blog post

by Dawn Stevens 

When selecting flights for your cruise, you need to make sure you will be arriving early enough and returning late enough!  Be careful how you select your flights!

1)     Departure Flight.  Unless you are fairly close to your departure city (within two hours with no flight connections) you should strongly consider flying in at least a day prior to your cruise.   This is especially true if you will need to change planes en route to your destination.   (If your first flight is delayed, you might miss your connection…if you travel with any frequency it has surely happened to you before!)   You need to be especially cautious in winter if your flight connects through any potentially snowy cities.  (So look for flights that connect through LA, Phoenix, or Atlanta if possible rather than Denver, Chicago and New York!)    Most cruises departing from a US port sail between 4 and 5 PM, requiring you to be onboard around 2 PM.   Most cruise lines allow you to board as early as 11 AM.  It’s a good idea to plan to board early to give yourself a delay buffer.

If your schedule allows, give yourself two nights in your embarkation city to relax, see the sights and start your cruise well rested.

2)     Return Flight.   Plan to disembark from the ship approximately two to three hours after the ship arrives back in port.   Nobody is allowed to debark until the customs and immigration officials have cleared the ship, which is normally about two hours.   If you are planning to fly home the same day, be sure to find out what time the cruise line advises that your flight depart.   They will figure in the approximate time you’ll be able to debark the ship as well as travel time to the airport.  We will be able to obtain this information for you.    If it’s a foreign port, you may wish to stay a few more days to explore the destination.  

3)     Book the same airline for each leg of your trip.   If you book through an on line booking engine, cheaper fares might be offered with multiple airlines for the itinerary.     Be very careful about this as the savings may not be worth it! 

 Your flights in each direction should be on the same airline!   (For example, you fly Delta all the way to your destination and United all the way home.)   This is okay.

What you don’t want to do is book multiple carrier flights in one direction.  For example:  Your first flight is Delta and your connecting flight is United.    What happens if your Delta flight is delayed and you miss your United connection?   Since you are booked on two different airlines, neither one will take responsibility for you missing the second flight.  You’ll end up paying fees to get a replacement flight on United because you missed your flight.   This is too risky.

The exception to this advice is if you book directly through an airline and they offer a partner airline for part of the itinerary.   This is called a code share flight and will still be handled by the original airline or the partner.  In this case or in the case of just one airline for all flights, the airline would take responsibility and re-book you to your destination on another flight.

If you do miss your connection or your flight is so delayed that it is obvious you will miss your connection, head to the airline’s ticket desk in the airport while you are calling the reservations center on your cell phone.  Many times you can get it handled on the phone while everybody else is standing in line.   So be sure to put the airline’s reservation phone number in your cell phone before leaving home!