flying in on cruise day

[cruisergal 1]

One almost missed cruise, and I will never fly in the same day of the cruise! My flight was to leave at 9:00 am from Calgary to Los Angeles, where the cruise was to leave at 4:00. Plenty of time, yes, BUT, the plane had mechanical problems, and they had to get another plane in. To make a long story short, we ended up leaving Calgary at 12:00, the shuttle from the airport had long gone, and I had to pay almost $100 for a cab to the port, and made it with 1/2 hr to spare. My daughter and I were fortunate that they still let us board, as there was another couple still running to board as well. And this was in the middle of summer, no winter storms to worry about! Never again!

[Earthworm Jim]

By time you "miss" your scheduled flight, there won't be many/any other flights that are going to get you there, in time for the cruise. And certainly won't be available on the airline you are using, add to the mix, full flights.

 

That's the problem if the flights are cancelled, as if often the case with a decent sized winter storm. If you are flying the day before, you can live with a delay. But once they start cancelling a bunch of flights, everyone is looking to rebook on the next flights. These days planes generally are mostly full, so there aren't a lot of last minute seats still available and hundreds of people are scrambling for those few seats.

 

I live in upstate New York, and though I've not yet had to do it, my emergency fallback plan in case of a cancellation and the likely consequence of not being able to rebook a flight to get you there in time is to just bite the bullet and drive to Florida. If your flight is going the day before, there is at least enough time (barely) to make that an option. Of course, if the snowstorm is in your neighborhood, that's easier said than done.

 

I always travel to San Juan the day of the cruise because of the late departure.

 

The late time doesn't necessarily help there because there are relatively few flights to rebook to to San Juan. Last winter we had a flight from Albany to San Juan, with a change in Philadelphia on Friday for a Saturday cruise. There was a storm in Philly on Thursday (nothing at Albany), and Thursday evening we got an email our Friday morning flight to Philly was cancelled, though the flight out of Philly to San Juan was still on.

 

My wife was on the phone talking to the airline for 45 minutes (Not waiting to talk, actually working with the guy to find other options. I give the airline credit there. They really tried and took a lot of time trying to help us.) No other options could be found to get us to San Juan in time for the cruise, even though this was Thursday night and the cruise wasn't leaving San Juan until late Saturday.

 

So, we got up at 2:30 am and drove 4 1/2 hours to Philly and made the second leg of our original flight. Anyway, the point is, going to San Juan where the options are fewer, even the late departure time doesn't necessarily help you if you fly same day and a flight is cancelled. There just aren't many other flights/seats you can switch to. At least in my one experience.

Edited June 18, 2015 by Earthworm Jim

[stev5138]

You can limit problems by finding a non-stop. If there is a stop try to avoid Chicago, especially in winter,

a/o Atlanta. Winter is always a gamble.

[Warm Breezes]

One almost missed cruise, and I will never fly in the same day of the cruise! My flight was to leave at 9:00 am from Calgary to Los Angeles, where the cruise was to leave at 4:00. Plenty of time, yes, BUT, the plane had mechanical problems, and they had to get another plane in. To make a long story short, we ended up leaving Calgary at 12:00, the shuttle from the airport had long gone, and I had to pay almost $100 for a cab to the port, and made it with 1/2 hr to spare. My daughter and I were fortunate that they still let us board, as there was another couple still running to board as well. And this was in the middle of summer, no winter storms to worry about! Never again!

 

Both of my flights that were delayed were also direct flights one in April and the other in June. Both were mechanical issues. One resulted in a delay in Detroit for 4 hours waiting for the plane to show up from Philadelphia. The other resulted in an emergency landing in Tennessee for 5 hours while they repaired the plane. Both times we had flown in the day before. If it had been the day of, we would have missed our ship. I can't imagine the stress you went to trying to get to the port on-time. While we were inconvenienced, we weren't stressed.

