If you're booked with American...

[Yvonne]

I've been on AA flights, including one to Aruba many years ago, where the MIA departure delay was due to waiting for a new crew to arrive because the current crew reached the maximum # of flight hours for whatever period they use to track these things. I've also been delayed waiting for a plane to arrive & then take us on to MoBay. One time, based on the airport the flight was arriving from, they actually could have made the trip to Tampa twice in the time we were delayed waiting on the plane. Sheesh. I know stuff happens but it NOT happening is the exception on AA. I wish that was an exaggeration but it's not. Boy, I really miss the days of NWA's non-stop flight from Tampa to MoBay.

BTW... even though I've only flown through Dallas-Ft. Worth once & it was on AA (a non-Jamaica trip). No problems, everything on time. Nice airport, too. Still keep checking on your times though. They can still change.

[Jim-Donna]

Max2 we are also flying out of ORD on AA 8:00AM hope we leave on time~

[sunbrnd]

Thanks for the info Shauna (aka Marley9808) and the reply!!! Lucky you for your very soon trip back to Negril!! You must really like the place. That gives me a warm fuzzy that we did a good thing in choosing JAM as our destination wedding. We are doing this alone with no guests or family. Just us....and preacher. We didn't want a big deal. Just a nice vacation place and a simple ceremony.
Congrats on your 2010 wedding also!!! Where did you get married??
To say we have questions is an understement. I am really glad we found this forum.
We will just hope for the best as to AA. I really hate that there is a layover in MIA on what should really be a short flight from TPA to JAM but that's the way it is.
BTW, here is how we ended up with a Negril wedding....as luck would have it.
We got engaged after a year of basically living together this past Xmas (2011). We really didn't set a date and left it open ended. We told all our family and friends and left it at that.
Well, in Feb. on one Sat. evening, Margot said she was going to run down to the little store on the corner for something or other, Ok I said, and gave her 2 $1 bils and told her to get 2 $1 scratch off's. Allot of times we have dinner and scratch off tickets after while having an after dinner drink. I scratch one area then pass it to her to scratch and she passes it back..till it is done. We can spend 15 minutes on each ticket with this "entertainment". We do one ticket...nothing. Ok, next one. I tell her to do the whole ticket. She gets to scratching and is done. She looks at me and has this funny look on her face. She hands the ticket to me and asks what this means. One of the little areas had "4 THOU" onder it....and it matched the prize area...4 THOU!!!! What did it mean???.....I told her it means we just just won $4K!!!!! Whoa!!!!
Well, we go over to the lottery office in Tampa and cash it in. They give us a check for 4 grand we we go home. Well, Margot being the thrifty one, wants to use the money to pay bills....BS I say....we are using this money to buy memories!!!.....A wedding!!! But where???.....well, having been to Cayman many times I knew I wanted Carribean somewhere because I love the water down there. We have really nice beaches here but the water here is like a sewer compared to the clear blue of the Carribean. Jamaica immediately popped into my head as I had never been there. Cayman is nice, but it is just a very flat rock sticking out of the water. Great for diving but not much scenery. Jamaica has mountains and is "lush". Ok, where in JAM???? Well, we got on computer and started looking.....Sandals, Couples, etc. popped up....bunches of AI's..nice but too touristy if you know what I mean. I knew I wanted a sunset wedding. That means you gotta be on west side of the island.....OK, what's on west side?? Well, stated looking and Negril immediately is the destination to be. Where though??? Looked at all the beach places. Devoured TripAdvisor. We have plenty of great beaches 1 mile from here at home.......Cliffs!!!!!! We don't have cliffs here in FL......I want CLIFFS!!!!! Well, we looked at all the places on the cliffs....we got down to a short list of Catcha and Moon Dance Cliffs and another place I don't remember now. We sent emails. MDC was the only one that replied to us with any kind of information. They were great about talking with us and what we wanted and could easily handle our simple wedding. We had wanted a late Sept or early Oct wedding but MDC is closed all of Sept. They were also booked from Oct out to end of the year (we wanted the one bedroom villa Ponsianna). As it turns out, we could get in last week in August so we set the date....AUG 27!!! MDC is also unique in that you can book either AI or non-AI. Well, the price difference for us was a no-brainer as we eat very little (most times just one meal). So we are booked for 8 nights there with a wedding in the gazebo...it is really cool looking on their website.
So that's how luck put us in JAM

[marley9808]

Wow sunbrnd.....talk about luck! That is awesome

And what you said about how you narrowed it down describes my reason for loving the cliffs to a T.
I have lived at the beach my whole life, every town I have lived in has had the name Beach in the title. My Dad was air force but lucky enough we always had beach locations. Myrtle Beach, Virginia Beach, Cocoa Beach, Ewa Beach (Hawaii), Melbourne Beach, Panama City Beach and now Clearwater (this move I made on my own). So I have always lived near the beach, and I love the beach of course. However, when we lived in Hawaii I could not get enough of the cliffs. And the cliffs and the ocean together I thought nothing I had ever laid eyes on was more beautiful. Negril reminds me a lot of my time in Hawaii.
So I am 100% a cliff person too and I think you will LOVE it

Our wedding story is a long one so I will pm you my email address and we can discuss more....maybe we can even meet you guys out....like at say Rumba (If you haven't tried that it's a restaurant on Gulf to Bay and Keene-very close to us and it is a caribbean style place, we love it). If you couldn't tell.....I LOVE talking about Jamaica
We were supposed to get married at Catcha Falling Star but a tropical storm changed our plans for us and we ended up at Negril Escape.
Catcha is our favorite place on earth and that is where we normally stay, it is where we will be in 16 days! Yay.
But Moondance Villas is a beautiful place too, you did REALLY good for someone who has never been, I am impressed.
It took me several years of visiting Negril to find Catcha
So well done......and also I wholeheartedly support the "Just the two of you ceremony"
You are WAY smarter than we were! LOL

I will send you my email and we can discuss. I would be more than happy to help with any questions you have.
Talk to you soon!

[Jamerican71]

Thank for posting this.....I just checked my AA out of MIA and my 1:45 arrival to MBJ is now 2:55pm...they never sent a notification.

[ClaudiaInIowa]

Yvonne~Check into renting a car and leaving it at the airport. Then picking one up when you return. One-way rentals are a bit expensive, but not bad. We do this when we travel to Negril so we don't have to pay airport parking for five weeks. We don't have the option of flying out of the local airport! And in Florida you certainly have more rental choices than we do in Iowa.

[Jamerican71]

Yvonne - What are your summer dates this year?

[Yvonne]

Yvonne - What are your summer dates this year?

6/11 - 7/14. When will you be there?

[Jamerican71]

6/11 - 7/14. When will you be there?

I'll be there Aug 6 - 12. I will be on a cruise round-trip from Miami from Aug 2 - 6 so that's why I'm on AA out of MIA. I was supposed to land at 1:45 but the change now puts me there at 2:45

Our dates are getting closer so maybe one day we will reconnect in Negril.

[Yvonne]

Our dates are getting closer so maybe one day we will reconnect in Negril.

My TS weeks are early/mid June to mid July so that keeps me to the June-July timeframe.

I noticed that - on the AA reservations page showing your reservation - there's a notice that there have been changes to your flights. I guess that's their new notification system. The customer has to check vs AA communicating w/ the customer directly as in the past.