Flying In on the Day of Cruise

[Towel Critter]

No...we are realists. We aren't pie in the sky it is going to cave in any second conspiracy theorists who rattle off doomsday incidents as though they happen every second of every day at every airport for every airline.

 

Why haven't all those minions who have missed same day flights been posting about their horrible experiences and how they happen time and time again?

 

Awesome, SDG ;-)

[Wheels87]

This is simple...It's all about risk. Just think for a minute how you would feel if, after months of planning and hours of packing/driving/flying, you arrived late and missed your cruise. If this would not bother you, then by all means, fly in the day of your cruise. If this would cause you some serious heartburn (like I assume it would most people), then perhaps you are better off flying in the day before.

 

Someone telling you that you would be fine flying in the day of your trip because they have been on eight or ten or even twenty cruises and never had an issue is really irrelevant.

 

Good luck!

[Wheels87]

Me, personally, knowing how difficult it is to clear my schedule at work and get prepared to go and to find a week or two which works for everyone, I would be completely deflated and would hate myself for not flying in the day before. I cannot imagine the disappointment of seeing the ship sail away without me and my family and it is just not worth the risk to me.

 

To each his own.

 

Brad

[evandbob]

Really???? "You WILL be fine"? How?- IF someone follows your magic formula? Because you and all the other same day flyers are in some kind of secret club that protects you?

 

This is an interesting post. Just about all, are very infrequent flyers. Like I said pages back- for anyone to be able to make some recommendations- to fly in the same day- better be flying multiple times per week, not only a couple times per year.

 

By your logic then the only valid comments on CC are from cruisers who sail every other week????????

 

Everyone else can be discounted because they don't cruise enough??????

 

I've redeemed over 2 and 1/2 MILLION freq flyer miles in addition to flights that I've paid for.......what's my opinion worth??????

 

LOL, what did SweetDutchGirl say? Jiminy Christmas!

[Jsmommy13]

Wow. This was so not intended to be a debate. But since it is, now, I'll add my two cents.

 

By flying in a day early, and then having to drive (or be driven to) the pier, who's to say that's 100% "safe?" Traffic might be a nightmare. Car could get a flat tire, need a jump start, or any other problem that could cause a delay.

By this logic, everyone should arrive to work on Sunday, instead of Monday, because who knows what could happen to make them late, if they try to arrive to work on "the day of."

[evandbob]

I've only stated what I do when I fly in the morning of the cruise. Readers can take my comments and do whatever they want with them. I don't believe I've ever told someone what they should do, that's their decision. It works for me, I like it, I'll do it again.

 

What doesn't work for me is paying for 25 unnecessary nights in a hotel. That's 2 or 3 cruises right there.

 

And I do believe the OP's question was about successfully flying to the port on the morning of the cruise. Anyone who strayed from the question is just off target.

Edited July 22, 2015 by evandbob

[Towel Critter]

Wow. This was so not intended to be a debate. But since it is, now, I'll add my two cents.

 

By flying in a day early, and then having to drive (or be driven to) the pier, who's to say that's 100% "safe?" Traffic might be a nightmare. Car could get a flat tire, need a jump start, or any other problem that could cause a delay.

By this logic, everyone should arrive to work on Sunday, instead of Monday, because who knows what could happen to make them late, if they try to arrive to work on "the day of."

Good points. You're being entirely too logical. Enjoy your cruise! (if you make it on board) ;-)

[Budget Queen]

By your logic then the only valid comments on CC are from cruisers who sail every other week????????

 

Everyone else can be discounted because they don't cruise enough??????

 

I've redeemed over 2 and 1/2 MILLION freq flyer miles in addition to flights that I've paid for.......what's my opinion worth??????

 

LOL, what did SweetDutchGirl say? Jiminy Christmas!

 

No- it's the "I didn't have any problems, and won't either" posts.

 

And - I highly doubt you flew all those miles, you "redeemed", Why don't you post, what you flew last year? And if it's over once/month- they ALL were on time? I did fly that frequently- and mine were not.

