Evening Flight out of Valletta, Malta

I have recently booked an Adriatic Cruise on Oceana at the end of June departing and returning to Valletta in Malta. My P&O included and I believe specially chartered, return flight to Birmingham takes off at 7:00pm on the last day. Does anybody have any experience of how arrangements work on that last day. I assume we have to depart the cabin by say 8:00am but not sure what happens after that, I am sure we are not bussed to the airport to wait there all day!

I am waiting to hear back from my TA, but thought I would also try on cruise critic as I am sure every problem has been encountered before.

Ideally I would like to get off the ship at say 9:00am, go on a private tour of the Ireland and then be reunited with my luggage either at the airport or even better at the baggage carousel at Birmingham. I would ensure my private tour finished at the airport. Hopefully I can make this work

You leave your room at 8am as you say. We got off and walked to the centre of Valletta then up to the National war museum at Fort St Elmo. Spent a few hours there, walked back to the ship, had a drink at the Hard Rock Café opposite the ship, got back onboard had fish and chips, relaxed and got on a bus to the airport around 3:30 to fly back to Brum, case was on the carousel on arrival.

We had similar timings with a late Gatwick flight last year.

Our hold case was left outside our cabin on the last night & on the final morning we left our cabin bags in one of the theatres assigned for left luggage until we picked it up before leaving for the airport on the bus.

This left us free to leave the ship, explore Valletta on our own on foot & return for a late lunch on board.

We flew back to Birmingham same time last year. As others have said vacate cabin around 8.30, then free day until around 3.30. They will keep your carry on case safe for you. The hop on hop off bus stops right outside the port. There is plenty of time to see the island.

Thanks for all the responses, they have been very helpful. I have heard back from my TA today who have checked with P&O, and it would appear that I have two options:

The first is to be back on board for circa 3:30pm collect my hand luggage and then get the coach to the airport and then join up with my main luggage on the carousel at Birmingham.

The second option is take my luggage off the ship at day 9:00, spend the day on my private tour of the Island and then be dropped off at the Airport around 5pm with my luggage, which I would then check in as normal.

Obviously if I chose the second option I would need to inform the ship that I was making my own way to the Airport and make sure the vehicle provided by the private tour operator has enough space for our hold luggage.

Neil

In the end everything worked out perfectly. P&O issued boarding passes along with the airline luggage labels. Bags were left outside cabin at 11:00pm on night before departure.

We enjoyed our private tour of Malta, and was dropped off at Airport with our hand baggage.

We were happily reunited with our luggage at the carousel at Birmingham Airport.

Neil

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Thanks for the update, Neil.