Did I leave enough time for a flight?

[ashley0139]

When is your cruise. Example of things that can go wrong. Tomorrow the people leaving PC on the Dream are being warned that the ship may not be able to dock in PC after the cruise ends. They will dock somewhere else and bus people back to PC. I know there was another cruise a few years ago that could not dock because of high winds. They had to wait and gave it another try and were able to dock then and there was not a hurricane it was just unusually high winds.

Well then whether they have a 10am or noon flight isn't going to matter in that case.

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

Well then whether they have a 10am or noon flight isn't going to matter in that case.

Right which is why it is not a good idea to fly in the day of the cruise or fly home the day the cruise ends.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Right which is why it is not a good idea to fly in the day of the cruise or fly home the day the cruise ends.

Not flying home same day after a cruise is not always practical. Sure, things can go wrong, but for the most part, they don't. In 21 Disney cruises, 3 Carnival cruises and 3 Royal Caribbean cruises, we've always flown home same day (except maybe once) and never missed a flight. If it happens, we'll deal with it. The earliest we've ever booked out of PC was 11 am. 10 is early for us but I'd carry our bags off and have a driver ready and waiting at 7am. We did this in Barcelona and all was fine; we still had time to kill. Even time for me to get pulled into another room for extra security checks with around 15 other passengers.

There has to be SOMEBODY who is the first to go through customs at PC before the line begins to form.
I would do it but TSA precheck for all passengers is a must.

 

[otten]

Well then whether they have a 10am or noon flight isn't going to matter in that case.

Yea this is not a good example. If a hurricane damages the port so they can’t dock it’s not going to matter if they had a 10am or 3pm flight, the passengers on that cruise are probably not flying home that day, if the airport is even open. You can’t plan around hurricanes, except by having travel insurance.

In this case the op hadn’t allowed time for normal everyday hiccups such as a small delay at disembarkation, heavy traffic getting to MCO or issues at security.

 

[apathetic]

Everyone loves to talk about the ship being late. But if that happens a lot more people will miss flights. Even those on the Disney recommended 1130 flights. So, book flights for 3 days after the cruise ends if you are worried about that. I can tell I've booked later flights only to get to the airport at 9am and watch an earlier flight leave without us. 10am is tight, but very doable. 11am is definitely a safe time. PC is an exceptionally efficient debarking process. You walk off with your bags, cruise through the customs line and get to the curb in less than 15 minutes. Get a cab or call to arrange something from the ship. An hour by car is easily possible, putting you there before 9am. For 10am, you may need pre-check and probably not fly Southwest (long lines at check in), but otherwise it isn't hard. You can even do online check in and just bag drop. Everyone has a comfort level so that factors in. But booking a 4pm or later flight because someone tells you 900 things can go wrong will just annoy you when you are stuck for 7 hours at the airport because nothing went wrong.

 

[tvguy]

My Travel Agent lists Orlando as an airport where you need to be there 2 hours before flight time, so 10 am would be too close.
My one cruise experience on DCL we got to the airport at 10:15 am and barely made a 12:35 pm flight, just based on security backups at the airport. And we had no issues on the road to the airport.
My one WDW experience through Orlando, the Disney transportation had us at the airport 2 hours before flight time.

 

[anniepoppins]

We’ve booked 11:30am flights out and made them no problem but I wouldn’t do any earlier than that! We always catch the first Disney transfer bus direct to the airport.