Disembarkation on CB on 8/19

[clvali]

Does anyone know what the problem was???? Lines were horrible and I am sure some missed their flights. Of course rumors were flying. Not going to speculate. Except to say it was by far the worst I have ever experience and I was on the early end.......

clvali

Will have a cruise review ........ later.

[prarie cruiser]

It did seem to take a bit longer than I expected for disembarkation to be allowed. However, once my color tag was called it took about 5 minutes in line to actually get off the ship, then another several minutes in line to get through the customs check. I think the hold up was customs, not the ship. It seemed customs was taking more time than usual talking with people and inspecting passports. I was one of the last colors called and I was off the ship and headed to the airport by 10:30. My plane was not until 2pm so being last off the ship was fine with me.

 

This was certainly not one of the worst disembarkations I have experienced. I would say it may have started a bit slow but then been normal. I would doubt if anyone would have missed their plane because of it, unless they were silly enough to have scheduled a flight before 10:00. Its just difficult processing 3100 plus people all at once.

[Pam in CA]

What time did disembarkation start? Did the ship arrive late? It's not at all unusual for disembarkation to start late or go slowly. Unless the ship gets in late, that is not Princess' fault but rather the failure of some non-U.S. passengers to completely their Immigration forms and turn them in or a delay in U.S. Customs and Immigration to clear the ship. Sometimes, the lines going through Immigration are very slow, particularly if you have a number of passengers without passports. There's no way to speed that up until all passengers cruise with passports; fortunately, that's just a few months away.

 

If someone is stupid enough to schedule a flight too early, I have little/no sympathy.

[prarie cruiser]

I don't remember exactly when disembarkation started but I remember thinking at the time we have been here for a long time and we are just now starting to disembark???? It seems like it was around 8:15 to 8:30. We pulled into port around the normal time, so I don't know what the problem was.

 

Seems like once it started it went smoothly, but the biggest holdup was after you got off the ship going through customs areas.

[AerynSun_JohnCrighton]

That happened to us a few years back on Carnival Inspiration... docked on time, but we waited and waited and waited some more before they started calling anyone...

 

not sure what it was, but we heard they had found something suspious or thought someone was trying to bring some illegal drug or something.

[parkey]

We almost missed our 1:07pm flight. We left before our color was called and with a family member in a wheel chair so we were able to bypass the lines. We got to the airport at 12pm. The line was backed up past the tour desk in the lobby and barley moving.I would not have made my flight if I waited for my color to be called. And my color did not qualify for an early time. I have been on 10 cruises and have never had it take so long to get off the ship. clbvali was not blaming Princess she was just asking if anyone knew why we were so slow.Someone on the ship told us they were having problems with costums.

[mseldga]

I was also on this cruise and agree with the OP that this was an unusually bad disembarkation. My husband and I did not get through customs until 11:30. A Princess employee told our line that the problem was with customs - they were being really thorough and looking very carefully at everyone's passports, etc. She said that by that time of the morning - this was about 10:45 as we were waiting in the lobby - the entire ship would normally be disembarked but they still had 750 people to go. It wasn't horrible, but was definitely worse than usual. I felt bad for all the new passengers hoping to get on at 12:00 - I bet they didn't let new passengers on until 1:00!