Los Angeles: Flying in day of cruise or stay over night? (Oct 2018)

got a free cruise from my land casino.

one of the offers is an 8day Mexican Rivera on Bliss (Inside room) leaving from LA! :cool:

Fri 10/5/2018 - Sat 10/13/2018

I'm going solo.

1) the cruise departs at 5pm pst so that means the latest to check-in is 3pm.

I live in DC area, near Dulles (IAD) airport.

There's a nonstop flight from IAD to LAX on Alaska Air that lands at 11:39am pst.

there's also 2 United flights that lands at 10:09am and 11:09am pst.

i'm leaning on flying in day of cruise on the United flight that lands at 10:09am.

if there's a delay, i'm assuming i can get switched to the 11:09am landing flight for free.

Is it easy to go from LAX to the NCL cruise port using Uber/Lyft?

2) The ship returns at 8am.

There's a nonstop United flight at 1:20pm.

i plan to book NCL transfer from ship to airport.

or do it myself with Uber/Lyft since i only have 1 piece of luggage?

What do you think about my plans for flying in same day the cruise departs, and flying out the same day the cruise returns?

Or should i stay over night?

We always fly a day before cruise. Aside from flight delays, baggage delay is also possible.

You can also post on the West Coast Departures board for other opinions.

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October is generally a safe month to fly - other than to hurricane prone areas. So, that part is in pretty good shape.

But, any other delays and you miss the ship. No idea where you could catch it again.

Flying United is good as they have the backup flight and a larger operation at IAD.

But - a small delay of a few hours and you might miss the ship. The odds are way in your favor, but we would not do it. We always fly in the day before and take in some local sights.

Bottom line - you should be fine.

I would go with the United flight. Majority of the time, we have to fly in the day of the cruise. Would love to have the luxury of coming in early but it is what it is.

There is no safe month to fly because many of the items that could impact your flight have nothing to do with weather.

There can be all sorts of things that can go wrong.

I highly recommend flying in the day before the cruise.

Keith

Bad assumption thinking you can just easily switch flights if there is a delay. The other flight might also have a flight delay or it could be full.

It really comes down to one simple decision: You have to decide for yourself what YOUR tolerance for risk is. Some people are fine flying in the day of the cruise, myself included, and other people freak out and stress the whole time if they have to do that. Simply decide which one you are.

Yes I would never count on switching flights because these days many flights are over booked.

So what can go wrong?

Mechanical issues.

Insufficient Flight Personnel

Computer issues

Security Breaches on flight, or at airport

Even FAA delays

Things happen.

Keith

We usually fly in the day before, and have only flown in the day of once, and that was a red eye (Sac to FLL). As others have mentioned, it is chancy but doable. The traffic is always an issue, so I think you should consider NCL transfers both ways, but check to see what restrictions NCL has both arriving and leaving.

There are so many variables to your situation, I personally would fly in the day before.;)

The other factor could be traffic delays from LAX to San Pedro. LA freeways can be nightmare any day of the week. I can not remember the exact mileage but it is some distance away (20 minutes by the Norwegian Shuttle Bus or so.) Not worth the stress or risk.

Legacy airlines like United typically fly with a 85% load, often much higher on popular & non-stop routes - done my share of coast-to-coast "Friendship" services IAD-LAX and IAD-SFO in earlier days with even more frequent services. When a flight get delayed, go mechanical or run into delays, there is possibly 1 or 2 dozen vacant/available seats to rebook passengers for a later flight ... guess what, Business-First flyers get prioritized and everyone else join the queue for the next CSR at the boarding gate's podium - this sometimes don't happen for at least 90 minutes to 2+ hours, waiting until the ground support/mechanics decided and chalk the flight as cancelled ... or cocktail and cabin crew timing out against the clock, etc.

If there is another non-stop from UA leaving 2 or 3 hours later than the one scheduled, or from another airline that cross-honor UA's endorsed tickets, you might have a chance to get to the front of the queue (line) to get confirmed for that aircraft ... assuming that you are holding on to the luggage or can leave without it (bags might still be buried in the belly's compartment hold). Sometimes, you simply join the other 120+ flyers to wait near the gate on a standby basis.

