To save a few $ due to outrageous air fares my wife and I stopped in NYC on our way to SXM . Went from Newark to JFK with just a backpack since we have everything we need on the island. Fun day in the city and pretty easy commute to JFK area for overnight at the JFK Hilton.

We were told to take the 5:30 shuttle to make sure we had time which we thought a bit early for s 7:30 flight. We have TSA pre check by way of Global entry. We left a little after 5:30 as a group of 4 could not seem to meet the 5:30 departure time. We were ordering our coffee and breakfast in terminal 5 at 5:55 AM. So much for the arrive 3 hours early rule.

We are back in paradise and have reunited with friends at the Yacht Club and made the Porto Cupecoy Jazz brunch. Life is good.

Awesome. Only recommendation is stay at the TWA hotel next time. Enjoy!

We're doing the JFK overnight thing on Wednesday ourselves for the first time. Jetblue had the best deal out of Detroit by far back when we booked and it required the JFK overnight, but it sounded like fun. We're booked at the TWA hotel, and then on the same 7:30 am to SXM that gets in at 11:30..hoping getting there ahead of the afternoon rush gets us through passport control and to the beach quickly. Thanks for posting your JFK experience, and enjoy your stay Murphycpcu!

Glad you arrived OK. Hope the trip goes well for you.

I am anal about arriving early at the airport, especially as we have a 3.5 hour drive just to get to Miami. Often i am whiling away time at the airport, but I'd rather be early than try to run through the airport.

We did the TWA overnight once and if we were going to do a JFK trip again we’d consider TWA again. With that said, read the reviews to get an idea of what to expect because it is a bit of a unique hotel concept. Two key points are that service is a bare minimum (self check-in, no bellmen) and it is a long hike on soft carpet to get to your room. It was super convenient for an early morning departure with two kids. But on our return I was sure to borrow a luggage cart from the terminal because wheeling bags over that carpet certainly hit my cardio goal for the day.

Great advice eightzero, thanks! I'm hoping they let us check our bags through to SXM when we check in at DTW so we just have to schlep our small carry on. I checked Jetblue's baggage policy for layovers, but it's rather ambiguous. I'll ask when we check in to make sure.

Cheers!

And thing over a 12 hour layover has to be rechecked the next day. Been there don that.

The flight is the first in so the

WE certainly beat the rush. No other planes in the airport so it went fast.