"Standing In Lines" Top 5 Page for this destination Miami International Airport/Airplane Tip by grandmaR

The traffic to get to the airport is terrible. Last time, there was a traffic accident on the other side of the highway which had us in a long creeping backup of rubberneckers, but we got to the airport by 3:45, which is 25 minutes longer than it would take if the traffic was running smoothly.

If you do curbside check-in it costs $2.00 a bag. Last time, my daughter dropped me at the airport to curb check my luggage, she asked the skycap to get me a wheelchair, which he did. Be sure you have change to tip if you want to do this - I gave him $5.00 and he was going to keep it all. He took me to a kind of corral for wheelchair people and eventually a lady came to push me to security. Then they had a hard time finding a golf cart to take us to the gate (D45).

The airport is often a zoo which is why my husband won't fly anymore. In March 2008, we ended up in a six snake line (after asking several of the airline herders). By a six snake line, I meant that the line snaked back and forth six times the depth of the airport at that point. There was another bigger snake on the other side that was wrapped around ours.

In the line with us were MANY people of course, but also people with MANY MANY bags. The sign in line said "One bag under 50 lbs free" and that the maximum per person was two checked items and that bags over 50 lbs would be $50. Since then there has been an additional charge added for checking more than one bag. So all those people with multiple big heavy bags were holding up the line writing checks. There is also a severe restriction on what you can carry on with you.

The baggage carts are free in Europe, but here you pay for them. Be prepared to either pay or move your own luggage. We were in line for over an hour. From before 3:45 until almost 5 o'clock. Someone tried to jump the line saying that he had 7 minutes to make his flight, but his flight only left 20 minutes before ours, so that wasn't true. Eventually we got to the counter and our bags weighed 44 lbs and 34 lbs.

Then we had to take the bags to the processing line, where they scan the bags before they load them. The security line was out of the airport as well.

Coming back, we went through immigration fairly rapidly, and handed in the customs form, and claimed the bags. We were one of the first ones down to the baggage carousel and I was sitting and he was standing next to it. People kept trying to get their bags off of it, and not being able to lift them and being carried around towards us and crashing into him as they tried to get their bags.

Mode: TO
Phone: (305)876-7000 MIA hotline
Type: Airplane