Another story that re-enforces that you should fly in as early as possible for your cruise

My son and I were booked on a 4 night DCL cruise last month leaving on a Monday and so I scheduled for us to fly into Florida on the Friday before so we could have a couple of days to go to Disney World before we set sail but our plans did not go as we planned and here is our story:

I booked us on a late Friday night SW flight arriving into TPA around 1120pm and we were going to be staying a few nights at a timeshare before our cruise. We left our house with plenty of time to arrive at the airport and as we neared the machines to print our luggage tags I received a text stating our flight was cancelled. WHAT the heck, so we go to the counter and the SW CS tells us, Yes you are correct your flight was cancelled, and she started looking for a new flight for us to change to and they only thing available she said was the next day at 330pm arriving into TPA around 930pm-connecting thru Chicago so we took it and left the airport and went back to our car and back home. When I got home I decided to check the SW website to see if there was any other flights that would get us to Florida earlier and I didn't find any but I did find a flight that was a better option in the fact that it left 1 hr later but arrived in TPA only 5 mins later(which in my mind was a way better option but we decided not to switch to it). And as I was looking on the website I decided to look up the status of my cancelled flight(who knows why) and you know what I found, my original flight left MHT 25mins late and was going to arrive in TPA 25 mins late. And as I'm looking at this I'm thinking this can't be right can it. So I decide to call SW and after being on hold for 20mins I get this Rep that tells me "yes my flight did leave 25 mins late and yes a text was sent out stating it was cancelled but that was a mistake and so they sent a new text out telling everyone that they opps and please head to the gate" but since I had already got moved to another flight I wasn't notified. I was really pissed and so he told me he would have me talk to a supervisor for which I was then on hold for another 30mins. I stayed on the phone thinking this person would either help me switch to a better flight option or something but the very nice person couldn't help but did tell me to call on Monday and talk to the dept that helped out customers in this instance because he admitted that there was an issue that sent out that first text telling me that our flight was cancelled and if I wasn't ontime getting to the airport I would of gotten the cancellation text telling me that our flight was uncancelled 20 mins after they cancelled it...
So what did I learn form this: 1. try not to book the last flight out if your cruise is the next day because if our cruise was a Saturday cruise we would of never made it since it was the last flight out and a holiday weekend too. 2. when your flight is cancelled take the time to look on your phone app or have the rep tell you all the flights available and not take the 1st one they give you because they are rushing you and telling you "if you don't take it someone else will ", because the connecting flight they put us on was horrible and reinforced why I hate taking connecting flights if possible 3. if you can maybe arrive a few days early so if any issue happen you can recover from it and arrive in plenty of time to make your cruise.

So, you made your cruise, right? Just arrived a day later than originally planned? I hope you had a nice cruise.

We flew from Ft Lauderdale to Orlando on SW for a PC cruise in Feb. We flew because cruise ended in San Diego.
At the gate 5 minutes before boarding is suppose to start, they come on the microphone and tell us that the entire fleet of planes all over the country is down for maintenance and they don't know when it will be back.
I was so aggravated, because our son dropped us off at the airport to drive to Orlando to meet is for a few days before the cruise, we could have just driven with him.
Some poor woman left immediately and rebooked for the next day, 30 minutes later they say its all back up and running. Guy says on microphone, "Gee I really feel bad for that lady who rebooked and left." You think???

I'm glad you made the cruise!

Both stories are craaaaaaazy. OP, Glad you made the cruise.

Is this a thing that happens a lot on Southwest?

I remember flying back to Toronto from Maui, and our flight to LAX got cancelled. Rebooking was not fun, but I remember that I went through as many options as I could with the agent before rebooking. But that flight was a) not Southwest and b) definitely cancelled.

Wow, that’s such a bummer. Hope SWA at least gives you a decent luv voucher. Glad you were able to make your cruise!

