What time to board?

[davis2nd]

Just looking for suggestions here. This is our first cruise, we will be sailing out of Jacksonville Thursday and are curious about what time to board. We live close to the port so getting there is easy. We were thinking of getting to the port at noon, we have VIP boarding but don't know if this really makes a difference. What have been your experiences? Will everything be open that early, are there things to do? How about the rooms being ready. Thanks in advance for all advice.

[cuyahoga11]

I like to arrive about 11:00 am, head to lido for lunch and a drink, start party, cabins will be ready at 1:30

[beachbum53]

Okay, I'm curious. If this is your first cruise, how were you able to get VIP status? Does that come with the category/cabin you've booked? As far as boarding time, if you want to be among the first to board, I would say try to get to the port around 10:00 - 10:30 a.m. if possible. If the ship is ready, it's not unusual for boarding to start before 11:00 a.m. (even though Carnival says 12:00 noon).

[davis2nd]

Beachbum,

 

It came with the cabin category. By no means have I earned any type of perks yet, lol.

[firefly333]

Just looking for suggestions here. This is our first cruise, we will be sailing out of Jacksonville Thursday and are curious about what time to board. We live close to the port so getting there is easy. We were thinking of getting to the port at noon, we have VIP boarding but don't know if this really makes a difference. What have been your experiences? Will everything be open that early, are there things to do? How about the rooms being ready. Thanks in advance for all advice.

 

If you dont get there until Noon .. scratch that VIP .. its worthless. By noon, unless something has gone wrong, all the VIPs will have long since boarded, and you could just walk on with the rest of the folks.

 

personally I get there to get on early and hit the buffet first before its all picked over and crowded.. why waste your VIP status?

 

Im there before 11 am.

[atinys]

My vacation starts when i board the ship so I prefer to get on board as early as possible....10:00 is a good time.

[ToriB]

We got to the Jacksonville port around 9:45 before my cruise earlier this month. There were two lines going into the parking area. We went through the guy's line and he told us to come back around 11 because they were running behind. However, the girl was letting people go through, maybe to pick up people? We were very upset we got turned away so we went to Chick-fil-a and came back around 10:30. We went to the lady's line this time and she let us through. We dropped our bags off and parked then went through security and checked in without a problem. They hadn't started to board yet but we were fairly close to the front of the line still. 11 o'clock came and the terminal started to get very packed. They started to board soon after. We were glad we came back before 11 like the guy told us to. Once on board we got some lunch and looked around the ship a little bit then decided to go to our rooms around 1 and they were ready!