Flying home from Miami: 1140 am flt too early?

[karen_g]

I am planning to use my frequent flyer miles to "buy" my flights to/from Miami for my cruise next year. For the return flight home, my choices are an 11:40 am flight or a 4:25 pm flight. Can I pretty easily make the 11:40 am flight, or would it be too risky?

 

Karen

[Radiance1]

Karen - No, an 11:40 AM flight is not too early. The ship usually arrives in port at the crack of dawn (anywhere from 4 to 6 AM) and depending on immigration & customs the ship can be totally empty of all passengers by 10 or 10:30 AM. But,as the cruise is coming to a close, they place in your stateroom information on disembarkation (with luggage tag options concerning flights) and this is where you would select the approriate luggage tag associated with your flight. It has been our experience that the earlier flights get off of the ship first, so if you have an 11:40 AM flight, you could very well be one of the first groups off.

[wrp96]

If you decide to go with the 11:40 flight, make sure you are in one of the 1st groups off. I missed my 11:30 flight in January, but for my previous cruise we were at the airport by 10:00 for a 12:30 flight. It all depends on how quick customs goes, which group you are in, etc.

[dougp26364]

We made our 11:30 flight easily on AA airlines but, we were in Orange group which was the second group off and we checked our luggage at the pier, which you can do with AA up until a certain time (11:00 am I think). Just be sure and let the pursers desk know early on in the cruise that you have an early flight out. They'll give you a form to fill out that asks your airline, flight time and flight number. You should be looking for a white or orange tag unless they've changed their order of colors. The last couple of cruises on the last night they've had a list of order for disembarkation colors for the tags and even had some of the tags out for you to change colors if you felt you needed to be off earlier.

 

RCI seems to be very good at getting everyone to the airport in time to make their flights and I've come to trust what the pursers desk tells me.