Tampa cruise Terminal experience

Sailed Feb. 2, 2014 on NCL Dawn from Tampa

The cruise terminal will only allow 500 people inside the building due to the Fire Marshall's restrictions

Do not listen to your cruise line that states show up at 1 PM or later. You will be standing outside in the hot sun (no shade whatsoever) or the pouring rain as those that showed up at 11 AM or noon are inside enjoying AC and washrooms.

Due to fog on embarkation day the ship was late docking at 11 AM rather than 7 AM.

We arrived as per norm at 11 AM and were rewarded with cookies, sandwiches and juice inside as the 1,500 less fortunate were grilled outside til 3 pm when boarding finally started.

Back to Fort Lauderdale for us

That's true. First cruise out of Tampa, our hotel shuttle did not drop us off until 11:45 and the line was outside and wrapped around the building heading down the side street. The second cruise out of Tampa we were at the port by 11am and walked right inside, up the esculator and waited less than 15 min to do our check in. There was not wait to board either.

A mere 45 min or so makes a big difference.

.

We always get to the port super early as we want to get onboard and enjoy the ship. In 2012 it was 27 degrees with the wind chill, colder than home in NH! There was no standing outside in the hot sun that day. We stood outside and froze. In 2013 the port was closed due to fog. We got there around 10:30 and they let us stay until around noon then cleared the port. They didn't want people hanging around all day. The ship finally pulled in around 4 pm and we were finally allowed to start boarding around 8 that night. Lost a whole day on the ship plus we had to cruise at top speed to get to our first port so our sea day was very windy. We did get to Roatan only about 4 hours late. We said we were never going out of Tampa again after that, but we probably would if the price was right. :)

I can see on how which cruise line your on it differs. Had a totally different experience with the Ryndam last month. I would sail out of Tampa again with no hesitation. Arrived at the pier at around noon time, and was through security, check in and heading to our stateroom in 15 minutes. No lines anywhere to be seen. Have to say our hotel shuttle did drop off passengers at the Dawn on our way and there did look like quite a bit of congestion. I did stay in Tampa a day before, traveling from the northeast in January, and after the cruise because I heard of the chance of fog can delay the ships arrival.

We arrived once at 11:30am and once at 2:56pm. In both cases we went right on the ship. In fact, for the second one they practically ran/carried us to the ship. =D