Frustrated with Sunday-Sunday itineraries and no flights home

[wannabecruiseexpert]

Sigh.  I apologize in advance for this rant.  I've been searching for MONTHS for a decent flight for our upcoming April sailing out of Miami. I've searched MIA, FLL and even PBI and am having NO luck finding a decent return flight. 99% of everything is either before 10 am or later in the evening. If the sailings would be Sat-Sat, an early evening flight would be fine because we wouldn't have to wake up early the next day for work/school. Why must they come back on Sundays?? I'm jealous of all of you who live close enough to drive and don't have to deal with this  Ok, rant over. 

On another note, my sailing is exactly 100 days away and it will be my first time on Oasis!

[Pooch]

I feel your pain.  We don’t book anything from Florida that isn’t non-stop and, like you, on Sunday’s that’s too early or very late. Our return flight is at 8:35pm.  My daughter who lives in Maitland will just have to put up with us.  Taking her on a free cruise so she owes us!!

[WAAAYTOOO]

13 minutes ago, wannabecruiseexpert said:

Sigh.  I apologize in advance for this rant.  I've been searching for MONTHS for a decent flight for our upcoming April sailing out of Miami. I've searched MIA, FLL and even PBI and am having NO luck finding a decent return flight. 99% of everything is either before 10 am or later in the evening. If the sailings would be Sat-Sat, an early evening flight would be fine because we wouldn't have to wake up early the next day for work/school. Why must they come back on Sundays?? I'm jealous of all of you who live close enough to drive and don't have to deal with this  Ok, rant over. 

On another note, my sailing is exactly 100 days away and it will be my first time on Oasis!

Where are you flying out of/into ?

[smokeybandit]

Supply and demand.  Mid-day Sunday flights will always be more expensive and more in demand. Not for cruising,  but people going home from a weekend getaway and business travelers going to their next work site for the following week.

[Zacharius]

If you don't mind sharing your date and route, I would be happy to see if I can find anything. 

[wannabecruiseexpert]

10 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

Where are you flying out of/into ?

My local airport is GSP but I'm right between ATL and CLT. We usually drive to CLT and fly from there, only because driving in ATL intimidates me 

[wannabecruiseexpert]

15 minutes ago, Pooch said:

I feel your pain.  We don’t book anything from Florida that isn’t non-stop and, like you, on Sunday’s that’s too early or very late. Our return flight is at 8:35pm.  My daughter who lives in Maitland will just have to put up with us.  Taking her on a free cruise so she owes us!!

Yeah I think we will just have to take a late flight and deal with being tired at work & the kids tired at school the next day. I suppose it's still better than the alternative of not cruising at all!

[Pooch]

We’re retired so…..

[Reigert2008]

I'm sure they have done the research and see that it's easier for people to do Sunday-Sunday for a 7 night cruise, since they probably fly in on Saturday and may only take 5 days off of work.  That is our situation.  a Saturday-Saturday cruise means we need 6 work days off.

 

Our big issues coming from SDF is not "going out of the way" for any destination.  I really don't need to stop in Baltimore on my way to Orlando.  We only fly Southwest, so we have to deal with what they offer, but it works out best for us in the rewards program and they generally are the cheapest option  to book with directly when you include many of the fees that others charge (we always check at least one bag). 

We don't get a lot of nonstop options from SDF, so we just try to get the best layover options

[AshleyDillo]

They do have Saturday-Saturday itineraries. They are just limited to only being able to do one large ship a day out of a particular port terminal.  Oasis sails out on Sundays but Symphony is doing the Saturday-Saturday itinerary currently.  

[smokeybandit]

There should be plenty of flights from Charlotte to south Florida

[Atlantix2000]

Every ship can't do Saturday-Saturday (or any other day of the week).  There are only a certain number of terminals at the ports.  They also have to spread out the demand or there would be massive issues with traffic, parking, customs, loading and storing supplies and fuel, etc.  There would also be staffing problems if the terminals were only in use 1-2 days a week.

[Pooch]

In my opinion, and I am retired but my son and daughter are joining us,  it’s either Saturday to Saturday & you have to take Friday off.  Or Sunday to Sunday & you have to take Monday off.  6 days either way.  I like the Monday off option.

