Flights times - when leaving cruise ship and flying home

[PinkEasterbunny]

We have just booked a cruise for 2025 (yay!!!!). We start and finish the cruise in Spain, and were thinking of having a few days in Spain before the start of the cruise, so whichever flight we choose, we we're not exactly cutting it fine to board the ship. But on the way home? I've looked at a few sites who all advise a flight departure of no less than 5 hours after getting off the ship, but I know disembarking is not an exact science and don't want to be stressing about delays.

I'm also wondering about getting off the ship, having a night in Spain, then flying home the next day, but that's just killing time?

Our cruise company do offer flights, but they're not out yet, and I'm thinking of booking through them, just to ensure it's a package and they will help us in the event of any delays?

Playing safe is never killing time. Night stays at both ends cover for delays and help your mood to change over between reality and cruise.
I took 2-day post-cruise stays, because there were no cheap flights for a 1-day (by criterion of not using Ryanair), twice, in the port cities on both Tenerife and Gran Canaria, and it complemented the cruises well to have a mini city stay in the end point. Felt better paced to go home then.
Only recently, Dec, took my first cruise post-Covid, because the regime to have to test just before you go and risk finding you can't go had ended. Still because of fear of colds upsetting plans I only booked it at 2 1/2 weeks' notice, and would find it too stressful to book anything a year ahead. This one was for 2 weeks from Southampton, with a morning arrival back, and I got by without a post-cruise night stay as I booked an evening coach departure, connecting at London into a night coach home northwards. Yes I'm inured to night coaches for cheapness, know not everyone can take them. The arrival would have had to go wrong by over 9 hours to knock that plan out, and Southampton has decent priced Premier Inns and frequent coaches.

It depends on many factors - which port you finish in, the time of year, the cruise line, size of the ship, how many people in your travel party and whether you’ll have dc with you. Also, anything from weather to mechanical issues can affect the time the ship actual docks, and the time when passengers can disembark then depends on how long it takes for local authorities to clear it.
Over our 7 cruises, we've had it take anywhere from 1 hour after docking to 4 hours after docking. However, most cruise ships have an express departure option which allows you to get off first but you’ll need to carry your own luggage.

I would find a FB or Cruise Critic chat for your ship and ask the question for that port there, the same ships tend to sail similar itineraries over and over. It does depend on the distance to the airport, likely traffic etc as well as when you can disembark and how you plan to travel to the airport. We do book through the cruise line because of the package thing, by the time it ends we usually just want to get home rather than having a few more days tagged on. On our last we walked off at 6.45 am with our cases straight into a private transfer car and off to the airport.

You will be off the ship early, unless the airport is hours away from the port any flight after midday will be ok, early afternoon is fab.
Booking the package is a good option to avoid stress.

Thank you for the responses - its the chance of delays/incidents/the unknown that bothers me; so I'm starting to think down the lines of book some sort of flights package with the cruise company, so they should hopefully take care of the consequences of any delays.

Cruise ships are rarely late in arriving at their final destination, so don't worry about that bit. They have to clean the whole thing and load up supplies for the next cruise, plus they don't have to deal with air traffic control etc. If for some reason the ship breaks down on the last night and docks six hours late, the cruise company will have to take responsibility for rebooking flights.

Getting off the ship can sometimes be a bit chaotic if it's full. You will probably be assigned a disembarkation time the night before you dock, based on your deck/cabin location or perhaps however deluxe a package you booked, but if time is a little bit tight you can always go along to Guest Services a day or so before the end of the cruise with your flight tickets and ask if you can be among the first to leave.

So five hours from the scheduled start of disembarkation (not the time of docking!) seems more than reasonable to me, assuming you can see that the cruise terminal is not a huge distance from the airport.

You often gave the option to carry your own luggage off and leave at an earlier time than what would have been your time slot. Guest services are really good with dealing with this.

Yes, the one we left last summer was uneventful and we got straight home. However about an hour after we took off the whole UK air traffic control crashed, it was chaos and as we were one of the earliest off / earliest flights a lot of passengers from our cruise were affected. The people in our FB group who had booked with the cruise line said they were well looked after, those who had booked independently had to sort it all out themselves, it took several days for some to get home.