Fly in same day or day before?
 

With most cruises leaving roughly 4/5pm would you recommend catching an early flight into the departure city or play it safe and get a hotel the night prior?

Anytime I absolutely, positively, need to be somewhere by a specific time, I always plan to arrive the day before. I have never been on a cruise, but considering the downside of missing the cruise departure, I think this guideline also applies.

If the cruise departs from a place you've never been to (or would like to visit again), it makes sense to fly in even earlier, enjoy a few days in the departure city, and have absolutely no worries about missing your cruise. At least, that's what I would do!

thank you. very logical answer. I'll do just that. I was trying to cut cost but I have over a year to pay for it so I'll be fine.

Flying in a day before usually gives you more choices of flights, more leeway to find deals, etc. If you fly in day of, then you are limited to flights that arrive before a specific time (remember you must be checked in and onboard the ship no later than 60 minutes before sailaway, some lines it's even 90 minutes), reducing your opportunity to look for deals. Many people are able to find less expensive flights+hotel combinations than flying in day of, so keep searching for deals.

If you must fly in day of (sometimes you have to), here are some good guidelines:

1. Make your planned arrival at port no later than 4 hours before departure - this gives you leeway for delays with flight, baggage, and transport from airport to port. So count back, departure at 5 for example means onboard at 1pm. If airport is 30 minutes away from port (for example MIA to Port of Miami), then that's back to 12:30. Depending on the airport give yourself 30 minutes to an hour (for MIA at least an hour), to get off the plane, collect bags, and get ground transportation, so that's back to 11:30. So you're back to a flight that must arrive no later than 11:30 (flying into MIA sailing from Port of Miami).

2. A non-stop is typically better than a connection. The more flights, the more opportunities for delays, lost bags, etc. Notice I said typically because:

3. The earlier the arrival the better. Gives you more room to work if something goes wrong. A connecting flight that gets you in at 9am and has several later alternates (on the same airline) if something goes wrong, might be better than the non-stop that doesn't get there until noon, depending on your situation.

4. Be aware of typical weather when choosing your flight route. In winter beware of snowstorms in northern airports, but in the spring/summer DFW, ORD, ATL, etc can be nightmares for thunderstorms for example.

5. Know your options if you miss sailaway. Do you have a passport so you can fly and join the cruise at an intermediate point? Is the first stop the next day or 3 days away where you've missed half the cruise if you join it at that point? Are there obstacles preventing you joining the ship at the first stop? For example, many lines have stops at private islands (frequently the first stop) that don't have airports. Another example is a cruise from Miami that has a first stop in Key West. You would think you could just drive down and join the ship in Key West, but unfortunately there is a law (PVSA) that prevents that. How would you pay to join the cruise at the next point - travel insurance, credit card etc? Know the day of cruise contact number for your cruiseline.

Several years ago, we flew from SF to Seattle to take a same-day Alaskan cruise. My mother and aunt got to the busy airport too late, and missed the flight, and were fortunate enough to get seats on a later flight! I had to stay at the Seattle airport to accompany them to the boat. Very stressful! Not a good way to start.
This past summer, we were booked on a very expensive bus tour in Alaska. Having learned our lesson from the cruise, we arrived a day early to make sure that we would not miss it. It turns out that another party in the tour was very late and held up 3 busloads of eager tourists! It caused our tour that day to be very hurried.

We always fly a day early, for all the reasons mentioned above. Plus, since we typically cruise in winter, we like to just get away a day earlier. Our first cruise was part of a group and the flight was early the morning of departure. 7am flight meant 5am at the airport, which meant 4am wakeup call at the hotel. Nothing went wrong, but man, was I tired by the evening, and being a first cruise, who wants to nap or go to bed early?

Very valid points. I plan on using miles to fly into Singapore, only downside is all flights to my knowledge arrive at midnight which is not ideal. I will have to keep an eye on the schedules to see if anything opens up for a better situation.

With a very late arrival, an airport hotel is always very nice.

If you find a flight that arrives earlier in the day, picking something close to the ship pier area would also work well.

Romelle

It's only a half hour or less drive to lots of hotels in Singapore. Then you'd be in shopping areas where you can get a taste of Singapore before leaving.

Name hotels in Singapore are expensive, but several hotel credit cards offer certificates for free nights for signing up and meeting spend requirements. And book hotels in Singapore early. I've found the least expensive rooms go and you might have to book a more expensive hotel.

Some cruise lines offer an air package that if your flight makes you miss the cruise, they will get you to the next stop.

I don't usually recommend travel insurance, but if this is a one-time, expensive trip you might want to consider that, too. But read the fine print so you know what is covered. And some travel insurance companies are very difficult to get reimbursement from.

