Teri West
Cruise lines advise guests to arrive at the departure city the day before embarkation, just in case of air travel delays.
Since I started cruising a year ago, I've generally abided by this rule of thumb, but it wasn't until last week that I was truly grateful for it.
I had plans to cover the Norwegian Luna's christening ceremony in Miami last Friday, kicking off a three-night inaugural sailing. My flight, as usual, was booked for the evening before. But it was out of LaGuardia, one of the U.S. airports plagued by long security lines the past few weeks during the Department of Homeland Security shutdown. TSA officers weren't getting paid, and LaGuardia had high call-out rates.
Not only was LaGuardia facing a TSA officer shortage, but the airport was closed for hours early on March 23 after the Air Canada plane collision with a fire truck on the runway. Once it reopened, the runway where the collision occurred remained closed, leaving the airport with just one.
I closely followed updates about impacts on passengers throughout the week. There were reports of widespread flight cancellations due to the limited runway capacity, and I sifted through social media pages for personal reports of TSA wait times.
Midweek news reports said the runway was expected to remain closed until the day after my flight was supposed to depart. It left me pessimistic that I'd have a smooth journey even if my flight wasn't canceled.
Though I was dreading the hours I anticipated spending at LaGuardia, I wasn't too worried that I'd miss the cruise. After all, I'd abided by the arrive-the-day-before rule, which left me with a 15-hour buffer between my originally planned landing time and the final boarding time for the christening.
So how did it ultimately work out? Pretty flawlessly. The runway opened earlier than the news reports I read had predicted, which meant both runways were in service the day of my flight.
Security took less than 30 minutes and my flight was barely delayed. I slept soundly in my Miami hotel room as originally planned.
I also slept soundly in my own bed all week knowing that even if I had a nightmare flight experience out of New York, I had budgeted plenty of time to account for that.