Yes we did make our cruise. But the start to our vacation was certainly nerve racking to say the least because even thou we arrived early for our new flight on Saturday afternoon and boarded the plane on time our plane was delayed because a SW employee who was on our flight was called up to the front because she needed to take a phone call and ended up standing on the gangway talking to someone(who we all hoped was very important) and delayed our take off by 25mins which in turn only gave us 20mins to make our connection in Chicago(which thankfully was only 2 gates away from the gate that we just landed at) this caused quite a few of us to wonder if we would make our next flight including a couple who got out of their seats while the plane was still taxiing to the gate so they could be the first to exit the plane all while the stewardess was saying to them "Sir you need to take your seat, sir you can't be up the plane hasn't come to a complete stop" they didn't listen and stood right in front of the doorway telling her that they needed to make their connection and so they waited for the plane to stop and the door to open and then off they ran. So after this whole mess I'm really going to try not to get on a flight that connects and if I do I'm going to make sure I have more then 45 mins between my landing and taking off again cause my nerves can't take it and it adds more stress to travel. I also think when we go on our next cruise which is a 7 day leaving on a Saturday I will be flying into Orlando or Tampa on a flight that arrives during the day on Friday at the latest or better yet a Thursday night flight since I now know there are other things that could happen to mess up your travel.

I was supposed to fly LAX-MCO with JetBlue last May, prior to the EBTA, with two nights planned at WDW (flew to Miami early on the morning of the cruise, but had pre-planned a list of alternate flights with hiring a car and driving as a last resort in the event of a delay or cancellation). Anyway, when we checked in at the airport we were told the inbound flight was about an hour late. Ok, fine. It arrives, and we are then told there's a technical issue. After about 2 hours of intermittent updates, by this point it's about 2 in the morning, there's suddenly an announcement that the flight has been cancelled and we would have the choice of an alternate JetBlue flight, or a full refund. We ended up getting the last 2 seats with Southwest to MCO via DEN, getting us in at around 4pm (rather than 7am like we were supposed to)... but that was nothing. This was a Friday morning, and I made a comment along the lines of "I hope there's no one here on their way to get on the Dream...". Turned out the very group waiting in front of us was, AND they were part of a wedding party. Considering JetBlue's alternatives were connecting via JFK not getting us to MCO until SATURDAY, I have my doubts that they made that cruise...

Also, spending the middle of the night in LAX T5 with no flights arriving/departing and practically no one else around is an eerie experience!

This is exactly why just I rebooked my flight to the day before instead of the day of. We’re leaving the week after Thanksgiving so I was getting super paranoid about the possible delays and winter season. I feel much better doing what I did.

This is making me so nervous. We leave in a little over 4 weeks for Hawaii. I had to book flights R/T to Oakland, and then separate fights from Oakland R/T to Honolulu. All on SWA using points, but they don't have direct flights to Honolulu from anywhere but CA. So we arrive in OAK on a Wednesday evening, and fly out on Thursday morning. I kept changing my flight to OAK because I had really tight connections and it was making me nervous. I finally changed it to a much earlier flight - I am going to miss a half day of work extra, but I really needed at least a few hours cushion. But if they cancel any of my fiights, it creates a domino effect...

On our last cruise on the Magic out of MIami, SWA told us our flight was delayed by like an hour, giving us 25 minutes connecting flight in BWI to get to FLL the night before our cruise. I decided to take a later flight that went through MCO, because the connection was too tight for me, and I figured as long as i got to MCO i could drive to MIA if I had too. But I lost all the early birds I had paid for. I was pissed, but I wasn't going to call and complain on my cruise, and just didn't bother by the time it was over.

starvenger said:

Both stories are craaaaaaazy.

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Seriously.

starvenger said:

Is this a thing that happens a lot on Southwest?

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Not that I know of.

This is one reason why I avoid flying Southwest. If there is a flight disruption/cancellation, it takes them quite a while to get the disrupted passengers on their way, because they don't partner with any other airlines.

pixiedustedme said:

This is one reason why I avoid flying Southwest. If there is a flight disruption/cancellation, it takes them quite a while to get the disrupted passengers on their way, because they don't partner with any other airlines.

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That is a good point.

starvenger said:

Is this a thing that happens a lot on Southwest?

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Historically no. In fact, they have one of the best records of all the airlines. However, they had lots of Max 8's and have been struggling since they were grounded. Apparently the last month or two their record has been one of the worst.

Ah, I see. I do seem to remember that SW uses 737s almost exclusively so that makes sense.

Glad you made your cruise!

This fall I had a connecting flight Austin to Calgary, first leg leaving at 6:15am. Got a notification in the middle of the night it was delayed but didn’t see it until I got up a little later in the middle of the night. At this point my connection time was 17 minutes. I crammed everything for a two week trip into a carry on, knowing my luggage would never make that connection. Then went to the airport as though we were leaving on time.