Definitely at least a day before embarkation, preferably a couple of days if possible, to explore the city and rest up before the cruise. On an Alaskan cruise, it was funny to watch all these people dozing off during the muster drill (it was held in one of the lounges). Bet they just arrived after a long journey.

Even better. That gives you a year to do a bit of research on lodging, watch for sales, and possibly find something interesting to see/do in the port where your cruise starts.

I always try to arrive a day or two ahead of time. Not only do I like having the cushion just in case something goes wrong with my flights, if I am ever unfortunate enough to have my bag not arrive, I'll want the extra cushion - either so my bag does turn up or so that I have a bit of time to shop for new gear for my holiday.

I always try to get in the day before, and it saved me once when IROPS delayed me a full day - only one flight per day to the island from which the boat was leaving.

Out of sheer curiosity BTW which island?

Add me to the chorus suggesting arrival a day prior as I've have weather trouble almost delay my arrival and had I been arriving same day would've missed the boat. The only time I might suggest it would be if the cities were relatively close, such as ATL & FLL/MIA.

St. Maarten. It was a small boat traveling around the islands.

I could have hopped a ferry over to Anguilla to catch up, but who needs the hassle?

I almost always try to fly in the day before. Way to stressful with a day of arrival, for me at least. I have flown in day of when the flight was short, and the cruise was inexpensive enough that my feelings wouldn't be hurt too badly if I missed it.

Always fly the day before UNLESS

You love stress and risk and
you let the cruise line do the air and guaranty that if you miss the ship, at their expense they will get you to the next port and allow you to board.

This guaranty is not always available. I usually use miles as it seems you are doing so this doesn't work anyway.

If overseas, we go two days early to have time to recover from the flight and see the port city.

Lots of variables here. One that I haven't seen mentioned is, how early do you want to be on the ship? Boarding early can be great. We took a disney cruise and the kids were excited about the big water slide, so we did OLCI as soon as it opened to get an early boarding group, and they rode like 10 times before it got crowded. Sometimes those first couple of hours of having an uncrowded ship can be worth it. Had to go the night before.

The other ones that matter, I think, are where you're coming from, frequency of other flights, and your cruise's first stop. We are doing a cruise from CPH. If we were flying from the USA, I would go at least one day early, and probably more. Jet lag is rough on a port-intensive cruise. But we are going to Paris first. To me, having that last night in Paris and only packing once is worth the potential stress of a day-of flight. It's a short flight, and there are other scheduled flights. If we miss the ship, the first port is in continental Europe the next day, so we could get there if we had to. I generally need to buy trip insurance for cancel-for-work anyway, and my policy had a cheap add on for missed-cruise insurance (transport to next port plus meals) so long as we are booked on a non-charter commercial flight scheduled to arrive four hours in advance of cruise departure.

How late? My first response to avoid such a tour company, but you didn't post their name. If it had happened to me, I'd be blasting it on whatever site I could.
If you do not arrive somewhere you are supposed to be, that is your problem, and should not be a problem for 3 busloads of people.

Simple rule of thumb: if your flights are part of your cruise package, it's not necessary to get to the port of embarkation a day earlier because it's the cruise line's responsibility to get you on the ship. If you are organising your own flights, it's essential to get there a day earlier.

Booking the flights as part of the cruise package takes care of the issue of responsibility, but depending on how and when the cruise line can get you to the ship (such as by flying you to the next port of call), you might miss part of the cruise.

If you miss one day of a 2-week cruise, it might not be that big of a deal. If you miss two days of a 3-day cruise, it makes the whole trip kind of pointless. I maintain that if you actually want to experience the whole cruise from the beginning to the end, you'll still want to plan to arrive a day earlier (and hope for the best).

Actually you need to read the details, at least in the US, even if you book your flights through the cruiseline, most of the cruiselines have wiggle language in their policies which basically says "we'll try to help you but no guarantee, and we aren't liable if we can't".

Also, great if they help you catch up, but take a typical Caribbean itinerary out of the US. Day 1-Sail Date, Day 2-private island (no way to board the ship here), Day 3-sea day, Day 4-1st port stop where you can board the ship. So for an 8 day cruise (7 nights), it's halfway through your cruise before you've caught up.

People on a Carnival facebook page just posted about their issues getting to San Juan today. They left Columbus early this morning and were diverted to Huntsville instead of Atlanta. Now their new flight to San Juan arrives after their ship sails. They purchased the Carnival Vacation Protection plan, so they are covered, and Carnival is putting them up in the Hilton tonight in San Juan, providing meal vouchers and flying them to St Thomas tomorrow. They are keeping positive about it and are happy to be at least spending a night somewhere warm, but I would still have flown to San Juan yesterday if at all possible, even with purchasing the insurance.