Once your flight land at LAX, retrieving your luggage, making ground transportation to San Pedro pier before the all abroad cut-off time to check-in is another story ... an accident or fuel spill on the infamous I-405 Freeway can shut everyone down for an hour + or more. You might be lucky to get there in time to watch the sailaway from the cruise terminal - and, start making plans to catch up with the ship 2 days later in Mexico.

Smog, FAA ground stop and other issues have been known to trigger flight diversion and holds on inbound aircrafts for LAX. Hotels at LAX are not that expensive, go Price ... Line or what not, it's a worthwhile insurance to come in the night before ... flying in from the East Coast, your body clock will appreciate the adjustment for jet lag.

Good luck in whatever you decide ... definitely have trip delay/interruption insurance if you opt to roll the rice flying in the morning of.

The drive from LAX to the cruise ports is about an hour if you are lucky with traffic. I would suggest allowing time for that and would recommend coming in the night before. Also, I think the departing 1 PM flight from LAX would be cutting it close - you would make it only if everything went perfectly. The stretch of freeway between LAX and the ports is often congested.

We live in Northern California and we always stay the night before because we just don't like the hassle or worry. We have driven and flown down to LA. We uber or take the Super Shuttle to Best Western which has free breakfast and offers a free shuttle to the port.

BEST WESTERN PLUS San Pedro Hotel & Suites

111 S Gaffey Street

San Pedro , California

90731-2429, United States

Phone: 310/514-1414

Play it safe and fly in the day before.

got a free cruise from my land casino.

one of the offers is an 8day Mexican Rivera on Bliss (Inside room) leaving from LA! :cool:

Fri 10/5/2018 - Sat 10/13/2018

I'm going solo.

 

1) the cruise departs at 5pm pst so that means the latest to check-in is 3pm.

I live in DC area, near Dulles (IAD) airport.

 

There's a nonstop flight from IAD to LAX on Alaska Air that lands at 11:39am pst.

there's also 2 United flights that lands at 10:09am and 11:09am pst.

 

i'm leaning on flying in day of cruise on the United flight that lands at 10:09am.

if there's a delay, i'm assuming i can get switched to the 11:09am landing flight for free.

Is it easy to go from LAX to the NCL cruise port using Uber/Lyft?

 

 

2) The ship returns at 8am.

There's a nonstop United flight at 1:20pm.

 

i plan to book NCL transfer from ship to airport.

or do it myself with Uber/Lyft since i only have 1 piece of luggage?

 

 

What do you think about my plans for flying in same day the cruise departs, and flying out the same day the cruise returns?

Or should i stay over night?

Always good to fly in the day before LYFT/UBER is best .

My 2 cents. I always fly in the day before. I'm usually flying ATL to MIA. The one time I left the day of, after years of flying in the day before, ATL security was unusually packed and I missed my flight. After enduring a lecture from the Delta desk agent about always leaving the day before for a cruise, she was gracious enough to get me on the next flight at no additional charge and all was well. I was stressed to the max, even though I made it to MIA on time. It's not worth the stress for me. Too many variables on what can go wrong.

I'm pretty conservative and risk-averse, so we always fly in the day before. Friday is one of the worse days for traffic in Los Angeles. If your flight really gets into LAX at 10, and you have checked luggage, it will be 11 to 11:30 at the earliest before you get your luggage. That still gives you four hours to get to the port 20 miles away. (LAX is the WORST for luggage).

There are two ports in close proximity to each other in Los Angeles, but the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro is the one you want. Make sure your Uber driver knows that. SAN PEDRO - make him repeat it back to you. SAN PEDRO. It takes much too long to get from that other port back over to San Pedro!

Taxi and Uber fares are higher in LA than in many other places. Uber quotes from $23 to $37 for the fare. Shuttle vans are going to run $40 to $50.

You can fly in the same day if you're not a chicken like me. There is no problem getting to the airport for a United flight by 1:20 on a Saturday for your return. They are in terminals 6, 7 and 8, and security is usually pretty fast there. If you were flying Southwest I would say fly later, just because they have the worst security line in the known universe.

