Arrival strategy for Oasis from POM -- WWYD?

[LisaLisa87]

My sister and I will be sailing on Oasis, departing from Port of Miami on Sunday, April 30. She's flying to MIA and I'll be driving from my home in St. Augustine, FL. The drive is about 4.5 hours on a good day, but can be considerably longer depending on traffic, construction, etc. I initially assumed I'd be driving down on embarkation day, so I chose a port arrival time of 11:30-12:00 for both of us. After reading about construction near the port and seeing reports of the garage at Terminal A filling by 10am, I'm now second guessing my plan. I see three potential options, and I'd love to know what others would do with my set of circumstances.

 

Option 1

Leave my house at about 6am on embarkation day, and drive straight to POM and hope there's still room in the Terminal A garage when I get there. Deal with parking in an alternate garage and taking a shuttle to Terminal A if necessary. (Of course I'd need to deal with that in reverse after disembarking.)

 

Option 2

Drive to Miami the evening before embarkation, stay in a hotel near the airport, and take a taxi or Uber to the port in the morning. In case I go with this option (or the next one), I made a reservation a the Hampton Inn Blue Lagoon which I can cancel up to the day before. They charge $17/day for parking.

 

Option 3

Drive down the evening before embarkation, go straight to POM and park in the Terminal A garage, and take a taxi or Uber to the Hampton Inn. Is this even realistic? It's Harmony's turnaround day. The appeal is that my car would be in the garage at Terminal A when I disembark.

 

Am I overthinking this? Probably. But I'd still appreciate opinions! 😁

[cured]

14 hours ago, LisaLisa87 said:

My sister and I will be sailing on Oasis, departing from Port of Miami on Sunday, April 30. She's flying to MIA and I'll be driving from my home in St. Augustine, FL. The drive is about 4.5 hours on a good day, but can be considerably longer depending on traffic, construction, etc. I initially assumed I'd be driving down on embarkation day, so I chose a port arrival time of 11:30-12:00 for both of us. After reading about construction near the port and seeing reports of the garage at Terminal A filling by 10am, I'm now second guessing my plan. I see three potential options, and I'd love to know what others would do with my set of circumstances.

 

Option 1

Leave my house at about 6am on embarkation day, and drive straight to POM and hope there's still room in the Terminal A garage when I get there. Deal with parking in an alternate garage and taking a shuttle to Terminal A if necessary. (Of course I'd need to deal with that in reverse after disembarking.)

 

Option 2

Drive to Miami the evening before embarkation, stay in a hotel near the airport, and take a taxi or Uber to the port in the morning. In case I go with this option (or the next one), I made a reservation a the Hampton Inn Blue Lagoon which I can cancel up to the day before. They charge $17/day for parking.

 

Option 3

Drive down the evening before embarkation, go straight to POM and park in the Terminal A garage, and take a taxi or Uber to the Hampton Inn. Is this even realistic? It's Harmony's turnaround day. The appeal is that my car would be in the garage at Terminal A when I disembark.

 

Am I overthinking this? Probably. But I'd still appreciate opinions! 😁

I would suggest option 4 - same as option 2 but instead of taking a taxi or uber to the port, just drive yourself over in the morning and park in the terminal parking. That way your car will be at the terminal when you return and you are not paying an extra day of parking at the terminal nor extra uber fees in Option 3.

[LisaLisa87]

Thank you @cured. Would you go that route even if the likelihood is that you would need to park at a different terminal and be shuttled to Terminal A? That's the part I don't want to deal with as I've read reports of long waits for the shuttle at both ends of the trip.