After cruise flight return time question.

[matt101980]

Hey everyone, I have a cruise coming back from port port canaveral on dec 30th. It says it starts letting off at 7:30 but not sure what time you actually get off to book a flight. Theres a 12 noon flight out of orlando but wasnt sure if that is to early.

 

[DCLDVC1]

DLC recommends 11:25am as the earliest departure time from MCO on Debarkation Day so you should be fine with a noon flight.

 

[Pinkgurlshubby]

That will be a lot of time. You are hustled off pretty early on disembark day, the crew has a lot of work to do that day. I don't think we have even been off the ship past 8am. How you get back to the airport is your choice but I can tell you we've done the car rental and bus and this next cruise we are doing the bus again. You get off the ship and walk straight to the bus and about 40 minutes you are at the airport. With a noon departure you have more than enough time to unwind and walk around to the shops a few hours. I take this time to look at the rum cakes, Universal, Disney and Kennedy stores. I have always worked for an airline and like to give myself a lot of time. Unless you want to jump on the plane as soon as you land you will have a good 2 hours of free time to walk around, have a coffee and take the tram to your gate and be there an hour before boarding.

 

[fredandkell]

They *say* you can stay on the ship until 9 am, but our experience is that the CMs are basically tapping their toes and looking at you like "Why are you still here!?" Ha! We left at 8:30 last year from the Magic in Europe and were definitely in the bottom 20% of guests leaving.
Noon should be totally fine.

 

[Doofenshmirtz513]

A few weeks back, we got off the Fantasy at 8:15, were through customers and picked up at 9 by our car, and were at the airport before 10. We actually had to wait around because I couldn't check our bags at the airport until 4 hours before our 2:15 flight. We could have made a noon flight without issue, and we purposefully took our time getting off the ship.

I think the greater risk is the ship being late getting back into port for some reason, but I'm not sure how often that actually happens.

 

[kiford]

I think noon is reasonably safe. We usually fly out at 1 or 2 pm and have lots of time and we don't get off until near the end (9-9:30). I wouldn't fly out any earlier than that myself because Orlando security can be really crowded and even though we have Nexus cards, there's been times when the TSA precheck line wasn't staffed.