For those of you that have arrived to PJIA with just a carryon since the arrival congestion started at the airport, were you able to move through the initial line faster? This has been mentioned a couple of times, but I wasn't sure if some just got lucky, or if carryon-only passengers are consistently being moved through the process more quickly.

We'll be arriving with two checked bags and one carryon. My hope is that some of us can get through the line faster with the carryon and just one person (probably me) will have to wait in the line for baggage claim.

Why do you think splitting up is a good idea? Just curious since I am about to go through this process in 10 days.

My thought was that my wife and son could go pick up the rental car while I waited and then eventually pick me up once I'm through the lines. If I'm waiting for hours, they could even drive down to the beach. For any of this to work, we'd have to both have our cell phones roaming, but that's a price I'm willing to pay if we can avoid waiting in a line for hours with a 6-year-old.

Hmm, good idea. We pay for international service on AT+T, it's $10/day only for days we actually use it! It's worth it.

I wonder if I can convince my husband with the same logic......I'm gonna act like a 6yo standing in line for 3 hours! :-)

We just switched a couple of months ago from Verizon and T-Mobile has been fantastic in Aruba. We have unlimited International data/roamimg for zip....local calls (no plan needed) are 25 cents/min and it auto switches to wifi calling in the condo so no charge for calls to USA cell phones on AUA (or SXM).

I have made three short local calls, received and sent MANY texts/pics and emails on the beach off wifi with zero cost.

If you have T-Moblie just take it off airplane mode and it will say "Welcome to SInt Maarten" and you are good to go

I know it's lame to change for this trip but keep it in mind for the future

Thank you. T-Mobile definitely seems to have better options when it comes to international travel. We currently have AT&T and normally one of us will pay the $10/day for the international service while the other just connects via the working phone's hotspot. If we end up getting separated during arrival, we'll both have to pay the $10 for that first day, but that's not a big deal considering the circumstances.

To answer your question about carry-on, if you let one of the agents who is managing the lines know that you don't have checked luggage, they will let you go through ahead of those who do. In your case, splitting up certainly makes sense to me. We generally travel with carry-on only, but for the past three years have checked a small bag with liquids and consumables. We don't check a bag on the trip home, which makes the connection in the US easier.

I think it’s important to differentiate between a single line of passengers going through immigration and the holding areas for flights which have arrived.

As multiple flights arrive, the passengers are brought to the arrival area and loaded into holding areas which are in lines . There are four or five of these holding lines which are areas to keep passengers and avoid over crowding in the baggage area.

There is not one single line for all passengers heading to immigration. As each flight has their luggage loaded onto the baggage carousel, the holding area for those passengers is released to the immigration line.

If you only have carry-on luggage, you may ask arrival agents if you may proceed to immigration and therefore bypass the holding areas and quicken your time at the arrival area of the airport.

That is the way I understand it. Hopefully that makes sense.

Drphilsxm

That makes sense. We'll give it a try. We were always planning to have two checked bags and a carry-on, so if it turns out we all just have to wait, we'll have to deal with it. There are three large planes landing within 20 minutes (we're the third), but it sounds like it's possible we may not necessarily be the last group to get through if our bags make it off quicker than the other two flights.