Question for the cruising experts!

[tradingspaces]

I am sure this question has been asked a hundred times, but is it wise to fly in on the same day as the cruise. We are flying into LA on April 12 and heading to prier 93 I believe. Golden 7 days Mexican cruise. We arrive around 11:00 a.m. Does this leave us enough time without feeling rushed? The ship leaves at 4:00 p.m. and I have heard there is a new rule that you have to be on the ship at least 90 minutes prior to departure? Thank you for any advise.

 

Laura

[FritzG]

This has been addressed numerous times. Flying in the day of the cruise is very risky. With airline travel being what it is today too many things can go wrong. Fly in a day early if at all possible.

[PescadoAmarillo]

Some things to consider are 1.) is yours a direct flight? 2.) are there other, later flights that can get you into LA by 1:30 pm or so? 3.) how bad can the weather be in the area of your departure airport in April? Our rule of thumb (we live in Colorado) is that for west coast departures we fly the day the cruise begins, and for east coast departures we fly in a day early. We've even flown to San Juan the day a cruise begins, but the ship didn't leave until 10pm.

[paul929207]

Most people will tell you No, fly in the day before. It is certainly saver.

[B40 Tha Cruisa]

I always fly the day before, it reduces your stress level that much more. Especially up there in Canada, you can still get some snow storms to interfere. Then what?

[Putterdude]

This may help you, we live in AZ during the winter, 5 hrs away and we drove over the day before when we cruised in December and we are flying down from Vancouver the day before when we cruise in May. The risks are just too great trying to do it the day of the cruise plus you arive on the ship all relaxed.

[dennbr9]

Go in the day before( I will no longer fly in the day of the Cruise) - less stress about delays and lost bags, etc and you are relaxed and rested when you board the ship early.

[zacc]

Go the day before. Remember a flight delay doesn't have to occur at your airport. Bad weather or some other circumstance could cause a delay for your plane at the airport it is arriving from.

[Toto2Kansas]

The only time we fly in the day of the cruise is IF we can get a straight through flight, IF it is during months the weather is good, and IF we can arrive before 11:00 AM. When all those things don't work, we always fly in the day before. ;)

[tradingspaces]

Thank you so much for the advice. I have decided to fly in the day before. Less stress...piece of mind. It is a holiday after all.

 

Laura

[chasetf]

Thank you so much for the advice. I have decided to fly in the day before. Less stress...piece of mind. It is a holiday after all. Laura

Another thing to consider for flying in the day before is you embark the ship refreshed and rested. It is not fun spending all (or most of the) day flying, board the ship and spend the first day of your cruise recovering from the long airport wait(s) and flight(s).

 

Plus... we have been in the situation where we made it but our bags didn't. Good thing was we flew the day before so we could go back to the airport the next morning to retrieve our bags that did not make the Chicago connection. If we had flown the day of we would have spent at least three days on the ship before they could have caught up with us. :eek:

[leecim]

One more note, we were on the Sensation January 2000 out of Tampa and the ship was delayed returning to port by 7 hours due to fog. People were scrambling to re-book flights. Since then we fly in a day early and fly back a day after the cruise, its an extension of the trip.

[smoosh21]

I am sure this question has been asked a hundred times, but is it wise to fly in on the same day as the cruise. We are flying into LA on April 12 and heading to prier 93 I believe. Golden 7 days Mexican cruise. We arrive around 11:00 a.m. Does this leave us enough time without feeling rushed? The ship leaves at 4:00 p.m. and I have heard there is a new rule that you have to be on the ship at least 90 minutes prior to departure? Thank you for any advise.

 

Laura

 

 

I would say it depends on several factors, including time of year and where you are flying from and too.

 

I have flown in on the morning of the cruise several times when flying from Atlanta to Florida. I just get on the earliest flight of the day and I know that there are at least a dozen or more direct flights going down there that would get me in before the ship left.

