Sailing out of Bayport Cruise Terminal ( Houston)

[Captain Dizzy]

Good morning all,

We are sailing out of Houston's Bayport Cruise Terminal on the Caribbean Princess in January. Has anyone had a problem making a 1:30pm flight from IAH? Princess says we need to allow 6hrs from docking time to make a flight. If we walk off and take private transportation, we should make it. Any comments?

[PghCruiseGrrrl]

With a Princess transfer we were at the airport before 10am last year.

[mncruizr]

You probably will be OK but this port is notorious for delays in arriving and departing due to fog, traffic, weather etc. My family is also departing in January (10th) and have allowed lots of time on either end of the cruise to be safe. Getting in a day ahead and leaving around 5pm the day of disembark.

 

It's not ideal but I don't need the headache and nervousness of being late or having to take another flight.

Bill

[West Coast Gal]

Fog is a big deal and causes a lot of delays and it depends what day of the week, evidently traffic can get quite difficult. I think that is why Princess is making those recommendations.

 

Cruise ships traveling in late December, January and February may experience fog-related delays, according to Mike Mierzwa, director of the Port of Galveston. Fog during these months has always been a factor ships must consider.

 

Cruise ships that have signed agreements with the Port of Galveston and the Port of Houston Authority are aware of the fog conditions, which are not an issue in some other states that are popular with cruise lines, such as Florida, Mierzwa said

 

From the Houston Business Journal

[PenguinLife]

I will only say this,we sailed out of Bayport a year ago this week, cruise was delayed at both ends. We arrived at the port at about 10:45 am and the departing passengers were just starting to clear customs. Then when we made it back from our cruise docking was delayed a couple of hours due to moderate fog, however debarkation was delayed by 3-4 hours, with the first passengers off the ship around 11 am, we had standard, not express debarkation, and were probably in the first 1/2 of the passengers off the ship, we were in the parking lot at 1 pm. Our cruise was in early November, the chance of heavy fog is much higher in January.

[AKman2495]

We had a cruise in Nov. of 2013 and were delayed 3 hours getting in because of heavy fog (the captain said there was a tanker anchored ahead of us. We could not see it). We got off the ship around 11:45 am-we had been scheduled for a Houston tour before going to the airport. That was canceled and the bus took us straight to the airport. We were there around 1. We has a 4 pm flight so we had no problem.

 

All I know is that there were a lot of frantic people on their phones during those 3 hours!

[rockdoctor]

Bayport is one of those ports where I would use Princess Air. We are 2 for 2 in fog delayed arrivals. At breakfast, we could overhear many people paying hundreds of dollars to reschedule flights. Those with Princess Air were rescheduled at no cost to them.

[pablo222]

We had a cruise in Nov. of 2013 and were delayed 3 hours getting in because of heavy fog (the captain said there was a tanker anchored ahead of us. We could not see it).

 

Sounds exactly like my cruise in February 2014.

 

Bayport seems like a fine port if you can drive there.

Flying? Not so much.

[Captain Dizzy]

Thanks to everyone who gave their input. I will look for a late afternoon flight. I'll skip the aggravation. Haven't had a problem with 49 other cruises.

 

Captain Dizzy