Earliest flt booked home from ftl

[curiouscat]

Leaving Port everglades to Ft lauderdale airport...what is the earliest flt you booked home? and did u make it???

 

Thanks

 

CC

[rollie]

It depends on what time of the year or what day of the week.

 

Rollie

[CruisinNJ]

Had a 10:30 AM - made it to the gate by about 8:45 - so plenty of time. Only risk you have is if ship is late or if there are immigration delays. Just make sure that your bag tags are for the first group off the ship.

[dkjretired]

We had a 10:30 once and did self diembarkation. We were through security at the airport at 8:05 A.M. Got to the gate and the flight was delayed, oh well..

[chessbriar]

Just off Equinox, didn't get through customs until 10:00. Our debark time from our assembly location was 8:35

 

You will be affected by day of the week, ship size, which terminal as well us the unscheduled delays. Probably the earliest flight I would make would be 11:00

[riandei]

we have an 11:00 the first week of january

 

will let you know the 2nd week of january

[Lois R]

Just off Equinox, didn't get through customs until 10:00. Our debark time from our assembly location was 8:35

 

You will be affected by day of the week, ship size, which terminal as well us the unscheduled delays. Probably the earliest flight I would make would be 11:00

 

Hi Rick, always so nice to see you on here.:) Hope you had a great

cruise:D

[nbturfman]

We had a 930 flight last year after sailing on the Carnival Miracle. we did self assist and were through security at the airport by 830. I did have a small panic moment when I stepped out on our veranda at 6 am and we were not docked yet and still coming in. Celebrity may be slower to disembark but i would doubt it. I should also note two things;

 

I am Canadian so customs is not as involved as I was leaving nothing in the US ( Canadian Customs a whole different story)

 

I was prepared to call airline to get a later flight and pay the difference if neccesary

 

We are ready to come after every cruise and there is nothing worse than hanging around an airport...except maybe missing the filght:eek: Cheers

[Gonzo70]

Be aware that Oasis and Allure are now using the larger, newer terminal at Port Everglades (the one Solstice and Equinox had been using). On days where Oasis or Allure are in port, Solstice and Equinox are using a much smaller terminal and there has been some custom delays and very slow debarkation. On my Equinox cruise that ended last month it took many people 1&1/2 to 2 hours to get through the customs line once off the ship. I was in one of the earlier groups off and did not make it to the gate at FLL until just before 11am. I would not book a flight before 11:30am if leaving luggage out or before 11:00am if walking off with luggage.

[Lsimon]

The issue isn't necessarily what is the earliest than can be done, but rather what is the earliest it is safe to make a flight booking for if one doesn't have a backup plan.

 

If you do a search through these boards you'll see it is a frequent questions asked and discussed here and I'd encourage you to do the search - just search for "FLL: and "flight" and look at the topics that come up.

 

You'll find that there are stories of people who made 9:15 flights and others that missed 11AM flights. The bottom line is that you are at the mercy of things out Celebrity's control. The most significant of these are customs and immigration issues. There lots of issues that occasionally come up which can either delay the start of disembarkation or slow down the process. Because of this Celebrity usually recommends a time after something like 11:30 or noon. There are lots of stories here on Cruise Critic of people who couldn't even get off their ship until 10 or later and then had to get to the airport and get through lines for check-in and security. Sure the odds are in favor of an smooth and earlier disembarkation but the hectic late ones are not rare. The bottom line on an early flight out is how lucky do you feel and what is your backup plan?

 

The reason those early flights are so much less expensive is because they generally don't work for cruisers so there is less demand for them.

[c-legs]

Looking at everything, and reviewing the many MANY threads on that topic: 11;30am and later

Anything earlier and you run a good risk of negating anything and everything your sailing provided you in terms of stress releif, relaxation and fun....Put that against what you PERHAPS save in $$$ by targetting an earlier flight.....and make your call.

