All you Transatlantic cruisers from April

[kwork11]

We are booked for the transatlantic in May of 11'...just wondering when you got your airline tickets, what airline did you choose, what was the cost and did you do one way or round trip and just not use the return flight....any info would be helpful.

Thank You so Much!!!! keri

 

[kcashner]

I wanted to get my air between the 330 days that I could book and the 120 days I had to cancel my DCL air (I had booked with them knowing that I could cancel it later when I'd found a better rate.

DCL air was $1100. I paid $474 for the TA leg, $77 to get to MCO, and $65 for the transfers, so came out hundreds to the good.

I got my flight about 6 months out....hadn't seen anything better, and decided I'd better nail what I could find! I was on British Airways. The food was good, but Heathrow airport is an unreal disaster! 3 nasty bus rides (standing up, holding onto subway style straps, swaying around curves, etc.) from plane to terminal, between terminals, and ultimately from international terminal to the last plane. The last ride was at least 10 minutes long!

 

[Hoagie Pie]

We are booked for the transatlantic in May of 11'...just wondering when you got your airline tickets, what airline did you choose, what was the cost and did you do one way or round trip and just not use the return flight....any info would be helpful.

Thank You so Much!!!! keri

I went through DCL and they were only $122 higher than what I looked at myslef. Saves me the heartache, especially with the volcano. At least I know I will get there. For peace of mind, it was worth going through DCL. I couldn't find anything without changing planes a ridiculous amount of time!!!

 

[clten]

We ended up booking our air for the April TA in January -- so about 3 months out. Ours was a little different -- we were looking for roundtrip air because we were going to use both legs. I had been shopping the air since it was released in spring 2009 -- both one way and roundtrip. I had seen some good sales on British Air but really didn't want to connect through Heathrow. (actually didn't want to connect in Europe at all -- they are famous for losing baggage and the french and british air are known for spur of the moment strikes). I was just about to give up and book the British Air flights when Continental released lower fares. We ended up with airfare for just under $700, which we thought was pretty good (had heard of a lot of others that were getting one way air for that price and above). And most of the one way fares I saw were in the $600-$650 so we weren't too much higher with the roundtrip. And I would have gladly paid that extra $50 even if we didn't need the return flight just to have a non-stop from Newark.

Just one note though if you do book a roundtrip and don't intend to use the second half of the ticket. If the airline finds out that you intend to do that, they can cancel your ticket or charge you the one-way fare (which with Continental was $1600pp). Usually airlines only find out if the passengers tell them. I mention this because when we were checking in in Barcelona, they have security give you a little interview while you are on line waiting to check in. The guy who did it asked us quite a few questions about the second half of our ticket -- I guess hoping to trip us up and us say we weren't coming back to Barcelona. So if you do this and don't intend to use the second half of the ticket, make sure everyone in your party knows how to answer the questions that might come up. Feel free to use our excuse, we're coming back in the fall to bring the ship back home.

 

[hannah's dad]

We booked in January sometime, so about three months before the trip. We looked at flights to NY from all of the major cities in Europe and ultimately found the best price flying from London to NY via Dusseldorf, Germany on AirBerlin. Of course, we went east for a short leg only to fly west across the ocean, but the price was worth it - about $1,500 for a family of four for the one way tickets. Of course, in addition to airfare you will want to keep your eye on the exchange rate as that will impact what you pay.

In order to get to London, we flew easyJet from Barcelona - one of the major European discount airlines. I think that was about $150 for the four of us.

The long haul flight on AirBerlin was very pleasant; I would fly them again.

AerLingus also had good prices, so you might find flying them to the US via Dublin might be the best price.

 

[DisneyConvert]

