Debarkation NIGHTMARE

[Longin2cruise]

I'm really convinced that the difficulty or ease of debarkation depends almost entirely on our fellow cruisers. Nearly all my cruises have been with Carnival & self debarkation has ranged all the way from total efficiency to total chaos & HE@%. If fellow cruisers are polite & respectful of instructions & other people the process is very painless. On the other hand, if fellow cruisers are rude, self absorbed & ignore instructions, debarkation can turn into a nightmare of huge proportions. I must say that most of my debarkation experiences have been positive, a few have been marginal, & 1 had me wishing for a baseball bat to break heads with.

[luv2travelgrrl]

I personally think they should nix the self debarkment or at least limited it to ONE bag only. I've seen people with WAY too many bags making it take forever for the rest of the self debarkers to get off.

 

It's like the line cutters at the disney theme parks.....you know, the ones that pay extra to cut. You can't help but hate em !!!:mad:

You cannot pay "extra" to cut. You CAN however, get fastpasses with your tickets and come back to the ride at a later time to "Cut".

I used to think the same thing! LOL. I thought people going thru the fastpass line paid an exhorbant amount of money to go ahead of everyone else. They don't. Just an FYI:)

[imlulu]

We did the selfdisembark 2 years ago on the Victory.They called us by areas of ship were cabins were. The problem then wasnt the self disembark people so much. It was the people who cut the line and were not doing self disembark. There were also people whose cabins were not called and got in line.They would get in line with these huge groups and then be sent back. Another problem is the lines. They are all over the place. People also ignore all announcements. They love to stand in line it seems. Yet they complain about lines.:confused:

 

I didnt find it particularly annoying. This year may skip the self disembark though.

[G'ma]

Unless you have to make an early flight, just take yourself out to one of the outer decks, have a cup of coffee and just relax and wait. It will save you a lot of trouble and frustration. We were #20 for disembarkation and did not experience any big problems.

 

Right on!

 

Some people do book early flights...and then panic when something happens to delay disembark. Carnival suggests not booking return flights until after noon....I always err on the side of sanity and book after 2:00PM. I'm in no hurry to get home anyway...and I sure don't want to become part of the madness......HA!

[TheRaven]

Sure, they can always open a couple of more doors, I'm sure Immigration wouldn't mind. :rolleyes:

 

Customs and Immigration is the choke point. Nobody is moving faster then they are no matter how fast they get off the ship.

 

The ship wants you gone, the quicker the better; so they can bring new people on and start making money again.

 

But any well organized crew would have a plan for the self disembark and not simply make things up as they go along this happens every week lines form every week and they cannot get by simply winging it it may work until there is a problem but once there is a problem it obviously doesnt work. it wasnt about customs that was the most organized part of the whole thing it was getting to that point where the crew kept pointing people in different directions and letting some passengers just go where ever they wanted to

[Jsme]

I'm convinced, this is what I am going to try this cruise-day after tomorrow!

 

I am wondering how Disney can get people off the ship so easily and why Carnival still has to take so long. DCL has a system you go to the dining room for breakfast at assigned times and then walk off the ship after breakfast. It gets poeple out of the rooms, kept us busy and then off we went. Holland America was not bad getting off either so I am surprised CCL is still having these issues.

 

I have cruised Disney 3 times and I love their Disembarkment. We have never experience much of a line to disembark.

 

We were on the Sensation a few weeks back and it was decent and well organized. We woke up later, got ready, grabbed our carryoffs and headed to have one of the last breakfasts in the diningroom. We sat there until 2 numbers before us was called. We ledt and went directly out and watched the line on that deck. When everyone was out of line for the number before us we headed down to created the next line. We were off within minutes. Paid a porter and was out at our car all within 30 minutes of leaving the diningroom. BUT we had no ship hit the pier.

 

Sorry to you guys that had to deal with this as you left.

[NYCFOD]

Manhattan cruise terminal is an absolute disaster area and should be demolished immediately. The Port Authority use the same level for security, check in, embarkation, debarkation and customs and immigration. When we got back on May 17 we waited for hours in the Gotham Lounge, then got off. We then had to struggle through with our luggage (there are no trolleys like at the airport) and try and find a cab. You'd think that running La Guardia, JFK and Newark airports would have taught the PANYNJ something about moving large numbers of passengers off transportation through customs and immigration and out of the terminal. These cruise ships hold the equivalent of 4 - 5 Boeing 747-400's of passengers. I've been at Kennedy and Newark when six or seven B744's land within a few minutes of each other and the debarkation process is nothing like as painfu as at Manhattan cruise terminal. I thought LAX was bad until I went on my Miracle cruise.

[big_duck]

But any well organized crew would have a plan for the self disembark and not simply make things up as they go along this happens every week lines form every week and they cannot get by simply winging it it may work until there is a problem but once there is a problem it obviously doesnt work. it wasnt about customs that was the most organized part of the whole thing it was getting to that point where the crew kept pointing people in different directions and letting some passengers just go where ever they wanted to

 

Immigration officials work under colour of authority, cruise staff don't.

 

When an immigration official tells you to do something, people do it. Obviously, that was not case with the cruise staff.

 

Again, short of a pre-cruise clearance to ensure all passengers have the basic intelligence and patience to follow instructions or possibly issuing the cruise staff a whip and a chair, debarkation is what it is.

 

The obvious answer would be to eliminate self-debarkation at those ports where the passengers "just don't get it".

[J and J]

Just wondering, we have a 4PM flight out of Miami when we cruise in August. Are we going to have enough time if we go through the regular procedures to get off the ship? Also, would it be wise to line up our transportation back to the airport prior to the cruise?

[big_duck]

Just wondering, we have a 4PM flight out of Miami when we cruise in August. Are we going to have enough time if we go through the regular procedures to get off the ship? Also, would it be wise to line up our transportation back to the airport prior to the cruise?

 

You will be fine*. The airport is only 20 minutes away, so even if you weren't off the ship until 1 PM you could still make your flight easily.

 

 

*Disclaimer: unless a hurricane gets in the way. :eek:

[J and J]

You will be fine*. The airport is only 20 minutes away, so even if you weren't off the ship until 1 PM you could still make your flight easily.

 

 

*Disclaimer: unless a hurricane gets in the way. :eek:

 

 

Thanks....I feel better ; )

[trock]

But any well organized crew would have a plan for the self disembark and not simply make things up as they go along this happens every week lines form every week and they cannot get by simply winging it it may work until there is a problem but once there is a problem it obviously doesnt work. it wasnt about customs that was the most organized part of the whole thing it was getting to that point where the crew kept pointing people in different directions and letting some passengers just go where ever they wanted to

 

Hey Rav

I really think it all had to do with the Spirit and the 'officials' assessing the building structure.. I have cruised out of NYC exclusively and its always been a pleasure.. What we experienced last week was not normal...