 

I do cruise frequently, have been on 107, but, I am not going to say to anyone- Oh, I've made all my cruises, do what I do, you'll have no problem, etc etc . Especially for the posters who are only looking for the perfect answers, anyway.

 

Quite an entertaining post.

[DebJ14]

Millions of passengers fly in the day of the cruise from lots of different locations. Here are the current delayed and cancelled flights for the US today:

 

Total delays within, into, or out of the United States today: 423

 

Total cancellations within, into, or out of the United States today: 59

 

Most of the delays are less than 60 minutes. And these numbers represent all airlines from all areas of the globe. Considering that Chicagos O'Hare airport has about 2500 flights landing or taking off today...well, you get the gist.

 

I wouldn't worry too much about missing the ship...the likelihood of it happening is miniscule.

 

 

Tell that to my good friends from Georgia booked on an 8 night cruise in June 2014. They arrived at the pier to find the Breeze had already departed. They were on an early morning nonstop on Delta from Atlanta to Miami. The plane had to make an emergency stop in Jacksonville due to mechanical problems. Delta promised they would have a plane there and get them to Miami in time. Long story short - the plane never took off from Jacksonville until after 3pm. They had to collect luggage and get a taxi. They arrived at 4:40pm and the Breeze was gone. FYI: they were in contact with Carnival all day and were told the ship would wait. It did not, but NCL held their ship for the passengers on that flight.

 

Unfortunately, first port was Turks and Caicos and there were no flights available to Grand Turk.

 

They ended up booking a short cruise on Royal Caribbean so their vacation was not a total loss.

 

Delta at least refunded the cost of their airline tickets.

 

All it takes is one flight to be messed up to ruin a vacation. We always fly in a day or 2 early unless departing from Galveston where our drive is only 60 miles.

Edited July 23, 2015 by DebJ14

[loxley]

Awesome, SDG ;-)

 

JPS

 

Wow. This was so not intended to be a debate. But since it is, now, I'll add my two cents.

 

By flying in a day early, and then having to drive (or be driven to) the pier, who's to say that's 100% "safe?" Traffic might be a nightmare. Car could get a flat tire, need a jump start, or any other problem that could cause a delay.

By this logic, everyone should arrive to work on Sunday, instead of Monday, because who knows what could happen to make them late, if they try to arrive to work on "the day of."

 

 

Do you REALLY equate being 15 min late to work to being 15 late to a cruise ship that you have paid money to be on sailing away without you?

[joge107]

As someone early on this thread mentioned, if flying in the day of the cruise is so fraught with risks, why does Carnival fly you in on the day of the cruise when you book air through them? Are there risks? Yes. Life is filled with risk. Are the odds so low of making it onto your ship that every single person should ALWAYS fly in a day or two early, whether that extra day off work, hotel room, and extra meals are in their vacation budget or not? What do you figure the odds of not making onto the ship, because of flying in on the morning of the cruise, are? 90%? You and the poster's comment that you are championing surely must think so. 50% maybe? You know as well as I do that the risk is likely less than 5%. I'd love to see real stats on this, if they exist.

 

Because they will wait for a flight they booked passengers on.

[Sweet Dutch Girl]

Quick question...

 

If same day flights are so unreliable and the optimum is to fly in the day before why don't cruise lines make that mandatory instead of selling transportation from the airport to the pier to the thousands who fly in the same day. Isn't the cruise line wasting time and money trying to pick up all these passengers who aren't going to make it on time anyway?

 

And I'm bowing out now...many of us have answered the OPs question, told them that their 10:30 arrival time will give them plenty of time to make the cruise departure and ensured them that in our "limited" experience that same day flights tend to arrive at the port city with alarming regularity. We have not tendered any advice nor have we judged their sanity in booking a same day flight.

[Towel Critter]

Because they will wait for a flight they booked passengers on.

 

I'm sorry, but I don't totally understand your comment. By "they" do you mean Carnival? I'm thinking you are responding to my comment/question about Carnival booking people on same day flights, but I can't be sure. Please rephrase your comment, if you have a minute. Sorry, and thanks.

