San Diego port to airport for flight home

[juju12345]

We are cruising from San Diego for spring break and I’m having trouble picking the flight home. It says ashore at 8:30am and my travel agent said not to book any flights before 11:45am. It looks like the airport is close to port so is that an abundance of caution? If we don’t do the 11:20 flight we might not get a flight leaving until 6:45pm. I don’t want to cut it close but I don’t want to hang at the airport all day and not get home till 1am either so I was wondering if anybody who had been there before had an opinion. Thanks!

 

[PrincessShmoo]

We are cruising from San Diego for spring break and I’m having trouble picking the flight home. It says ashore at 8:30am and my travel agent said not to book any flights before 11:45am. It looks like the airport is close to port so is that an abundance of caution? If we don’t do the 11:20 flight we might not get a flight leaving until 6:45pm. I don’t want to cut it close but I don’t want to hang at the airport all day and not get home till 1am either so I was wondering if anybody who had been there before had an opinion. Thanks!

No, it's not an abundance of caution. Debarkation procedures in San Diego can be an issue. It's not unusual for debarkation to be be delayed up to 2 hours.

Does that happen often? No, but it happens.

 

[juju12345]

No, it's not an abundance of caution. Debarkation procedures in San Diego can be an issue. It's not unusual for debarkation to be be delayed up to 2 hours.

Does that happen often? No, but it happens.

Wow I wouldn’t have thought about delays at debarkation. Thank you! I definitely will look at later flights.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Wow I wouldn’t have thought about delays at debarkation. Thank you! I definitely will look at later flights.

Generally, it happens on cruises that are NOT round trips, but ending in San Diego. Most of the time it's the non-US people who don't get that they have to report to a place onboard before they start processing anyone one else to debark (usually very early in the morning).

On our HAL Panama Canal cruise, we were delayed debarking until 10:30 or so, because there were 2 non-US parties that didn't (think/know) that they had to be up early and report.

 

[ScooterScott44]

If you are able to get off the ship close to 8:30-9 you should have no problems. The airport is extremely close to the port. Since I have been there quite a few times for work I think the minimum time necessary would be just over an hour. That is just port to flight, so taking the whole getting off the ship and getting bags out of the equation. Also that is minimum and leaves no wiggle room at all.

 

[Luv2Diz]

TSA is another factor to consider. My brother cruises out of San Diego fairly frequently and warned me that TSA can take awhile at this airport. We found that to be true. On a busy Sunday with two ships in port, they had only 2 lines open. It took us 40 minutes to get through security.

 

[Travel60]

If you've never been to San Diego find a place to stash your luggage (lockers or a local hotel for a fee) and treat SD like a port. Take the ferry over to Coronado, visit seaport village, tour the Midway, eat in the Gaslight district....all very walkable from Port. San Diego zoo is also close...maybe an Uber ride. One of my favorite cities.

 

[ScooterScott44]

TSA is another factor to consider. My brother cruises out of San Diego fairly frequently and warned me that TSA can take awhile at this airport. We found that to be true. On a busy Sunday with two ships in port, they had only 2 lines open. It took us 40 minutes to get through security.

While I respect that the TSA crowd will vary from day to day and even by time of day I think people forget there are options. Most of the time I travel through terminal 2, the lines tend to be longer at the far security gate. Once past security you can access all the gates so sometimes just walking over to the other security screening area might help save time.
Only gates 1,1a and 2 in Terminal 1 are isolated from the rest of civilization and those are only Southwest flights.

 

[lorimay]

Be careful with early flights, you never know what can happen.

We were on the infamous 2002 cruise on The Magic with the out break of norovirus. We were stuck on the ship while the Health Dept. came on. Every passenger had to fill out forms before anyone could debark. It was well after 10am before we could leave.
At the time we had no idea about departing morning as it was out first cruise.
Thankfully we drove our car to the port.

 

[CarolynU]

I’ve debarked out of San Diego twice after the WBPC and the first time was horrible. It took hours to be on dry land. The second time was better.
I’ve also debarked from the WBTA in San Juan and that made San Diego look amazing. Folks were still in line at nearly 1pm many of whom missed their flights. The Captain was out there and furious. Disney had to continue running their airport transfers hours after it should have stopped. All new boarders were given a free cocktail with their dinners as they were stuck outside in the boiling sun.
Prepare for the unexpected and then be pleasantly surprised! Hopefully!

 

[mhorgan65]

Seaport Village, Midway, Hornblower or Flagship day cruise (use groupon for 50 percent off), Gaslamp are good choices. If you want you can take a trolley, lyft, or bus ride over to Fashion Valley if you like shopping (avoid Horton Plaza in donwtown SD). Apparently, there are some day rooms available in San Diego, if you wish to relax or have LO's that want to take a nap. Another good place is Old Town which is bus and trolley accessible or as a cheap Uber/Lyft ride. I also enjoy the waterfront park which is right next to the port. A fun place to eat near Seaport village is Kansas City BBQ which is where they filmed the bar scene in Top Gun (if you like that sort of thing).

Was at the airport not that long ago, but I have TSA Pre which takes no time at all. The security lines are a little bit long, and I wish they had a security line tracker similar to the one used at MSP.

I live in SD and there is no shortage of fun things to do.

 

[oklamomof4boys]

So do you think a 12:15 flight out of San Diego should be fine?

 

[xoxoallieann]

So do you think a 12:15 flight out of San Diego should be fine?

A 12:15 flight out of San Diego should be fine. The port is really close to the airport, you can see the runway from the ship. And it's not a very big airport, so I'd think 12:15 would work.

 

[shaunacb]

We got office Wonder last month in San Diego, had an international flight (back to Canada) at 12:50 pm, and were there with lots of time to spare before the 2 hour cut off. I think we were at the airport well before 10 am. It’s a 10 min drive and there are tons of taxis waiting at the port. You will be fine. Probably the 11:15 flight would be fine too, but the 12:15 is a safe bet.

 

[GuardMusic]

Piling on, as we've returned to SD a couple of times, the last being in Sept. It was nearing 9:30am by the time we were called (but we also reported we had no plans for the day, so I think that's why we were last). The amazing part was there was no Customs to deal with at the terminal - rare and odd. However, yes, TSA at SD when we finally did leave was crazy. We were very relieved to use our Pre-Check for that flight!