Flying to Europe for Med. Cruise

[debsters41]

According to Disney don't book before 12:30 P.M. for return. This will leave ALL the direct flights off the list of return flights from Barcelona to the U.S. You will have to overnight if you want a flight BEFORE 12:30 P.M. Plus there are NO direct flights for the east coast after noon out of Barcelona. We have booked a 2013 cruise out of Barcelona on DCL and now will probably have to cancel because we cannot afford (time wise) that extra day.

transferring in Europe won't add that many hours if you want to be safe on time but not cancel.

 

[carpenta]

transferring in Europe won't add that many hours if you want to be safe on time but not cancel.

Yes we feel that in Europe the airports are very easy to transfer (at least the airports we have used). BUT the same direct flight that would usually take 8.5 hours would take 20 hours for us if we select a flight that has transfers included.

 

[debsters41]

The best I could find to fly to Vermont is leaving BCN at 11:55 and flying for 15 hours with two layovers... not exactly ideal....

 

[cntclark]

We arent flying out until the last trip in Aug. to the MED but have seen a lot of flights traveling aircanada. Has anyone flown them into Europe? We werent planning to fly out until that fri afternoon arriving at 715am the morning of the cruise. Am a little worried after reading posts of getting delayed or cancelled. Anyone shed some light on this?

 

[glassslipper2004]

Subbing - not sure when to buy tickets...

 

[collectoraholic]

We arent flying out until the last trip in Aug. to the MED but have seen a lot of flights traveling aircanada. Has anyone flown them into Europe? We werent planning to fly out until that fri afternoon arriving at 715am the morning of the cruise. Am a little worried after reading posts of getting delayed or cancelled. Anyone shed some light on this?

I definitely wouldn't take a flight that would get me into BCN the morning of the sailing. No way, no how. Add to the risk of delay(s) the jetlag factor, I'd get in to Barcelona at least two days before the cruise sets sail.

To let you know, whenever we've flown Air Canada, it's always been a good flight w/ great crew.

HTHs! Happy sailing!

 

[collectoraholic]

Subbing - not sure when to buy tickets...

Buy when the fares that come up when you price it out are an amount you are comfortable paying.

 

[AngelDisney]

I am flying out from Toronto and usually take Air Canada. However, the trip to Europe for 20 days including the 7-Day Med Cruise in August needs $$$. After doing some research, I have decided to try Air Transat and save $700 for two pp. $700 means more tours and excursions during the trip. Just booked tickets today and paid $160 extra for seats with more leg room and width.It's direct flight both ways from Toronto to Paris then Barcelona to Toronto. I would not want to take the risk of missing a connecting flight since it's only DD and me. Now I need to research on European flights between cities I will be visiting before the cruise.

Pixie dust everyone! Have fun planning!!

 

[cntclark]

I am flying out from Toronto and usually take Air Canada. However, the trip to Europe for 20 days including the 7-Day Med Cruise in August needs $$$. After doing some research, I have decided to try Air Transat and save $700 for two pp. $700 means more tours and excursions during the trip. Just booked tickets today and paid $160 extra for seats with more leg room and width.It's direct flight both ways from Toronto to Paris then Barcelona to Toronto. I would not want to take the risk of missing a connecting flight since it's only DD and me. Now I need to research on European flights between cities I will be visiting before the cruise.

Pixie dust everyone! Have fun planning!!

For travel within Europe i heard Easyjet.com was cheap and good. Some of the flights were like 16-100 euro one way from city to city

 

[jel0511]

For travel within Europe i heard Easyjet.com was cheap and good. Some of the flights were like 16-100 euro one way from city to city

True, but they slam you on the baggage fees........

 

[holula]

True, but they slam you on the baggage fees........

Well, slam is more relative. I love Easyjet. I just take carry on. If there are two of you travelling, try and pack one large suitcase and two small ones so you can carry on most of your luggage and only have to pay for one checked bag. Their baggage fees are no worse than US carriers and they are very cheap.

Easyjet accept normal size carry on unlike a lot of other low cost airlines that have smaller carry on dimensions too. WizzAir/Ryanair you have to have a smaller bag to carry on than Easyjet.

 

[sayhello]

We arent flying out until the last trip in Aug. to the MED but have seen a lot of flights traveling aircanada. Has anyone flown them into Europe? We werent planning to fly out until that fri afternoon arriving at 715am the morning of the cruise. Am a little worried after reading posts of getting delayed or cancelled. Anyone shed some light on this?

