in an earlier post. Fly into Galapagos at least on day prior to the cruise. A delayed flight might easily result in a missed cruise!

We flew Orlando, Miami, Quito when we went to Galapagos. We arrived at airport very early in Orlando and it was good as they rushed us to flight leaving for Miami. The flight we were booked to take had maintenance issues and arrived in Orlando after our flight left Miami for Quito. We would have missed our flight to Quito if we had not been early. You never know when the flight is not an originator whether it will arrive on time or at all. Better safe than sorry. Go early and enjoy Quito. There are many flights from New York to Miami so it should not be an issue choosing one in your budget. Then just book Miami to Quito.

13 hours sounds about right to connect in Miami....

Our trip to Quito (and back) was just miserable.

51 minutes to connect in Miami on the way down actually would be doable, except that, for us, due to a fire in an FAA facility we were scheduled to fly the next day and switched from American to LAN. LAN was a far superior airlines, but if you go out of the international terminal in Miami, you have to leave security and go back through. Our plane was also delayed, so while if we went AA to AA, we would have literally walked to the gate next to us; that flight was already booked. With a 3-hour layover scheduled, we only ended up having an hour and we ended up being the last ones on the plane. And it took an outburst of crying at the ticket counter after they told me that ticketing was closed, and some begging to skip the line at security. Thank God we made it (we of course missed the land tour provided by Celebrity due to the fire)

Coming HOME- our flight was delayed leaving Quito. We would have made our return flight except for the way rechecking bags is handled out of customs. Rather than directing people who have missed flights to another counter, they rebook everyone there. We were lucky for our luggage to come up early, but by the time the 25 or so people in front of us had rechecked/rebooked it had been more than an hour and a half in that line (plus maybe 30-45 minutes in customs) and we would no longer be able to make our flight... we ended up getting rescheduled for 12 hours later.

Summary of long rambling post: I'd honestly go with 13 hours in Miami.

I imagine these things could happen in Panama too, and I'd be less confident working with the gate agents to fix things.

Hello ... Allow me pls ... Check copa website www copaair com there is a nonstop flight from jfk to panama . Copa also has flights from Chicago, boston, new orleans among others . Copa just recently became part of star alliance group. United also has non stop to panama from newark and delta from atlanta. Tocumen airport is very friendly and currently being expanded. Tocumen is the hub of the Americas. You will not have regrets. Monitor closely copa ... They always have good promotions specially flying from US. Let me know if you need more info .. Regards

Rosana

PS : US$ is our currency and English is spoken well

Well, thank you again to everyone for all this great information. We love the cruise experience, but the getting there and back home is never too much fun. We have a 10 night package with Celebrity that includes 2 nights in a Quito hotel before the flight to Galapagos, so we are hopeful that will be enough time even if there are flight delays. The package also includes transfers to/from the hotel/airport in Quito, so we would like to fly into Quito. Thanks for the tip about frequent airport closings at night time. As we continue our flight search, we will also try to find something that arrives in the afternoon - perhaps an overnight flight that originates the day before. We are trying different web sites, but not seeing some of the flights others have mentioned - only one nonstop from NY that is more than double the price of flights with one stop. This trip is already expensive enough, so we were hoping to keep the flight cost reasonable.

Connecting in Miami, Choice Air tells us 45 minutes is the legal connection time, so 51 minutes should be OK. We don't feel confident with that. Flights out of NY are frequently delayed, and we think we'd have to change from a domestic terminal to an international terminal, possibly having to go through security again. So, the 13 hour connection time sounds better to us than 51 minutes, but still not very desirable. We are leaning towards the Panama City connection unless we find something better, or a nonstop with a reasonable price. We still have time, so we are going to take a break from searching for flights, and then in another week or two try again. You never know what might change or pop up in the meantime. Thank you again to everyone for your comments, ideas, and suggestions. You have all been very helpful.

I have connected through Panama on Copa twice. Very easy to do , the airport is small and very easy to navigate. There are some pleasant shops and cafés and we experienced no delays on out particular flights.

I would not hesitate to fly this route again.

Btw , we did the Galapagos trip on the Xpedition and it was absolutely wonderful. One of our favorite cruises ever.

