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News from Southwest Airlines is why it's smart to fly in a least the day prior to embarkation


JimnKathy

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17 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

That's a pretty small portion of their schedule though. I'd imagine they'd be cutting off peak or low yield flights, not ones cruisers or other common tourist traffic would rely on.

I tend to agree it's pretty safe during peak travel times.

But it could cause an arrival here and there to get delayed (depending upon where the trip originates) due to having an earlier connecting flight get cancelled.

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15 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

That's a pretty small portion of their schedule though. I'd imagine they'd be cutting off peak or low yield flights, not ones cruisers or other common tourist traffic would rely on.

I had a direct flight on Southwest from Austin to FLL last week that arrived at 10:40am.  I checked in the AM and had no sooner left my driveway when I got a text cancelling the flight.  I was rebooked through ATL and arrived at 4pm.

Luckily, I was only visiting my parents, but that could easily have been a flight booked for a cruise.

I would never trrust the airlines to get you to your cruise the day of the sailing.  There are so many things that can go wrong with delays and cancellations and lost luggage. 

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I was on a Southwest flight out of Columbus headed to Manchester NH via a change in Baltimore. They were asking for a volunteer to give up their seat, been a long time since I've seen that. All the flights I've been on this year have been full as well. My next two cruises we're driving to Bayonne we don't need to fly until next June for an Alaska cruise. We plan to fly in two days in advance.

 

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37 minutes ago, KevinJ said:

I was on a Southwest flight out of Columbus headed to Manchester NH via a change in Baltimore. They were asking for a volunteer to give up their seat, been a long time since I've seen that. All the flights I've been on this year have been full as well. My next two cruises we're driving to Bayonne we don't need to fly until next June for an Alaska cruise. We plan to fly in two days in advance.

 

We have a B2B sailing out of Miami on 9/18 and we fly Southwest out of Memphis. We are flying in 2 days prior so we can relax at the hotel and roll with the punches should our connecting flight get FUBARed. 

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18 minutes ago, JimnKathy said:

We have a B2B sailing out of Miami on 9/18 and we fly Southwest out of Memphis. We are flying in 2 days prior so we can relax at the hotel and roll with the punches should our connecting flight get FUBARed. 

Relaxing before the cruise is also one reason we're going in early, coming from the East coast we'll need to adjust to the time change. Being a morning person is really tough when I'm on the West coast, not allot to do around 3-4 am ? I do a golf trip to Palm Springs, CA every Feb, my friend and I mostly just stick to East coast timing. Up around 4, golf at 8 am, in bed around 8 pm, love the 3 pm happy hours.

 

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3 hours ago, wordell1 said:

I would never trust the airlines to get you to your cruise the day of the sailing.  There are so many things that can go wrong with delays and cancellations and lost luggage. 

We would always go 2 days before the cruise to play it even safer.  It wasn't much of an inconvenience  to be in Florida for 2 extra days in January as compared to being home.  We have 4 extra days before our upcoming cruise with the idea of getting covid tested in Florida.  I may even get tested before we leave home just to make sure.  I'm vaccinated so I don't anticipate any problems.  I would rather be safe than sorry.  I can probably handle more days on the ground in Florida. 

However, currently I might be better off on a cruise ship as compared to being on the ground.  I still have some time to figure this out.

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I flew SWA this summer, and based on what I saw (overbooked/full flights, paying for volunteers to stay behind (even though there were a few empty seats on board), reports of cancellations, etc.), I was grateful to get to my destination and back without too much issue (3 of the 4 flights/legs left late due to weather issues).  I am a long-time SWA flyer, and even with that loyalty, I would give myself plenty of time (2+ days) if I were flying in for a cruise.  If you can get the extra time off work, it might be worth it for the peace of mind.

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Ick..I don't want to hear that as I am flying SW soon!

I'm flying in the day of for an event (not a cruise) in October...I know I'm taking a chance with that, but my annual travel insurance policy will cover my event ticket cost if there's a delay and I miss it, so I feel ok with chancing it. The cost of the event is less than the extra night hotel and car rental would have been if I fly in the night before, so that's a chance I was willing to take.  

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