RCL package with flights - what if the flight is delayed and miss embarkation?

[judygarland2009]

Due to travel on Sunday from Gatwick London to Rome. Flight is arranged by RCL and my original flight from Heathrow was cancelled when the airline went out of business in October, RCL have left it to the last minute to book new flights. Apparently they have reserved seats for us and we turn up to the check in desk with our passport and get our boarding cards. Although passengers that have booked direct with the airline will be able to reserve seats, food etc, we do not have this optoin. The only thing is, UK airports are experiencing massive delays due to a lack of staff. Personally I would rather have flown the day before to be on the safe side but when I asked if I could do that, they wanted £600 each per person! My itinerary says the flight leaves at 9.30am, however it has the same flight code as one leaving at 10am. When I have queried this, I am being told not to worry. I can only imagine that there has been a schedule change which is not reflected on the system yet.

 

What concerns me is the timings. Looking at departures today for example, not one flight over a span of 6 hours actually took off on time. The minimum delay was 30 mins and the maximum was abuot 2hrs 45mins. If my flight leaves at 9.30am, it will be 1pm before I arrive in Rome. By the time the baggage is off the plane and the passengers are on the transfer, I reckon it will be about 2pm before we are on the way. The transfer is 75 mins provided there is no traffic. The ship departs at 5pm. By my reckoning, this leaves a window of less than an hour. There are also delays getting through passport control and security. I flew at the beginning of May and nearly missed my flight even though I had fast track security passes and just hand luggage! Normally I would have boarding pass in hand and go straight to security without putting any luggage in the hold.

 

My question is, what will happen if the flight is delayed? We are sailing on the Odyssey of the Seas departing 5th June. The first port is Santorini and is a tender. Will RCL fly us to Santorini? I was thinking of booking my own flight out but the TA has told me this is a bad idea and the return flights will automatically cancel if we don't fly on the outgoing flight. The other issue is the covid test. I've booked it for Friday lunchtime which is two days before embarkation. Will they have facitiities to do another test at Santorini? That will be four days after my original covid test.

Edited June 2, 2022 by judygarland2009
Typo

[Biker19]

20 minutes ago, judygarland2009 said:

The first port is Santorini and is a tender. Will RCL fly us to Santorini?

There are probably too many variable to say for sure, but they are supposed to get you on the ship somehow.

 

Biker, who would get some more detail and confirmation of the outgoing flight.

[FionaMG]

If there are a lot of people flying in under the same circumstances as you, which is entirely possible with UK bookings, there is always the chance the Captain could delay departure of the ship from Civi.

 

We sailed on Odyssey on the 7th of May and were three hours late departing. I believe in our case it something to do with formalities and clearance but holding the ship for planeloads of passengers (in similar fashion to holding it for an excursion bus) is conceivably a better move for the cruise line than potentially having to get those planeloads of passengers on to the next port.

 

Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly for you and you have a great time on your cruise. 

[gumshoe958]

I’m assuming you’re booked on the Vueling flight VY6229 from LGW to FCO.

 

If so, this does indeed depart at 1000 on Sunday. However on Saturday it departs at 0930 so if your itinerary says 0930 please double check the date of the flight in case they’ve booked you on Saturday instead of Sunday.

 

If you are flying on Sunday, that flight doesn’t arrive until 1335 which feels far too late to comfortably make a 1700 sailing, even with no delays. 
 

Edited June 2, 2022 by gumshoe958

[Ourusualbeach]

With all the different travel restrictions with various countries Royal no longer guarantees getting you to the next port. 

[ONECRUISER]

2 hours ago, Biker19 said:

There are probably too many variable to say for sure, but they are supposed to get you on the ship somehow.

 

Biker, who would get some more detail and confirmation of the outgoing flight.

Agree. Been couple Decades but know once they held ship for 3+ hrs for our Flight with 20 Royal Passengers. Then know another time they Flew some Passengers(from our Table) to First Port. But that was loooong time ago. Edit: I see above Posting there are now no Guarantees to get you there

Edited June 2, 2022 by ONECRUISER

[Norwich Cruiser]

Only last week the captain held up the Odyssey sailing from Citi as Royal package flights were delayed.

 

Some friends of us were on the delayed flight.

[little britain]

It is not only Uk airports that have staffing issues ( despite the British media acting as if it is)…. All countries have issues. It was an hour just to get through security in CPH a few weeks ago.   At LGW it was an hour in total from arriving to being airside … so actually quicker! 
 

Remember all flight schedules have an hours “padding” built into their times for even if it takes off an hour late it can still arrive on time! 
 

Edited June 3, 2022 by little britain

[gumshoe958]

53 minutes ago, little britain said:

Remember all flight schedules have an hours “padding” built into their times for even if it takes off an hour late it can still arrive on time! 
 

That is simply not true. A few minutes yes, but certainly nowhere near an hour for short haul.

[judygarland2009]

13 hours ago, gumshoe958 said:

I’m assuming you’re booked on the Vueling flight VY6229 from LGW to FCO.

 

If so, this does indeed depart at 1000 on Sunday. However on Saturday it departs at 0930 so if your itinerary says 0930 please double check the date of the flight in case they’ve booked you on Saturday instead of Sunday.