FLL is the busiest cruise terminal there is....specially on a week-end, it is a case of massive number of human beings debarking and going thru all the processes.....pretty well within the same 2 hour time window.....unavoidable chaos....throw in the fact C&BP will not assign, like, 75 agents just because there are 7-8 ships....THEY will also work at a pace of THEIR choice, start when THEY want, be '' by the book'' or'' looser'' as per what THEY decide ,and will deal with ''non-standard'' issues the way THEY chose at that particular time.

No cruise line or port authority can prevent that, even less working around it.

 

11.30am

Cheers

[Sue L]

I did a 9:25am in Sept, but I wouldn't suggest it, I had extenuating circumstances that I needed to get home early. Made for a bit of anxiety that last morning, but we were there by 7:45am and would have been there earlier since a broken traffic light caused a bit of a delay.

[Giorgi-one]

I was on an RCL cruise a few years back and did not get off the ship until noon. Luckily we had 2 PM flight which is the time I prefer in any airport except FLL. Gives us time to have lunch. Probelm is that FLL has the absolutely worst food I have ever seen in any airport. Absolute garbage once you get to the gates and not much better in the Main terminal.

[TowMater]

Probelm is that FLL has the absolutely worst food I have ever seen in any airport. Absolute garbage once you get to the gates and not much better in the Main terminal.

 

We ate at Chili's (in the main terminal before we went through security) and we had a typical Chili's meal. Was MUCH better than the sandwiches you find right by the gates.

 

So..... if you're gonna have lunch at FLL airport, try Chili's.

[Hatteras51]

I was on Solstice three weeks ago. Solstice has now changed terminals and debarkation was VERY slow. There were eight ships in that day. We were scheduled to get off the ship at 8:10, but didn't get off until almost 10:00. We didn't make it out of the terminal until 11:30, and then had to wait in the long line for a taxi. It was the worst debarkation I've ever experienced. I wouldn't book an early flight unless I was walking off with my luggage. Those people started leaving before 8:00, I believe, but I don't know how long it took them to get out of the terminal.

[cherokeesmom]

If our last port is St. Thomas, and we go through customs there (based on a comment on our roll call boad), will we still have to go through customs when we get back to port in FLL? We have an 11:45 flight on 1/23, and I'm a little bit worried about making it on time. Didn't really want to do walk off with luggage, but will if necessary.

[Lois R]

If our last port is St. Thomas, and we go through customs there (based on a comment on our roll call boad), will we still have to go through customs when we get back to port in FLL? We have an 11:45 flight on 1/23, and I'm a little bit worried about making it on time. Didn't really want to do walk off with luggage, but will if necessary.

 

I have done this itinerary many times~most recently in September

and you definitely go through customs at Port Everglades. You get your

luggage inside the terminal and there are always customs people waiting

to check your "duty forms" and passport before you are allowed to exit.

[Lsimon]

If our last port is St. Thomas, and we go through customs there (based on a comment on our roll call boad), will we still have to go through customs when we get back to port in FLL? We have an 11:45 flight on 1/23, and I'm a little bit worried about making it on time. Didn't really want to do walk off with luggage, but will if necessary.

 

I see Lois already answered this (you do have to go through customs) but I'll add another point of confirmation. Even though St. Thomas is a US territory it is a duty free port. You even have to go through customs if you are flying out of St. Thomas back to the USA or even San Juan. We did this last spring when we did a pre-cruise stay in St Thomas before taking a flight to San Juan for our cruise and had to go through customs on that flight - in this case they did the customs check in St. Thomas at the airport before getting to the gate area.

[chessbriar]

If our last port is St. Thomas, and we go through customs there (based on a comment on our roll call boad), will we still have to go through customs when we get back to port in FLL? We have an 11:45 flight on 1/23, and I'm a little bit worried about making it on time. Didn't really want to do walk off with luggage, but will if necessary.

What you go through in St Thomas is immigration and not customs. You will have to go through customs in FLA

 

Above I mentioned we didn't through customs until 10:00, we were one of only 4 ships in port