Can anyone provide any detail or insight to help me know what to expect when my group travels through San Juan (SJU) en route to Tortola (EIS)? We are all flying on two separate reservations, one Southwest flight to SJU and then a separate reservation on Intercaribbean into EIS. Since our tickets and airlines do not code share, I'm trying to understand what we should expect. I've contacted Intercaribbean and I feel almost more confused afterwards, as the gentleman had a thick accent and I don't think either of us understood the other entirely.
Almost every person in my group is not checking a bag, so we are wondering what to do regarding checking in for Intercaribbean. It'd be great if we could simply just get off our Southwest flight and head straight to our IC gate to check in, but if my ears heard the IC customer service rep correctly, we will all need to go out to the front ticketing area to check in. The man on the phone also said we would need to check in 2 hours prior to departure, even though the IC website states mandatory flight closing is 60 minutes for international flights. I did notice that the IC website states that check-in "opens" 2 hours prior to depart time, so I'm wondering if maybe I have misunderstood him as saying we would actually need to check in 2 hours early. Perhaps I'm answering some of my own question as I write this, as I guess it appears that check-in opens 2 hours prior and closes 1 hour prior to departure, so we basically have a 1-hour window to get it done. Interested to know any experience some of you may have, as we have never booked flights on separate reservations in the past. We arrive at SJU 3:30pm and depart for EIS at 6pm, but a couple others in our group who are traveling separately arrive at SJU at 12:40 and have a 2:15 flight to EIS. I'm more worried about them for the most part!
Thanks :-)