Sprit Embarkation-San Diego

[iancal]

We are on our first Carnival cruise in March. A few questions... What is the best time for embarkation? We are light travellers-can we simply 'carry on' our 21" rollers rather that having than checking them? What time are the cabins generally available for occupancy? On our return, does Carnival have express debarkation and if so what time should we expect to be off the ship (assuming no late arrivals or customs delays)? Is this express debarkation available to non US citizens (canadian)? Thanks very much.

[crzndeb]

I'm sure you will get some answers here, but here is the link to WestCoast Departures...there is a wealth of info here

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=413

[yogi2929]

We rolled our 25" onto the ship (Elation) ourselves.

[cathyz]

We are on our first Carnival cruise in March. A few questions... What is the best time for embarkation? We are light travellers-can we simply 'carry on' our 21" rollers rather that having than checking them? What time are the cabins generally available for occupancy? On our return, does Carnival have express debarkation and if so what time should we expect to be off the ship (assuming no late arrivals or customs delays)? Is this express debarkation available to non US citizens (canadian)? Thanks very much.

In San Diego, they open the pier to incoming cruisers at about 11:00 (we actually entered about 10:30 last time) and were on board before noon. If you can carry all your luggage yourself and it's small enough to fit through the security scanner then you can carry it on, but your cabin may not be ready until 1:30 or so, so you will have to carry your stuff around until then (some folks will say you can 'sneak' past the fire doors into your cabin, but the stewards aren't happy about that). You might get off the ship as early as 8:00, but might not be able to get off until later, maybe as late as 10:00 depending on lots of things. Canadians do need to gather very early on debarkation day (usually 6:30 or so) to do immigration things, not sure if that impacts self debark (which they don't always do in San Diego because of the stairs at the pier).