Earliest domestic flight

[BRDbabies]

We are Canadians doing the Cunard QE RT Vancouver disembarking Aug 7. What is the earliest flight (domestic) we can safely book home on the 7th? Self-disembarking is not a problem and we will sky train to the airport. 

[em-sk]

2 hours ago, BRDbabies said:

We are Canadians doing the Cunard QE RT Vancouver disembarking Aug 7. What is the earliest flight (domestic) we can safely book home on the 7th? Self-disembarking is not a problem and we will sky train to the airport. 

 

Assuming your off the ship first thing in the morning.  I would feel safe doing a flight that leaves around noon.  

 

Many of the flights from Asia arrive in Vancouver in the early morning.  To provide domestic connections, there are usually a number of domestic flights that leaving just before or just after noon.  I would comfortable with one of those.

 

Traffic out of downtown Vancouver can be a pain during rush hour.  If your comfortable with your bags, I would take the train (skytrain).  The Canada line goes from waterfront station near the cruise ship terminal to the airport.

 

 

[KeepCalmBearOn]

I think you could make something at 11AM, but why create stress after a nice vacation, schedule after 12PM to be more comfortable.

[martincath]

That's a three ship day, with Wonder and Jewel, so even though it could be worse in terms of even bigger ships, you could be first of your own vessel but still find hundreds of Disney/NCL pax already off theirs - it's a crapshoot exactly when each ship will be cleared to start disembarking pax.

 

That said, because I know that non-stop flights to the 'toon are pretty limited I'd be comfortable pushing the envelope some if it meant scoring a non-stop rather than a connecting flight - being willing to take SkyTrain puts you into a comfortable <60mins from pier to airport even if you just miss a train.

 

Since you're definitely getting there before the transfer buses start rolling in, I'd say that Domestic security will take no more than 20mins so the real deciding factor is checked bags - you've got a hard cap on delivering them in time of 45mins pre-flight for domestic Air Canada or Westjet. If you meet that deadline, you're basically guaranteed to make the flight - staff will hustle you to head of the queue if needed, nobody wants you to miss your flight and then have to deal with feeding/housing you!!!

 

Working backwards from that - let's say 8am leaving the pier in case you can't get in the very first group, at YVR by 9am (probably more like 8:45am but play it safe), bag drop cap then means a flight even slightly before 10am is low risk and anything later than 10am just gets less and less risky.

 

However, a quick check of nonstop flights on Aug 7th shows that there's only one impossible flight that day - the 8:15am AC - with the others all easily achievable at 11:45am or later!

[BRDbabies]

Thanks for the detailed scenarios!! We booked a direct AC at 1:30 so will have plenty of time!