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

PrincessArlena'sDad said:

Yes. It must have been in the winter of 2005-2006 I think?

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Yes, December 2005. I remember hearing the plane crashed into a car full of people. Just horrible.

FigmentSpark said:

Except there are other airlines that presumably fall underneath that in N.A. Where's JetBlue, Frontier, Air Canada, and Air Transat?

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I think the Canadians know where Air Canada is (or rather, would show up) on this list. Plus a lot of their flights would be code shares and thus ineligible.

JetBlue is the only one I thus far have never had an issue with. They tend to arrive early whenever I fly them - which I think counts against On Time also as that is generally a window on like 15 minutes of either side of the designated landing time. Especially NYC to Florida the trend on my flights has been 30ish minutes early.

Dug720 said:

JetBlue is the only one I thus far have never had an issue with. They tend to arrive early whenever I fly them - which I think counts against On Time also as that is generally a window on like 15 minutes of either side of the designated landing time. Especially NYC to Florida the trend on my flights has been 30ish minutes early.

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My experience has been the opposite. I haven't yet had a JetBlue flight arrive on time, even on the one occurrence when we departed on time.

ctc917 said:

Glad to hear you made your cruise. I knew that if we were booked on the Fantasy we wouldn't of make it. I did buy Insurance thou and luckily with the cruise leaving on Monday we didn't need to use it.
Maybe this whole flight issue was just a "perfect storm", if it wasn't a vacation week, if it wasn't an Easter week, if the weather wasn't giving them a problem there may have been more options for flights the next day but I still am not sure what happened with the cancelling and uncancelling of our flight and I don't even know if SW knows. But for myself I think going forward especially if I'm going on a cruise I will be booking earlier flights or leaving for FL 2 days before just to have the start of my vacation be a little less stressful and I will still be purchasing Trip Insurance.

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It truly was the perfect storm, especially since the weather was impacting virtually the entire East Coast (NH excluded), plus vacation week for the whole state, Easter, etc. Our flight was an extra hour, and they flew us WAY to the west to avoid the weather. We did find flights out of BOS for early the next morning that theoretically had seats and could get us to MCO in time for our cruise, when we were looking around 4 PM Friday, but all of those planes were stranded in Orlando with ours, due to the weather, so we weren't so sure those were safe bets either. Now, that being said, I'm glad that our next cruise, next April vacation (I work in education) departs on Monday. We will probably be flying Saturday night, giving us a bit more of a buffer this time around. But the next time we can swing a trip on the Fantasy, we will be doing a Friday night flight again, because...I'm an educator and that's the best I can do for travel times. And absolutely, I will continue to purchase trip insurance.

Ugh I cannot stress enough how important it is to fly in the day before a cruise or even 2 days before.

Last summer I was just going to WDW (staying at POP) so no cruise booked but had I been going on one I for sure would've missed it.

Had a late-evening departure from my local airport with a layover in Charlotte getting me into MCO at roughly 11pm.

Got to the airport and saw my flight was bumped to a later departure. Got checked in and they said storms were really bad in the Carolinas and now my flight was canceled. They told me they could get me on the earliest flight the following morning so I said ok. I wasn't too upset because Day 1 was basically a travel day anyway. I'll get into Orlando by 11 am the next day so no worries!

Instead of driving back home and waking up at 3am to drive the hour it takes to get to the airport, I opted to stay at the local Marriott. I called WDW and explained to them the situation. They were more than accommodating and just switched my arrival date. So I got up the next day and went to the airport and got to my gate.

It's roughly 530am. I'm noticing they are not boarding yet and the plane is set to depart before 6am. All of a sudden all of the people around me including myself received a notification from the American Airlines app that the flight was delayed. So we knew before the official announcement. it was now scheduled for a 930 departure. This was again due to heavy storms but a Delta flight still took off. So I got some breakfast and hung out for a while. Then 9:30 came around and no updates. We were told the flight was not going to take off now until after 1pm because the flight crew needed rest. People started panicking calling the airlines to get a different flight. I opted to just drive to philly because I was going to miss the layover.

The airlines scrambled to get everyone re-booked and we were finally wheels up at around 130. I got into philly and boarded the plane. I'd now be arriving around 6pm in Orlando. Not terrible but at least I'll get there.

So everyone got seated and we sat and sat. We were told something was wrong with the plane and rather than taking everyone off and re-boarding the plane they were going to bring a truck over to pump AC into the cabin for us. Then they had issues with the truck so they had everyone get off the plane. We sat for 3 hours in the terminal. When they brought us all food and water I knew we were in trouble. They announced the flight was canceled and there were no more flights to MCO. I was devastated at this point. People started freaking out but they haven't delayed and canceled as many times as I was. The announcer said we would be getting refunds but everyone needed to head over to customer service to book new flights. I called WDW again and had to explain to them my situation. They switched my arrival date again for me.

We received a voucher for a hotel and told to keep our receipts for reimbursement.

Cliff notes: I did make it to WDW but it took two days to get there. 4 delays and 2 canceled flights

American Airlines did NOT reimburse me for the hotel or meals. I sent them a letter documenting all of my issues and they said sorry and that was that. To top it off the hotel they sent us to was not updated since the 80s and completely run down. Had I known they were not going to pay for our lodging, I would've stayed on points at a Marriott.

It's not worth the risk of flying in the day of the cruise. This was a weekday in July and it took me 2 days to get to my destination.

Whenever I hear people talk about flying to the cruise port the morning of departure I cringe. Too many moving parts. A cancelled or delayed flight can literally mean missing the boat, not just starting a beach or theme park vacation a day later.

This is also why we stick to the legacy airlines for flights the day or two prior to a cruise. There are other flights and routing if the need arises and the legacy airlines will assist with rebooking. The ultra low cost carriers like Frontier, Allegiant etc may have only two or three flights per week. Frontier left me stranded last summer, 200 miles from home and 700 miles from my destination because they had no available crew and waited until 90 min before takeoff to inform passengers. I was offered the next flight in TWO DAYS. Frontier offered ZERO assistance and left all passengers to fend for themselves. It was stressful, super expensive, and a total hassle trying to make other arrangements. But the most distressing part was watching all the young families and elderly people crying in the airport. Lesson learned. There is no discount fare that could tempt me to fly Frontier again.

LeiaOfAlderaan said:

I think everyone has a nightmare story from an airline that made them swear off them forever, lol.

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Yes! I think, if you haven’t had a problem, it comes down to luck more than anything.

We’ve had all manner of craziness with multiple airlines - it really stinks when you just want to start your vacation or get home! I think there are ways to mitigate the risks, but sometimes stuff just happens.

I’m glad you made it, OP!

BlueRibbon said:

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?

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no