FLL to Port
 

I'm going on a cruise on Oasis of the Seas in a couple of months. My plane lands at 1:00 pm fort Lauderdale airport, my ship sails at 5 Pm. How far is the port from the Airport?

Don't know exactly how far it is but it is very close, a 10-15 minute ride, if that.

If you had posted this over on the Cruise Critic forum, you would have immediately had dozens of people advise you to re-think your flight. Many (if not most) cruisers arrive at Fort Lauderdale the day/night before sailing. There are too many possibilities of delay these days, and the ship will not wait for you.
Hopefully you have a direct flight that leaves first in the morning (and doesn't have to wait for the plane to come in from doing a previous flight). But even with that, there are still many risks.
You have to hope there are not flight delays. My flight to FLL was delayed about 4.5 hours this past spring, because of a sudden patch of bad weather in Fort Lauderdale. Thank goodness it was the day before sailing.
What if your plane has mechanical difficulties, or there is airport congestion and your takeoff is delayed? What if you have to wait for a passenger, or a passenger gets sick, or worse, someone has to be thrown off the plane, or becomes a security risk? What if you experience bad weather or the flight is canceled for any other reason? What if there are delays unloading your luggage? What if you have trouble getting a taxi, or there is traffic - do you know how many people sail from FLL on a Saturday?
And you can't just get to the ship at 5pm. You have to be processed and on board 60-90 minutes before departure. The ship has to prepare the manifest and submit it 60 minutes before departure.
You may want to rethink this and consider getting there the day/night before, or much earlier in the day. Paying a small penalty to change your booking may well be worth the peace of mind. If not, then you may want to have a back-up plan (i.e. how you will manage to get to the first port should you not be able to embark at FLL), just in case.

Without any type of airline or airport delay, arriving at 1 pm, getting luggae out and take the conenctor to the cruise port is no issue and should get you there in time.

Ship may sail at 5 pm but they advise passeneger to be on baord prior to 4 pm if possible. Most will be on board between noon and 3 pm.

Depending on the time of year, especially in winter months, I will defineitly try to be there at least one day early, if not two. It also depends on your conenctor, if you have to go through the snow belts for your connection, you will have delay due to weather.

The port is 3 miles from the airport,cab will cost around $20.00 dollars

,Also change your flight I'm in travel and I always have people come in early,I live in Ft.Lauderdale area when we get bad weather they shut airport down .You can get good deals staying around the port and most will pick you up at the airport,NO ONE Should flight in after 12:00 ship doesn't wait.

Thank you all for your responses, my flight was originally supposed to arrive at 11:30 AM but they changed it now it arrives at 1. If everything goes perfectly then I will be ok but it's a direcet non stop flight to FLL and it is in February. This is very tight and risky.

If you are leaving from somewhere that may have snow/ice, there may be delays. Like other posters mentioned, if your plane arrives from somewhere that may have snow/ice, it can be delayed leaving the original location.

Check your cruise ship documents for the actual departure time and what time you have to be onboard. I think Homeland Security now requires the passenger list to be finalized about 1.5 hrs before sailing.

First of all - I LOVE the Oasis. We took that cruise this past February - loved it, loved it, loved it. Now, we went down 3 days early, which worked out since that huge snow storm hit the east coast the day before the cruise. There were passengers that had to end up driving down because so many flights were cancelled, and there were people that missed the cruise. Please do consider flying down the day before.... It's just too good a cruise to have to panic at the last minute due to weather... and the weather is really strange these days......

Ok, you guys are all great. Since Continental is the one who changed my flight time they changed my ticket to leave the night before for free. So I arrive FLL at Midnight on Friday and my cruise leaves Saturday at 5 pm. Now I realize a North Easter could cancel flights for days but we'll have to take the risk on this one.

Past couple of years I have been flying down to Miami and arriving at 1 PM and making the 5 pm sailings no problem but it has been in the warmer months. The fact that this cruise is in February had me concerned and all of you sufficiently scared me enough to act on this concern.

First time cruising in February, hope it's good, thanks for your comments.

To maximize your savings, pick a hotel that offers free shuttle from airport to hotel and free shuttle from hotel to cruise port. There are several that fit that category in FLL.

Definitely alot of options there, and I think you'll be happy with your decision.... and I'm thinking you're not a New Englander...... It's Nor'easter..... :). When I was younger, they called it a bad snow storm, but now we have all these interesting names for them.....

Nor'easter, you're right, as soon as I clicked submit I realized I spelt it wrong, Thanks.

I picked the Holiday Inn at Fll and the Port, free shuttle to the Port.

After the cruise I am staying at The Lowes hotel in Miami Beach.

I live in New Jersey so in February there is a good chance we can have snow during that time. I am supposed to arrive at midnight so I have 16 hours to get to the ship. I gues if I know there is going to be a Nor'easter ahead of time I could always drive.