Early flight home out of FLL

[khoff413]

Thinking about catching a 10:58 flight home. Any problem making that when departing a Celebrity Cruise from Port Everglades?

[JohninDC]

For a 10:58 flight you need to be at FLL by about 9:30.  The cab/Uber ride from PE to FLL takes about 10-15 minutes, so that translates into off the ship, with bags, and clear of customs/immigration, by about 9:00.  Should not be hard with a low number or if you carry your bags off.

 

Have a great cruise!

[bertha]

Hi. We made a 9:01 am flight this past Sunday. Walked off with all our bags. We were in line early and were amongst the first 25 off ship. Got through entry at terminal and security at airport quickly. All went well for us. I did a lot of reading on these boards before booking the early flight. It seems most feel flights around 11 or after are fine at PE for FLL as long as you get off early.  I thought we would not make 9am, but we wanted to try and had a backup.       Enjoy your cruise.

[khoff413]

Thanks for the info. I ended up booking a little later flight but will keep it in mind for the next cruise!

[Luke gs Daddy]

On 1/21/2020 at 9:16 AM, khoff413 said:

Thinking about catching a 10:58 flight home. Any problem making that when departing a Celebrity Cruise from Port Everglades?

We have made it to FLL by 8:00 am  for a 9:45 flight.

 

[thon]

We have a noon flight after our March Silhouette cruise.  Planning to carry off our bags but never done this before.  Just wondering about what time we should be down and ready to get off.  And is there usually a line up?  Getting off the ship is one thing; getting through Customs is another one all together.  We both have NEXUS (which gives us Global Entry) but I’ve read that this is not always going to speed things up for us at PE.

[Charles4515]

31 minutes ago, thon said:

We have a noon flight after our March Silhouette cruise.  Planning to carry off our bags but never done this before.  Just wondering about what time we should be down and ready to get off.  And is there usually a line up?  Getting off the ship is one thing; getting through Customs is another one all together.  We both have NEXUS (which gives us Global Entry) but I’ve read that this is not always going to speed things up for us at PE.

You don’t need to carry off your bags to make a noon flight. Just get number  tags for a between 8 to 8:30 off group. 

[JohninDC]

1 hour ago, thon said:

We have a noon flight after our March Silhouette cruise.  Planning to carry off our bags but never done this before.  Just wondering about what time we should be down and ready to get off.  And is there usually a line up?  Getting off the ship is one thing; getting through Customs is another one all together.  We both have NEXUS (which gives us Global Entry) but I’ve read that this is not always going to speed things up for us at PE.

As my neighbor Charles mentions above, for a noon flight you need to be at FLL by about 10:30, and 10:00 is better with the typical TSA chaos. With a taxi/Uber/Lyft ride taking about 15+ minutes, that translates into off the ship, with bags, and clear of customs by about 9:30-45. You can sleep in (a bit), enjoy breakfast in the MDR, and stroll off the ship about 9:00 - after the early bird crowd is long gone.

[SueMo]

I would suggest that if you plan to make an early flight, you make sure that you do not purchase anything on the ship that would take you over the customs limit.  When debarking the Celebrity Edge this past Sunday, my son got "tagged" as he swiped his sea pass card.  He was told that it was a "random check", but that was really a lie.  The cruise line is required to let customs know of anybody onboard that who should be declaring duty.  Since he had purchased a couple Swiss made watches, he had gone over the limit and was asked to fill out a customs form.  He declared the purchase and was led into a customs area where he was told he would have to pay the duty.  The customs officer had a hard time calculating the amount due (3% of $1400--not exactly a high level math calculation) and then told him the amount due, $42, had to be paid in cash or by check.  My son had only $20's on him and gave him $60.  The customs agent said he had no change!  What??!!  The agent had to go onboard the ship to get change while my son and the ever growing line behind him had to wait.  Altogether it took about 40 minutes for the whole transaction to take place.  We were some of the first to debark, so those who came after us would have a much longer wait.  If I had an early flight to catch, I would have been freaking out!   Lesson learned--if you have an early flight, DO NOT make big purchases onboard.