Full Transit: Departure Flight Time from Acapulco???

[PLHag]

Booked my first full transit cruise for April 2011. We embark in Ft. Lauderdale & will disembark in Acapulco on Easter Sunday, April 24th. Coral Princess is set to arrive at 7:00 a.m. (many cruises under my belt - I know it could be earlier or later). I booked a same-day flight home departing at 12:20 p.m. and after logging the flight information into Cruise Personalizer found the following status message this morning: This flight departs too early to reliably make your flight after disembarkation. Should I be concerned about this timing? Here are the particulars as I see them: (1) airport is less than 15 miles from cruise port, for sake of argument, let's say 50 min. by private transfer, (2) we are Elite on Princess & totally able-bodied to self disembark if it is offered, and (3) we are traveling business class on A/M flights. I am guessing that there is a "no flights before 1:00" standard in place, but please let me know if I am missing something.

 

Many thanks!

[BillB48]

I would think in most circumstances that time disclaimer is routine boiler plating and you would be OK pushing the time for the early departure. The one thing I would be a little concerned about in this particular instance is the fact that you are disembarking on Easter. From my experience Latin American countries take Easter a bit more seriously as opposed to it being just another Sunday and everything might move a little slower.

[Loonbeam]

Two other factors to consider.

 

1> Due to some of the violence issues, the Mexican airports are operating in high security mode (think US right after 9/11).

 

2> Lets just say Mexican port airport staff are not known for speedy efficient service to begin with, forget a holiday.

 

That said, I think you are ok. Your target should be arrival at the airport by 9:30 AM, and that seems pretty doable given the schedule. With her relatively small passenger load, the coral seemed to empty pretty quick.

[PLHag]

Good points and I have considered them all (Easter Sunday, extra security & Mexican-time service) - that is one of the reasons we got premier class tickets...to hopefully avoid (or at least reduce) some of the time issues associated with travel in Mexico. That said, we are very experienced travelers to Mexico (just not Acapulco), and I speak and read Spanish, so that should help. I was more worried about the general disembarkation time on the ship - - I'm pretty comfortable with our ability to be first off with either our Elite status, self-disembarkation ability, or early departure flight - - I just don't know what "first off" timeframe we're talking about.

 

Oh well, we're pretty much stuck with what we have for now so I'll just make the best of it and go with the flow. Thank you for all your feedback!