Experience with Houston Bayport

[dawyv]

We just got off the Ecstasy sailing on the 4th, and it's apparent that while PHA and Carnival are doing their level best to make this go smoothly there are several limitations at the Bayport terminal.

 

- The directions given on the Bayport site are slightly wrong. If you are on 146, do not try to "exit" or go left on Port Road; that exit is closed on cruise days (according to an attendant). You must go one light farther south, which is Red Bluff Road, and follow the signs. If there are no signs, the exact route is: Left on Red Bluff Road until T, left on Old Hwy 146 until T, right on Port Road. If you can't find the cruise terminal after that, you need better glasses. :D

 

- Parking was AWESOME. Oh, and for the love of everything, BRING EXACT CHANGE. I did not try to pay with a credit card; I had a $50 ready to hand to the attendant and she was very pleased. You will be dropping off luggage and other passengers first before parking. There were plenty of spaces remaining after we were on board, so don't fret too much.

 

- The staff was AWESOME. Everyone was helpful, energetic and nice, even though they were all very harried as the previous sailing had been late and both groups of passengers (incoming and outgoing) slammed right into each other.

 

- The facility is TINY. When all the passengers are lined up to embark, the line stretches out the door and around away from the awning. It's hot outside (welcome to TX) but air conditioned inside.

 

- Debarkation went really well. We only had to stand in line at customs for about 15 minutes (compared to the almost 2 hours last year in Galveston). That might have had less to do with the facility and more to do with customs people that were barely glancing at declaration forms and passports. :D

 

Oh, and the trip up the Houston Ship Channel was cool to watch.

[nanuak]

Thanks for the recap on the Terminal. We leave in 28 days.:D

[*Mach*]

We just got off the Ecstasy sailing on the 4th, and it's apparent that while PHA and Carnival are doing their level best to make this go smoothly there are several limitations at the Bayport terminal.

 

- The directions given on the Bayport site are slightly wrong. If you are on 146, do not try to "exit" or go left on Port Road; that exit is closed on cruise days (according to an attendant). You must go one light farther south, which is Red Bluff Road, and follow the signs. If there are no signs, the exact route is: Left on Red Bluff Road until T, left on Old Hwy 146 until T, right on Port Road. If you can't find the cruise terminal after that, you need better glasses. :D

 

- Parking was AWESOME. Oh, and for the love of everything, BRING EXACT CHANGE. I did not try to pay with a credit card; I had a $50 ready to hand to the attendant and she was very pleased. You will be dropping off luggage and other passengers first before parking. There were plenty of spaces remaining after we were on board, so don't fret too much.

 

- The staff was AWESOME. Everyone was helpful, energetic and nice, even though they were all very harried as the previous sailing had been late and both groups of passengers (incoming and outgoing) slammed right into each other.

 

- The facility is TINY. When all the passengers are lined up to embark, the line stretches out the door and around away from the awning. It's hot outside (welcome to TX) but air conditioned inside.

 

- Debarkation went really well. We only had to stand in line at customs for about 15 minutes (compared to the almost 2 hours last year in Galveston). That might have had less to do with the facility and more to do with customs people that were barely glancing at declaration forms and passports. :D

 

Oh, and the trip up the Houston Ship Channel was cool to watch.

 

 

I returned from my voyage on the Conquest yesterday and my experience was somewhat different. Please note that the September 28th sailing of the Conquest was the first time to debark and embark a ship of this size at Bayport so some, perhaps much of this can be attributed to growing pains.

Getting there - the Houston Port Authority seems to want to keep Bayport a deep dark secret as signage for the terminal is non existent until you are THERE. A few diminutive blue and white signs pop up out of the grass but are far too easy to overlook.

Parking - I ended up parked in the grass directly against the terminal road. It wasn't a long distance but dragging luggage through fairly tall grass isn't fun, at least not for me.

Embark was deadly slow for a variety of reasons from failed passenger escalators and elevator to an overwhelmed group (SMALL group...) of customs officers.

Debark continued until 2 PM on the 28th of September preventing us from boarding 'til about 2:30. There were seats on the floor for 600 and pretty much the entire compliment of passengers were in the building.

There was no water available... none. Carnival had brought out a few coolers of water and paper cups but that was long gone by the time I got to the terminal at 11AM.

There is no public address system in the building. Carnival embark employees were trying to get information out but over the native sound of 3000+ people it was pretty futile.

We were given numbered tags but no one could explain what the tags were for. Bummer...

There was one gentleman working there that I recognized from my cruises from Galveston. I asked him what the hold up was and how the boarding sequence would progress. He informed me that boarding would be by zone (hence the numbered tags...) and he had no clue why we were delayed but expected that we would be on board in 15 minutes and that was at 11:15.

When I finally boarded and got to talk to some of the Carnival staff it became more apparent why we were late: customs. Eight officers without any computers and having to deal with 3000+ folks tasked them too heavily.

So, untested equipment, people and lack of a realistic plan made embark the worst I've experienced.

Our return ran smoother but, again, a lack of organization and just flat getting things wrong made it difficult.

I was off the ship at 10:30 (surprise!!!) and searching for my zone tagged luggage. I had zone 16 but zone 16 didn't have me. Being numbered I expected some sort of fairly natural progression but zone 16 was not in the vicinity of zones 14 and 15. It was hanging out with zone 12. My luggage, however, was not.

There were MANY folks who couldn't find their bags. Mine ended up in zone 19 rather than 16 where they belonged.

I have to applaud the Customs agent I dealt with. He had a smile on his face and wanted us gone just as badly as I wanted us gone.

