If there's one piece of cruise advice I always give, it's never travel the same day your cruise departs. So when I broke that rule, it gave me more trouble than it was worth.
The reason why you never want to fly the same day your cruise departs is a travel delay could cause you to miss your cruise, putting your entire vacation in jeopardy.
So when Royal Caribbean invited me to sail on Wonder of the Seas to preview the opening of its new beach club in The Bahamas, I decided to break my own rule and roll the dice.
Why would I flagrantly choose to travel the same day as my cruise? I had a family commitment the day before the cruise began that wasn't negotiable. And I had spent a lot of time away from home this year on over a dozen cruises.
I booked a Brightline train that took me from Orlando to Miami. It departed at 5:40am and would arrive in Miami at 9:15am. Taking a train instead of flying lessened my concerns because Brightline's fleet tends to run on time with less delays or cancellations.
The good news is my train was on time and I made it to my Wonder of the Seas cruise, but I also regretted my choice a few times and realized why I won't do this again.
No matter how good the plan sounded, I had more anxiety than I expected
Maybe I'm just a worrywart, but until my train was firmly in South Florida, the level of anxiety I experienced surprised me.
At first it was concern over if my alarm would go off and would I wake up on time. Then it was worrying about finding a parking spot at the train station. And finally, would the train get me there on time.
I cannot even imagine how much more worried I would have been if I had been flying. Flights are notorious for being delayed for all sorts of mundane reasons.
Boarding at the cruise terminal begins at 10am, but you have to be onboard by 3pm usually. That means your buffer for delay or mistake is only a few hours.
In my situation, I felt better that I could always drive myself down to Miami in roughly the same amount of time the train would take. That's not usually a fallback people who elect to fly can say.
I didn't expect to be so tired all day because of my long travel day
It came as no surprise waking up at 4am was difficult and I was initially tired, but it really dragged me down all day.
My plan was to nap on the ship once the staterooms opened at 1pm, but it was rough getting to that point.
I stopped to get coffee on my way to the train station, so that helped perk me up initially. But those first few hours onboard after boarding before cabins opened were rougher than I expected. I just wanted to lay down and nap.
When my room was ready, that's exactly what I did and it felt glorious. But my nap left me feeling more lethargic than energized.
A very early start of travel started me off tired and it never really wore off.
In fact, I was in my cabin by 10pm because I just couldn't summon the energy to stay out later.
Had I traveled to Miami the day before, I could have slept much longer the night before the cruise and gotten onboard with a lot more rest.
My plans worked out, but I wouldn't want to do it again
In my case, I was lucky that I was able to make this cruise as scheduled. But I can't say I enjoyed how it all happened on embarkation day.
There are countless examples in the news of a family that misses their cruise ship because of a delayed flight or some other travel mishap.
Even when things go to plan, I found having such a small amount of buffer removed all the pre-cruise excitement and replaced it with angst.
Would I wake up on time? Would my train have delays? Will there be enough parking?
This isn't how I want any vacation to start, and I doubt others would too. Perhaps there are que sera sera people out there that let fate take its course, but its definitely not my style.
My recommendation remains always travel at least one day before your cruise begins, and don't do what I did.
