Earliest Flight after Debarkation in Miami

[danim]

We are cruising on Carnival Valor and would like to book our return flight. Does anyone know the earliest time one could still make a flight out of Miami? There is one at 10:23 and we wonder if we could make it.

 

Thank You,

Danielle

[trish1c]

There's a reason the cruise lines tell you not to make a reservation before noon.

 

Domestic check in is at least 1 hour before take off. For a 10:20 flight you'd have to be at the AP by 9:20. It's about a 20 minute ride from the port to the AP. So if the ship gets into port at 8:00 a.m. and it takes 1 hour to clear cutoms, if you are not the 1st people off the ship (& you'll have to take your own luggage to make this work), you miss your flight.

 

Now, if your ship is late getting in, if customs or immigration are understaffed or overworked or if there's traffic on the way to the AP -- yikes -- too much stress for me.

 

Others will tell you no problem. So it's up to you. Do you want to take those chances?

[kitty9]

Absolutely no way for a flight that early. Every cruise line tells you not to book return flights before noon, and there are lots of reasons why. When we left the QM2 a month ago, we were the first off the ship, and that was at 9:15, even though the ship got in at 6:30. By the time we found our bags, went through Customs, found the taxi and went to the airport, checked our bags (the line for check in was very long), it was nearly 11:15.

[danim]

I really appreciate you both for taking the time to reply. We have booked an afternoon flight per your suggestions. Thank you again.

[bookduster]

We returned last Saturday from the NCL Sun and had a 10:56 flight out. We choose self disembarkation where we carried our own luggage and were the first group off the ship. There were plenty of cabs outside and we quickly found a van that could take the 5 of us. The only holdup was going through security at the Miami airport, but we still made it to the gate with half an hour to spare.

 

I will admit that I was stressed about making the plane on time, but now that I've done self disembarking, I'll stick with it.