One of these days Bayport will be up to speed but by that time I expect Carnival will be back in Galveston. Personally, I can't wait.

[dawyv]

I guess everybody was either tired out or the good people went home. When we embarked, the delay was primarily having a single set of staff trying to debark one full set of passengers while also embarking another set.

 

Debarkation started at about 9:40AM the morning of the 4th for self-assist. Regular debarkation began roughly 90 minutes later. By the time zone 25 (mine) was called--approximately 45 minutes after debarkation began--the terminal was all but empty. There were maybe 5-8 people in each of 5 Customs lines, and the line moved very fast. Maybe everybody on Ecstasy decided to self-assist, but I doubt it based on the sheer volume of luggage I saw being unloaded from the ship.

 

For me, debarkation was light years easier in Bayport than in Galveston (or maybe it's because my previous debarkation has been from Conquest, and this was from Ecstasy). Embarkation, alternatively, was not. It took a LOT longer to board Ecstasy than Conquest. Maybe the delay?

 

Either way, by our next cruise in March, they'll probably be back to Galveston.

[buckanear]

Please remember that much of the staff is pretty new or from RCCL in Galveston (the company I work for out of G-town picked up the carnival out of bayport) so it's a different system. Also, I know at least for the first few sailings, check-in was manual. This is part of the reason why I didn't agree with Carnival coming to the area for awhile. The staff has their own set of stuff to deal with at home and they were put together rather hastily.

 

But all will be well as Jeff and I will be there this sunday. :)

[mhww]

I have to agree with Mach. While our boarding on the 22nd went great...after all the Conquest had been sitting there for four days waiting on us....we had friends who were on board by 9:30am and we were not fair behind them, debarking on the 28th was a mess. We didn't really mind so much since we were sitting in comfort and were even served lunch on board but I sure felt sorry for all those people we could see both walking around the terminal and even more so those in the LONG line of traffic waiting to get into the still full parking lot.

 

I returned from my voyage on the Conquest yesterday and my experience was somewhat different. Please note that the September 28th sailing of the Conquest was the first time to debark and embark a ship of this size at Bayport so some, perhaps much of this can be attributed to growing pains.

 

Getting there - the Houston Port Authority seems to want to keep Bayport a deep dark secret as signage for the terminal is non existent until you are THERE. A few diminutive blue and white signs pop up out of the grass but are far too easy to overlook.

This was also a little bit of a problem for us but I am sure it was due to very little notice and not having planned to have masses of people looking for the terminal yet.

 

Parking - I ended up parked in the grass directly against the terminal road. It wasn't a long distance but dragging luggage through fairly tall grass isn't fun, at least not for me.

They had barely adequete parking for the two ship but the problem came when the failed to get us off the ship and out of the lot in a timely manner to make room for the next group. We got to our car at about 1:20pm, were not the last off the ship and the terminal was still VERY FULL of people waiting to find baggage and clear customs. As we drove out we passed at least 3 maybe 4 miles of cars waiting to get into a still very full parking lot. As I said these are the people are really felt for as we had watch this line built from the ship for several hours.

 

Embark was deadly slow for a variety of reasons from failed passenger escalators and elevator to an overwhelmed group (SMALL group...) of customs officers.

 

Debark continued until 2 PM on the 28th of September preventing us from boarding 'til about 2:30. There were seats on the floor for 600 and pretty much the entire compliment of passengers were in the building.

 

There was no water available... none. Carnival had brought out a few coolers of water and paper cups but that was long gone by the time I got to the terminal at 11AM.

 

There is no public address system in the building. Again, probably because they had no immediate plans to use the facilities. Carnival embark employees were trying to get information out but over the native sound of 3000+ people it was pretty futile.

 

We were given numbered tags but no one could explain what the tags were for. Bummer...

 

There was one gentleman working there that I recognized from my cruises from Galveston. I asked him what the hold up was and how the boarding sequence would progress. He informed me that boarding would be by zone (hence the numbered tags...) and he had no clue why we were delayed but expected that we would be on board in 15 minutes and that was at 11:15.

 

When I finally boarded and got to talk to some of the Carnival staff it became more apparent why we were late: customs. Eight officers without any computers and having to deal with 3000+ folks tasked them too heavily.

 

So, untested equipment, people and lack of a realistic plan made embark the worst I've experienced.

 

Our return ran smoother but, again, a lack of organization and just flat getting things wrong made it difficult.

 

I was off the ship at 10:30 (surprise!!!) and searching for my zone tagged luggage. I had zone 16 but zone 16 didn't have me. Being numbered I expected some sort of fairly natural progression but zone 16 was not in the vicinity of zones 14 and 15. It was hanging out with zone 12. My luggage, however, was not.

 

There were MANY folks who couldn't find their bags. Mine ended up in zone 19 rather than 16 where they belonged.

 

I have to applaud the Customs agent I dealt with. He had a smile on his face and wanted us gone just as badly as I wanted us gone.

 

One of these days Bayport will be up to speed but by that time I expect Carnival will be back in Galveston. Personally, I can't wait.

 

 

 

There are always a few gliches when a new facility open I guess and it is even more to be expected when they are ask to open with so little warning. Overall I think the facilities were nice as long as they do not try to use them for to many ships at once. They really should consider adding more parking to easy the turnover period when they have incoming and outgoing passengers cars both in the lot at once. Most everything else probably would have been fine or at least much better if it had been a planned opening rather than a rushed fill in. I hope that they can eventually work out the bugs and get a cruise line contracted into the terminal after Carnival goes back to Galveston.