Jump to content
Cruise Critic Community

Cruising out of Galveston, What time do you book your return flight

lfeather

By lfeather,
in Royal Caribbean International

Recommended Posts

time4u2go

time4u2go

Posted
Posted
Um, I think I have a flight for 11am or so to fly out of bush. Should I be concerned about making the flight?

 

I would be concerned. It's about 75 miles. Remember you have to do the following: Wait for your group to be called off, find your luggage, go through customs, secure some type of transportation, ride to the airport (subject to traffic), check bags, go through security, get on plane. That's an awful LOT to do in not much time (in my opinion)!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
gratefulguy

gratefulguy

Posted
Posted

The 11am flight is really cutting it close--IAH (Bush) is at least 75 miles from the pier! You will also be going up the Gulf Fwy. at rush hour. You could use the Beltway (partly toll), but that adds even more miles. I have flown in to IAH, rented a car, and driven to the NASA area (still 30 miles from Galveston) and it has taken 90 minutes+, in the early afternoon. Hobby (HOU) is much closer and the check-in times are usually less. Southwest is the major carrier, but there are others. It would be a lot of stress during the whole cruise to think about trying to get to IAH for any flight earlier than 1pm--not worth it--IMO.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
time4u2go

time4u2go

Posted
Posted
Ok, I just checked the flight and it departs at 11:47AM sunday morning. I'll be renting a car..... Do you still think it would be close??

 

That's still closer than I would do. How long of a line will there be to rent the car and return it? I know you don't know, but I'm just stating that these are some more unknowns. What day of the week does your cruise end? If it's a weekend, traffic shouldn't be too bad. If it's a weekday, forget it. You have to either go through downtown Houston, or go a long way around it. If you are really going to do this, you should definitely carry your own bags to get off the ship early.

 

Best case scenario: Get off the ship at 8:00. Get your rental car by 8:15. Drive through light traffic to Bush, arrive at 9:30. Return the car by 9:45. So then you still have 2 hours to wait in line to check bags, wait in security checkpoint line, get to flight. Maybe it could work...remember these are all best-case. It's closer than I would do.

 

(Just noticed you are travelling on a Sunday, so that should help with the traffic.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
time4u2go

time4u2go

Posted
Posted
So what do the Galveston gurus think about a 12:25 PM flight out of Houston Hobby on Thursday April 6th?

 

That's probably OK. Hobby is a LOT closer than Bush (40 miles vs 75). If you carry your own bags off the ship to get off early, I'd think you'd be OK. How are you getting to the airport?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Fury1995

Fury1995

Posted
Posted
That's probably OK. Hobby is a LOT closer than Bush (40 miles vs 75). If you carry your own bags off the ship to get off early, I'd think you'd be OK. How are you getting to the airport?

 

Flying in the day before, renting a car at Hobby (oneway), staying overnight in Galveston with the car, and turning the car into the rental place in Galveston the day of the cruise.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Lightsluvr

Lightsluvr

Posted
Posted

If your flight is earlier than noon, you may want to use Travel Lite departure, which allows you to depart first, but you carry your own luggage off the ship to customs. After you clear customs, you can get a porter to assist you to your transportation...

 

LL

Link to comment
Share on other sites
aka_sally

aka_sally

Posted
Posted

We flew back to Chicago from Hobby 1/29/06 (had a GREAT cruise!)... had a 2:45pm flight which gave us plenty of time to catch our ride, stop in Leauge City (between Galveston & Hobby) for lunch with friends and then make it Hobby with 40" to spare... timing was perfect.

 

Galveston tends to be a bit foggy - previous year the ship was late coming into port due to fog, by the time it got in there was not enough time to fill the fuel tanks - so our cruise was sent to MIAMI instead of Costa Maya (originally supposed to go to Grand Cayman but it was too soon after Ivan so we were last minute scheduled to go CM) to fill tanks.

 

Again this year, the ship sat outside of Galveston Bay (is it a bay? - whatever) for at least an hour waiting for fog to lift before it made it in... we had arrived a bit early so still were off the boat by 9:00 am (suite so had one of the first departure groups).

Link to comment
Share on other sites
musicmaverick

musicmaverick

Posted
Posted

I looked into moving our flight. Woulda cost us nearly double. Not an option. So we're gonna cross our fingers. Talk to RC to get off first. If we don't think we can make it, we can call 3hrs b4 and cancel the plane tix for credit on a standby the rest of the day..... So if we are not off the ship by 8:45, we'll cancel. But I have a feeling if we can make it off the ship by 8:45 and have the car by then, we'll be ok in catching the 11:45 flight

Link to comment
Share on other sites
time4u2go

time4u2go

Posted
Posted
I looked into moving our flight. Woulda cost us nearly double. Not an option. So we're gonna cross our fingers. Talk to RC to get off first. If we don't think we can make it, we can call 3hrs b4 and cancel the plane tix for credit on a standby the rest of the day..... So if we are not off the ship by 8:45, we'll cancel. But I have a feeling if we can make it off the ship by 8:45 and have the car by then, we'll be ok in catching the 11:45 flight

 

Good luck! Come back here after and let us know what happened!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Got Out There

Got Out There

Posted
Posted

We got off ROS last Sunday. The ship docked at 7:10am, we did the express departure (carry your own bags off). We took a taxi to Hobby which we shared with another couple in the taxi line. We caught an 8:40 am flight back home!!!!!! We had to do late check-in with our bags which means if they don't make it you will have to return to the airport to get your bags later that day. We were amazed that the bags made it on the flight. We ended up getting home at 11am!

 

Obviously I would not recommend this. We did have a back up flight booked later in the afternoon if we did not make the early flight.

 

Also, note of caution on taxis from the port ===> there are not that many! We waited for a few minutes for one to show up and the couple in front of us offered to share the cab. I think it was $85 total, so only $50 each after the tip.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
time4u2go

time4u2go

Posted
Posted
We got off ROS last Sunday. The ship docked at 7:10am, we did the express departure (carry your own bags off). We took a taxi to Hobby which we shared with another couple in the taxi line. We caught an 8:40 am flight back home!!!!!! We had to do late check-in with our bags which means if they don't make it you will have to return to the airport to get your bags later that day. We were amazed that the bags made it on the flight. We ended up getting home at 11am!

 

Obviously I would not recommend this. We did have a back up flight booked later in the afternoon if we did not make the early flight.

 

Also, note of caution on taxis from the port ===> there are not that many! We waited for a few minutes for one to show up and the couple in front of us offered to share the cab. I think it was $85 total, so only $50 each after the tip.

Keep in mind this is the fare to Hobby. Bush is about twice as far!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing
  • Forum Jump
    • Categories
      • Welcome to Cruise Critic
      • Hurricane Zone 2024
      • Cruise Insurance Q&A w/ Steve Dasseos of Tripinsurancestore.com June 2024
      • New Cruisers
      • Cruise Lines “A – O”
      • Cruise Lines “P – Z”
      • River Cruising
      • ROLL CALLS
      • Cruise Critic News & Features
      • Digital Photography & Cruise Technology
      • Special Interest Cruising
      • Cruise Discussion Topics
      • UK Cruising
      • Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
      • Canadian Cruisers
      • North American Homeports
      • Ports of Call
      • Cruise Conversations
×
×
  • Create New...