[karinad]

It's always a gamble on when to fly. I'm debating that now for our cruise from P.R. in Oct. We'd get a non-stop flight on JetBlue from EWR that arrives about 3pm. The cruise sails at 10pm. I do hate to pay for a hotel the night before, but I keep remembering my non-stop flight from ABE to CLT, a less then 2 hr. flight. I'm still not sure why the flight was delayed for 8 hrs.!:eek:

 

Having said that, if the flight was a lot cheaper the same day of the cruise, I think I'd go for it. Right now, the flight is more expensive the day of sailing. Maybe the cruise line has passengers on that flight.

[loxley]

What I find funny about all this discussion is every person who has missed the ship and came back to report it has started out with things like, we always have flown in the day of the cruise with no problems, but this time .............

 

 

It comes down to if you are ok with the risk, then go for it. Most people make it.

[lizardhowson]

Because they will wait for a flight they booked passengers on.

 

This is necessarily incorrect. What they will do is pay the cost to fly those who they scheduled on late arriving flights to catch up to the cruise.

[Jay Sam]

No other option for me. Day before only. Time to relax and not have such a full day of it on the day of sailing.

[icunrse]

We had to fly to get to San Juan (go figure :eek:), and we flew in the day of the departure. I was frantic. First, it was my first cruise and I had no idea what I was doing or what to expect. Secondly, I get anxious traveling to destinations with a time crunch of any kind. We got transfers to the ship with about an hour or two before scheduled boarding. We had plenty of time to board since the ship didn't leave port until 11 pm (I think that is what saved me from totally going off the deep end).

 

For our second cruise in March, I think we are driving to Port Canaveral from NC (you bet that I will wake this family up super early to make it there with several hours to spare--my poor family). I just get too anxious. My DH knows it and once on ship his code for "how about you relax, darling" is the phrase, "can I get you a beer now?". :)

[SusieCruises]

Sailing on Fascination Aug 6. Flying DCA to JAX nonstop on the 6th. Arrival 10:45 am. Carrying on only, no dealing with baggage claim. Getting to pier using Carnival's transfer service. In my head this is plenty of time but all the comments I read on here and on a Facebook Carnival page have me thinking otherwise.

 

So: if you have had SUCCESS flying in the day of the cruise, please comment here. I know the stories are out there!!Thanks!! :-)

We ALWAYS fly in the day of the cruise......our flight usually gets to the airport no later than 11AM (we always get he earliest flight from Detroit) and we have flown in to Tampa, Miami, Ft Lauderdale and Port Canaveral and NEVER had a problem. And just to make it a little MORE interesting, we always cruise in December and January so we have the extra fun of sweating the weather in Detroit and hoping and praying we will be able to get OUT of here! LOL But once we were out, we had no problems. We usually use the Carnival transfers to get to the ship, but have had no problems using other shuttle services. Hope this helps....:)

[Tapi]

And I'm bowing out now...many of us have answered the OPs question, told them that their 10:30 arrival time will give them plenty of time to make the cruise departure and ensured them that in our "limited" experience that same day flights tend to arrive at the port city with alarming regularity.

 

Sweet Dutch Girl

 

Before you bow out, let me say that you're correct when you say that the chances of a flight delay or cancellation are slim. To answer the OP's question, yes, most people that choose to fly on the day of the cruise do make it successfully. But the point that those of us (with a little bit of frequent travel experience) are trying to make is that its very bad advise to tell someone to fly in on the day of the cruise simply because YOU haven't had an issue.

 

You need to look at the big picture. A flight delay/cancellation is just ONE thing that can hinder someone's travels. Pretty much every flight that I operate has "no-show" passengers who for one unforeseen reason or another, don't even make it to the flight. Flying in on the day of departure, while absolutely doable, reduces your opportunity to recover from ANY unforeseen circumstance (flight related or not) to just a few hours. I'm not being fatalistic, I'm being realistic. I see this EVERY, SINGLE, DAY, on almost EVERY, SINGLE, FLIGHT that I operate.

