Flights after debarkation Port Canaveral

[Stormypetrel]

AA just changed my flight out of Orlando to 11:43am. I know DCL recommends flights no earlier than 11:30 but this is cutting it so close, should I be concerned? This is our first ever cruise, so no status, traveling with my 3 small kids and my mother, so not the fastest moving group, and it’s on the Wish over Presidents’ Day weekend so assuming it’s going to be fully booked. Taking Disney transport. Do they allow you to disembark earlier based on flight departure or is the chaos organized somehow? I’m just having a hard time picturing getting 4,000 people off a ship and to the airport an hour away on time .

 

[lorimay]

Early walk off usually starts around 730am, that's taking your own bags off and skipping the last breakfast.
Unless of course unforeseen circumstances happen.
In 26 cruises we have only had this happen once when there was an outbreak of Norovirus back in 2002.
You can have an uber waiting for you at the port and be at the airport pretty early ** if all goes according to plan.

Good Luck.

 

[dclpluto]

AA just changed my flight out of Orlando to 11:43am. I know DCL recommends flights no earlier than 11:30 but this is cutting it so close, should I be concerned? This is our first ever cruise, so no status, traveling with my 3 small kids and my mother, so not the fastest moving group, and it’s on the Wish over Presidents’ Day weekend so assuming it’s going to be fully booked. Taking Disney transport. Do they allow you to disembark earlier based on flight departure or is the chaos organized somehow? I’m just having a hard time picturing getting 4,000 people off a ship and to the airport an hour away on time .

They have their act together. This isn’t their first rodeo. Relax you will be fine with a 1143 flight. I was on the wish a month and a half ago heading to wdw. So I get in line I believe at 7:40That line moves fast. I was on the bus 7:58. Buses going to wdw leaves at 9 so yes we had a long wait on the bus. You are going to the airport buses leave as soon as they get full if you’re taking the bus. Please don’t do express walk off like the person above mention or skip breakfast enjoy your breakfast up on the buffet. You don’t want to carry all your bags with the little kids and your mom. You have time. When you get to the airport you probably have some time to do a little shopping before heading thru security,

 

[OKW Lover]

Assuming no glitches with the ship docking at its normal time you'll be fine. We live near the parks and when we cruise we are usually back home by 10:00 am. That would put us passing the airport about 9:30. Lots of time.

 

[Stormypetrel]

Thank you all so much! You have really helped calm my initial panic when I saw that email from AA this morning!

 

[RedHead0186]

If everything goes to plan and you do express walk off, you will be fine. However, if anything goes awry, that will be affected. We just got off the Fantasy a couple weeks ago, we were late getting in to Port Canaveral due to fog and/or engine issues (depends on who you ask, lol), and then apparently there was also an issue with computers at immigration. There were also 7 ships in port so it was a bit chaotic. Disembarkation was quite delayed, and I know people that had 1:30 pm flights out of MCO that they almost missed.

Now, that is the exception, not the rule. As others said, the vast majority of the time it goes fine. But, if anything goes wrong then 11:43 could be pushing it. Since you're taking DCL transport you also don't have control over when you leave Port Canaveral, since you have to wait for when the bus leaves.

 

[Flossbolna]

Delta is usually pretty good with letting you change your flight time. It’s easy to do online or by calling. I would probably look and see if there is another flight that works for you and then either change to that flight online or call them. If it’s due to them changing their schedule you should be able to change for free even if that new flight is currently priced higher.

 

[ladyofthetramp]

You should be fine. Security at MCO is always an issue and a wait. Hopefully that early in the morning it will not be. Be organized and ready-try and keep your party moving forward-lol. Fingers crossed! But... if you would rather not worry and can move that flight w/o penalty an hour or two forward, the end to your cruise will be more relaxed.

 

[Weedy]

This is a free service you can sign up for Clear to save time in the security lines.
You can do this the morning your cruise arrives b
https://www.clearme.com/reserve?fbc...M5cm_fUs4JedxXjGpwLj7TYOEVdZM&mibextid=Zxz2cZ

 

[tvguy]

We barely made a 12:35 pm flight. Literally walked right on my flight. Everything on the Disney end was fine, they got us to the airport by 10:15 am, and we had our luggage checked and boarding passes by 10:30 am, but security line at the airport took 90 minutes.
Many experienced travelers and travel agents say MCO is an airport you need to be at 3 hours before your flight time. We used Disney transfers from WDW to MCO on our WDW trip, and that is exactly what their system is based on, getting passengers to the airport 3 hours before flight time. The security staff is pretty good, they were checking people who were in line who were very close to their flight times and pulled them out of line and ran them through the TSA Pre line.

 

[Stormypetrel]

Reviving this thread to update it with what happened in the end, since I always found that helpful when searching this forum for answers . Kept the 11:45 flight and decided not to plan for the exception. It’s not like we wouldn’t make it home eventually, and I knew I’d be so mad to see that 11:45 flight take off without me if everything went as expected. And it did. On board, our servers recommended the express walk off, and the instructions on the Disney app also recommended it for flights before 1pm. So we had breakfast in marceline market at like 6:30 and got in line to debark. The app did not list marceline as open but our servers told us it would be open at 6:30.
They were ahead of schedule in getting cleared by customs, and we were off the ship by 7:15 (and we were not close to the front of the line). Getting ourselves through customs was a breeze. Boarded a DCL bus and we were pulling into MCO by 8:20.

Other members of our party with later flights stayed for the first breakfast, and they texted us from their terminal at 9:50, so they had not only arrived but cleared TSA by then. When we boarded our flight, I saw people with the same character luggage tag as us, so we definitely could have stayed for the MDR breakfast and made it. Didn’t want to take the chances with TSA on a holiday though!

Thanks everyone for your earlier advice! Fortunately or unfortunately, since everything went so smoothly for me I guess I’m now hooked on Disney cruises

 

[soniam]

Reviving this thread to update it with what happened in the end, since I always found that helpful when searching this forum for answers . Kept the 11:45 flight and decided not to plan for the exception. It’s not like we wouldn’t make it home eventually, and I knew I’d be so mad to see that 11:45 flight take off without me if everything went as expected. And it did. On board, our servers recommended the express walk off, and the instructions on the Disney app also recommended it for flights before 1pm. So we had breakfast in marceline market at like 6:30 and got in line to debark. The app did not list marceline as open but our servers told us it would be open at 6:30.
They were ahead of schedule in getting cleared by customs, and we were off the ship by 7:15 (and we were not close to the front of the line). Getting ourselves through customs was a breeze. Boarded a DCL bus and we were pulling into MCO by 8:20.

Other members of our party with later flights stayed for the first breakfast, and they texted us from their terminal at 9:50, so they had not only arrived but cleared TSA by then. When we boarded our flight, I saw people with the same character luggage tag as us, so we definitely could have stayed for the MDR breakfast and made it. Didn’t want to take the chances with TSA on a holiday though!

Thanks everyone for your earlier advice! Fortunately or unfortunately, since everything went so smoothly for me I guess I’m now hooked on Disney cruises

Glad it went well. Did you have TSA pre-check? MCO is the reason we got it. However, they have vastly improved security since we started going to WDW in 2012. What's your next DCL cruise

 

[Stormypetrel]

We do have pre check, though I think the pre check line was longer than the regular one moves quickly though.
Waiting for summer 2025 schedules to come out to book an Alaska trip!

 

[soniam]

We do have pre check, though I think the pre check line was longer than the regular one moves quickly though.
Waiting for summer 2025 schedules to come out to book an Alaska trip!

Alaska is amazing! Loved ours this last summer. It was even better than I had expected.