We never fly to arrive at a cruise departure port anywhere on the embarkation day, we always have at least one day there before. We always look to be safe and sure about being on the boat!!

Here's my 'always fly in the day before' story. I was at the Phoenix airport on a Saturday morning at 9am for a non-cruise related flight to SFO. A large majority of people at the gates were taking the one hour flight from PHX to LAX for cruises departing at 5pm that day. They should have had no issue getting to the port in LA by noon at the latest. But here's where reality set in: due to heavy smoke from a major brush fire, every airport in the LA area was closed...LAX, ONT, BUR, Orange County, Long Beach, all the way down to San Diego! To say there was mild panic was an understatement. The gate agents were on the phones to the cruise lines, passengers were on their phones to the cruiselines and announcements were flying fast and furious, with the major one being no flights out to LA for the foreseeable future. I felt so sorry for all of these people and, fortunately for me, my flight to SFO left on time so I never saw how this issue was resolved. But as I was waiting to board the first thing I thought of was I would have rented a car and made the 5 hour drive (freeways were not closed), at least giving myself a fighting chance of making the cruise.

Ever since I saw that even a one hour flight can be delayed all day, I would never fly in day of cruise.

Always plan to be within reasonable surface transportation to the ship the day of sailing.

In the previous post of folks at Phoenix sailing out of Long Beach as noted

by debenson0723 - acting quickly using their own cars; renting cars or perhaps

getting a chartered bus would work - but time is of essence here.

Depending on the number of cruise passengers NCL or other cruise line may

choose to hold for their arrival - that has to be worked out quickly.

With the smoke storm and closer of all the LAX basin airports I am sure that

other cruise passengers are also in a fix and that NCL would be entertaining

alternate arrangements - they can sail a couple of hours later and still make a

cruise out of it.

For peace of mind however - simply the day or evening before drive or fly to

the port location.

Monday morning quarterbacking the situation - what are your backup plans ?

Sometimes, even flying in a day early, is not enough!

We always make sure we get to the port a day before the ship sails.

But last May, a major storm on the East Coast, ruined our cruise. (On a different line)

The ship was to leave from Miami on a Friday. I was to fly in from NYC Thursday afternoon. My daughter was flying in from Philadelphia a few hours later to meet me.

A huge thunderstorm delayed flights from Boston down through DC all afternoon,

I got lucky, my flight was the last to leave Kennedy, getting me to Miami at 1am. However, my daughter’s flight, after spending much time on the runway, had her flight cancelled just before take off, because the crew had “ timed out”!

Because all flights on the East Coast were affected, all morning flights on Friday were overbooked. She could not find a flight for Friday from NY, Philly, Baltimore or DC, that would get her to Miami in time. I ended up taking the cruise by myself!

My advice....get to the port a day early.

See if you can book your flight thru the cruise line for the same day.

I flew into Barcelona the day of a TA I did 2 years ago using RCCL flight and had no issue. This year we flew from Lisbon to Barcelona same day no issue just know your flight options put some clothes in your carry on in case your bag is late.

But for a free cruise a one night hotel is not much if you have the time too!

This ATC delay & ground stop was from a false ?? report of active shooter near LAX last year, flights were delayed & diverted as a direct result.

http://abc7news.com/news/false-report-of-active-shooter-prompts-flight-delays-at-lax/1489696/

There was another recent incident with a real active shooter incident on the active LAX flight path - as I recall - and the crippling effects were felt for hours afterward even when the air space was re-opened by law enforcement.

Cruises scheduled to sail were delayed & held, but eventually embarked and some folks missed their ship ... assume the full risk by self-insuring and/or have trip interruption insurance, because life is unpredictable, under Murphy's Law.

I'd fly in the day before, no question.

Always always always fly in the day before.

Why cause undue stress?

Fly in the day before the cruise, check into a hotel near the cruise terminal and relax after the cross-country flight from DC to LA.

We always fly one or two days before a cruise and we always purchase travel insurance.

Travel can be challenging. We try to make it as comfortable as possible.