Disembarkation Travel Questions

[DVCDawn]

My family and I will be taking our first Disney cruise this summer. I was working on scheduling our flights to return home and found I had a few questions. I was hoping you DCL experts could help me out.

Here they are:

1. What time must you disembark?

2. How much time to I need to comfortably get from the ship to the airport? (My DD's will be 6 and 3 at the time of the cruise, so I can't cut our time short, but I can't wait around the airport for hours.)

Thanks in advance for your help!

DVCDawn

 

[TammiMcMan]

DCL recommends that you don't book flight times prior to 12:30pm. This is a pretty safe time. You must be off the ship by 9am at the latest and typically disembarking begins anytime between 7:30am and 8:00am. It's open disembarking, so once the ship has been cleared by customs, you're free to go. They do have assigned seating in the morning for breakfast, but you can also grab deluxe continental at Topsiders/Beach Blanket. We've always been off the ship by 8am and found that asking a porter for assistance with the luggage, we're out of the terminal within 10 minutes. I imagine that if you wait until 8:30am to start disembarking, it might take you a little bit longer.

I wouldn't recommend it, but DH and I made a 10:30am flight after our recent January cruise. We were off the ship and waiting for our towncar at 8am. We were back in Orlando, through security and sitting at our gate by 9:15am.

Tammi

 

[cepmom]

DVCDawn ~ I hope you don't mind, but I also had a question about the procedures for disembarking the ship:

TammiMcMann ~
We want to be off the ship early ~ we plan on heading over to Universal's Royal Pacific resort, checking in and then hitting Universal Studios so we want to be there as close to opening time as possible. Would you recommend not leaving our luggage out the night before and just taking it off the ship on our own , or is it easier to just pick up the luggage and have a porter help bring it over to our car? (we will have our rental parked in the PC lot)

Thanks!!

 

[TammiMcMan]

cepmom, it all depends on how many family members you're talking about. DH and I kept our luggage so that we could make an early flight in January. It was only the two of us though and we each had only one rolling bag. Also, you disembark from the 3rd deck, but you go down to the lower level for your luggage. That means a trip on the escalator, which can be very tricky with luggage. The porters are literally lined up just waiting to help you out. They're usually great about getting you right through customs and will bring the luggage out to your car (don't forget where you parked though). Based on our experience, if you're off the ship early (between 7:30-8:00am) you should be entering the park around 10am.

Tammi

 

[cepmom]

thanks Tammi
There will be 5 of us and I am a notorious overpacker, so maybe it would be best to leave the luggage out and let the porters handle it for us! I appreciate your input!

 

[tvguy]

Just allow a lot of time, they do want you off the ship by 9, on our cruise they were only letting people off a little at a time, so it was 10:15 before everyone was off. We had late breakfast (8am) and there was a huge line to get off the ship when we came down at 7:45, and it never let up. We waited 45 minutes in line to get off the ship.
THEN there was the 90 minute wait at Orlando airport to clear security, so we just barely made our 12:35 flight.

So, as the car ads say, your mileage may vary.

 

[zeldacruiser]

I agree, tvguy - you have to be ready for delays, just in case. I was very tempted by an 11 a.m. return flight time, but finally decided I'd better be safe than sorry. Our actual experience so far, though, has been that we leave the ship as late as possible, close to 9, and walk right off with no line.