How far would you drive

[AmBear]

We only drive 5 hours or less! 

Luckily living in Florida we have 5 ports within that time frame!

But even the drive to Ft L. or Miami which is 4 1/2-5 hours for us, we'll drive in a day early!

As far as those who missed their ships because of delays, use it as a learning experience to go a day early to the port area!

Sorry to say I'm one of those who doesn't want the ship waiting for those late!

 

[Shaded Lady]

51 minutes ago, AmBear said:

Sorry to say I'm one of those who doesn't want the ship waiting for those late!

 

You're entitled to your opinion, but if it meant that someone, through no fault of their own was going to miss the cruise, I'd be happy to see my ship sail away 30 minutes later! 

 

A lot of the time the ships don't sail directly on time for a wide variety of reasons (still loading goods, waiting for pilot, gangway broken!) and it doesn't impact those drinking on the Lido deck! I agree it shouldn't be an unreasonable delay, but come on, a few minutes? And for those who will tout out the story about having to be onboard an hour before based on some silly regulation, I know for a fact that exceptions are made to that rule ALL the time!

[soonernstlouis]

This thread has probably outlived its usefulness since it has now twisted to whether we should judge others who cause the ship to be late.  

 

I will say this-under no circumstance would I expect the ship to wait on ME for reasons I could have avoided.  The obvious exceptions being either Carnival air/ground transportation or Carnival excursions causing the delay.

[AmBear]

24 minutes ago, Shaded Lady said:

You're entitled to your opinion, but if it meant that someone, through no fault of their own was going to miss the cruise, I'd be happy to see my ship sail away 30 minutes later! 

 

A lot of the time the ships don't sail directly on time for a wide variety of reasons (still loading goods, waiting for pilot, gangway broken!) and it doesn't impact those drinking on the Lido deck! I agree it shouldn't be an unreasonable delay, but come on, a few minutes? And for those who will tout out the story about having to be onboard an hour before based on some silly regulation, I know for a fact that exceptions are made to that rule ALL the time!

Thanks, and you are also, though I'd respectfully disagree here!

Guess its up to Carnival as we all have little say beyond our opinion.

If they booked their flight thru Carnival, the ship would  likely wait!

We once waited on a MSC cruise out of Miami almost 2 hours for a late overseas flight to land that had been booked through the cruise line. 

The Captain explained to us what was going on, told everyone we'd have no problem making out first port on time, so everyone was good by it!

 

 

 

[Luckiestmanonearth]

Seeing as we live in Kentucky and not near any ports , if it were only a 4-6 hour drive, we would drive EVERY time.  We have driven to Port Canaveral and it’s taken 15 hours.

 

If we had only a 4-6 hour drive, we would definitely drive and also go the day before to prevent risks of driving delays.  It would still be much cheaper then flying

[Beachiekeen]

I think 2-3 hours would be the max. We could drive from Dallas to Galveston day of but so far we’ve never done it. We’d be stressed the whole time and it’s just not worth it.

[Beachiekeen]

Dup.

Edited May 26, 2019 by Beachiekeen

[JLM16]

17 hours ago, Shaded Lady said:

 

Stories like this just break my heart! I struggle and save and plan our vacations so much and I really count on them to recharge the batteries, de-stress and have a good time with my hubby. When I hear this I always put myself in others' shoes and know that I would be just devastated to miss my cruise... and mad as he{{ at whoever at Carnival flat out LIED to me that the ship would wait.

 

@JLM16 If you don't get satisfaction I'd reach out to John Heald (brand ambassador, has his own FB page) and let him know the full story. Especially since Carnival made promises they failed to keep, you never know, he may be able to do something, maybe future cruise credit toward a replacement cruise.

 

Thanks for the suggestion, @Shaded Lady. I don’t want to get the customer service rep that told me someone would call in “trouble”, I just want to find out what happened and what we can do moving forward. I honestly get the vibe that no one on the ship even knew, to be honest. From what I could tell, none of the port crew were aware, either ... considering how they looked at us like we were from space and probably just overslept or something. I know I would 100% want that family to get on board. We’re all human. 

 

5 hours ago, soonernstlouis said:

This thread has probably outlived its usefulness since it has now twisted to whether we should judge others who cause the ship to be late.  

 

I will say this-under no circumstance would I expect the ship to wait on ME for reasons I could have avoided.  The obvious exceptions being either Carnival air/ground transportation or Carnival excursions causing the delay.

