Meraviglia Departure Times

[stoddaj1]

I'm wondering if anyone who has cruised on Meraviglia recently, can comment of the length of time it took to get off the ship. We are debating flight times from Fort Lauderdale airport. Thanks in advance.

[emmas gran]

Georgia Peaches has done a review for a recent 4 day cruise, lots of information there

[JT1962]

18 hours ago, stoddaj1 said:

I'm wondering if anyone who has cruised on Meraviglia recently, can comment of the length of time it took to get off the ship. We are debating flight times from Fort Lauderdale airport. Thanks in advance.

Just be aware that Ft Lauderdale is 180+ miles, approx 3 hours with traffic, from Port Canaveral. There are several airports that are closer that you could check if flights from Orlando (MCO) are too expensive or sold out. Melbourne, Sanford, Tampa and Jacksonville are all closer to Port Canaveral than Ft Lauderdale.

[JAGR]

57 minutes ago, JT1962 said:

Just be aware that Ft Lauderdale is 180+ miles, approx 3 hours with traffic, from Port Canaveral. There are several airports that are closer that you could check if flights from Orlando (MCO) are too expensive or sold out. Melbourne, Sanford, Tampa and Jacksonville are all closer to Port Canaveral than Ft Lauderdale.

Also PBI (West Palm Beach).  We flew in and out of there last month.  Did two one-way rentals with National/Avis/Enterprise.  About an hour and a half drive.

[stoddaj1]

Edit... sorry got our cruises mixed up.  Should be Divina disembarkation.

[JT1962]

1 hour ago, stoddaj1 said:

Edit... sorry got our cruises mixed up.  Should be Divina disembarkation.

I was on the Divina repositioning cruise from Port Canaveral to Miami last month and departure was a disaster. Departure started at around 9:00 instead of 7:30 as listed in the documents provided in our room. There were only 2 agents working at Customs and no facial recognition system, so it was about 10:15 when I got outside and I was in the first group after self assist.

 

I flew out of Ft Lauderdale and had a 2:30 flight, so it didn’t cause a problem for my flight, but others had issues. I saw on the social media group for the cruise that it was after Noon before some were out of the terminal. 
 

I was told by the shuttle driver the delays were due to the fact that the ship was repositioning from another port, had a large number of International Passengers (70%) and there were many Customs agents off attending the funeral of an agent killed in a training accident. However, I have seen recent reports that there were still only 2 Customs agents working at that terminal, so there may just be a shortage of Customs agents.

Edited November 19, 2022 by JT1962

[quattrohead]

4 hours ago, stoddaj1 said:

Edit... sorry got our cruises mixed up.  Should be Divina disembarkation.

Divina goes out of Miami now.