First, I totally agree with the PP who said that you really, REALLY should not fly that far expecting to arrive the morning of the cruise. There are SO MANY things that can go wrong with flights, especially international flights. The chances of you missing your cruise is huge. And the jet lag *is* awful. I flew overnight to Barcelona, and arrived early in the morning of the day prior to the cruise. I was dead for most of the day, and all my plans to see Barcelona went out the window. If you want to know crazy circumstances, I came *that* close to having Barcelona airport closed when I flew due to that volcano in Iceland. And DCL said "The cruise is still going. So sorry if you miss it!"

For your question, I flew Air Canada to London last year, and it was a perfectly fine flight. I flew a small plane from Ohio to Toronto, and then Toronto to London. The flight was on time, and pretty unremarkable, which is a good thing. In fact, there was a hurricane heading up the East Coast, and a lot of flights got canceled, and the only reason I wasn't delayed is because I was flying out of Toronto instead of JFK.

I'd fly Air Canada again.

Sayhello

 

[kventventx]

We are on the 12 night June 27 cruise. We are coming from California and are flying into London the week before. We are flying British Airways. BA has changed the flights on us already twice and want us to pay for new seat assignments every time they change the flights. Luckily I booked the air through our travel agent and they have been battling BA for us so we don't have to keep paying extra fees. After looking at hotel prices in Barcelona prior to the cruise it wasn't that much more to get a flat in London for the week. We are flying into Barcelona early Thursday morning and have been assured we will have lots of time to make it to the ship. Using Disney transport from BCN to the ship. On the return, since there isn't a flight out of BCN after the 12:30 cut off we are again flying to London and then from there to the US. London had more flights out later in the day.

 

[Four Bears]

I just purchased travel insurance, and the policy specifically EXCLUDED Virgin Air due to ?bankruptcy issues. The policy that we bought through insuremytrip.com was CSA, so I can't vouch that all policies will be effected.

 

[jennypenny]

For your question, I flew Air Canada to London last year, and it was a perfectly fine flight. I flew a small plane from Ohio to Toronto, and then Toronto to London. The flight was on time, and pretty unremarkable, which is a good thing. In fact, there was a hurricane heading up the East Coast, and a lot of flights got canceled, and the only reason I wasn't delayed is because I was flying out of Toronto instead of JFK.

I'd fly Air Canada again.

Sayhello

We flew Air Canada last year to Vancouver for the DCL Alaska cruise. We were happy with them also. We were able to book an Air Canada flight through Continental's website with Continental miles which made it an even better deal.

 

[canadakath]

We arent flying out until the last trip in Aug. to the MED but have seen a lot of flights traveling aircanada. Has anyone flown them into Europe? We werent planning to fly out until that fri afternoon arriving at 715am the morning of the cruise. Am a little worried after reading posts of getting delayed or cancelled. Anyone shed some light on this?

Keep in mind that the direct Air Canada flight from Toronto to Barcelona may NOT be on one of the more updated aircrafts. From their website:
*******
Please note: New cabin interior - featuring personal touch-screen TVs or lie-flat Executive First Suites - is not available on three B767-300 (763) aircraft that operate flights between Canada and certain international locations, including:
Athens (ATH), Greece
Barcelona (BCN) and Madrid (MAD), Spain
Cancun (CUN), Mexico
Dublin (DUB), Ireland
Maui/Kahului (OGG) and Oahu/Honolulu (HNL), Hawaii
Montego Bay (MBJ), Jamaica,
Varadero (VRA), Cuba
The above list is subject to change without prior notice. Please select Layouts 4 or 5 at left to view details on these aircraft.
********
I personally hate flying Air Canada within Canada for many historical mishaps, but internationally they do OK. And just being able to fly direct with two kids is worth it - they have enough of their own electronics to not need the better TVs and don't need to lay flat to get comfy! I would much rather an 8 hour travel time instead of 15!

 

[tajz90]

According to Disney don't book before 12:30 P.M. for return. This will leave ALL the direct flights off the list of return flights from Barcelona to the U.S. You will have to overnight if you want a flight BEFORE 12:30 P.M. Plus there are NO direct flights for the east coast after noon out of Barcelona. We have booked a 2013 cruise out of Barcelona on DCL and now will probably have to cancel because we cannot afford (time wise) that extra day.

