Pay Attention to the TIME your Ship Departs :)

[coast2coastmickey]

This is a friendly PSA, and in a world where most people are trying to get on the ship as early as possible, this advice is probably worthless. The PSA is: Make sure you understand the latest time you can embark on the ship! In our case, I thought it was 4pm, turns out it was 3pm!

Story Time:
Last month we were getting ready to sail on the Wish. The day before our flights (we were flying to FL on Sunday, for a Monday embarkation), my wife decided to get her eyelashes done local to our home. Long story short, they messed her up bad. Clumps of glue, lashes messed up. Yikes. We end up flying out the next day as planned. Get to Florida in time for an early dinner at Disney Springs, and we turn in to our hotel.

The next day, we go to our planned pre-cruise breakfast at Chef Mickey's. The wife finds a place in Kissimmee to get her eyelashes fixed, and we get there around 11am. The folks there were wonderful, happy to fix her eyelashes back up, and say it'll take a couple hours, we should be on our way to the port by 1pm, there by 2pm. Too easy.

1:30pm rolls around, I check in...and they're still working on her. Like I said, our local salon messed her up bad. No big deal, I'm thinking in my head that 4pm is our deadline to get on the boat.

I go back out to the rental car with the kiddos, and just for grins and giggles, fact check my 4pm assumption. WHOOPS. 3pm is the the true deadline to board the Wish!!!

Run back in the salon, tell them to finish now, leave a big fat 40% tip for the nice technician, and we SPEED down the toll road to the port, during a rainstorm, and we make it with maybe a minute to spare. We were the last folks on the boat. On the way there, we called Disney Cruise Line, and told them we were on the way with GPS telling us we'd get there literally a couple minutes before 3pm.

It was so strange. Getting into the cruise terminal with nobody else in there. They check our documents, send us on our way, and we went straight to the muster drill. The cruise was phenomenal. Kids loved it, my wife loved it, and my father-in-law had a great time too. But I'm sure my half-dozen grey hairs (I'm counting them) turned into a dozen grey hairs that day with how stressed I was! Don't be like us and fool around on embarkation day

 

[eticketplease]

Wow Glad you made it and had a great time!

 

[brentm77]

I stressed out just reading that! I have done similar things when traveling. It's amazing how our brains think they know something and we don't think to second guess the knowledge sometimes. I actually wish I was more laid back when traveling, like you, where I wasn't headed to the port, airport, etc. at the earliest opportunity. We end up some places way too early. If I were more laid back, it would leave open more time for enjoying the vacation. There is a nice sweet spot in the middle, but I can't seem to get there.

 

[CamColt]

Oh my gosh! That is scary! I'm so glad it worked out.

I agree to pay attention to all times as I did something similar on our last cruise but not even close to as scary as that. We are seasoned DCL sailors so I know we usually have until around 4:45 on CC. I don't pay attention to the time. We were at our usual spot, Heads Up Bar, finishing up the 2nd drink we had gotten there, when DH went to the restroom. I sat there and looked at the beach to see it was deserted (no one was at the bar area either). When he came back I pointed that out to him. He asked what was All Aboard time and I said I don't know, isn't it 4:45? He looked it up to see it was 4:00! We quickly looked at the time and it was currently 3:46. Now I know they wouldn't have left us (sadly) but I didn't want to be that jerk having my name called out over the ship.

 

[brentm77]

Oh my gosh! That is scary! I'm so glad it worked out.

I agree to pay attention to all times as I did something similar on our last cruise but not even close to as scary as that. We are seasoned DCL sailors so I know we usually have until around 4:45 on CC. I don't pay attention to the time. We were at our usual spot, Heads Up Bar, finishing up the 2nd drink we had gotten there, when DH went to the restroom. I sat there and looked at the beach to see it was deserted (no one was at the bar area either). When he came back I pointed that out to him. He asked what was All Aboard time and I said I don't know, isn't it 4:45? He looked it up to see it was 4:00! We quickly looked at the time and it was currently 3:46. Now I know they wouldn't have left us (sadly) but I didn't want to be that jerk having my name called out over the ship.

You are doing it right. That last hour or two on Castaway is often the best time of the day and so much less crowded.

 

[ladyofthetramp]

Ha! We scored a cabana on Serenity. It is amazing to be some of the last people out there. They finally sent a guy in a golf cart to pick us up- we still had 45 minutes, but I guess they were ready to pack up. Ended up with a ride to the ship-worked for us. lol

 

[tachyonbb]

Our first cruise was on the Wonder, a great Alaska cruise. We decided to fly out the day our cruise left. Our flight from fly over country to Los Angeles was delayed by 4 hours so we missed our flight to Vancouver. We caught the next flight and after customs etc. we made our cruise with about 10 minutes to spare. Note to everyone. Go a day early so you don't have our stress, or miss the boat (literally).

 

[tamitru32]

I'm planning first Disney cruise in April. Reviewed it over and over as I know to travel the day before. Cruise leaves out of San Diego and I'm in northern California so I'm thinking for sure this time it will be fine to fly same day. But ya just never know. Even with good weather, planes/airlines/airports can have so many other issues. Thanks for the reminder!

 

[hardcorestitch]

This is why you were taught time management through your planners back in grade school! It even applies to Disney cruises too.

 

[RedHead0186]

I'm planning first Disney cruise in April. Reviewed it over and over as I know to travel the day before. Cruise leaves out of San Diego and I'm in northern California so I'm thinking for sure this time it will be fine to fly same day. But ya just never know. Even with good weather, planes/airlines/airports can have so many other issues. Thanks for the reminder!

The length/distance of the flight really doesn't have much determination on the odds of your flight being delayed/cancelled. If your plan is coming from across the country and it gets stuck in storms somewhere, then your flight is delayed. Day of is too risky for any flight, IMO.