The wait at the terminal before??? Brisbane

[bixy]

I went for a bit of a sticky beak on Saturday and notice huge amounts of people standing idle in the sun. What's the best time to get there and what happens once you get inside the main building?:rolleyes:

[begginer_cruiser]

When we cruised last November we arrived at Portside at around 8:30am where we checked our bags in and got our boarding numbers. We then bought some sausage rolls from the little bakery place and sat at the observation deck eating these and talking. I think because we were so excited the time flew and it was soon our boarding time.

 

We went into the main building where you have to show your P & O passes etc and then joined the queue for our cruise cards. During this queue the sniffer dog sniffs your stuff as well. The line was moving at an average pace - took us about 10 minutes or so to get to the counter. We then signed the stuff, got our cards and made our way to the next section which was the x-ray machines for our bags. This was fine, we then went up the stairs to the next bit where we showed our passports. We then moved through there and had our photo taken by the photographers and it was then that we did the walk to the ship. That was the best feeling -finally stepping onto the ship.

[Ransome]

We've just returned from the Star into Brisbane. When we departed we arrived Portside at around the recomended time of 11am for a 2pm departure and spent 30 minutes mostly in the sun queuing for the baggage drop. By the time we got to board the baggage queue had almost vanished. So I guess to avoid the queue in the heat (or rain) either arrive early (as the last poster has suggested) or later. Sometimes it doesn't pay to arrive on time :) . Part of the temporary baggage queue is under cover. My daughter (who works for a company that is involved in the design of Portside) assured me that it still isn't finished, and some of the checkin facilities will be improved.

 

The baggage checkin was the slowest part of the process.