I book a lot of trips on my own, so I was comfortable NOT booking through Disney, figuring we'd get better flights and comparable fares through the airlines/airports of our choice. I turned out to be right.
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One-way on SW to MCO from Philadelphia was a no-brainer. SWest makes things so easy!
Getting home (we live in Central NJ) was a bit trickier. I began looking early and got a sense of how far out airlines were offering tickets, and at what fare. I wanted to fly home to Newark, which is an hour closer to our home, rather than JFK and a non-stop from Barcelona was my goal. That meant Continental (where I have FF benefits) or possibly Iberia . . .
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By late Summer of '09, I could see that round-trips BCN => EWR => were selling for March 2010 for approx. $780, which was a reasonably price considering the benefits of the non-stop, the EWR arrival and flying Continental. Probably could have done $500 or less for a "one-way" via Switzerland, Shannon or London with a destination of JFK in Queens, NYC, but that would have got us home 6~8 hours later all things considered. Turns out with the volcano, it might have been worse than that.
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I have to differ with "clten" above. We received the same questions from "security" when we dropped off our bags and got our boarding passes, and despite the fact that we live in the US, were comfortable answering the question that we had intended to come back to Europe for a 2nd shorter vacation when we purchased the ticket. In retrospect, I think it would not have mattered a bit if we simply told them the roundtrip ticket on Continental was cheaper than the one-way -- they were simply testing us to make sure we were legitimate travelers (husband - wife - 8 yr old son!?) instead of something worse.
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When we got home, I simply cancelled the back-end of the tickets and there was no consequence. I still received my FF miles and have not received an extra charge from Continental. I think, in reality, people do this all the time -- you just have to make sure it's the BACK half of the "round trip" ticket that you're cancelling.
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Btw, both flights were very good. SWest out of Philly is a very nice change from flying through the New York area (much less US Air -- aaagggh!).
And on Continental, the 9 1/2 hr flight left BCN only 5 mins late, approx 10:20 AM and got back to NJ, USA in the early afternoon, giving us plenty of time to get settled and sleep before the next day. We had 3 seats together 2 rows behind the bulkhead. We watched 2 1/2 movies each!

 

[DisneyCruiser83]

We did not book the trip until the end of February, and did not get airfare until early March. We went with USAir for about $750 per person. We flew direct to Philadelphia, then on to Tampa. We did round trip tickets as it came out to less money. Actually, we are using the second leg to do the WB cruise in September, so it worked out.
Have a great trip! DH and I loved loved loved it!

 

[kwork11]

thank you everyone for all the info. I don't understand why it seems to be one way is more expensive than round trip....but if I do end up buying round trip tickets thank you for the heads up. I love the excuse we will be bringing the magic back home!!!!

 

[KrisannB]

I did not book our airfare unitl March (booked the cruise first day - first minutes) and once I really looked at everything and all factors (we visited paris after and planned to visit Austria) we decided to break the trip up - cruise, Paris then fly to austria in September and then to barcelona and then take the cruise back - it made the cruise back very tempting so we went for it for the savings we made on the airfare RT price it brought our cruise for 4 down to about $1600!

So I waited, then did RT and added the WBTA!

Krisann

 

[Tinked]

I didn't book until mid-January so it was within the 90 days when I booked. The airfares I was seeing were very,very high so I booked through DCL. I saw cheaper flights later but none of them were non-stop. I live 20 mins. from PHL (Philadelphia) and was very pleased to find DCL had booked us non-stop from Barcelona, a 9 hour flight. I'm also not a big fan of US Airways but everything worked great! The flight to MCO was earlier than I would have chosen but I was glad to get there and check-in at the airport instead of the port. I also was able to up-grade at the port having gotten there around 10:45am on Disney transportation, getting the last room with a view Cat9, deck 2. The flight home was in a plane with 2-3-2 rows and I found the double seats instead of triple very comfortable. The cost was $900pp but I was glad to have the security of DCL making the reservations and glad as it turned out that I didn't have to fly to somewhere in Europe. All the flights I saw that were cheaper stopped once if not twice in Europe adding hours to the flight home.

PS If the ship had turned around and sailed for 14 days back, I would have been happy. Loved sea days!!!

 

[shaylahc1]

We got one way tickets through USAir from Barcelona to Charlotte for $450 each.

 

[stlkeeler]

I also booked thru DCL. I didn't want the hassle of finding all the connecting flights and maybe having to spend the night somewhere (extra $$). It was about $1000. They booked me on Delta. I found out flight info in Dec, I think. The nice thing about that is they had some Delta check in desks in the terminal. So, we didn't have to worry about checking in our luggage in the Barcelona airport. The times were pretty much ok except for the 5 hour layover in ATL. Which ended up being longer due to weather...

I have the 2011 WBTA booked now. DCL airfare is running about $1700/pp!!! I don't think I'll be getting that unless it comes down just a bit!

 

[ct7878]

We live in Orlando, so we only had to worry about the one way flight back to the US. We booked with Aer Lingus (connecting through Dublin) very early (in May '09) and flights were only $275 each.

 

[brack]

We live in Tampa but flew back to Orlando because it was significantly cheaper. I made our arrangements about a month before the cruise because I was looking for the best price. We bought Swiss Air to Dulles and then Southwest to Orlando.