jt81870

Im going to Nevis via PR and some people are telling me that American Eagle routinly cancels flights to Nevis or St. Kitts leaving you stuck in PR up to 12 hours or even overnight! As far as I know the only way there is thru PR. Please make me feel better and tell me it will be OK. Thanks

oceanic

Why didn't you just fly directly to St. Kitts and then on to Nevis. They have an international airport. SInce AA has the monopoly in the caribbean especially for smaller islands, anything is possible. Hope you have no problems connecting

jt81870

I was told that I have to connect at PR even if I go to St Kitts. Im Going from JFK in NYC. Does any know any different?

Callaloo

I have had trouble connecting in PR, but it has almost always been on the return (where you add the complication of customs and immigration, as well as "island time" at your departure airport) -- the last time was due to delayed flights and glacially slow baggage handlers. Ended up missing the last flight back to BWI and having to spend the night.

As I almost always buy trip insurance for trips outside the continental US, this one was covered as well. The "trip delay" portion of the coverage took care of this sort of delay. While I left my husband in the hours-long line to get new flight accomodations, I got AA on the pay phone (for some reason, 800 calls wouldn't dial out of the airport on my cell) and re-booked flights that way, while hubby was still hours away from the front of the line. I also had the luxury of booking a hotel of my choice, knowing it was covered by insurance, rather than the dumps AA was putting people in before they ran out of spots. We made a fun evening of it, but were not especially happy about getting home a day late. But trip delay/trip interruption will cover any expenses incurred/deposits lost in these sorts of situations.

I have no experience of the St. Kitts route through SJU, but can tell you that -- despite the experience I described above -- in 15+ years of experience going through SJU to get to other destinations, I've really had relatively few problems, though I've had to scramble sometimes. And if you do get stuck in San Juan, don't view it as getting "stuck" -- get out of the airport if you can and treat it like the first part of your journey. San Juan is a wonderful, cosmopolitan, historic city, and I treat it as a bonus to be able to spend a little unexpected time there.

IRabbit

If this helps, you can go through Antigua. We're fllying from EWR on Continental. Please let me know if you would like details, I didn't arrange trip, but can find out more for you.

Blossom1022

I did miss a connecting flight to the Caribbean with American Eagle from PR. An iguana was wandering around on the runaway and the plane circled for 90 minutes. No kidding, it was funny at first, until we realized that the extended delay made us miss our connection. Mind you, this was my honeymoon trip to St. Lucia.

Stuff happens though & you can't predict anything. As the other poster said, if the worst happens, try to make the best of it.
We had a 5 hour delay and rather than wait at the airport, we hopped in a taxi and went to the nearest LOCAL restaurant. The airport personnel almost sent us to a chain restaurant until we insisted we wanted to go somewhere they would eat at!
We hung out there for 2 hours talking to the patrons there and had a great meal with beers in San Juan and spent a total of $30.

Other passengers we spoke to hung out at the airport bar/lounges and wound up spending over $100 to drink Budweisers and eat nachos!
Puerto Rico isn't the worst place in the world to be stranded, just get out the airport if it does happen and enjoy!

inthechips2

American has a nonstop flight from Miami-St. Kitts at 11 a.m. Not sure if it's still an option because when we were on it, there were probably 20 people on the flight - same for the return (which left St. Kitts approx 4 p.m.). This was in early Dec 04.

zachsarbean1

Just don't get stuck there....one time, we were on a flight back from St.Thomas and we had mechanical problems in the air and had to land in PR in an emergency situation. Our biggest problem was making them get us on another flight....if it was up to them, we would have had to spend days there waiting for another flight, but after alot a arguing with them, we only had to spend one night over in PR and most of the next day.
However, last time we flew through there (believe me, I had thought I would never fly thru PR again!) it was fine....alittle crowded, but fine.
If they do cancel your flight and you get stuck there for awhile, make sure to push for any vouchers you can get...food, hotel, flight vouchers. When we got held up in PR, we got free food, hotel, and vouchers for $700 each towards a future flight (that meant we could go back to the Caribbean the next year!)

jt81870

Thanks for the responses. I'm going to look into the Miami to St. Kitts Route.

ScubaMom

We've been flying through PR for 15 years and have only had one flight that we missed and they managed to put us on the next one.

The trick is to give yourself plenty of connection time! We always have a minimum of 1 hour going... and at least two hours coming back to allow for immigration, etc. If each way has an extra 30 minutes, that's even better.