first timer worried about flights

[greatam]

Why do people ask these questions once they have booked?

 

Whether it is a good idea or not (my view is that it is a terrible plan to allow under an hour for a change) surely if you want feedback in this context from experienced travellers you ask the question before you make the mistake rather than after?

 

First cruise and BELIEVED in a TA to make the RIGHT arrangements. There are many good TA's out there who can take care of cruises. There are VERY few that understand the complexities of air travel, fare classes, etc. etc. There are many that BELIEVE the cruise hype about "getting you to the ship" if you book cruise air. They listen to the "training classes" and FAIL to read the fine print. "WORK WITH our airline partners" (posted repeatedly on Choice Air blurbs) does NOT mean you will get on a plane. It means they will TRY to get you on a plane. And with the heavy restrictions of most cruise line booked tickets, the tickets are generally only good on the originating (ticketing) airline. NON ENDORSABLE tickets can be the death of a trip. Just ask 500+ passengers who totally missed their cruise on the Star Princess due to the earthquake in Chile and cruise/air tickets. Had NOTHING to do with the earthquake. Had to due with the heavy restrictions on the tickets. If you weren't willing to cough up LARGE dollars (many reported 75% MORE than the original tickets) just to get your ticket re-routed, you were simply out of luck.

 

IF the TA just booked the flight on an airline website, the OP has a MUCH better chance of making the cruise. Those tickets are generally ENDORSABLE, which means if the originating airline has problems getting the OP a seat on the next plane out in case of missed connection, the ticket CAN be used on another airline. Let's hope the TA did that.

 

I feel sorry for the OP and hope the connection goes smoothly. The TA obviously has never flown through ORD with a Barbie jet connection in the middle of winter.

[spongerob]

Obviously it's easy to say you shoulda, woulda, and coulda, but if the OP can't change their itinerary then they'll have to hope for the best. If everything goes smoothly they don't have much to worry about. We made a connection in Chicago with only about 30 minutes between flights...not by choice, mind you, but when you're two hours late departing to begin with it makes life a bit exciting.

 

One more thing to do, if time is of the essence, is to inform the flight attendant of your need to get off the plane quickly. In such cases they might ask others to let you go first when you reach the gate.