Am I CRAZY!!

Ok here is my sort of crazy plan. I will start by saying I am very "frugal" my wife says cheap. I have been searching for a flight that will cost less than $1100 for a family of 4, and it is been almost impossible. I say almost because I found one....but it lands in Tampa and we sail out of miami. The kicker is it is only $660. I thought if I rent a car for the day it will only run about $50.00. Is this crazy or should i stop being "frugal" and just fly into Miami or Ft Lauderdale. Please help!!

Did you check air prices to fort Lauderdale (fll), often they are much cheaper

Why do you want to get off a two hour flight then drive for four more hours?

Fly into Fort Lauderdale or Miami. Spirit Airlines I believe has a direct flight from Atlantic City to Fort Lauderdale.

FWIW, $1100 for four people is a pretty good deal. That's less that $300 per person.

Ok here is my sort of crazy plan. I will start by saying I am very "frugal" my wife says cheap. I have been searching for a flight that will cost less than $1100 for a family of 4, and it is been almost impossible. I say almost because I found one....but it lands in Tampa and we sail out of miami. The kicker is it is only $660. I thought if I rent a car for the day it will only run about $50.00. Is this crazy or should i stop being "frugal" and just fly into Miami or Ft Lauderdale. Please help!!

That's probably a 4hr drive, so please tell me you weren't talking about flying in the day of your cruise......:o

You aren't that "frugal" are you???.......:p

FWIW, I just checked Spirit and they have your flight to FLL from ACY for $202 per person round trip.

Ok here is my sort of crazy plan. I will start by saying I am very "frugal" my wife says cheap. I have been searching for a flight that will cost less than $1100 for a family of 4, and it is been almost impossible. I say almost because I found one....but it lands in Tampa and we sail out of miami. The kicker is it is only $660. I thought if I rent a car for the day it will only run about $50.00. Is this crazy or should i stop being "frugal" and just fly into Miami or Ft Lauderdale. Please help!!

It is doable, but it is a long 4.5 hour drive in the best of traffic. I wouldn't try to fly in the morning of your cruise if you do this. Check for flights into Orlando. They are plentiful and usually less expensive than anything else. Just as an example, we flew into Orlando the morning of the cruise out of Tampa. Our flight arrived at 1030am and the drive to Tampa is about 40 minutes. We arrived at the ship at 10 minutes before 3pm, right before they cut off boarding. There was construction everywhere and the traffic was horrendous. We do still tend to fly into Orlando and drive to Miami/Ft. Lauderdale, or Port Canaveral, or Tampa but we only arrive a day early now if we have to drive any distance.

Before I would declare you crazy:D, I would want to know:

-Where you're flying from;

-What airline this fight is on;

-What's the exact timeline - I assume you're flying in the day before the cruise, but are you talking about departing the same day as the cruise arrives?

TPA might be a bit far for me, but I certainly wouldn't rule it out. However, I would want to look at what was available via PBI, RSW or even MCO, as they would all be closer.

P.S. As a 'frugal' person, you really need to get into the airline miles/hotel points game...

Why do you want to get off a two hour flight then drive for four more hours?

...

FWIW, $1100 for four people is a pretty good deal. That's less that $300 per person.

$660 for four people makes $1100 look like not so great a deal. :D And while it isn't fun to drive after a long flight, $500 might be worth the pain to some people. I know when I took my family of 5, I did lots of driving to save hundreds of dollars of airfare.

I just priced spirit again it is almost $2300. I found southwest for $1200. We plan on flying in the day before.

Our cruise leaves feb21 2015 which is a Saturday and comes back the following saturday. We will be flying in the day before with plenty of time to get from Tampa to Miami area. The drive should be real easy.

We will be flying Frontier out of Trenton Nj which is only about of 1/2 hour from my house.

We will be flying Frontier out of Trenton Nj which is only about of 1/2 hour from my house.

You could split the difference - fly into TPA, fly out of FLL. I see 3 tickets left at $102 for the 28th FLL-TTN, so to get the best deal you'd want to book 3+1 tickets, rather than all 4 at once.

I just priced spirit again it is almost $2300. I found southwest for $1200. We plan on flying in the day before.

Fridays are really bad days to book airfare. Wait until mid-week when prices come down.

When I originally began looking at airfare for our November cruise (we didn't book until mid-August), I looked for several weeks to get an idea of what it would be for us. They were running about $1600 from NC to MIA. We didn't want to pay that much. I checked it again on a Tuesday and it came down to $1200. So, we jumped on it! Mid-week is always better for booking than Fridays.

PS--I don't blame you for saving money and wanting to fly into an airport a little further away. Sometimes, it really is worth it to do a little more work for some extra moolah. That's several hundred dollars of onboard spending money! :D:)

I thought if I rent a car for the day it will only run about $50.00...

What makes you say it will be $50.00? Have you looked into this pricing yet? You want to rent a car for 4 people plus luggage, pick it up in Tampa and drop it in Miami. There is always gas, insurance, and possibly a taxi from the rental office after returning the car - have you priced this out? Just asking. :)

Seems crazy to me unless you were going to be spending some time in Tampa or Orlando before the cruise. We've flown into MCO many times and then driven down to Ft. Lauderdale for cruises, but it's always because we are doing Disney or something else in the area to make it worth while. I wouldn't do it if just flying in the day before and then heading straight to Miami.

Are you planning on flying out of TPA after your cruise as well?

We will be flying Frontier out of Trenton Nj which is only about of 1/2 hour from my house.

Frontier goes to Fort Lauderdale. We (family of 4) flew on them for less than $1000 round trip just last month. They also have coupon codes. Google frontier airlines coupon code. Should find at least 1 or 2 on retailmenot dot com. I saved over $100. If you're set on driving why not see if you can save even more on the flight. 5 more hours, I wouldn't do it but if you don't mind, have at it.

Eta: try fun4all or GOTBEER.

Yes, in my world that's crazy. I can't see a one way car rental being that cheap - or at least not a car I'd want to spend 4-5 hours in with four people. The gas will cost you, and my time is worth something to me. Not to mention the bargain airlines nickel and dime you on all baggage. We once drove 2 hours to Atlantic city to save $700 on airfare (for 2 adults plus a lap baby, plus our friends traveling with saved $1400) to fll. Never again. We flew on Spirit and our level of annoyance at the nickel and dining wasn't worth it.

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