Arrival in the USA by sea?

We will be on one of the two QM2 cruises from Southampton to the Caribbean and back - with two calls at NYC - later this year. This will be our first transatlantic arrival in New York by sea and we'd like to know if the customs and immigration procedures take as long to complete as they do when cruising into Boston or San Francisco. According to the itinerary provided by Cunard it seems that QM2 will only be in port until 3pm the same day so if it takes til 4pm to clear everyone through immigration - as it did in San Francisco - we won't even be able to get off the ship let alone arrange an excursion?

Can anyone who has done this trip before with Cunard advise if the itinerary quoted is realistic or if we have to forego any chance of setting foot on US Soil? Also once we've been processed into the USA and then left the same day for the Caribbean do we have to go through the same rigmarole when we visit St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands - or again when we return to New York on the way back?

Having gone through customs at Brooklyn numerous times I strongly suspect you will be able to set foot on US soil. If you would like to do a bit of sightseeing I suggest a tour arranged through Cunard due to the tight timeframe.

Customs is required upon returning to the US from any foreign port so, yes, a repeat hassle will be experienced.

Hi and Welcome!

You might consider reserving a reliable car by the hour to take you to one or a few places. One is Dial 7 another is Carmel, you can find them on line. Also, Executive Transportation has cars available at the Cruise Terminal and you might also go online and see about their charges-I’d check on-line. In any of these cases the driver and you can manage your time and get back to QM2 in time. ;)

I see that you have been through the hell that is Immigration inspection in Boston. I've done that twice on Cunard and it's been awful because, although Cunard assigns times, people pay no attention to it. (This is nothing new, the long queues go back to the days of onboard inspection on QE2.) If they do the inspection on board, it will probably be as bad. But if they do it in the terminal, it could go more smoothly because the space is properly set up for it and there might be more staff to handle it. And possibly better crowd control at the gangway.

I've only been through Immigration in Brooklyn at the end of a cruise where many/most people are disembarking, and it seems to go smoothly. Certainly MUCH better than the messes I've seen with onboard inspection.

I agree with the suggestion to take a Cunard tour, at least for the first time. My experiences vary greatly. Sometimes tours will be assigned an early time in order to get people out on time, sometimes they just join the queue. One time in Boston, staff were pulling people out of the queue if they had tour tickets and walking them to the head of the line. The other time, people on tours had no help at all. On less recent cruises, where we had to do immigration in St Thomas or San Juan, staff were better organized and early tours had a special assembly point so the whole group could be taken through inspection right at the beginning.

Edited to add: When is your cruise? This might be sold as segments--TA, Cruise, TA. If so, the NY stops will be endpoints of segments and Immigration will almost certainly be done on the pier.

Thanks everybody for your help and advice. It is being sold as TA/cruise/TA so you're right, there will be some folk getting on, some getting off and some like us passing through! Customs shouldn't be a problem (we'll be getting off without any baggage) but as we're Brits we expect to have a longer queue at immigration and have read about queues for 3 or 4 hours in the freezing cold on the quayside. We can perhaps deal with that once but hope it won't have to happen 3 times as the cruise keeps going in and out of US territory!

Thanks everybody for your help and advice. It is being sold as TA/cruise/TA so you're right, there will be some folk getting on, some getting off and some like us passing through! Customs shouldn't be a problem (we'll be getting off without any baggage) but as we're Brits we expect to have a longer queue at immigration and have read about queues for 3 or 4 hours in the freezing cold on the quayside. We can perhaps deal with that once but hope it won't have to happen 3 times as the cruise keeps going in and out of US territory!

If the NY stops are the end of a segment, it will definitely take place inside the terminal, not on the ship. I've never seen a queue outside. The terminal is heated, so you won't have to suffer in the cold. It's like a big warehouse, so it might not be toasty warm, but you won't be out in the weather.

I would go to the Purser's desk soon after boarding and find out what your options are for getting off the ship as an intransit passenger. For disembarkation, the usual order is Queens Grill, Diamond, Princess Grill, and then by deck (top to bottom) with tours worked in as necessary. This is supposed to be about not letting people disembark until their luggage has been organized by color/number luggage tags. Since you won't have luggage to collect, there's no reason to make you wait for your deck to be called. Ask if you can get an earlier disembarkation time. If you want to get a really early start on your day, ask if they will let you go off with the self-help disembarkation group.

We went to Canada via NY on the QM2 and it took three hours to get through immigration. Even if you are staying on board you still have to disembark, go through immigration and then re-empark.

We went to Canada via NY on the QM2 and it took three hours to get through immigration. Even if you are staying on board you still have to disembark, go through immigration and then re-empark.

The US requires a "zero passenger count" in any arrival port. Did they do inspection on board or in the terminal? When you say three hours, do you mean it was three hours until the last people got off the ship, or did you stand in line somewhere for three hours?

Cunard offers early disembarkment for people who have all their baggage with them. As you will not have any baggage that should work for you as well. The longest wait I have had at Red Hook Customs is trying to find all my bags, from then on it's ten or fifteen minutes til you can be out the door. With no bags it should be a breeze.