Your plan B in case of a winter storm?

[mmcipdn]

Can insurance be purchased 30 days before sailing? We leave Jan 23 from San Pedro, we have never even considered insurance on our other 3 previous cruises; but with this past weekends snowfall here in Va closing down most airports for a few days, we are having seconds thoughts. Is it too late?

it is not too late...but probably will not cover prexisting medical conditions.. go to w. w. w. t r i p i n s u r e . c o m

[ibfern]

Quite a few states in the U.S. have been blanketed with snow during the past couple of days and I can't but help to think that all the cancelled flights must have unfortunately affected some Princess cruise passengers.

 

 

So - what kind of plan B do those of you who live a flight away from the cruise port recommend in the winter season?

• Do you find that booking your flight the day before the cruise is usually enough?
  
• Do you have a refundable Amtrak ticket on hold just in case?
  
• Do you just take it as it comes and embrace the challenge of catching the ship at the next port if you don't make it on time?
  

Happy holidays to everyone!

 

This thread got me nervous because I am slated to leave the night before (29th) my next cruise on the 30th. DH can't leave earlier, so if our nonstop flight out of LAX does not leave on time or cannot get us to the ship on time, we will miss the ship. I do have insurance but hope I don't have to use it!

 

This time we are going to have to take it as it comes, but I doubt we would chase the ship for a 10 day cruise.

[Sea42]

We fly out of O'Hare almost every January so we're used to dealing with weather issues! Be it snow, fog or just general delays.

First, we book to arrive a day before we need to be somewhere.

We always drive down the night before our flight. For us it's a 3 hour drive, so with winter being what it is our next step is just getting to Chicago!

We try never to fly out on a weekday morning as it's the busiest and most likely to have delayed flights. All of the weather delays we have encountered have been in the morning. If you get a warm January morning and there's snow on the ground you can plan on fog being an issue! If it's snow they generally have back ups in the AM and delay or cancel those flights. It doesn't generally effect passengers on PM flights as runways are usually open by late morning or early afternoon. Now this is general winter snow conditions. Anything can happen if there's more then say 12 inches in 12 hours. If it's coming down faster then they can plow we all just have to sit and wait!

Also flying non-stop on the way down is always worth a little extra money for the piece of mind it brings knowing you don't have to worry about making connections.

On the way home we really don't mind delays and are always willing take a bump if someone else needs to be on a certain flight.:)

Oh yes and we do use travel insurance!!

[razzinger]

it is not too late...but probably will not cover prexisting medical conditions.. go to w. w. w. t r i p i n s u r e . c o m

 

Thanks! We aren't nearly as concerned with health issues (none at this time) but more the airfare and cruise money we have already put out.

[ONT-CA]

If you have to connect, do so as far south as possible.

 

Even though we booked a flight out of Syracuse with a connection in Atlanta, thinking that that was far enough south to protect us, flights were cancelled/delayed into Atlanta due to low ceiling and we missed our connection. We had to take a hotel in Atlanta that night giving up our pre-paid hotel room in FL. We made the cruise but there is no airport safe enough to guarantee arrival in time for sailing even with the additional night advance.

[Denise40]

What does travel INS usually cost? Is it a one time fee? Thanks in advance.

[Love Boat Dream]

I agree with most of the posts here. Only once did we not plan to arrive a day ahead. There was an impending storm and our early morning flight was the last one out that day and we made our cruise. Many others from the Northeast didn't and they missed the sailaway and the first day (at sea) and a lot of them joined the ship at the 1st port.

 

I always have insurance and arrive at least one day ahead. We are sailing this coming Saturday and we will arrive in FLL on Thursday.