How has San Francisco embarkation been lately?

[mina]

Just booked a cruise out of San Fran for November 6, 22.  So, have the excessive boarding lines and waits settled down or should we plan on bringing our own chairs, bladder buddies, and blankies on boarding day?

[EDDY0827]

Be good scouts and come prepared. It's San Francisco.

Seriously, it's over a year away. Anything may happen that may influence boarding.

[CineGraphic]

2 minutes ago, EDDY0827 said:

Be good scouts and come prepared. It's San Francisco.

Seriously, it's over a year away. Anything may happen that may influence boarding.

 

No, it's only 51 days away.

 

[Kay S]

"Bladder buddies." 🤣  I haven't done embarkation at the new SF terminal, but I did do a port stop there after cruising resumed.  It's about a hundred times better that the old barn down the wharf where Princess used to dock.  I hope things are running smoothly, but there are worse places to be stuck in line than the bay at San Francisco. 😉

[Cruise Raider]

We’ve boarded several times in San Francisco since the restart.  We’ve had three or four fairly easy boarding experiences, one that was bad, one that was just awful.  The one that was awful boarded at Pier 35 as the Majestic took the berth at Pier 27 coupled with the Ruby’s previous disembarkation being delayed.  
Most of the delays earlier this year were caused by something related to CoVid … since they now won’t be requiring testing for many of the cruises on the Ruby, there shouldn’t be any long delays getting onboard going forward unless they reimplement testing again (outside of Canada).  I believe the Ruby isn’t doing any cruises longer than 15 days until at least December, so you should be ok as long as there is not another ship in port at the same time you are there or if some reason, they stick you down at pier 35 … I don’t see it happening, though.  

[clueless2]

9 minutes ago, Cruise Raider said:

We’ve boarded several times in San Francisco since the restart.  We’ve had three or four fairly easy boarding experiences, one that was bad, one that was just awful.  The one that was awful boarded at Pier 35 as the Majestic took the berth at Pier 27 coupled with the Ruby’s previous disembarkation being delayed.  
Most of the delays earlier this year were caused by something related to CoVid … since they now won’t be requiring testing for many of the cruises on the Ruby, there shouldn’t be any long delays getting onboard going forward unless they reimplement testing again (outside of Canada).  I believe the Ruby isn’t doing any cruises longer than 15 days until at least December, so you should be ok as long as there is not another ship in port at the same time you are there or if some reason, they stick you down at pier 35 … I don’t see it happening, though.  

I'm on a cruise Oct 1.  I looked earlier and there are TWO other ships in port that day.  Zuiderdam and a smaller ship.   Other than more crowds around, less taxis/Uber, etc. how does that slow things down?  Not enough workers?

[suekel]

I embarked in SF last month.  45 minutes from drop off to being onboard.  I was prepared for the worst so I was happily surprised.  

[Cruise Raider]

31 minutes ago, clueless2 said:

I'm on a cruise Oct 1.  I looked earlier and there are TWO other ships in port that day.  Zuiderdam and a smaller ship.   Other than more crowds around, less taxis/Uber, etc. how does that slow things down?  Not enough workers?

If you get stuck checking in at pier 35, that’s the only thing I could see that really slows you down in terms of check in.  It’s not set up for that anymore so, they have mass chaos in that terminal when it is set up for embarkation.  Also, the Embarcadero is a tangled mess with so much traffic and such.  
They would be smart to put the Zuiderdam as well as the smaller ship down at pier 35 as this would probably be a port of call for both of them.  I watched the local news of us boarding back in April … what a disaster.  We were there for 4 hours waiting in the bitter damp cold just to get into the terminal and another 1.5 hours to get through check in and board.  I was ready to turn around and go back home … just take the FCCs.  I saw a picture of me on the news while waiting on the sidewalk.  😂  I can laugh at it now … it wasn’t funny back then.  

[clueless2]

14 minutes ago, Cruise Raider said:

If you get stuck checking in at pier 35, that’s the only thing I could see that really slows you down in terms of check in.  It’s not set up for that anymore so, they have mass chaos in that terminal when it is set up for embarkation.  Also, the Embarcadero is a tangled mess with so much traffic and such.  
They would be smart to put the Zuiderdam as well as the smaller ship down at pier 35 as this would probably be a port of call for both of them.  I watched the local news of us boarding back in April … what a disaster.  We were there for 4 hours waiting in the bitter damp cold just to get into the terminal and another 1.5 hours to get through check in and board.  I was ready to turn around and go back home … just take the FCCs.  I saw a picture of me on the news while waiting on the sidewalk.  😂  I can laugh at it now … it wasn’t funny back then.  

We're at Pier 27 do hopefully it won't be too bad.  Thanks for the reply.

[EDDY0827]

2 hours ago, CineGraphic said:

 

No, it's only 51 days away.

 

Oops, my bad, I thought it said '23.

My comment stands.

[redroses]

What time does everyone recommend to show up for a 4PM departure?

