opinions needed

[beach gramma]

We are flying in from Wisconsin on Mar 20 for a cruise out of Miami on 3/21. Would we better off flying into Miami or FL? I heard that the flights are usually cheaper to FL. Also should we stay in FL or MIami for the night? Anyone know of any decent hotels in Miami for less than $175 per night and where is an OK place to stay? Also what is the best way to get from FL to Miami-? Thanks for any input.

[sdirector77]

For us it us usually a little cheaper to fly into FLL and more schedule choices but the savings will be taken away for transportation to Miami, so for our upcoming cruise in January 2010 I am planning on booking flights to Miami. We stayed at the Hilton last year and booked it through priceline. And again for our cruise in January I plan to grab a room from priceline as well. It is only one night and prefer to stay downtown, the closer to the port for us the better.

[beastiemom]

You should check the routes on both. Sometimes it's cheaper to fly into one than the other. It depends on how many people are traveling as to whether the savings get eaten up by transportation costs. For example, if you save $50.00 pp and you have 4 people flying, that is $200.00. You can rent a stretch limo for $125 to travel between FLL and MIA and still be $75 ahead. Or you could go by SAS for $15.00 a person and be $140.00 ahead. If you have less people and the savings per ticket are less, than maybe the difference isn't great enough to sacrifice the convenience.

 

There are a lot of info on hotels and bidding them on priceline, etc. on this thread. I think the Intercontinental is popular. However, just spend a few minutes looking through the threads and clicking on ones that start with Miami hotels or ones that discuss bidding and they can give you lots of ideas.

[eandj]

We are flying in from Wisconsin on Mar 20 for a cruise out of Miami on 3/21. Would we better off flying into Miami or FL? I heard that the flights are usually cheaper to FL. Also should we stay in FL or MIami for the night? Anyone know of any decent hotels in Miami for less than $175 per night and where is an OK place to stay? Also what is the best way to get from FL to Miami-? Thanks for any input.

 

Being from Wis. I can give you some info. If we are flying into Mia, we go to chicago and can usually catch a decent priced flight non stop. We usually stay the night before at one of the airport hotels, (The Renaissance is our favorite), and leave our car.

 

To FLL, you should look at AirTran out of Mke. They have good pricing on nonstops.

 

Go to sidestep.com and it'll pull up all the flights and rates for you.

 

Now all you have to do is add the costs of any shuttle service, cabs, hotels, whatever and see which you find more advantageous and convenient.

 

Figure out where you are going to be staying and then come back for hotel info.

[cruiserbryce]

when we cruised from Miami we found the flights to be significantly cheaper into FL...we stayed in FL as well b/c the cost was lower than the Miami hotels near the port...