PSA: Do not fly the day of your cruise

[squirk]

Ah, gotcha. LGA has had the same issue with all their construction.

The construction is done now, yes?

Speaking of the Ninth Circle of Hell, returning a rental car at LGA during that mess might have been the worst airport experience of my life.

 

[Dug720]

The construction is done now, yes?

Speaking of the Ninth Circle of Hell, returning a rental car at LGA during that mess might have been the worst airport experience of my life.

Nope. Not even close. It is better, but not done. They only recently got approval for the AirTrain to go there, so they have all of that to do too!

 

[Ladyfish77]

I know it isn't feasible for every family, but I honestly love flying in to MCO the night before and staying at the hotel there. It's so relaxing. I like to have some wine out on our balcony and watch the people go by. The rooftop pool is cool. Breakfast is good. And then you are off to the port! It's sort of a nice way to ease into the cruise without all the stress of an early flight.

Wish they still had those balconies open. We stayed there at the end of December 2020 and the balcony overlooking the airport terminal was locked and no way to use it. Notice said something about safety issue. I was sad because I thought it would be so much fun to sit on the balcony and people watch!

 

[sjuncfan]

As I stated in my post, we're always covered by good travel insurance and have a back-up plan in case the unlikely worst scenario were to occur.

I once read a post by someone who was scheduled to fly in the evening, but their flight was cancelled, and they couldn't get another that night or the next morning. Whereas the next morning's flights went off on time. So in that scenario, had it been a cruise, the person scheduled to leave the evening before would have missed the boat, and the person who left the morning of would have sailed.

The possibilities are wide open in life, and a lot can happen. Each person has to decide what risk level they are comfortable with. Telling people that they should never take a given mild risk is a bit over the top. People can decide for themselves. Lots of people fly in morning of without a problem. If it isn't for you, don't do it. As I stated in my post, I also like to fly in a day or or more before when I can. It reduces risk and allows more time for us to get into vacation mode. But when that doesn't work for our schedule, we'll fly in the day of. And I won't stress about it. Life's too short.

This happened to us a few years ago. We had a flight at 3 pm the day before a cruise. At about 10 am, I got a text that the flight had been cancelled. Southwest wasn't answering the phone so I went in to major internet research mode to find alternatives to get to Port Canaveral. It became clear that we weren't going to get down there that day... Honestly I can't remember if there were options the next morning at that point... they were either full or super expensive or I was too gunshy to wait til the next day to fly down after we'd had one flight cancelled... so around 2 pm we got in the car and started driving. We were coming from Virginia so it was about a 14 hour drive. We drove til like 11 PM, then got up the next morning and drove straight to the terminal. Definitely a stressful start to the vacation but we had a blast on the cruise. Only thing I would have done differently if I had to do it all over again would have been to rent a car so we could have flown home. But at the time, the one-way rental seemed $$$$ and the logistics of picking up a car that afternoon seemed overwhelming so we drove our own car both ways.

 

[mommy2allyandaveri]

I love the FB posts that say if my flight arrives at 1:30pm, is that cutting it too close? Um YES!!! I would be a big ball of stress for weeks leading up to that flight, right up until arriving at the port.

Airlines are a total disaster right now.