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Daisy - I did an easy Kayak search and found a nonstop from TAME. Also several good connections through Miami, Bogota and others. COPA (operated or associated with United) has a flight for about $430 thru Panama! The nonstop was $200 more. Seemed a pretty good fare for the security of not needing to change planes and miss a $5000 cruise. I note Kayak showed 9 airlines I had never heard of before.

Do you even know which dates the OP is looking to travel? If not, you may very well be comparing apples to oranges.

It would be helpful if OP would give us the exact dates to look at, but I just randomly picked one of the May itineraries for Xpedition (May 13-23), and found that the nonstop on TAME was $1,484 r/t pp. COPA through PTY was only $593 r/t pp, so the difference is much, much more than $200.

You might search for flights out of EWR. This way you can see the UA flights.

We flew to Quito via Houston.

If I were you, I'd fly Delta via Atlanta. The non stop from Atlanta to Quito is excellent. Atlanta is a safe bet weather wise and contrary to the Immigration hell that's Miami quick to navigate.

Hello, I'm the OP. My cruise is May 8. Since my package has two hotel nights pre, and one hotel night post, I am looking to travel May 6 - 16. HawksFan74 has seen the same pricing I have seen; Over $1400 for the nonstop, and about $600 for the flight with one connection. It is so nice to see so many Cruise Critic friends trying to help me find flights. DH and I have to think thru how much we can spend and what we are comfortable with, but it's looking like the connection in Panama City will work best. It was great to hear the airport is not too large, easy to maneuver, and English will be understood. All these things are very helpful. Thank you again, everyone.

Well, thank you again to everyone for all this great information. We love the cruise experience, but the getting there and back home is never too much fun. We have a 10 night package with Celebrity that includes 2 nights in a Quito hotel before the flight to Galapagos, so we are hopeful that will be enough time even if there are flight delays. The package also includes transfers to/from the hotel/airport in Quito, so we would like to fly into Quito. Thanks for the tip about frequent airport closings at night time. As we continue our flight search, we will also try to find something that arrives in the afternoon - perhaps an overnight flight that originates the day before. We are trying different web sites, but not seeing some of the flights others have mentioned - only one nonstop from NY that is more than double the price of flights with one stop. This trip is already expensive enough, so we were hoping to keep the flight cost reasonable.

 

Connecting in Miami, Choice Air tells us 45 minutes is the legal connection time, so 51 minutes should be OK. We don't feel confident with that. Flights out of NY are frequently delayed, and we think we'd have to change from a domestic terminal to an international terminal, possibly having to go through security again. So, the 13 hour connection time sounds better to us than 51 minutes, but still not very desirable. We are leaning towards the Panama City connection unless we find something better, or a nonstop with a reasonable price. We still have time, so we are going to take a break from searching for flights, and then in another week or two try again. You never know what might change or pop up in the meantime. Thank you again to everyone for your comments, ideas, and suggestions. You have all been very helpful.

I would never ever take 51 minutes for a transfer in Miami. It is a large and busy airport and I have had more times that we arrived or took off late from Miami than times that we were early or on time. My impression also is that Miami is one of the worst in terms of baggage handling and long walks to get through customs and other officials and the crowd control can be scary!

(I used to live in Miami, have relatives there now and it is not as bad as Atlanta but almost in my book especially for international flights)

Do yourself a favor. Buy your ticket from the provider (the airline). If anything goes wrong you talk to the provider and do not get the "call the seller of the ticket (cruise line/on-line agent like expedia or cheapo or the like)." Read the sticky about 3rd party sellers at the top of the fourm so you have an idea of what your money is buying -- all tickets are NOT the same. Price is not the only thing you need to consider. READ the STICKY! Perhaps you could get help on the price of the ticket with credit card points or airline miles.

Whatever it takes -- it is worth it for the Galapagos Islands!!! One of the most wonderful places I have ever traveled. I can close my eyes and still see some of the birds and seals and other animals sitting under a perfect rainbow over white sand beach. It is VERY muddy where the giant turtles are so take a pair of pants or shoes you don't mind ruining!! (nobody mentioned that before I went on my cruise with an eco-travel company not X but I saw X there that day too). Take sun protection shirts -- hot sun! Have a really wonderful trip.