Why, you say? Because we live an hour from the airport and one year we had an 8:30 flight get delayed 2 hours. Perfect, I’ll go ahead and make the 7 of us breakfast. In the middle of eating, we get a text the flight is now on time. We throw the food in the trash, stack the dirty plates in the sink, left the dirty pans on the counter, and rush out the door. We made the flight but I had to call my SIL and politely ask her to clean my kitchen so I wouldn’t come back 2 weeks later to something horrible. Thank goodness I had that option!

Back to Calgary...while I wasn’t out of my seat while taxiing, I was first off the plane, ran to my gate and boarded immediately. Too much stress for what is supposed to be vacation!

starvenger said:

Both stories are craaaaaaazy. OP, Glad you made the cruise.

Is this a thing that happens a lot on Southwest?

I remember flying back to Toronto from Maui, and our flight to LAX got cancelled. Rebooking was not fun, but I remember that I went through as many options as I could with the agent before rebooking. But that flight was a) not Southwest and b) definitely cancelled.

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I have never had good luck with Southwest and after getting burned badly by them twice - once stuck at the airport for over 5 hours (and told not to leave because “They could change their minds and go at the original time or earlier than the time they sent out”) and once for over 6 hours for elective - read: non-essential - things. I cannot believe that after they send out a text changing a time by over 5 hours well before most people are at the airport they could change it back. So while asinine, I can fully believe they sent out a cancel notice and then a “Whoops! Our bad! Not cancelled!” message. Other airlines may have their issues, but I have never known one to be as indecisive - and in my experience unreliable - as Southwest. (And no, I avoid Spirit, Frontier, and Allegiant like the plague.)

aggiedog said:

Glad you made your cruise!

This fall I had a connecting flight Austin to Calgary, first leg leaving at 6:15am. Got a notification in the middle of the night it was delayed but didn’t see it until I got up a little later in the middle of the night. At this point my connection time was 17 minutes. I crammed everything for a two week trip into a carry on, knowing my luggage would never make that connection.

Why, you say? Because we live an hour from the airport and one year we had an 8:30 flight get delayed 2 hours. Perfect, I’ll go ahead and make the 7 of us breakfast. In the middle of eating, we get a text the flight is now on time. We throw the food in the trash, stack the dirty plates in the sink, left the dirty pans on the counter, and rush out the door. We made the flight but I had to call my SIL and politely ask her to clean my kitchen so I wouldn’t come back 2 weeks later to something horrible. Thank goodness I had that option!

Back to Calgary...while I wasn’t out of my seat while taxiing, I was first off the plane, ran to my gate and boarded immediately. Too much stress for what is supposed to be vacation!

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This impresses me!!!
I am the worst over packer.

Worst experience we had:

Flying from phx to ny, connection in Chicago.

While in Chicago waiting for our flight a plane went off the runway and into the highway.

Trying to find a hotel and car rental was really hard. Somehow we did it.

Took 2 nights to get a flight to ny

Now you've got me all worried. We're heading off for a cruise on the Dream in August. Boat departs on Friday, but we are going from LAX-MCO on Thursday afternoon. I've figured it should be enough time, but you never know.

Just curious: If you miss your cruise, obviously you're not getting a refund from Disney, but do you at least get the cruise credit for Castaway Club?

We fly SW exclusively because of their great cancellation policy, my husband works in DC and comes home on weekends and sometimes he needs to cancel his flights at the last minute and we can't do this on any other airline and receive any type of refund. And while we have had the delay messages stating it will be delayed for 2 hours and then gets changed to boarding soon within 45 mins lol we have learned to work with that but in all the years we have flown with them we have never received a text saying your flight has been cancelled and later find out the flight took off. But I guess going forward I will be double checking this out if it happens again.
When I called SW after returning home from our cruise and explained what had happened to us the CS rep was very surprised to hear they texted a cancellation then a uncancellation text she stated usually if they cancel a flight they stick with it and do not change their minds, certainly not within 20 mins. so clearly that was an mistake. She also told me that the way the CS rep at the airport handled herself wasn't how they train their reps or the first CS rep on the phone for that matter and because of all these issues she issued us Luv vouchers for 1/2 our airfare that we can use within the next year and I guess anyone in our family can use them not just my son or I which is nice. This refund will also off set the money we lost by not arriving in Florida on Friday.
So going forward we will continue to fly SWA but I will be putting a lot more thought into when I need to arrive at my destination in the future plan our flights accordingly just in case we run into another issue.