The Truth About The TSA Experience Traveling Between Minnesota, Florida

Sadly, it seems like you can’t look at social media right now without it turning into reading time, with a lot of bad news and videos dominating social media.

Another issue that seems to come up all the time are videos of airports across the United States showing people waiting at TSA security lines for 4 hours or more due to staffing shortages caused by the federal government shutdown.

I admit, that news started to worry me because I had just planned a trip that would have me leaving Minnesota’s MSP airport before 1pm on Friday for Fort Lauderdale, where I would board a cruise ship for the week and return home from Florida the following Saturday, leaving around 2pm.

I even saw a video purportedly taken at FLL, Fort Lauderdale airport, which I was about to pass through, showing the area full of people returning from cruise ships. They all had long TSA wait times.

I wasn’t going to ruin our family trip with videos on social media, because I know you can’t trust most of what you see on the internet. So, I planned ahead and went out to see what my experience would be like, and it was amazing.

Preparing for this Trip and Future Trips

My wife was already TSA Prechecked, but the kids and I were not because we travel once or twice a year. However, based on the airport videos on social media, I decided to check all of us out. I had heard that some airports don’t even open pre-check lines anymore, but I didn’t care; maybe i’ll be lucky.

The truth is, even before the recent stories about crowded airports, security lines can be very long at MSP and other airports I’ve been through, so checking in early can help on this and future trips.

I also explored ways to expedite bag check-in, such as the Delta curbside check-in option, so I didn’t have to wait in long lines for our bags to be checked. Most airlines have ways to speed up the process.

From Minneapolis, Minnesota

Normally, people are advised to arrive at the airport 2 hours early for domestic flights, but we were told that these are not normal times, so we have to double down and arrive 4 hours early. Our travel agent even offered 5 hours advance notice.

However, I heard the MSP is not bad, so 5 hours early would not happen. However, since we were leaving midday on a Friday during spring break, we decided to arrive less than 4 hours early, around 9am.

We checked our luggage with Delta within 35 minutes of arriving, and it was off to the dreaded TSA area, wondering how long the lines would be, even though we all had TSA PreCheck names on our boarding passes.

To our surprise, there was no one in the TSA Precheck line, just two friendly people who were ushering us in.

We were all through security in about 5 minutes. So, our longest wait was over 3 hours and we would be waiting to board our flight. Luckily, MSP has a lot of dining options, so we all had lunch, and my wife and I had a few cocktails (don’t judge, it was Day 1 off), so the time flew by.

I give MSP and Delta Airlines an A+ for our departure experience. As I sat on the plane, I wondered if we had just gotten lucky with the long, angry lines that would await us later in Fort Lauderdale.

From Fort Lauderdale, Florida

After a great week of fun in the sun, courtesy of Princess Cruises, it was time to disembark from the new ship and head home. As the shuttle headed to Fort Lauderdale Airport (FLL), I remembered the video I had seen of the area showing the crazy TSA line.

However, it wasn’t even 9am yet, and our flight was around 2pm, so even if the videos were accurate, we still had plenty of time. Especially since Princess Cruises has a great EZCheck service, where they each pay $25 for the cruise to take your checked luggage the night before and check it with your flight for you.

This program is only offered at select airports and for select flights, but we were fortunate enough to have it offered for Delta Airline flights departing from FLL. So, we left our checked luggage outside our door on Friday night, and the next time we saw it was in Minneapolis. That saved us from the line to check our bags at the airport.

So, we checked into the Fort Lauderdale airport and headed to the TSA area. Luckily, the PreCheck lines were open, and while there were more people there than when we left MSP, it wasn’t as bad as what I saw on social media.

We went through TSA in about 30 minutes, the biggest issue is that people forget to remove things that trigger the detectors, such as belts and other clothes. It was an efficient process in the first test area.

Once at our gate, with over 4 hours to board our flight, I spoke to some restaurant/bar guests who had been traveling all over the United States and beyond, including a man who was returning home to Singapore.

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Everyone has said that they have never seen the extreme wait times and things that are prevalent on social media; they said they all said their travel experience was generally normal.

As people continue to arrive at our gate area, some say TSA wait times have grown to over an hour in the main line, and about 45 minutes for TSA Precheck, but not the times shared by others online.

Moral of the Story

In conclusion, I had a great trip and enjoyed an incredibly efficient time passing through the Minneapolis and Fort Lauderdale airports, especially considering the videos seen on social media.

So, do I think those videos are all fake, with footage taken years ago from a different airport than they claim to be? Well, I don’t doubt that some airports, like JFK in New York, ATL in Atlanta, and MCO in Orlando, have times when travelers face long wait times.

However, this is not the case at every airport, so don’t take social media and think that travel stops in the United States. It never did. I tend to talk to a lot of people when I’m on vacation and on a cruise, I met some great people from Boston, Tennessee, Georgia, and more. They all had similar airport experiences to mine.

I think it’s important to get TSA Pre-Check and check the options your airline may have to speed up the baggage check process.

Also, be sure to check the TSA wait times for your airport for the times of day you will be there, and don’t worry about what you hear happening at places you won’t be. Like me, you may be surprised at how common the experience is at your airport.

That being said, I would still make the mistake of being at the airport too early if things change during the days you are there.

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This travel experience convinced me how unreliable and misleading social media really is. Are there excessive lines, wait times, and bad experiences outside? Indeed, it always has been.

However, you only see the worst on social media, which can lead to the false impression that this is happening everywhere at all hours of the day, and I have seen for myself that this is not true.