[smokeybandit]

Some of the better southern Caribbean itineraries are Sun/Sun. Those return trips are tough for those of us west of the Mississippi

[nhilding10]

38 minutes ago, Pooch said:

In my opinion, and I am retired but my son and daughter are joining us,  it’s either Saturday to Saturday & you have to take Friday off.  Or Sunday to Sunday & you have to take Monday off.  6 days either way.  I like the Monday off option.

This is how we do it, too. We take the Monday off, and use the Sunday after disembarkation as a travel/tourist day to see the Port city and surrounding area of wherever we happened to be sailing from. Then we get whatever flight works on Monday and it seems/feels like less hassle. It's obviously an extra hotel night, but the convenience to us is the payback. Plus an extra day of vacation!

[Pattycruise]

3 hours ago, Reigert2008 said:

I'm sure they have done the research and see that it's easier for people to do Sunday-Sunday for a 7 night cruise, since they probably fly in on Saturday and may only take 5 days off of work.  That is our situation.  a Saturday-Saturday cruise means we need 6 work days off.

I am booked on Oasis out of Bayonne in June.  Everything I have done this year (Oasis/Anthem-Sept/Oct/Nov) has been a Sunday to Sunday.
Lo and behold.  the Oasis is FRIDAY TO FRIDAY.  I did not realize this when I booked.  Such is life, people will need to take extra time off now.

 

[Fox Forlenza]

3 hours ago, Pooch said:

I feel your pain.  We don’t book anything from Florida that isn’t non-stop and, like you, on Sunday’s that’s too early or very late. Our return flight is at 8:35pm.  My daughter who lives in Maitland will just have to put up with us.  Taking her on a free cruise so she owes us!!

Haha!  I also live in Maitland, so we drive to all the FL ports.

[Pooch]

Yup, we fly down from CT, she picks us up at the airport, drives us to the port and back to the airport.  In return, she comes on the cruise for free!  

[Reigert2008]

12 minutes ago, Pooch said:

Yup, we fly down from CT, she picks us up at the airport, drives us to the port and back to the airport.  In return, she comes on the cruise for free!  

You're nicer than we are to my father in law   For the inconvenience of taking us to the airport at 4:00 AM and then picking us up whenever we return, he gets a free dinner.

[Pooch]

Well she’s also a good buffer between hubby & I, married 41 years and the 24/7 togetherness of retirement can be……….

challenging

[Zacharius]

4 hours ago, wannabecruiseexpert said:

My local airport is GSP but I'm right between ATL and CLT. We usually drive to CLT and fly from there, only because driving in ATL intimidates me 

If you're immediately cutting out MIA/FLL/PBA - ATL in lieu of only looking at CLT, you're going to be cutting out well over 50% of your options. I'm not sure when you're going, but I looked at a Sunday in April 2022 and see: 

 

MIA-ATL: 12:05pm, 2:08pm, 4:52pm, 6:10pm (Delta); 1:55pm, 4:45pm (American); 11:30am, 5:05pm (Southwest); 4:27pm (Spirit)

FLL-ATL: 11:50am, 1:05pm, 2:05pm, 3:18pm, 4:45pm, 6:10pm (Delta); 2:10pm (Southwest); 12:35pm (Frontier); 6pm (Spirit)

PBI-ATL: 11:36am, 1:06pm, 3:05pm, 4:25pm, 5:50m (Delta)

 

MIA-CLT: 12:04pm, 1:48pm, 5:35pm (American)

FLL-CLT: 12:06pm, 1:44pm, 3:32pm, 5:35pm (American); 4:44pm (Spirit)

PBI-CLT: 12:21pm, 3:50pm, 5:53pm (American)

[Jill]

Have you considered Air2Sea? 

[SpeedNoodles]

That must be a problem with smaller markets. I never have trouble finding flights to/from Mpls/St Paul.  

[smokeybandit]

13 minutes ago, Jill said:

Have you considered Air2Sea? 

AIr2Sea doesn't have any additional flights that aren't listed in any public database.

[KristiZ]

21 minutes ago, Zacharius said:

MIA-ATL: 12:05pm (Delta)

Take this one and you can fly right into GSP, arriving at 331p -- no driving needed!