 

It's pretty obvious that you are set on your ways and that you've come up with enough personal reasoning to deem it OK to fly on the day of the cruise. Good for you. But from someone who does this for a living, and flies several times every week, I respectfully recommend that you DON'T encourage others to fly in on the day of the cruise. If THEY miss their cruise because of YOUR ill-advise, I'm pretty sure that you're not going to pay for their expenses to catch up with their cruise.

Edited July 23, 2015 by Tapi

[evandbob]

No- it's the "I didn't have any problems, and won't either" posts.

 

And - I highly doubt you flew all those miles, you "redeemed", Why don't you post, what you flew last year? And if it's over once/month- they ALL were on time? I did fly that frequently- and mine were not.

 

I do cruise frequently, have been on 107, but, I am not going to say to anyone- Oh, I've made all my cruises, do what I do, you'll have no problem, etc etc . Especially for the posters who are only looking for the perfect answers, anyway.

 

Quite an entertaining post.

 

Actually, I've been flying once or twice a month since I've retired 3 yrs ago, just not on short hauls with small carriers or from rinky dink airports like Syracuse.. Before that I fly every other month with 6 weeks vacation. The 2 1/2 million miles redeemed equate to about 85 flights, including Hawaii and Tahiti a few times each since I became a frequent flyer in 1998.

 

I've had once flight delayed this year, just 2 weeks ago due to summer storms on a trip to Vegas through Chicago from LGA in NY. I was still able to make my connection and get to Vegas on schedule.

 

When I cruise in the morning of a flight I fly non stop direct from NY to Florida, usually either MIA or FLL with a carry on bag. I have several priority statuses with different airlines, am TSA pre checked with Global Entry, and platinum on Carnival. I am usually unpacked and going to Lido for lunch by 11:45AM.

 

One cruise out of Miami had a delayed sailing due to early afternoon thunderstorms that delayed 4 or 5 flights from landing at MIA. Carnival had booked passengers on these flights arriving between 1 and 2 PM, so they were forced to hold off sailaway until all their customers have arrived.

 

This is what I do. YMMV.

Edited July 23, 2015 by evandbob

[Sweet Dutch Girl]

Sweet Dutch Girl

 

Before you bow out, let me say that you're correct when you say that the chances of a flight delay or cancellation are slim. To answer the OP's question, yes, most people that choose to fly on the day of the cruise do make it successfully. But the point that those of us (with a little bit of frequent travel experience) are trying to make is that its very bad advise to tell someone to fly in on the day of the cruise simply because YOU haven't had an issue.

 

You need to look at the big picture. A flight delay/cancellation is just ONE thing that can hinder someone's travels. Pretty much every flight that I operate has "no-show" passengers who for one unforeseen reason or another, don't even make it to the flight. Flying in on the day of departure, while absolutely doable, reduces your opportunity to recover from ANY unforeseen circumstance (flight related or not) to just a few hours. I'm not being fatalistic, I'm being realistic. I see this EVERY, SINGLE, DAY, on almost EVERY, SINGLE, FLIGHT that I operate.

 

It's pretty obvious that you are set on your ways and that you've come up with enough personal reasoning to deem it OK to fly on the day of the cruise. Good for you. But from someone who does this for a living, and flies several times every week, I respectfully recommend that you DON'T encourage others to fly in on the day of the cruise. If THEY miss their cruise because of YOUR ill-advise, I'm pretty sure that you're not going to pay for their expenses to catch up with their cruise.

 

I understand your sentiment but AM NOT TELLING people to fly in the day of their cruise. I am saying that statistics and past experience from millions of passengers disprove the theory that delays, missed flights, and missed cruises are inevitable. If I was flying to San Juan out of the western US I would probably fly in the day before...if I had to fly little puddle jumpers and multiple flights I would probably fly in the day before. If I was leaving from a hub on a reputable airline with a non-stop flight I wouldn't hesitate doing it the same day.

 

If you and others choose to be fatalists because of past experience that is your choice but you are in no position to insist that others are not being realistic when they choose to recognize established data and to weigh their decisions based on what actually has happened rather than what "may" happen. I am glad you can afford the extra day off of work or the extra cost for a family of meals and hotel rooms. Lots of people can't. And your insinuations that people making the decisions of same day travel are just "asking" for trouble is a bit degrading to their own measure of common sense.

