When do you arrive before your cruise?

[Matt]

Curious when everyone arrives for their cruise

[JayBird]

Usually the day before

[hallyluhopper]

We are arriving the day of the cruise. Flying all night and arriving at 6:30am. Glad I will. Be sleeping on the plane

[Matt]

We are arriving the day of the cruise. Flying all night and arriving at 6:30am. Glad I will. Be sleeping on the plane

You must be a better sleeper than me.  Anytime I plan on sleeping on the plane, it never works out.  Plus pre-cruise excitement? Forget about it! :D

[hallyluhopper]

You must be a better sleeper than me.  Anytime I plan on sleeping on the plane, it never works out.  Plus pre-cruise excitement? Forget about it! :D

I never said it would be a restful sleep :D

[Mark]

The day of sailing, but I've only sailed out of Cape Liberty, It's only a 2 hour drive for me.

[RoyalLaker]

I fly the day before. 

[hallyluhopper]

I don't want to spend anymore than I have to, so as long as I'm there on time, I'm good

[greenline627]

Day of we drive to port but arrive early :)

[bcarney]

We used to just fly down the day of (on our first cruise we got to the ship at 7:45pm - and the ship sailed at 8…that was cutting it close).  Now that we bring along The Kids (2) we've been flying (or driving) down the day before and getting a hotel near the port.  Less travel induced stress that way.

[CruisinTexan]

Really depends, usually the day of, but for our mediaterrian we arrive in Rome three days early to check it out! also gave us time to recover from some of the jetlag!!

[DAVE(Darkcabbie)]

Always the day before that way there is no stress about traffic on the way to the port :) .

[chadnipp]

The past three cruises I have been on I drove so we arrived the day of but my next one we are flying so i will arrive the day before.

[Matt]

The past three cruises I have been on I drove so we arrived the day of but my next one we are flying so i will arrive the day before.

If you can drive to your cruise, I'd probably drive the day of the cruise too.

[ketaylor]

We always fly in the day before... Gets rid of jet lag/motion sickness and there is no stressing about missing connections or worse, the ship! Then you get an extra days vacation as well!

[jojo03]

If I drive, I arrive the day of but if I fly, it’s the day before

[dustfsu]

I live in FL so if I am leaving from one of those ports then the day of and drive.  Max drive to any port is 4 hours or less.  We are flying into Seattle a day and half early for Alaska in July

[Dan Curtis]

This time, we arrived 3 days before cruise, we wanted to spend a few days on Coco beach, normally 1 day before, never same day.

[Yo2slick]

I will always arrive the day before at least.  I hate rushing around and being tired not to mention the possibility of a delay.  Arrive a day early, have a nice relaxing dinner and a great night sleep.

[MikeK]

I live in Florida so I drive to the ports but I always go a day early.  Too many things can happen so getting there a day early is a must!

 

[DoomSlayer]

5 hours ago, MikeK said:

I live in Florida so I drive to the ports but I always go a day early.  Too many things can happen so getting there a day early is a must!

 

Same for me, but in Texas.  My biggest fear is trying to make the drive early in the morning the day of and having an unexpected flat tire or something.

[Cactus527]

I fly Southwest, so I'll always come in the day before just in case!

[melmar02]

On 10/31/2013 at 8:59 AM, Matt said:

If you can drive to your cruise, I'd probably drive the day of the cruise too.

We CAN drive to port the day of (Dallas to Galveston, about 5 hours), but don't want to chance it. 

[WAYNO]

Short flight within same time zone, PDX to LAX for example I fly in early the morning of departure. It works well.

Long flights, flying against time zones, PDX to Florida or Texas,  I fly at least one day early and spend the night in a motel.

 

One time we tried a red eye.  Leaving Portland at Midnight, arriving in Florida early the morning of departure, on paper it worked well.  In actuality, when they cancelled our flight and booked us the next day...We lost our cruise.  I will never try that again.

[Traveler]

If the cruise is from the US we need to take a TA flight so we will come 2 to 4 days before the cruise combine it with some land trip near the  cruise port. If it's from Barcelona/Rome  , a day or two before . If it's from home port (happened only once) which is 1.15 hours drive/train ride , same day.

[Psycho and Barb]

Depends on if we are flying or driving.  If we are flying...We fly in at least a day before.  Even though we live in Florida...It's still a long drive to get on a ship...We call our part of Florida...Lower Alabama.  Port Canaveral is 472 miles away and Miami is 619 miles.  If we are sailing out of Port Canaveral, we will drive 236 miles to one of our sons house in Georgia and spend the night and then drive the remaining miles to the port on the same day as the cruise.  If we are sailing out of Miami, it's always getting in the day before and getting a hotel room.