I think it's preferable to arrive a day prior to cruising, however for short getaway cruises, I have arrived same-day many times. My biggest concern is the possibility of a weather-related airport closure, but (knock on wood), that has yet to be an issue.

As I said though, if it's possible to leave a day early, it does make things less stressful. I have an upcoming short cruise that we did opt to fly in a day early for, primarily because the airfare was significantly lower and the flight times better. Of course you have to factor in what you pay for a hotel room, but I'm always willing to pay a bit more if it means getting the flight times I want.

The closest I've ever come to missing a cruise my flights were scheduled for the day before. Because of delays, missed the connection in Chicago (which I found kinda annoying, last flight of the day for the plane, and there were 7 of us that were connecting, wouldn't have taken more than a 10 minute wait and we'd have all made it). Delays the next morning, plus some issues with traffic on the way to Galveston and a cab that wasn't showing up. Quite frankly, the only reason we made that cruise was the rental car shuttle driver that had come back from his last run and gave us a lift to the port well after the last scheduled trip. We were some of the last couple people boarding the ship.

After that experience, I'd never fly in with less than a day to spare.

We scheduled a flight a day early for our cruise tour in Alaska to sightsee some of Fairbanks. Long story - short, weather in the midwest delayed our flight from EWR to MSP and could not make the flight to Fairbanks. Spent the night in MWP and flew the next day, and made the entire cruise tour (was great by the way)

On our 30 day TA from FLL a few years ago, leaving on April 1, we didn't want to chance a late snowstorm, so we went down to Fla. 2 days ahead. Enjoyed that stay too.



DD

For many of the aforementioned reasons, we will generally seek to arrive day - or even two days - prior to cruise departure. That gives us a wider selection of flights, less crowded conditions, and we can deal with jet lags, delays (aircraft, baggage if appropriate, etc.) much more easily.

We've also seen a number of people who have not made the cruise because of delays - some of them arrived a day or two later, some arrived on time but we departed without their having baggage, etc.

December 2012 we did arrive the day of cruise departure - we flew SMF-LAX-JFK-SXM - and it was slightly nerve wracking given weather, possible mechanical problems (AA 767-223ERs are being replaced with A321s on LAX-JFK routes, and the 762s are aging badly with lots of mechanical issues). Delays or cancellations would have resulted in no further travel that day due to full lights to SXM. We made it with a few hours to spare, but I'd prefer to not do this in the future - and the farther the cruise begins, the less we will do this (our next cruises originate in BCN, KEF and ATH - we're arriving a couple of days early, particularly since some cruise companies have been offering two days pre- or post-cruise lodging as incentives).

(This relates to experience with perhaps 40 cruises / liveaboard dive trips).

Over at Cruisecritic - lots of discussions & stories about folks missing their embarkation due to flights & weather, and/or sailing for the duration without their checked luggage.

Cruise lines often will delay sailaway if there is a large group booked directly with their air partners - we're on a NCL Pride of America 7 nights cruise that delayed & waited for a busload of late arrivals for 2.5 hours.

With bad weather, ships have been known to sail early & pull out of ports just to be out of harm's way - 1 hour earlier (or more) than scheduled.

Here's another story - http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1984708

It's a short 2 nights repo (sitioning) to Bahamas on the Getaway to Nassau.

Postscript - CCL's Splendor sailed out of NYC on 2/5/14 for 8 nights to Bahamas, right on schedule - but even ground transport delays left some cruisers behind. http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showp...5&postcount=33

With the record number of airline cancellations, I always recommend to my clients to fly in the day before or 2 in some cases. If they insist on flying in the day of the cruise, I always recommend insurance as they need to hedge in case of all the issues out there.

I would recommend flying in at least one day prior for any cruise. This is not only due to the possibility of missing the ship. Most of the embarkation ports are excellent tourist destinations in their own right and usually worth at least a quick look-see. I live in a major cruise embarkation city and am always disappointed when I hear people go from airport to cruise terminal and back, without seeing any of the city!

I will join everyone else in recommending you fly in the day before the cruise. There is a thread over on cruisecritic right now about someone who had an early morning, non-stop 2 hour flight from Chicago to NY to board a cruise departing in the afternoon. The flight ended up getting diverted, then there were other delay issues, and he ended up missing the cruise.

Fly in same day or day before?
 

I have been cruising for ten years and NEVER fly in same day - always at least a day before. Airlines and weather have too many surprises. This also allows me to get into vacation mode to have an amazing week on the ship.

We normally fly in the night before, but have been known to fly in the morning of the cruise. This is all based on maximizing limited vacation time.

For our South Pacific cruises, we've always spent a few days local to the area before the cruise. The one time we took the biggest risk was our Baltic cruise - our trip was on two airlines, with checked baggage, and arrived the morning of the cruise. You just need to have a contingency plan and a "que sera, sera" attitude to take that kind of chance.