Early Disembarkation ?

[Highlander1]

Niew Amsterdam scheduled to return to Ft. Lauderdale at 7:00am. Have 2 choices for a flight home, 11:15 am or 12:15 pm, do you think the 11:15 is practical. Hoping to be off the ship by 9 and in the airport by 9:30am, am I hoping too much? 

[CruiserBruce]

11:15 is very doable. Very common question on the Florida Departures board. 

[kenb]

Having TSA Precheck really helps. 

[JohninDC]

For an 11:15 flight you need to be at FLL by about 9:45 - earlier is better with the typical TSA chaos (as mentioned above, TSA precheck helps!).  With the cab ride from PE to FLL taking maybe 15 minutes that translates to off the ship. with bags, clear of customs/immigration and ready to load into a taxi before 9:30 - should be easy.

[lx200gps]

50 minutes ago, JohninDC said:

For an 11:15 flight you need to be at FLL by about 9:45 - earlier is better with the typical TSA chaos (as mentioned above, TSA precheck helps!).  With the cab ride from PE to FLL taking maybe 15 minutes that translates to off the ship. with bags, clear of customs/immigration and ready to load into a taxi before 9:30 - should be easy.

TSA Pre-Check certainly does help. The last dozen times we've flown from FLL Terminal 2 we've breezed through the Pre-Check line and actually never had to wait at security, walked right up to the scanner every time.

 

That being said, there's definitely something amiss at FLL, certainly at Terminal 2, which is only Delta and Air Canada. Both airlines, and particularly Delta, are really clamping down on check-in times, greatly reducing the time folks can check in and drop off bags thereby causing grief to those folks who arrive too early. On our last trip out of FLL T2, we were not allowed to check in with Air Canada until 2.5 hours before the flight, and Delta were telling pax that they could only check in for their flight if it departed, IIRC, less than two hours away.  The result of this was a HUGE crowd of pax sitting on their luggage in the departures concourse, having arrived too early and unable to check in. It's happened to us twice now, in November and in February. I can't speak to other terminals or airlines, but  if flying Delta, don't show up too early, or be prepared to stand.  Hopefully this is only temporary, but it's been going on now for months.