[DonR]

We always drive the day(or night) before. Mainly from DFW to Galveston. Waaaay too much can happen in Houston morning traffic to risk it! 

[FireFishII]

I always fly in the night before if it is a US port. European ports - at least 2 or 3 days before so I can enjoy the city I am flying into and to get recover from jet lag. 

[Jolly Ogre]

22 hours ago, MikeK said:

I live in Florida so I drive to the ports but I always go a day early.  Too many things can happen so getting there a day early is a must!

 

We live in SWFL and we usually drive in the day of the cruise, however on our last one my wife wanted to go a day early. 

So we drove the 2 1/2 hrs to Ft Lauderdale and stayed in a hotel and drove to the port of Miami 45 min the next morning.

Sheesh!!

[Keanoknick]

We're about 5 hour drive from Galveston,  but always drive down the night before.  Houston traffic is way to vulnerable,  plus a flat tire, mechanical issues, accident etc...  could ruin the trip pretty quickly.   We'd rather get there get a hotel room about 30 miles from the port, and just relax and start our vacation a day early.

[ScottD]

We flew down a day before and stayed an extra day when we left out of Miami last month. We are looking to do Cape Liberty and drive up for the next one...it will save us SO much money in flights, hotels, ubers, meals.... an extra day or two really adds up! 

[Xaa]

39 minutes ago, ScottD said:

We flew down a day before and stayed an extra day when we left out of Miami last month. We are looking to do Cape Liberty and drive up for the next one...it will save us SO much money in flights, hotels, ubers, meals.... an extra day or two really adds up! 

Use that money to take in a show on Broadway night before.

[ScottD]

14 minutes ago, Xaa said:

Use that money to take in a show on Broadway night before.

Might use it to add something on the cruise we haven't before...maybe specialty dining or an upgraded room! 

[Jill]

We live in Florida so if we sail out of PC, it’s day of (2 hours). PE and Miami we go down day before. One time we drove day of to PE and that was too long. 

[DonR]

1 hour ago, Keanoknick said:

We're about 5 hour drive from Galveston,  but always drive down the night before.  Houston traffic is way to vulnerable,  plus a flat tire, mechanical issues, accident etc...  could ruin the trip pretty quickly.   We'd rather get there get a hotel room about 30 miles from the port, and just relax and start our vacation a day early.

We usually stay in Webster near NASA. If we can we go early enough to spend the afternoon on the beach in Galveston and head back to our hotel after supper. Just adds an extra day of vacation fun!

[WAAAYTOOO]

Yay !  We are finally able to execute our long-term plan which included moving to FL so that we could [cruise more often and] drive to the ports !  So far we have driven in on cruise day.  I can’t think of any reason to stay in a hotel overnight.  Last week we disembarked GR on Friday morning, drove home to wash clothes and repack and drove to PoM on Saturday morning to board SY.  I love it when a plan comes together !

[PPPJJ-GCVAB]

We need to fly when cruising out of Florida…and fly in one or two days ahead.  The only time that didn’t work out for us was last April when all the airlines were pretty much shut down for the weekend!  Only God knows how we managed to fly in the day of from Providence (actually we had to drive to Worcester airport…who knew they even had one???) and flew to FLL then took a Lyft to PoM and made it on the ship before 1pm!
Our next few cruises are out of Cape Liberty which is about three hours drive from our home.  As long as it’s a weekend, driving the day of is no issue.  If there will be weekday traffic I might consider driving the night before!   hmmmm actually our July cruise leaves on a Friday and there are 17 of us going!  Now you’ve got me thinking!!!

[mike2608]

I am flying in a day early, it is the smart thing to do just in case you have a flight delay or God forbid a cancellation and the other reason is buying toiletries at the Publix supermarket after checking in at the hotel so you don't have to worry about what you can and can't bring on the plane. That is for people that are only doing carry on luggage, otherwise if you are checking your luggage then it doesn't matter.

[Keanoknick]

1 hour ago, DonR said:

We usually stay in Webster near NASA. If we can we go early enough to spend the afternoon on the beach in Galveston and head back to our hotel after supper. Just adds an extra day of vacation fun!

We usually stay in Webster as well,  go the boardwalk,  or to the beach, depending on what we feel like.

[CynBeth]

We usually fly in a day or 2 beforehand.