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Those of you who were able to make a noon flight out of Ft. Lauderdale after leaving the Miami port, did you take the cruiseline's shuttle to the Ft. Lauderdale airport or did you have a private shuttle or car waiting for you at the pier. I'm afraid that if we use Carnival's shuttle to the Ft. Lauderdale airport, we'll have to wait for the shuttle to fill-up before we can leave. The flight I want to book is leaving at 12:15pm out of Ft. Lauderdale and ship is due to dock at 7a.m. or 8:00a.m. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Since you need to high-tail it up I-95 to FLL, I would recommend making your own transportation options. Waiting for the cruise shuttle will be time consuming as they load up the bus which could take 5 minutes or 30 minutes.

With a noon flight you don't have time to dawdle upon disembarkation, especially with a flight out of FLL. Every minute is precious to make this flight.

You might also want to look how many ships are in FLL that day as that can greatly impact things as well. If there are more than 2 ships in FLL that day, FLL will be busy and with you coming up from Miami, you'll be towards the tail end of the line which means more time wasted waiting in line.

Instead of worrying about making it up to FLL, what about looking into flights out of MIA or an early afternoon flight out of FLL? A missed flight now-a-days can prove to be very expensive & time consuming - can you miss that day of work if you miss the flight?

Hi There - Im new to this site and was looking for a few answers to my questions. I have a cruise booked on RCC in Dec leaving out of FortLauderdale to the Bahamas. Im coming from Maryland and trying to findout whens the best time to fly out to your cruise during the december months? is it best to fly out the morning of or a day before? my husband and I were trying to save some money an dnot book a hotel for one night for the cruise but to avoid any major possible storms in the NorthEast I just wanted to be safe. If anyone has some tips on this I would appreciate it. I want to book flights but not sure if I should book a day in advance or the morning of my cruise :-(. Help if you can - thanks so much ...Newbie

Weather in the northeast US can always by a wildcard in December.

In terms of saving money, you can get a hotel room for around $100 via Priceline or Hotwire. This might be money well spent if it guarantees you making your ship in case there are any travel delays (in addition to weather, a flight can be cancelled for a whole host of reasons).

One other thing is that if your flight is cancelled for any reason, it might be a while until you can get on another flight to Florida. The reson for this is that flights are fuller this year so that there are fewer available seats out there to accommodate displaced passengers whose flights were cancelled. It's not uncommon, unfortunately, to take a couple of days to get on the "next available flight" due to availability of seats.

Flying in day-of can be a risky proposition. Only you can weigh the value (and cost) of coming in a day early vs. flying in day-of.

If it was me, I'd fly in a day early, get settled, and then be one of the first ones on board the following day, almost getting a "bonus" day on your cruise.

NYC is definately walkable. About the only time you'll need to do the subway/taxi is when going long distances, i.e. from midtown to downtown, Times Square to the Upper East Side, etc.

But depending on when you're in NYC, walking might be uncomfortable due to the weather. In the summer it's often hot & humid. I know some people can't really handle that type of weather for extended amounts of time.

A general word...NYC has something for everybody. So only you can decide what is a "must see" and what is the "best food". For food, is your idea of "best food" French, American, street, Ethiopian, Thai-Spanish fusion, etc.

The choices are endless in NYC and you really need to set the compass for what you want to do.

Thank you for that excellent primer on cruise air tickets.

 

Two queries: 1) why do the cruise lines (generally) charge more than market price for a consolidator class ticket? 2) why would anyone pay more than market price for a consolidator class ticket?QUOTE]

 

My answer to question 1 is "because they can". Cruise lines are after all a for-profit enterprise. This is the same reason they charge you $7 for a drink that only has $1 worth of alochol in it. Because they can.

 

For question 2, I believe it come to ignorance and the thinking that people think cruise lines are looking out for their best interests. In reality, the cruise line is looking out for the cruise line's best interest. As has been mentioned in other posts, consolidator tickets are the "little dirty secret" of the travel trade. Most travelers are not savvy enough to understand the various booking codes & all in air travel. Most people think that there are just three classes of travel - first, business, & coach. In actuality there are several different booking classes in each of those.

 

Getting back to the question of "why would anyone purchase consolidator tickets", that is a good question and one that I personally can't answer as I'd never do such a thing. Some might say "convenience of the cruise line doing their air", but that's the only rationale I can think of.