Madani
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2014
- Messages
- 52
I wanted to share our recent experience after disembarking in Miami – I had a lot of questions about timing of flights, etc, when I booked this trip, and I’m sure others will too. I booked one way tickets: a direct flight on Southwest to Fort Lauderdale for arrival, and a return flight from Miami on Delta after as I could not find a flight from FLL on SW at a time that worked for us. I ended up with a 12:10 return flight from Miami.
On departure day we went to the 8:15 breakfast as we had late dining. We did not rush through, and left the table at 9. The line to exit was pretty long, and in fact about 10 people after us they closed it and made everyone wait for about half an hour until the terminal cleared out a bit. We found our luggage and cleared customs at 10AM. Yes, it took a full hour to get off. I had called an Uber, and the driver was waiting so we walked out the door and into the vehicle without even pausing. There was construction and a detour that slowed us a bit, and we made it to Miami airport at about 10:25. We went through the luggage drop off and screening, and arrived at our gate at 11:10 with time to spare before they started boarding at 11:35.
HOWEVER because we had a small child we were pulled from the regular screening line to a fast pass line. The regular screening line was long, and it could easily have been a 20-25 minute process versus the less than 10 minute wait we experienced. I think we would still have made it but it would have been a more stressful experience.
This was our first time through Miami so I do not know if my experience is typical or not. If I did it over again I would still take the 12:10 flight, but I would have skipped the sit down breakfast and looked to be walking out at 8 instead of 9.
Hope that is helpful for future cruisers!
On departure day we went to the 8:15 breakfast as we had late dining. We did not rush through, and left the table at 9. The line to exit was pretty long, and in fact about 10 people after us they closed it and made everyone wait for about half an hour until the terminal cleared out a bit. We found our luggage and cleared customs at 10AM. Yes, it took a full hour to get off. I had called an Uber, and the driver was waiting so we walked out the door and into the vehicle without even pausing. There was construction and a detour that slowed us a bit, and we made it to Miami airport at about 10:25. We went through the luggage drop off and screening, and arrived at our gate at 11:10 with time to spare before they started boarding at 11:35.
HOWEVER because we had a small child we were pulled from the regular screening line to a fast pass line. The regular screening line was long, and it could easily have been a 20-25 minute process versus the less than 10 minute wait we experienced. I think we would still have made it but it would have been a more stressful experience.
This was our first time through Miami so I do not know if my experience is typical or not. If I did it over again I would still take the 12:10 flight, but I would have skipped the sit down breakfast and looked to be walking out at 8 instead of 9.
Hope that is helpful for future cruisers!
