Return trip flights

[Sleepyluke]

We almost learned the hard way to fly in the day before the cruise leaves, but how many of you depart the day it gets back vs. spending one more night, either on Disney property or elsewhere in Orlando. I know it tends to prolong the vacation, but we typically do a 7 night, so would arrive back on Saturday, then flights on Sunday and then work/school on Monday is rough at times. Do you do better actually cramming it all in on Saturday and have rest/unpack/laundry day on Sunday to go to work Monday? Even with somewhat early flights on Sunday we seem to lose the day anyway. Do you feel better with get back to reality day, or extra rest day? All assuming afternoon flight is available and reasonable.

 

[Cheburashka]

We almost learned the hard way to fly in the day before the cruise leaves, but how many of you depart the day it gets back vs. spending one more night, either on Disney property or elsewhere in Orlando. I know it tends to prolong the vacation, but we typically do a 7 night, so would arrive back on Saturday, then flights on Sunday and then work/school on Monday is rough at times. Do you do better actually cramming it all in on Saturday and have rest/unpack/laundry day on Sunday to go to work Monday? Even with somewhat early flights on Sunday we seem to lose the day anyway. Do you feel better with get back to reality day, or extra rest day? All assuming afternoon flight is available and reasonable.

My preference is to fly out the day of disembarkation, unless the home port city is very special in its own right and we haven't had time to explore it yet (this was the case for us with Vancouver). If I really wanted to go to Disney World after the cruise, then that would be a reason to stay after a Port Canaveral cruise. But otherwise, we fly out the day of. Especially if our cruise disembarks on Saturday and school or work starts on Monday. Then it's a no-brainer. Get home on Saturday so that you can unpack and re-acclimate to being at home before rushing off to work or school on Monday.

 

[belle032]

We almost learned the hard way to fly in the day before the cruise leaves, but how many of you depart the day it gets back vs. spending one more night, either on Disney property or elsewhere in Orlando. I know it tends to prolong the vacation, but we typically do a 7 night, so would arrive back on Saturday, then flights on Sunday and then work/school on Monday is rough at times. Do you do better actually cramming it all in on Saturday and have rest/unpack/laundry day on Sunday to go to work Monday? Even with somewhat early flights on Sunday we seem to lose the day anyway. Do you feel better with get back to reality day, or extra rest day? All assuming afternoon flight is available and reasonable.

A lot of it depends on how many vacation days I have left, but we generally tend to fly home immediately after disembarking as well. I like having that laundry/grocery shop/rest day before starting a full work week. Unless like @Cheburashka mentioned, the port is part of the vacation. For example, we spent 3 days in London after our British Isles cruise and would have tacked on more if our schedule allowed it.

Our sailing in September is a little different, it's an 8 day itinerary, Tuesday-Wednesday. And we're flying across the country. It's tough because most flights fly out early in the morning (too early to get to the airport from the ship) or late in the evening and you arrive home the following morning. Neither is ideal and in this case, I think we'll fly out as early as we can, get in late at night, and just suck it up and go to work on Thursday & Friday. Unfortunately, I can't spare the extra days off of work this time.

 

[lanejudy]

I prefer to return from any vacation on a Saturday, leaving Sunday to deal with "home" stuff before work/school. Of course, that can depend on when the cruise ends or if we have had a chance to visit the debark city. But generally speaking, fly home on debarkation day. It's easy to do at Port Canaveral.

 

[MinnesotaMouseketeers]

We have always flown home the day we disembarked. Except for our Alaska Cruise (Celebrity Cruise Line) disembarking in Vancouver. And our Disney Cruise Line cruise; Norwegian Fjord, Iceland, Scotland disembarking in Dover England.

We have never visited these two cities. So we decided to stay two nights in Vancouver and three nights in England to do some exploring. Typically we prefer to get home Saturday to have that extra day to unpack and do laundry, we have been on eleven cruises.

 

[Intr3pid]

We do the cruise last because most other experiences go downhill from there. We will do the parks or land tours first - but sometimes we can sneak in a relaxing resort day at the end to finish things off nicely. That last day won't make or break our trip though.

 

[mevelandry]

We always fly on disembarkation day but never before noon. We do self-assist check out and only take carry-ons, this way we never have to « find » our luggage.

 

[KGmomoftwins]

We always fly out the day we disembark I find there is something about getting off the ship I just want to get home vacay is done. The only way I would reconsider this is if we did a repositioning cruise in Europe I would want to explore that city and would plan accordingly with time off. We are doing Alaska next Aug and are planning 3 nights before the cruise and we disembark on a Monday and poor DH will have to go to work on Tuesday.

 

[JWG]

Given the 7-days are on a Saturday schedule, we usually fly home day off later in the day. Mid-afternoon sometime. This last cruise we stayed the extra day and it felt wasted. We checked into our hotel near the airport, caught up on e-mail (so work, yuck), went to the pool for a little bit, tried to kill time until dinner. It felt like a dud end to a great vacation.

 

[Sleepyluke]

Wow, I am actually a little surprised it is unanimous so far! I like JWG sometimes feel like it is a wasted day staying trying to relax and not really do anything, but spend more money and just build up those few more things to cram into the afternoon we get home, usually Sunday. I may have to work on convincing the boss to come home next trip. At least we could still ride the Disney bus to the airport and extend it a little more. But eventually it is time to go home when I no longer have my favorite bartender!

 

[bakerworld]

My husband has post-cruise head so he likes a couple days to recover his land legs before returning. We fly in the night before and fly out the 3rd day after disembarking. As you can probably tell we like the 4 day cruises.