Late port arrival time for FLL - what to do?

[Disneyworldlocal]

If it’s any consolation, with all the marketing and promotional pricing the Dream has had lately it might not be completely full. Arrive early and see what happens.

 

[JoieNsk]

The disney tranfer would only work if you were staying at their hotels or flying in...

We are actually staying in Disney hotel at WDW.

But I could not find any Disney transfer option from WDW to Port Everglades.

Have I missed something, and there are Disney transfers from WDW to Port Everglades?

I didn't even book Disney transfer from WDW to MCO (assuming that there is still one?). If Magical Express still was a thing, and it was included with our hotel - like it was in old times - we would totally take it.

But since there is no Magical Express anymore, we would take Uber or Lyft from MCO to WDW and back. It would works much better for us.

 

[holula]

We are actually staying in Disney hotel at WDW.

But I could not find any Disney transfer option from WDW to Port Everglades.

Have I missed something, and there are Disney transfers from WDW to Port Everglades?

There are no transfers from WDW to Port Everglades.

 

[Flossbolna]

We are actually staying in Disney hotel at WDW.

But I could not find any Disney transfer option from WDW to Port Everglades.

Have I missed something, and there are Disney transfers from WDW to Port Everglades?

I didn't even book Disney transfer from WDW to MCO (assuming that there is still one?). If Magical Express still was a thing, and it was included with our hotel - like it was in old times - we would totally take it.

But since there is no Magical Express anymore, we would take Uber or Lyft from MCO to WDW and back. It would works much better for us.

I think they meant the Hotels DCL has contracted with. In all ports that aren’t Port Canaveral, DCL offers pre and post nights at specific hotels. You can book a transfer for these. I think it’s a Hilton in Fort Lauderdale.

But no transfer from WDW to FLL. You didn’t miss it.

 

[JoieNsk]

Thank you VERY MUCH to everybody for the advice and information.

I think we will take our chances and go to the terminal after we get off of the Brightline. Maybe we will get lucky, and they will be having open boarding by then or soon after.

 

[Amunet]

We were abroad when check in opened for our cruise. And Disney doesn't allow to use any American Disney applications while abroad. Even with VPN - you can't do it.

So even though I am Gold, we only were able to check in several days after our check in opened for the cruise.

I forgot how difficult all the Disney stuff is nowadays, you snooze - you loose completely. Otherwise I would have tried to make extra effort to find a way to check in as early as possible.

So here we are - left with the last port arrival time at 2.15...

I am afraid we would not find any food for lunch on the ship anymore if we will get in the ship after 2.15pm. We had that happen in the past on other cruise lines. We board, and everything is closed already. Was not fun.

We never sailed with Disney out of FLL. If we come earlier - say at 1pm - is there any chance for us to get on the ship earlier?

Thank you in advance for all the info!

Im very confused. What do you mean "abroad"? I booked my reservation while still living in Canada but now I live in Japan and I can still use the app.

 

[SteveMouse]

Fort Lauderdale is my hometown, and Port Everglades was my backyard.

You probably don't want to hang around the Brightline station for long after your train arrives. There is simply nothing at the station. The city bus depot is across the tracks.

There are numerous restaurants along SE 17th Street, 3 minutes from the dock, along with two upper-end strip malls with a good grocery/pharmacy.

If you want to grab lunch along the water, and especially if you have kids, you could grab a bite at 15th Street Fisheries and feed the tarpon at the dock- it's two blocks north of the port, but not easily walkable.

 

[dreamer17555]

The disney tranfer would only work if you were staying at their hotels or flying in. The brightline is great, just uber from the station to the port and wait there and hope you get let on the ship early. All the lines outside to get into the check in are gone by then so you shouldn't have any issues.

That is not true. You can absolutely stay at a nearby hotel, take a shuttle to the airport and DCL transportation from the airport and be given a lower boarding group. They can 100% pay and take DCL transportation from the FLL airport without flying in.

 

[princesscinderella]

That is not true. You can absolutely stay at a nearby hotel, take a shuttle to the airport and DCL transportation from the airport and be given a lower boarding group. They can 100% pay and take DCL transportation from the FLL airport without flying in.

In there OPs specific case though this isn’t going to work as they are taking a brightline train that’s not even arriving into Fort Lauderdale until 12:15. A DCL transfer for a lower boarding group would mean they would need to be picked up around 10-11 to be early on the ship. By the time they took an uber to the airport to catch a later afternoon DCL shuttle for way more money than an uber directly to the port they probably wouldn’t arrive to the ship before 2pm.

