Latest flight to book on return home?

[ten822]

On a Treasure cruise out of Port Canaveral, what is the latest we would get off the ship? What is a good time to book a flight taking into account debarking, customs, driving to MCO, etc..

 

[Pinkjgray]

I believe everyone has to be off the ship by 11 AM. (Not sure!) We had the second breakfast dining, finished before 10 AM, and were off the ship shortly after. The drive from Port Canaveral to Orlando International Airport takes about an hour depending on traffic. To be safe, allow plenty of time and avoid booking return flights before 5 PM.

 

[NAB]

They want everyone off by 9:30.

They tell you not to have a flight before 11:15 because anything could happen. We never had a delay getting in though.

We were on the Treasure last week. Had first breakfast and were sitting on the bus to go to the airport by 8:35 . Our fight home was in the afternoon.

 

[Gdes1]

The official DCL line is nothing before noon. But what really matters is what you mean by "drive" to MCO. Do you mean DCL transportation, rental car, Uber? It's only a 45 minute drive, if all goes well. Also, something I don't see mentioned often is that GoPort and I think also DCL only drop off at one terminal. And if you need the other one, it says it takes 30 minutes (or you should allow 30) to get between them.

For us, last month, we got off the Fantasy by 8:30, quickly realized GoPort was a mess and it was a mistake to book them (the Wish was also in port that day), gave up on GoPort and summoned an Uber and still easily made our 12:05 flight with time to hang out in the lounge for a bit.

 

[tvguy]

Based on personal experience, I would say nothing before 1 pm. Disney does a wonderful job if you use their transportation to get you to the airport pretty quickly. But MCO can be a security nightmare. We got to the airport at 10:15 am, checked in our bags and had our boarding passes by 10:30 am, but it took 90 minutes to get through security. We barely made out 12:35 pm flight, it was already boarding when we got to the gate. It was a Saturday, so lots of ships returning, and apparently a heavy travel day for people leaving WDW. When we used Disney transfers from WDW to MCO, they recommended getting to MCO 3 hours before flight time, I suspect for the reasons we ran into with our cruise.

 

[lanejudy]

I believe everyone has to be off the ship by 11 AM. We had the second breakfast dining, finished by 10 AM, and were off the ship shortly after. The drive from Port Canaveral to Orlando International Airport takes about an hour and a half, depending on traffic. To be safe, allow plenty of time and avoid booking return flights before 5 PM.

You must have been on a cruise with an unusual itinerary or delayed arrival; this is not typical.

DCL wants everyone off the ship by 9:00/9:30am at the latest. Remember... everyone is anxious to get ON for the next cruise but first everyone must get off. They can't allow passengers to be arriving at 10:30 or 11:00am if the prior cruise hasn't cleared the ship yet.

Early breakfast is usually around 6:45am and late breakfast at 8am (?). DCL recommends flights out of MCO after 11:15am. You may well be able to make it earlier if you do Express Walk-off.

 

[Pinkjgray]

You must have been on a cruise with an unusual itinerary or delayed arrival; this is not typical.

DCL wants everyone off the ship by 9:00/9:30am at the latest. Remember... everyone is anxious to get ON for the next cruise but first everyone must get off. They can't allow passengers to be arriving at 10:30 or 11:00am if the prior cruise hasn't cleared the ship yet.

Early breakfast is usually around 6:45am and late breakfast at 8am (?). DCL recommends flights out of MCO after 11:15am. You may well be able to make it earlier if you do Express Walk-off.

You’re probably right—I wasn’t paying close attention to the time. But I feel like we finished breakfast a little after 9 and were off the ship by 10.

.

 

[Gdes1]

You’re probably right—I wasn’t paying close attention to the time. But I feel like we finished breakfast a little after 9 and were off the ship by 10.

.

What did you do between 9 and 10? Just curious because I think you have to be out of staterooms prior to your breakfast seating. Hence all the luggage outside of the restaurants.

 

[Pinkjgray]

Apparently, I’ve unintentionally inflated the times. I know we had second dining breakfast and we were done after 9a and off the boat before ten. It was a year ago and I am getting older.

 

[Capt_BJ]

I highly recommend you take a look at the cruise schedule on the Port Canaveral web site and see how many ships will be flipping on "your" day .... it can make a big difference in availability of third party transportation AND how much of a zoo one can expect the airport to be. One or two ships no biggie ... 4 or more ... stand by for trouble ... https://www.portcanaveral.com/getat...e-schedule_thru-July-2025.pdf.aspx?lang=en-US

 

[sjuncfan]

I had flown to Orlando for work a couple months before our most recent cruise. After I got home, i forced my husband to get TSA Pre (which I already had). I think the security line has been at least 1.5-2 hours the last couple times I've been there.

 

[RedHead0186]

I had flown to Orlando for work a couple months before our most recent cruise. After I got home, i forced my husband to get TSA Pre (which I already had). I think the security line has been at least 1.5-2 hours the last couple times I've been there.

Orlando is the worst for TSA. I've been in Pre-Check lines that have been an hour long (though that isn't the norm)!

 

[Gdes1]

So I looked at the port schedule Captain BJ posted, and on 1/24 there were 5 ships...Fantasy and Wish, 2 RCL and 1 carnival. It was around 9:30am that we gave up on the GoPort situation/mess and got an Uber XL to get to MCO. We had one in 10 minutes, no problem. She was even able to get into the port quickly (or maybe she was already there). Anyway, that means either we were just lucky, or even with 5 ships in port, Uber still works.

 

[Peaseblossom36]

We did express walk off yesterday and arrived at MCO around 8:30.

 

[kiford]

But MCO can be a security nightmare. We got to the airport at 10:15 am, checked in our bags and had our boarding passes by 10:30 am, but it took 90 minutes to get through security.

Our last four flights have typically been either at 11:25 am or 2 pm, and the lines at MCO security showed 60-85 minute waits all four times. Fortunately we have TSA Pre-Check; the line length seems quite consistent if you don't have that. So, assume that the length of wait before those flight timeframes will be the norm. If you don't have those waits, you can always go somewhere to eat, but better than being late.

 

[tvguy]

Our last four flights have typically been either at 11:25 am or 2 pm, and the lines at MCO security showed 60-85 minute waits all four times. Fortunately we have TSA Pre-Check; the line length seems quite consistent if you don't have that. So, assume that the length of wait before those flight timeframes will be the norm. If you don't have those waits, you can always go somewhere to eat, but better than being late.

Last time I was through MCO......after a WDW trip.....TSA was pulling people with flights that were departing within the hour out of the regular line and running them through the TSA Pre side. Not those passenger's fault that TSA didn't have enough capacity to keep up with the regular line, and excess capacity for TSA Pre folks.