JSB15

I am landing at 3:30P at SJO the day before I cruise out of Puerto Caldera on a 7 night Windstar Panama Canal Cruise.  The ship leaves at 6 PM the next day so I would have the morning of departure available.  I am wondering whether I should just stay by the airport for convenience or is it worth staying in downtown San Jose for the night?  I would probably be able to get a nicer dinner downtown and hit a single attraction in the morning aside from walking around.

Thanks you for the thoughtful replies. I think this "closed loop" issue would be the likely justification for the response I initially got. What confuses me is the likelihood of a missed embarkation in the winter months on a full cruise ship so they will have this issue anyway. Maybe it is a closely guarded secret but I can't imagine a ship with 3000 passengers not having someone miss embarkation nearly every week (or have to not return to the original port because of illness or missed return to ship). Having an issue with an exact same manifest coming and going has to be a common occurrence. It seems pretty silly to me that they won't just require more thorough vetting of those few affected passengers and not change a ship status.

I spoke with a customer service person prior to booking the cruise and was told that my son could initially board at the first stop. When I tried to do the final planning the emergency desk says that is not possible (or at least plan in advance). Apparently there is an issue with some PVSA act that prohibits embarking at one US port (San Juan) and departing at another (Miami) although I saw there was some exclusion about San Juan. We will try to change plans so he will depart from Miami but if he can't make the departure and I let Celebrity know on the day of departure, how likely would it be that he will be denied boarding at the first port if he travels there at his expense? I was willing to pay for a couple days of a cruise he could not make for a departure city timing I was certain would work rather than to chance him missing the official departure city. If he were driving to the port there would be no evidence of a delayed or cancelled flight to blame.