5 Reasons Why You Should Fly To A Cruise Day(s) in Advance
From missing your ship to exploring your embarkation city, there are lots of reasons why you should fly to the ship days in advance.
Once you’ve booked your cruise it’s easy to think you’re done with the planning. Really though now you’ve got to get into the details. How will you get to the ship? You need to book your flights and coordinate transfers and more.
If you’re cruising out of a port you need to fly to, you’ll want to get there at least a few days in advance. We break down 5 reasons why you don’t want to chance it with same-day flights.
Why You Should Fly to A Cruise Days in Advance
Maybe you like the stress of almost missing your ship (just kidding) or maybe you don’t want to take an extra vacation day from work. You’re taking a chance on your whole vacation if you decide to fly the same day. Here are some reasons why you should get to your cruise at least a few days in advance.
5. Less Busy Travel Days
The majority of cruises are 7 nights long and leave on either a Saturday or Sunday. These are already busy travel days, resulting in potentially cancelled flights. While flying down a day early for either of these still puts you in the weekend rush of Friday or Saturday, maybe move it up an extra day to avoid the busy travel days all together.
Flying down a few days early allows you to travel on a possibly less busy day of the week such as Wednesday or Thursday.
4. Less Busy Days at Tourist Hot Spots
This depends a bit on where you’re going, but say you fly into Orlando for a cruise departing from Port Canaveral and you plan on going to Disney for a few days before the cruise. Would you rather be at Disney on a Wednesday or Thursday or on a Friday or Saturday?
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3. Adjust to the time zone
Getting to your cruise an extra day or two in advance before your cruise will give your body those extra couple of days to get used to the time zone.
Jet lag is real! They say that it typically takes 1 day to adjust for each hour difference. There are some tricks to help adjust to jet lag quicker, but very rarely will you be able to adjust to a large time zone difference in one day. Would you rather start your cruise already adjusted to the time zones, energized and ready to take on the day? Or, drowsy from jet lag?
2. A Chance To See Somewhere Incredible
If your cruise leaves from Civitavecchia – do you want to fly all the way to Europe and not see Rome?
If you don’t get to the city a few days in advance you’ll miss out on this incredible city! You will get on the ship and everyone will be talking about seeing the Sistine Chapel and the Colosseum and you’ll be regretting not getting to the city a day or two early.
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1. Flight Delays/ Cancellations & Luggage Mishaps
While avoiding busy tourist days and experiencing the city you’ll be cruising from is important – not missing your whole cruise is the big reason to get to your cruise a few days early.
Flight delays are nothing new. Lost luggage is nothing new. Flight cancellations are somewhat common place.
So why do you want to risk your entire cruise vacation on that chance?
There are any number of reasons for flight delays and cancellations. It could be bad weather, maybe the de-icer at the airport is broken. Maybe there was an issue on an earlier flight and the flight crew has worked too many hours and they can’t fly your flight.
Cancelled. Delayed.
Sometimes international routes only run once a day from specific hubs. Miss your flight, have it cancelled, or a delay causing you to miss your connection and you might very well miss your cruise.
And then let’s talk about lost luggage. This actually happened to my mom a couple of years ago – she flew a non-stop flight to Europe and her bag was still lost. Luckily she got there a few days before the cruise so we at least had a chance to go buy her some more clothes and shoes.
Thank goodness she’d gotten there a few days early, otherwise she’d be cruising for two weeks in Norway with just the clothes in her carry-on.
Conclusion: Why You Should Fly to A Cruise Days in Advance
Whether it’s to help with jetlag, see the sites or avoid missing your cruise entirely – there are a lot of reasons why you should fly to a cruise a few days in advance can help avoid incredible disappointment in your cruise vacation.
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