[Cruise Raider]

2 hours ago, clueless2 said:

We're at Pier 27 do hopefully it won't be too bad.  Thanks for the reply.

I don’t think it will.  The procedures ar pier 27 are pretty solid.  
 

1 hour ago, redroses said:

What time does everyone recommend to show up for a 4PM departure?

 

We live nearby and usually try to get there around 11:00 AM.  We’ve only waited around 15 minutes or after check in to board recently.  

 

[sfpd3000]

Things are alot better now.  As Cruise Raider mentioned, it was a mess in April and a few more times after that.

[sfpd3000]

4 hours ago, clueless2 said:

I'm on a cruise Oct 1.  I looked earlier and there are TWO other ships in port that day.  Zuiderdam and a smaller ship.   Other than more crowds around, less taxis/Uber, etc. how does that slow things down?  Not enough workers?

Zuiderdam and Silver Seas Mariner will be utilizing Pier 35 and both are "in transit".  They will have minimal impact on your boarding the Ruby.

[cali-croozer]

1 hour ago, Cruise Raider said:

I don’t think it will.  The procedures ar pier 27 are pretty solid.  
 

 

We live nearby and usually try to get there around 11:00 AM.  We’ve only waited around 15 minutes or after check in to board recently.  

 

Do you park nearby?

 

[sfpd3000]

15 hours ago, Cruise Raider said:

We live nearby and usually try to get there around 11:00 AM.  We’ve only waited around 15 minutes or after check in to board recently.  

 

Cruise Raider,

I don't know how else to reach you, but you seem to be in the know.  I have a question posted on the Millennium 9/24 roll call that I hope you can answer.  I tried the messaging feature but it's disabled.

[LawDog61]

We just got off this morning and boarded Ruby 10 days ago.   Very easy boarding-like 10 minutes.   I was surprise as I had been reading about boarding delays there.  BTW, debark this morning was the easiest ever.  They were running 15 minutes AHEAD.   😄😄

[Cruise Raider]

16 hours ago, cali-croozer said:

Do you park nearby?

 

 

We live close so we usually just take an Uber or take the BART train over.  We have parked there once because we were with others and they had a lot of stuff.  That was the time the wait was so long and the Embarcadero was just bumper to bumper the whole way there.  

The parking isn't guaranteed to keep your car safe but the one time we did park there recently, it was at the garage at Pier 19.5.  It is locked up at night and the car was fine when we retrieved it.  

[Cruise Raider]

2 hours ago, sfpd3000 said:

Cruise Raider,

I don't know how else to reach you, but you seem to be in the know.  I have a question posted on the Millennium 9/24 roll call that I hope you can answer.  I tried the messaging feature but it's disabled.

 

I will go check it out.  

[teecee60]

20 hours ago, clueless2 said:

We're at Pier 27 do hopefully it won't be too bad.  Thanks for the reply.

 

We did Caribbean Princess at Pier 27 in April. From on the bus to onboard in 20 minutes.

 

Much, MUCH faster and nicer than earlier experiences at Pier 35.

 

Edited September 17, 2022 by teecee60

[HaveDogWillTravel]

On 9/16/2022 at 10:37 AM, mina said:

Just booked a cruise out of San Fran for November 6, 22.  So, have the excessive boarding lines and waits settled down or should we plan on bringing our own chairs, bladder buddies, and blankies on boarding day?

I’ve sailed out of SF on Ruby last November, December, January, April and May. The boarding was from not good to flipping ick just horrible.  
I boarded the Ruby today.  Omg it had to have been all those really well written emails listing clearly the requirements of testing, vaccination & ArriveCAN as it went the quickest and smoothest I’ve ever experienced.  We got in line (who am I kidding there was no line 😆) to board at 11:17 and were on board at 11:35.  Rooms were ready by 12:30 while we were at lunch in Michelangelo. 

[Cruise Raider]

2 hours ago, HaveDogWillTravel said:

I’ve sailed out of SF on Ruby last November, December, January, April and May. The boarding was from not good to flipping ick just horrible.  
I boarded the Ruby today.  Omg it had to have been all those really well written emails listing clearly the requirements of testing, vaccination & ArriveCAN as it went the quickest and smoothest I’ve ever experienced.  We got in line (who am I kidding there was no line 😆) to board at 11:17 and were on board at 11:35.  Rooms were ready by 12:30 while we were at lunch in Michelangelo. 

Perfect ... so glad to hear it.  

[tcdcruiser]

September 17 report. Arrived terminal 1030am. Arrived cabin 1115am. Arrived crooners 1130am. Luggage arrived 1pm. 
 

 

[teecee60]

3 hours ago, tcdcruiser said:

Arrived cabin 1115am. Arrived crooners 1130am. 

 

What the heck took you SSOOO LONG??? 😁

[tcdcruiser]

It was shockingly fast. 
 

BTW lots of people did not do the Canada arrive step prior to arrival and were delayed. I had to explain to a fellow passenger that princess told them many times and that it was a Canada govt requirement not a princess requirement.l

 

welcome back to cruising.