 

Oh, by the way, I have traveled 10 or more flights per week, every week for lots of years. 500 flights a year does give someone some perspective.

Edited July 23, 2015 by Sweet Dutch Girl

[Budget Queen]

Actually, I've been flying once or twice a month since I've retired 3 yrs ago, just not on short hauls with small carriers or from rinky dink airports like Syracuse.. Before that I fly every other month with 6 weeks vacation. The 2 1/2 million miles redeemed equate to about 85 flights, including Hawaii and Tahiti a few times each since I became a frequent flyer in 1998.

 

I've had once flight delayed this year, just 2 weeks ago due to summer storms on a trip to Vegas through Chicago from LGA in NY. I was still able to make my connection and get to Vegas on schedule.

 

When I cruise in the morning of a flight I fly non stop direct from NY to Florida, usually either MIA or FLL with a carry on bag. I have several priority statuses with different airlines, am TSA pre checked with Global Entry, and platinum on Carnival. I am usually unpacked and going to Lido for lunch by 11:45AM.

 

One cruise out of Miami had a delayed sailing due to early afternoon thunderstorms that delayed 4 or 5 flights from landing at MIA. Carnival had booked passengers on these flights arriving between 1 and 2 PM, so they were forced to hold off sailaway until all their customers have arrived.

 

This is what I do. YMMV.

 

Wow, since 1998- with you taking 85 flights. Interesting you slam Syr. Do you think, I somehow, don't fly through any hub airports? Syr flyers don't go anywhere? I didn't know that.

[Tapi]

If you and others choose to be fatalists because of past experience that is your choice but you are in no position to insist that others are not being realistic when they choose to recognize established data and to weigh their decisions based on what actually has happened rather than what "may" happen. I am glad you can afford the extra day off of work or the extra cost for a family of meals and hotel rooms. Lots of people can't.

 

 

Your idea of me being fatalistic is my idea of being realistic. You may be a frequent flyer, but I do this for a living.

 

I have little sympathy for those who say that they have no choice but to fly on the day of the cruise because "they don't have enough vacation time". If they don't have enough vacation time, the simple solution is to select a cruise that does fit their vacation time. Weighing in on people's finances is more delicate so I won't comment on that one.

 

As a side note, I hope that nobody flying today out of LGA (and using your reasoning) missed their cruises. Today's massive cancellations, on a beautiful, clear summer day, are a clear example of why it's dumb to choose to fly on the day of the cruise because of "statistical data". 168 cancellations, several of those nonstops to Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando and other cruise ports. Does today incident happen often? Absolutely not. But the point is that by flying on the day of the cruise you just don't allow yourself enough time to recover for that or ANY unforeseen circumstance, flight related or not.

Edited July 24, 2015 by Tapi

[Jay Sam]

Your idea of me being fatalistic is my idea of being realistic. You may be a frequent flyer, but I do this for a living.

 

I have little sympathy for those who say that they have no choice but to fly on the day of the cruise because "they don't have enough vacation time". If they don't have enough vacation time, the simple solution is to select a cruise that does fit their vacation time. Weighing in on people's finances is more delicate so I won't comment on that one.

 

As a side note, I hope that nobody flying today out of LGA (and using your reasoning) missed their cruises. Today's massive cancellations, on a beautiful, clear summer day, are a clear example of why it's dumb to choose to fly on the day of the cruise because of "statistical data". 168 cancellations, several of those nonstops to Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando and other cruise ports. Does today incident happen often? Absolutely not. But the point is that by flying on the day of the cruise you just don't allow yourself enough time to recover for that or ANY unforeseen circumstance, flight related or not.

 

I agree with you 100 percent. Flying in the day of the cruise to me too, is just too risky. Granted most come off without a problem, but it just leaves too little room for a possible needed adjustment.

 

Like you mentioned, not just airline problems, there are other things that can go wrong too. The same with driving in the day of sailing in my opinion.

 

Great advice from you. Thanks.

 

When I see the photo of your dog, brings a smile to my face. Great.

Edited July 27, 2015 by Jay Sam
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