 

We have flown to our cruise ports 8 times and driven 5 times. 2 of the 8 times flying (25%) had delayed arrivals due to plane mechanical issues. 1 of the 5 times driving (20%) had a delayed arrival due automobile mechanical issues. Those odds are too high for me to take the chance of traveling the day of. I'm glad some of you have done it multiple times with no issues....my luck is not that good so I negate that bad luck by making sure we have time to deal with traveling issues, even if it means a shorter cruise to fit into our available time. I will keep posting my experiences on these types of threads so people know that the risks are there and they are real. After that it is up to them to decide if they want to take that risk.

[jma624]

Unless you plan to travel during the dead of winter you're chances of having a problem with a 9 AM arrival is pretty safe. Fly out of St. Louis all the time (fall and spring) for cruises and have never had a problem and some of our arrivals have been 12;35 PM with a 40 minute ride to the pier. Besides, if a delay is weather related you'll have a lot of company and the ship will wait as long as possible. AND take the insurance.

 

 

For what its worth, I have had only one flight cancelled during the wintertime due to a snowstorm. I have experienced several delays in the summer due to thunderstorms.

[jsglow]

While we have always flown the afternoon or evening before, I'd consider a morning flight on the day of the cruise with a few rules:

 

1) First flight of day. A plane parked overnight here in Chicago leaving at the crack of dawn is likely to be on time or close. Delays build through the day.

 

2) Non-stop or at the very minimum direct. Again, not a problem from here.

 

3) I'd probably be committed to carry on luggage.

 

Good luck with whatever works.

[Budget Queen]

It continues to amaze me, that people think- they "fly all the time", "have never had a delay" issue, "cruise all the time", etc. Then state their "success" story- implying that this is a given. Sorry, NOBODY here is flying multiple times per WEEK or cruising continuously, like at least 25 times/year individual flying to each. etc Those would hardly be valid reasons for making assumptions, and certainly the one time claims are pretty meaningless.

 

I traveled half the year last year, but "only" flew nine round trips last year- which I don't consider any indicator of making claims on flights going "ok. And yes there were delays.

 

This is totally individual- with having to have acceptance of what you book. No one can predict the future, so it may be advisable to have backup plans readily available and known prior to your trip.

[zdcatc12]

While we have always flown the afternoon or evening before, I'd consider a morning flight on the day of the cruise with a few rules:

 

1) First flight of day. A plane parked overnight here in Chicago leaving at the crack of dawn is likely to be on time or close. Delays build through the day.

 

 

Not always. Last time I flew from Vegas, I had the first flight in the morning, we were taxiing out and had a mechanical issue that was severe enough to cancel the flight. The captain said he didn't know how that happened since he had flown the plane in the night before and it was fine.

[Illyria]

A couple of years ago I was flying to Charlotte for work. This was September, in Denver - gorgeous weather, sunny blue skies...EXCEPT for the one day that I had to travel! My flight was around 8:30am, starting at 8am they started canceling all flights out of DIA because of thick fog. It took about 4 hours for the fog to lift, then another couple of hours to deal with all the planes queueing up for runways. If I'd been trying to catch a cruise ship that day - even with a nonstop flight first thing in the morning - I would've missed it by several hours.

 

Later this year we're flying into Baltimore for a cruise, my husband wanted to fly in the same day ("what's the big deal, the flight gets in at 11:30am"). I said, no way :)

[Gig103]

I'm another 'day early' person. In 2013 I was flying Phoenix to FLL through Dallas. All southerly States, no worries about snow like the east coast or Chicago right? BZZZZ WRONG! Dallas got a freak ice storm that shut down the airport for a day. We ended up on a Jet Blue flight 12 hours later through JFK to make it to the ship.

[Need-a-vacation]

We flew into Houston yesterday and we would have likely missed the shop if it was cruise day. It was the first flight of the day for that plane and I could tell from United's info that the plane spent the night in Phoenix. Seems like pretty low risk. However, the flight the night before was several hours later because of Houston weather. Our flight in the morning had to be delayed 1.5 hours so the crew could meet the rest period requirements.

There are very few circumstances where I would consider same day flight for cruise. Mainly that it's a really short haul flight and there are multiple flights that would get there. It's just not worth the stress.

 

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