[Kiwili]

Run into this out of PR as well.. decided to stay the night to monday and we'll still save money with hotel vs flying home Sunday.

[Linda R]

6 hours ago, wannabecruiseexpert said:

Sigh.  I apologize in advance for this rant.  I've been searching for MONTHS for a decent flight for our upcoming April sailing out of Miami. I've searched MIA, FLL and even PBI and am having NO luck finding a decent return flight. 99% of everything is either before 10 am or later in the evening. If the sailings would be Sat-Sat, an early evening flight would be fine because we wouldn't have to wake up early the next day for work/school. Why must they come back on Sundays?? I'm jealous of all of you who live close enough to drive and don't have to deal with this  Ok, rant over. 

On another note, my sailing is exactly 100 days away and it will be my first time on Oasis!

I can relate.  We live in Montana.  Our airport has 2 major airlines, each with 2-3 flights a day.  We always have to leave at 5:30am, and return at midnight.  Just something we have to deal with if we want to live here.

[gomammoth22]

We just dealt with that - Sunday is usually the most expensive day to fly & flights are harder to come by (I used to fly out for work about every other Sunday).  We just got back this week, with Monday being a holiday it was even worse this last week.  We flew home Tuesday and it was about $400 less per ticket.  Living in Denver means I can get lots of flight choices, but cost of airfare adds another 20%  to the cost of any cruise.

[Pooch]

I watch my flights like a hawk on Southwest.  We (I) made the mistake of lifting last years cruise to spring break time this year.  The flights down were 11,000 each.  Not great by any means but palatable.  That Sunday night flight home I needed was 25,000 each!!!  Between what hubby had & I had & purchasing more on a 40% off points sale, I was able to book the three tickets.  Since then, they’ve gone down twice a total of 6400 points each.  The last drop of 1900 points only lasted for a couple of hours.  Our flights the week of Xmas dropped from $179 to $69 the morning of the flight!  Look, look again and again and again!!

[ChrisK2793]

11 hours ago, wannabecruiseexpert said:

Sigh.  I apologize in advance for this rant.  I've been searching for MONTHS for a decent flight for our upcoming April sailing out of Miami. I've searched MIA, FLL and even PBI and am having NO luck finding a decent return flight. 99% of everything is either before 10 am or later in the evening. If the sailings would be Sat-Sat, an early evening flight would be fine because we wouldn't have to wake up early the next day for work/school. Why must they come back on Sundays?? I'm jealous of all of you who live close enough to drive and don't have to deal with this  Ok, rant over. 

On another note, my sailing is exactly 100 days away and it will be my first time on Oasis!

SYMPHONY is always Saturday to Saturday for 7 day cruises and is also out of Miami  ….. just saying

 

[AlmondFarmer]

40 minutes ago, ChrisK2793 said:

SYMPHONY is always Saturday to Saturday for 7 day cruises

Except for Saturday January 8th, 15th and 22nd. 

[ChrisK2793]

6 minutes ago, AlmondFarmer said:

Except for Saturday January 8th, 15th and 22nd. 

LOL ….. So true …….. hopefully that won’t carry out to February 12, that’s the day we’re supposed to sail on Symphony.

[Pattycruise]

6 hours ago, Kiwili said:

Run into this out of PR as well.. decided to stay the night to monday and we'll still save money with hotel vs flying home Sunday.

I did a cruise out of Puerto Rico.  Family of 5.  Instead of spending a ridiculous amount  on airfare we flew down 2 days early and got a hotel…same amount of money, but at least I got something for it!

[WAAAYTOOO]

10 hours ago, AlmondFarmer said:

Except for Saturday January 8th, 15th and 22nd. 

...and December 23 and 31 (2021...already passed).

[Va4fam]

The Symphony Sat-Sat works great for us flying from D.C. Only 5 work days missed.

We are able to fly down Friday evening and return Saturday night and still have Sunday to "recover."  

Since we both work, the 4 day M-F schedules don't make sense, we might as well go on a 7 night cruise. 

I would love to see more Sat-Sat, and maybe a Thurs-Mon short cruise every now and then.  I think Brilliance out of Tampa did something like that.