grhokie

old boy who can't sit still for more than 10 minutes at a time w/out becoming bored. We have excursions planned for most of the trip but I wanted a break (both financial and just in general) and Antigua seems like the place to relax a bit from the go-go-go of excursions.

and haven't gotten a response back. That's usually a red flag for me when booking.

On Summit in April

Especially after dinner what is there for them to do. On the 1 sea day I'm sure my son will play basketball, ping pong pool volleyball or whatever sport they have and my daughter will lay by the pool but when we get back on the ship I don't know how enthralled they'll be w/ some of the standard shows. Have the shows been upgraded? How about after the show? Thanks!

Can you buy drinks there? Is it cheaper to just get them there or have the cabbie from the airport take a detour to a supermarket or something?

Where exactly is it? I've bought drinks at a pier in SJ before but I can't remember if this one had liquor or not and what drinks it had. Thanks for the info.?

Definitely going once but just can't decide where. Thanks!

shopping port for the wife so we can only go for 1/2 day. Two adults, two teenagers. Thanks!

read and learn from you.

EMBARKATION

 

 

We arrived at the pier shortly after 10:00 AM. About 30-40 people were already in line.

 

 

 

 

The doors opened at 10:40, and going through security went pretty smooth. A little quicker than the airport TSA lines. We were directed to the Gold line and were the only ones in line.

 

Check In, in a word, was BAD.

 

Just as a guy was directing us to one of the agents, a supervisor came by and stopped everything. Apparently the computer system crashed, and everything had to be rebooted. After about a 5-10 minute wait, things were operational again and we were directed to a Gold Agent. The agent was about 30 seconds into the process, and her computer locked up. She kept hitting keys and different spots on her screen, but nothing worked. Finally, her computer went down, and had to be rebooted again. This was an isolated incident, as all the other lines were moving along just fine.

After a few minutes, the computer came back up and the process was restarted.

Once again, things seemed to be going smooth, until our agent went to get our Sea Pass cards. She looked through the box twice, then another box. Back to the first box, then she just walked away out of sight. After a few minutes she came back, looked through the box again, and finally came back to us and said "We are having a hard time with Esther's card. It will just be a couple more minutes." Again, she walked away to the other end of the terminal. Another 5-10 minute wait and she came back with a supervisor. They both looked through the box of Sea Pass cards a couple times, found nothing, and came over to us. The supervisor told us they didn't have a Sea Pass card for Esther, and they would have to make a new one. She then directed us to a seating area behind some banners (the "Group W bench) and said she would be right over with Esther's Sea Pass in "Just a few minutes."

All this time the rest of the agents were checking people in lickety split, so it was quite frustrating to us.

After about 20 minutes of sitting on the Group W bench watching hordes of people go through the boarding lines, I decided to go back to the counter and see if we could get any kind of temporary boarding card, so we could at least board and get something to eat, and then pick up the Sea Pass at the Purser's Desk. As I was walking up to the counter, I spotted the supervisor standing behind the counter, apparently just chatting with a couple others. She saw me approaching, and sprang into action, waving the Sea Pass in the air and said "I was just coming to give this to you!" After nearly an hour, we were finally able to leave the Check In area.

 

One nice thing about the boarding process was the 2 lines to the waiting area. 1 for those who want boarding photos, and another for those who don't. We never get boarding photos anymore, so we chose the No Photo line.

After about another 15-20 minute wait in the staging area, we were allowed to go up the escalator and board the ship. By the time we made the walk, and went through the Photo ID line, it was 12:15 before we were actually "On Board", and able to get something to eat.

Great! Thanks. One more: How was the line getting on the ship? We're scheduled to arrive at FLL around 11:30, anticipate being at the ship around 12:15

We had no issues with the tenders. The ride was 15 or 20 minutes. On the way back to the ship we had to wait a little while for the previous tender to unload, but, going there was no problem.

things if you book your own excursion about delays getting off the ship.

I don't recall, sorry...I do know they had key lime pie on the last night, and, really, that's all I care about. ;-)