It's frustrating. I started looking for air and most flights that I've seen leave at 11:55 am.

 

[Anal Annie]

First, I totally agree with the PP who said that you really, REALLY should not fly that far expecting to arrive the morning of the cruise. There are SO MANY things that can go wrong with flights, especially international flights. The chances of you missing your cruise is huge. And the jet lag *is* awful. I flew overnight to Barcelona, and arrived early in the morning of the day prior to the cruise. I was dead for most of the day, and all my plans to see Barcelona went out the window. If you want to know crazy circumstances, I came *that* close to having Barcelona airport closed when I flew due to that volcano in Iceland. And DCL said "The cruise is still going. So sorry if you miss it!"

For your question, I flew Air Canada to London last year, and it was a perfectly fine flight. I flew a small plane from Ohio to Toronto, and then Toronto to London. The flight was on time, and pretty unremarkable, which is a good thing. In fact, there was a hurricane heading up the East Coast, and a lot of flights got canceled, and the only reason I wasn't delayed is because I was flying out of Toronto instead of JFK.

I'd fly Air Canada again.

Sayhello

I agree 100 times +. Just let me expand on this bit. We flew Air France for our big European adventure last summer. Everything was WONDERUL going over. The meals. The service. We were on one of the giant Airbus A380's that holds over 500 pax - very cool. We did our days in Paris then moved on to Barcelona...again, no problems. Come time to go home and the sky falls. We made it back to Paris from Barcelona OK - but we only had 1 hour to go thru customs again and get to our new gate so it was a REAL PUSH and we JUST got to the gate as they announced a 45 min. delay. WHEW. THEN after the 45 minutes were up our flight was CANCELLED!! OMG WHAT A MESS!! Air France was horrible, horrible, horrbile. NO communication to the passengers - and there were 500 of us (again supposed to be on an Airbus A380) and let me tell you some of them got pretty out of control and they had to call security to remove some people. It was UGLY. It took hours and HOURS to sort out. They eventually put all of us up in 'el cheapo 1 star hotels there at the airport for the night and I was sooo glad we'd packed clean clothes and toiletries in our carry-ons (many others had NOT).

NOW, here's the part you want to pay attention to and why you should NEVER plan to go the day of. We had used a parking voucher that I bought on Groupon to park at a Hampton Inn hotel near Dulles airport - and we had a hang tag in the window which gave our return date. So now I was in a panic over would they tow us or what if we didn't come back on time. So for peace of mind I had to make an international call to the hotel to explain what had happened & to say please don't tow us. WELL, wouldn't you know that because OUR FLIGHT was cancelled they also cancelled the outbound US flight too that was to come back over to Paris because THERE WOULD BE NO PLANE!!! So the hotel was aware of the situation because Air France was also using them to house the displaced customers on this side of the pond! I just kept thinking how lucky we were that this hadn't happened to us to START our trip. While it was a crappy way to END it - it would've been worse to have had our first flight out cancelled! I was also thankful that we had planned on having several days in Europe before the cruise. I would've been SICK to my stomach had we planned on flying in the day of cruise and this had happened.

ALWAYS fly in an extra day or two in advance!! Regardless of the airline. Crap happens. Flights get cancelled. People get screwed. Don't let it be you!!!

 

[AngelDisney]

For travel within Europe i heard Easyjet.com was cheap and good. Some of the flights were like 16-100 euro one way from city to city

We are arriving at Paris about two weeks before the cruise. Will spend 5 nights in Paris and then 4 nights in Vienna before going to Barcelona for 3 nights. I totally agree that going in early is a safer choice. The morning of can be hectic if anything goes wrong. I have a 2:00 pm flight back to Toronto on the disembarkation day. I should have enough time to catch the flight.

Easyjet unfortunately does not fly to Vienna from Paris. I have been checking Niki and I think they don't charge the 1st checked baggage but Air Berlin does.

I am not sure when I should book these flights within Europe for better deals. I did check out the train option and I think flying is a better option for me.

This is so different from planning a WDW or a DLR trip. Feeling very anxious!

Pixis dust everyone! Have fun planning!!

 

[NancyIL]

It's frustrating. I started looking for air and most flights that I've seen leave at 11:55 am.

I wouldn't have a problem booking an 11:55 a.m flight from BCN.