 

If you are flying on Sunday, that flight doesn’t arrive until 1335 which feels far too late to comfortably make a 1700 sailing, even with no delays. 
 

Just triple checked and it definitely says that the flight is on the 5th June at 9.30am. I've made no end of calls and done online chats with RCL but they are adamant that my flight leaves at 9.30am. I said "so there are two flights reference VY6229 leaving within half an hour of each other?". If I was making my own way to the ship I would have booked a flight on the Saturday and stayed overnight in Rome. As it is I'm booking a night in London the night before so as to not miss the flight! 

 

I'm presuming there are facilities on the ship for us to do covid tests if the worst comes to the worst and we end up having to get to Santorini to board there. 

[FamilyCruiserUK]

Fingers crossed it all works out. We fly in aug via royal package. Our TA confirmed that its roylals responsibility to get us to the ship when we booked in feb. 

As for flight timings lots of different companies sell seats on each others planes. Eg veuling and BA share aircraft, so could show  the same booking numbers for two companies but only means one shared aircaft.

[FamilyCruiserUK]

Also if the package is royals air to sea package then in the royal terms and conditions it states what they do if delayed or flight cancelled. I have no idea if the air to sea is totally seperate to booking flights through rcl. 

[HalifaxYorksCruiser]

Be aware it can be a very long walk from the air bridge at Rome FCO  to the baggage carousel and then out to the coach park. We did it in April and it certainly gives you a good amount of exercise. 

[kernow]

We almost missed the ship in 2018 in a similar situation, funnily enough we were flying Heathrow to Rome to board Jewel for a TA. Flights were booked as a package with RCL UK. 

We were supposed to fly BA on a 7.30 am flight, flight began boarding normally and then they announced a fuel leak on the plane and everyone had to get off. They said flight would be delayed while they found another plane. We were in a panic and called the RCL emergency number, they told us not to worry, they were monitoring the situation and would hold the ship, if for some reason we were too late they would get us to the next port (Grand Canaria in 3 days time!).

The flight ended up taking off at 11.30 am (we were actually just over 4 hours late so were able to claim compensation). On landing in Rome the RCL staff were amazing, a lady was waiting for us (only 4 of us) at the luggage carousel and already had her colleague looking for our bags. They rushed us out where they had a minibus waiting kerbside to take us to the ship. There was just one check in desk in the terminal open and waiting for us. We were straight onto the ship just as muster drill was taking place. Far too close for comfort for me but I couldn't believe we actually made it.

[Biker19]

2 hours ago, judygarland2009 said:

I've made no end of calls and done online chats with RCL but they are adamant that my flight leaves at 9.30am.

Forget talking to RCI - check directly with the airline.

[judygarland2009]

3 hours ago, HalifaxYorksCruiser said:

Be aware it can be a very long walk from the air bridge at Rome FCO  to the baggage carousel and then out to the coach park. We did it in April and it certainly gives you a good amount of exercise. 

We are just taking a 10kg bag each and not checking any baggage into the hold. We will just use the ships laundry services if we need to

[little britain]

6 hours ago, gumshoe958 said:

That is simply not true. A few minutes yes, but certainly nowhere near an hour for short haul.

VY6229 scheduled to take off at 10.00 and land 13.35 on 29/5.

She actually took off 10.55 (55 mins late) and landed 13.46.  
 Historically flight times are just under 2 hours, so schedule allows for additional 35mins padding

Edited June 3, 2022 by little britain

[Vera/Lee]

18 hours ago, Ourusualbeach said:

With all the different travel restrictions with various countries Royal no longer guarantees getting you to the next port. 

What about the commitment from Air2Sea? I paid a lot more money to book through them on the day of my cruise because of that commitment.

[judygarland2009]

5 minutes ago, Vera/Lee said:

What about the commitment from Air2Sea? I paid a lot more money to book through them on the day of my cruise because of that commitment.

To be fair the travel agent I have booked through said not to worry as it is a package with RCL and they will be responsible for getting us to the ship. Its annoying though because I cannot do anything with my flights as I have no log in. I have no option but to go to the check in desk. It means if there are horrendous queues for security, I've not got very much time to play with.

[judygarland2009]

19 minutes ago, little britain said:

VY6229 scheduled to take off at 10.00 and land 13.35 on 29/5.

She actually took off 10.55 (55 mins late) and landed 13.46.  
 Historically flight times are just under 2 hours, so schedule allows for additional 35mins padding

I've been on quite a few flights where they were late taking off but they arrive on time. 

[Nunagoras]

If you purchased your flight through RCI, they'll make all the possible for you to go on the ship at same day. By purchasing air with them you're purchasing insurance for hose exact delays. Way back in the day, when lady Allure went first time to Europe, on my sailing, we had a 1 hour delay to depart Barcelona due to a delay on some 2 flights with passengers, and a half an hour delay in Rome for the very same reason. Don't panic and have a nice sailing!...

[HalifaxYorksCruiser]

On 6/3/2022 at 2:12 PM, judygarland2009 said:

We are just taking a 10kg bag each and not checking any baggage into the hold. We will just use the ships laundry services if we need to

It’s still the same long  walk though. In fact the walk was so long that our baggage was already going around the carrousel.