Club Med Columbus Isle

Planning a trip to Columbus Isle and need to make connections back to the West Coast. Is 1hr 45 minutes generally enough time to clear customers and make a connection?

Thanks

Dan

Check the airport website or your airline or airlines' website. They often have recommended connection times. Generally, I would say yes but sometimes you never know if there is or are big flights landing before you that clog up the lines. See if you can move up to the front of the your flight as well.

Jim

That's cutting it pretty close, especially if you have checked luggage and your connecting flight will be from a different terminal at FLL. Even if your flight from San Salvador Island lands on time, you will have to clear US Immigration, wait for any checked luggage to arrive at the baggage claim, wait in another line to take your luggage through Customs, get to whichever terminal your next flight leaves from, check your luggage for the next flight, and get through security again to get to your departure gate...keeping in mind that boarding will be 1/2 hour before your schedule departure time. It might be possible to do it all quickly enough, but if there are long lines at any point in that process, or if there's any delay before the luggage appears at baggage claim, you'd be in big trouble. It's very unpredictable - we make this trip very often & sometimes we've gotten through Immigration very quickly but then waited almost an hour for the luggage before we could go through Customs. On one recent trip, our best time was getting completely through Immigration, baggage claim, and Customs in 45 minutes after landing; BUT on other trips it's taken well over an hour....once it took 4 hours because there were flights from Colombia & Jamaica which landed just before ours & the lines were moving very slowly. Generally I'd say you need to allow at least 2 hours, but it does vary enormously each time we go through. (The Immigration area has been renovated recently and that has sped up that part of the process enormously, but that doesn't help if you then have to wait a long time for the luggage before getting on a long line to go through Customs.)
Now if your whole trip, including your connecting flight, has been booked through Club Med, their representative will be waiting when you emerge from Customs & they will deal with any problems & rebook you on a later flight if necessary. BUT if you book your own connecting flight then you will have to deal with any additional expenses & hassle on your own if you miss your connection. I'd say it's safer to book a later flight & wind up killing time at the airport than to cut it that close. FLL airport can be a zoo on weekends, since it also is used by the cruise ships which dock at Port Everglades; lines are usually long everywhere...

Adria