 

On my most recent sailing, flying out of San Juan, we flew down the night before, because there were so many less options for getting there. Plus it was in Winter and I didn't want to worry about a winter storm somewhere messing up flights everywhere.

 

If I were flying out of a smaller airport I would probably always try to fly in the night before.

[Seal]

I am sure this question has been asked a hundred times, but is it wise to fly in on the same day as the cruise. We are flying into LA on April 12 and heading to prier 93 I believe. Golden 7 days Mexican cruise. We arrive around 11:00 a.m. Does this leave us enough time without feeling rushed? The ship leaves at 4:00 p.m. and I have heard there is a new rule that you have to be on the ship at least 90 minutes prior to departure? Thank you for any advise.

 

Laura

 

Without reading any further--sure you should have no problem getting to San Pedro from LAX barring accidents ect. on the 405 freeway--the real problem is---are you sure that the airplane you're on will arrive at LAX at the proper time?????

 

Go at least a day early--There's so much more to think about than grabbing your luggage and head down the fwy--and maybe a piece of luggage is lost for awhile--all sorts of good things--GO EARLY

 

Nancy:D

[martini cruiser]

Another vote for a day early, you get time to see the port you are leaving from, plus the reduced stress level. If you fly in early and or stay an extra night the airfares a ususally better.

 

Martini Cruiser

[Pam in CA]

If it's possible, fly in the day before for the reasons given above. If not, you should be OK with a flight arriving at 11AM as long as there aren't serious delays or a missed connection along the route.

 

Last week, I flew to Boston from LAX. My flight was scheduled to leave at 6:25AM (yeah... really early) but we sat on the tarmac for over an hour because of take-off delays due to early morning fog. Which meant that we got into Chicago about an hour late. That wasn't awful for me because I had about an hour and 45 minutes (before the delay) between flights. However, the plane from Chicago to Boston was coming from Dallas and there were delays in Dallas. It arrived about 90 minutes late and we were finally on our way to Boston, landing only about 45 minutes than the original schedule.

 

The point is that delays can happen anywhere for any reason, sometimes due to issues thousands of miles away, even when weather would be expected to be good (such as at LAX). My daughter flew from Boston to LAX for Christmas and her flight was delayed over an hour due to insufficient crew. I'm hearing about crew delays more and more. I've had it happen to me.

[Cruise from Calgary]

I am sure this question has been asked a hundred times, but is it wise to fly in on the same day as the cruise. We are flying into LA on April 12 and heading to prier 93 I believe. Golden 7 days Mexican cruise. We arrive around 11:00 a.m. Does this leave us enough time without feeling rushed? The ship leaves at 4:00 p.m. and I have heard there is a new rule that you have to be on the ship at least 90 minutes prior to departure? Thank you for any advise.

 

Laura

 

:) We will be taking the same cruise the week after you & will be flying in the day of embarkation because it is a short, direct flight and it's April. If the cruise was January or you lived in the East, then maybe you'd need to get there early.

 

Enjoy your cruise whichever you decide!

[drummondcreek]

Even if you are not worried about the weather delays, worry about lost luggage. We did this cruise with Princess 2 years ago. Got in fine but one of our bags didn't. Air Canada was useless finding it as I talked to their call centre in India. It was the bag will all our kids cloths. Luckily we flew in the day before so we went out an bought a new suitcase and cloths.

 

We stayed at one of the Princess hotels near the pier. They came with a nice bus the next morning and took us the short drive to the pier. Very non-stressful. I can only imagine the panic we would have been in if we had arrived the day of and had no cloths for our kids.

 

We tried the day of travel once on a Disney cruise and it was a panic. Luckily there were over 20 people on the flight for the cruise. Disney held the ship for us. Fastest boarding we have ever had. It was so tight we didn't get on board until after the muster drill was done! Never again

[itsallnewtous07]

We are flying in the day of. I never though about going early until this very second. Oh well. next time