 

Sorry to have derailed, but I think it’s still an important angle to consider when it comes to travel time. No one thinks it’s going to happen to them; you plan for how to avoid it, and I hope to offer some experience that came at great cost.

 

This was full of firsts and “lessons learned”, and I’ll address a few of them here:

 

- I recommend being near your port city the night before if possible. We didn’t really think about this because we’re used to pretty standard, on-time departures and arrivals. We had tickets for the first available plane out the morning of the cruise. It *should* have been enough time — supposed to take off at 7:45am, direct flight to the same city as the port, and land by 9:30am for a scheduled boarding of the ship at 12:30pm. Even considering those circumstances, it wasn’t enough; when one thing goes wrong, it can domino. 

 

- Try not to fly Spirit airlines. We didn’t know much about Carnival’s air/ground services, but when we were given a sheet at the port with a list of “partner airlines”, I can tell you that Spirit wasn’t on that list. And I don’t mean “don’t fly them just because they didn’t let us board our plane but took our bags anyway”, I mean because they don’t really staff the airports consistently. Another 20 minutes or so were wasted when we drove to the Tampa airport to claim our luggage, and we couldn’t find a single Spirit staff person. They’re gone for many hours at a time, depending on the day. Several airport employees were trying to locate someone to unlock the luggage room by the time we got out of there to head to the ship. As a side note, on our return flight home yesterday, our Spirit flight left a full 10 minutes early, and there was plenty of room on board. Was everyone accounted for? Maybe. But we don’t know. I sure hope no one was standing on the other side of the gate. Those were our first Spirit flights and I imagine our last. 

 

- If you can, have someone local drop you off at the port. No, it didn’t work for us, but it would have taken us even longer to get through all the construction, traffic, etc. and *then* try and hunt for a parking spot if we didn’t have a helpful Enterprise employee riding with us to take the car back to their office by the port. 

 

And true, @soonernstlouis, you shouldn’t expect the ship to wait for you for reasons you could have avoided. We wouldn’t have, if it weren’t something that we were told was well within the realm of reason. It does say in Carnival’s contract that it’s the discretion of the Master whether or not to push off from port at the scheduled time, and that it can be for any unannounced reason ... including late arrivals. We don’t want to make anyone have to wait to go on their vacation, and I don’t think they would have had to, if there had been some follow-through instead of gatekeeping. Either way, we’ll do everything in our power to control more variables “next time”. 

 

[venicia]

On 4/24/2019 at 9:35 PM, OCruisers said:

 

You'll be fine.  It's just a two hour drive.  

Enjoy your cruise!  

We live in St Augustine and cruise out of Canaveral about 3 times a year.  We leave our house around 8 - 8:30 and get to Park & Cruise around 10 -10:30, drop the car and at the port in no time at all.  We have never gone to Canaveral the day before a cruise.

[soonernstlouis]

@JLM16 keep us up-to-date on your refund request from Carnival.  Certainly an uphill battle with few success stories.  Also consider travel insurance in the future.  

 

We’re flying into San Juan in September for our 2nd cruise ever.  You bet we chose both flying in a day early (wish we had added even more days to explore) AND selected insurance mostly due to hurricane risk.

 

There was a few year old post on Cruise Critic revived a couple of weeks ago about a father who was stranded in The Bahamas while his family was able to board in time.  Cost him about 2 grand to catch up with them.  Not sure how to search & link it but someone else might.

 

Finally, Spirit Airlines is well known for its frequent canceled flights, delays and general dissatisfied customers.  I’m not brave enough to fly them.

[TNcruising02]

I think the best advice ever offered on CC is that when flying, always fly in a day early. I have seen post and post of people giving this advice and post after post of people who are willing to take the gamble.   When driving a long distance, the same advice is good.  Travel delays happen all of the time.

I do feel sorry for people who miss the ship due to travel delays and wouldn't even care if my cruise took off an hour later to wait for people.  I'm on the ship having a good time, so it just wouldn't make any difference.   I plan my cruises many months out and spend hours upon hours looking up excursions and planning.  It's a big deal if I were to miss the ship because I have a lot invested in time, money, vacation time, and just mentally planning for great time.  

One time I almost missed a cruise even when I was flying in a day early!  I had to book tickets on a different airline in my layover city to make it in time.  If that happened the day of the cruise, I would have missed it.  Having that extra day made the difference.