Let's Book Your Cruise Blog

Luggage storage, day rooms, and other ideas for late flights

Picture this: You’ve just finished with an amazing 7- or even 3-night cruise. It’s 8:30 or 9:00 am, and your cruise ship has just announced that it’s time for all passengers to disembark the ship, because they have to get the ship ready for the new passengers.

The problem is, it’s 9:00 am, and your flight isn’t until the afternoon or even the evening. What do you do?

Because most people fly to their cruise port, it’s not uncommon to have a several-hours wait at the airport for your flight back home. The last thing you want to do is wait in a crowded airport for hours on end, but fortunately, you have some alternatives.

• If you’re returning to a city like Miami or Seattle and want to explore for a few hours, I highly recommend Bounce Luggage Storage. You download their app and search for luggage storage locations, many of which are at small shops in the area. You can pay by the hour and the piece of luggage to leave your bags while you wander around.
• With a particularly late departure, and if there are several of you with many items of luggage, you might consider renting a car at the airport for the day. Not only does your car take care of the luggage storage problem, but you can also visit nearby sights for entertainment. At the very least, you can get yourself to food options that are a little less pricey than the ones right around the port.
• I’m a big fan of getting a day use hotel room, especially when you’re traveling with a group. I wrote about using a day room when you arrive in Europe, but the same principle applies here. Having a day room after your cruise will give you a home base where you can nap, shower, repack, and even use the pool and hotel facilities in most cases. Many of these hotels are near the airport, so they’ll even have a shuttle you can take when it’s time to catch your flight. I use DayUse for booking these hotels via the app on my phone.

With a little planning, those post-cruise hours don’t have to be wasted at the airport. You can even think of disembarkation day as a bonus travel day: Luggage storage, car rentals, and day rooms can turn “waiting around” into an opportunity to end your cruise vacation on a high note.