Early disembarkation from Sky Princess

[philv]

Hi Folks, Sailing on Sky Princess in February. Anyone know from recent experience what the earliest disembarkation time is? Booking flights home and terrible selections to pick from.

[Rick&Jeannie]

You can never give an *absolute* answer to this question because there are a number of things that can cause holdups.  Assuming that the ship REALLY docks at 6:00am, then my experience has been that self-disembarkation usually starts at about 7:30.  I guarantee *someone* will post something different!

[iamaqt2]

The cruiseline "recommends" not booking flights earlier than 11 am for domestic and 12 noon for international.

[Torfamm]

It was at 6:35 on Saturday. We were scheduled to arrive at 4:00 and told to expect walk offs to begin at 7:00. Those times are all the earliest I’ve seen in Port Everglades.
 

I’d only book flights before 11:00 if I was comfortable with having to deal with a missed flight though. For every time a ship is cleared early, there is a time when it is cleared late. If you are still sitting and waiting at 8:35 will you be stressed?

[Mara4166]

You may want to look at how many other ships are in port the day you arrive.  If there are lots of ships, it may be later.

[sirclean]

From my recent experience, you should be careful.

I booked a flight on American for 1245pm.  The day before (Friday after Thanksgiving) I got the email to check in, but I got it early, and when I looked American had changed us to an earlier flight!  It was set to take off at 845 am!  I took that email to the Elite customer service desk, and they said that there was no way to get me off the ship (In LA) and to the airport in time. 

We had booked First Class because it was our Honeymoon cruise and I knew that flying anytime after Thanksgiving would be tricky, and I figured first class would get us home (without a 3rd person sitting in our laps!).

I was on the phone (from the ship) for 25 minutes I think, but in the end, we got first class tickets that departed at 6 pm or so later in the day.  I used some points to stay in the American lounge, and caught up on emails, drank their coke, ate their snacks and especially the M&Ms. 

Anyway, it may be a problem flying out too early, especially if the ship, or Customs gets backed up!

 

(When you enter your flight information on Princess, it will flag you if you try to book flights that are too early.  It may void part of the travel insurance (trip delay) if you do book too early).