For others on here reading along coming in a day before or very early the day of embarkation they can absolutely get DCL transfers from the partner hotels or airport for a lowe boarding group. That said if you are traveling with more than 2 people, DCL transfers will be the least economical way to get to the port as they are per person vs a taxi or ride share. The airport and the port are only a couple of miles from each other and most cruisers choose a hotel within 5 miles of both the port and FLL.

 

[JoieNsk]

Im very confused. What do you mean "abroad"? I booked my reservation while still living in Canada but now I live in Japan and I can still use the app.

Sorry, I already explained what happened in one of my upper posts.

We were in Spain, and I could not do anything with my check in for couple days.

I assumed that DCL app and web-site don't work the same way in Europe, as I know for certain that WDW and disneygiftcard.com don't.

Maybe I should change my first post, as people who resided in Europe told that everything for DCL worked for them too. It didn't work for me though.

Maybe there is a difference when you live in a different country, or you are travelling.

Sometimes when you are travelling stuff doesn't work too well because of insufficient data on your devices, your devices messing with your locations and time etc.

If I was at home, I would be ready to go and checked in right away. But I could not do that for whatever reason while in Europe.

P.S. I went back and changed my post accordingly, so it would not confuse people anymore.

 

[JoieNsk]

In there OPs specific case though this isn’t going to work as they are taking a brightline train that’s not even arriving into Fort Lauderdale until 12:15. A DCL transfer for a lower boarding group would mean they would need to be picked up around 10-11 to be early on the ship. By the time they took an uber to the airport to catch a later afternoon DCL shuttle for way more money than an uber directly to the port they probably wouldn’t arrive to the ship before 2pm.

For others on here reading along coming in a day before or very early the day of embarkation they can absolutely get DCL transfers from the partner hotels or airport for a lowe boarding group. That said if you are traveling with more than 2 people, DCL transfers will be the least economical way to get to the port as they are per person vs a taxi or ride share. The airport and the port are only a couple of miles from each other and most cruisers choose a hotel within 5 miles of both the port and FLL.

Thank you for the explanation.

Now I see.

I suppose I can technically change to earlier train, then take Uber to the FLL airport, and then take Disney transfer from FLL to cruise terminal.

But then we would need to leave from MCO extremely early. I guess between waking up at 4 am, and having hot dog for lunch... I choose hot dog ))

But it was still a very good info for the future reference!

 

[JoieNsk]

Fort Lauderdale is my hometown, and Port Everglades was my backyard.

You probably don't want to hang around the Brightline station for long after your train arrives. There is simply nothing at the station. The city bus depot is across the tracks.

There are numerous restaurants along SE 17th Street, 3 minutes from the dock, along with two upper-end strip malls with a good grocery/pharmacy.

If you want to grab lunch along the water, and especially if you have kids, you could grab a bite at 15th Street Fisheries and feed the tarpon at the dock- it's two blocks north of the port, but not easily walkable.

Thank you VERY MUCH for the insider info!

 

[Skippyboo]

But then we would need to leave from MCO extremely early. I guess between waking up at 4 am, and having hot dog for lunch... I choose hot dog ))

There is more than hot dogs on the pool deck food court. The last dry dock, they added the build your own Mexican stand that Wish class ships have.

 

[dreamer17555]

In there OPs specific case though this isn’t going to work as they are taking a brightline train that’s not even arriving into Fort Lauderdale until 12:15. A DCL transfer for a lower boarding group would mean they would need to be picked up around 10-11 to be early on the ship. By the time they took an uber to the airport to catch a later afternoon DCL shuttle for way more money than an uber directly to the port they probably wouldn’t arrive to the ship before 2pm.

For others on here reading along coming in a day before or very early the day of embarkation they can absolutely get DCL transfers from the partner hotels or airport for a lowe boarding group. That said if you are traveling with more than 2 people, DCL transfers will be the least economical way to get to the port as they are per person vs a taxi or ride share. The airport and the port are only a couple of miles from each other and most cruisers choose a hotel within 5 miles of both the port and FLL.

That is not true as well. They have multiple shuttles running from FLL while they will not get the full benefit of being able to board immediately at 11 AM. They will still get an earlier boarding group as soon as their shuttle arrives and be able to board promptly-

There is not a single shuttle from FLL to the port. The shuttles run until 2 PM.