DunkelBierJay

That's not worth the risk of missing the flight even with self-assist. Technically, if the ship makes it alongside in time, clears, you self-assist and are first in line, there is a chance, if you can get an uber/lyft quickly. There are too many variable though, and if I did that, I would be as stressed as I could be. I don't think I would do that even if the sailing was out of Port Everglades with the airport ten minutes away. Port Canaveral? Everything has to work perfectly. What if you looked at Jacksonville or Melbourne? I've flown into both before, because I hate Orlando airport...maybe there's a later flight out of one of those airports.

When there is an event like this it is interesting to observe human behaviour.  People who are otherwise logical and sane people begin to lose their ability to reason.   
Crew are making announcements but they are ignored.   People see other people ignoring the announcements and they begin to follow. It's grows into a mass of people congregating in an area despite crew best efforts to avoid that.  
Our internet continued to work and so did our drink packages but having to haul luggage around was a drag.  
It becomes a "get me outta here" thing even though there is no threat or risk on the ship.  Some people handle the stress well but many lose it.  You can feel a tension in the air.  When they finally start letting people off it's a free-for-all.  Total mob mentality, anything goes, run over grandma's feet with your luggage.  

That's a bummer. It's where I took this photo at sunset. You can vaguely see the Royal Caribbean HQ from there.

Check in your bags at the airport so you don’t have to later, and then go grab a decent meal in Little Havana via Uber/Lyft

What an awful experience.  I feel for you.
My advice - go through the trouble of getting a passport, both for you and your kids.  It's a hassle at first but so much easier all the way around after you have them.  No more dealing with birth certificates.   

Rarely, when I go to an all inclusive or do an excursion do I develop an emotional attachment to a place and to a staff on shore like I do with my stateroom attendant and MDR waiters, but Jaime's at the Blue Reef did that for my wife and me.
The staff and service is friendly, welcoming and impeccable. Martin, Digby and Rodrigo are at risk for becoming famous for their service and wonderful approach. The food is outstanding, the margaritas are really tasty (try the tamarind), and the atmosphere is festive and restful at the same time. The beach is fairly small, but the water is warm and shallow in close proximity to the huge reef off shore, and there is a rooftop pool with an amazing, albeit windy view when we were there. When going up the steps, you notice there are no room numbers. The rooms are designated by fish species names.
I really like the proximity to other amenities along the beach, and Pepe's Dive Shop which is attached is absolutely fantastic. It was staffed by Pepe (not the owner), Siri (divemaster), and Cata who I believe is also a divemaster/instructor.
The reviews on TripAdvisor are legit as well. My only hesitation is that the word will get out, and it will become increasingly difficult to get a reservation for next time. And, yes, I am going back asap.
Since the location is in the middle of the beach in Mahahual, there are vendors who come up trying to sell stuff, but they aren't pushy. One is in a pic below and is dressed as a mime.


 

 

 


 

The food is just as good, and the service provided by Rodrigo, Digby, and the others, believe it or not, is better imo...they show a lot of joy in what they do and have so much humor and appreciation, that it's hard to put words to it. They also manage the number of people coming from the cruise ships, so despite the more urban environment which was a concern going in at first, it's no big deal.
I also like the proximity to other amenities in Mahahual, the rooftop pool and Pepe, Siri and Cata at the dive shop. I believe the reef is closer to shore at that spot, too. They accepted my reservation without a deposit but I don't think that will be a permanent practice. It is much closer to the cruise port being in the middle of Mahahual (only a few doors down from the Krazy Lobster).
I had a tamarind margarita that blew my socks off after my dive.
If there is one drawback, the beach is busy with people trying to sell stuff, but they aren't pushy. They just move on.
Selfishly, I hope the word does not spread too quickly, because this resort is an uncut diamond in the rough.

For us, Jaime's at Blue Reef supplanted Maya Chan as a favorite destination at Costa Maya. It is the first all-inclusive I have been to that I plan on returning the next time. The staff is amazing, truly, and I really like the facility and proximity to the beach and other amenities, especially about a half dozen scuba shops within a 2-3 minute walk.
Digby and Rodrigo took GREAT care of us! Despite my dislike of the port area, it is worth navigating to get to a cab to the beach where it is.

The food is just as good, and the service provided by Rodrigo, Digby, and the others, believe it or not, is better imo...they show a lot of joy in what they do and have so much humor and appreciation, that it's hard to put words to it. They also manage the number of people coming from the cruise ships, so despite the more urban environment which was a concern going in at first, it's no big deal.
I also like the proximity to other amenities in Mahahual, the rooftop pool and Pepe, Siri and Cata at the dive shop. I believe the reef is closer to shore at that spot, too. They accepted my reservation without a deposit but I don't think that will be a permanent practice. It is much closer to the cruise port being in the middle of Mahahual (only a few doors down from the Krazy Lobster).
I had a tamarind margarita that blew my socks off after my dive.
If there is one drawback, the beach is busy with people trying to sell stuff, but they aren't pushy. They just move on.
Selfishly, I hope the word does not spread too quickly, because this resort is an uncut diamond in the rough.

The food is just as good, and the service provided by Rodrigo, Digby, and the others, believe it or not, is better imo...they show a lot of joy in what they do and have so much humor and appreciation, that it's hard to put words to it. They also manage the number of people coming from the cruise ships, so despite the more urban environment which was a concern going in at first, it's no big deal.
I also like the proximity to other amenities in Mahahual, the rooftop pool and Pepe, Siri and Cata at the dive shop. I believe the reef is closer to shore at that spot, too. They accepted my reservation without a deposit but I don't think that will be a permanent practice. It is much closer to the cruise port being in the middle of Mahahual (only a few doors down from the Krazy Lobster).
I had a tamarind margarita that blew my socks off after my dive.
If there is one drawback, the beach is busy with people trying to sell stuff, but they aren't pushy. They just move on.
Selfishly, I hope the word does not spread too quickly, because this resort is an uncut diamond in the rough.

The food is just as good, and the service provided by Rodrigo, Digby, and the others, believe it or not, is better imo...they show a lot of joy in what they do and have so much humor and appreciation, that it's hard to put words to it. They also manage the number of people coming from the cruise ships, so despite the more urban environment which was a concern going in at first, it's no big deal.
I also like the proximity to other amenities in Mahahual, the rooftop pool and Pepe, Siri and Cata at the dive shop. I believe the reef is closer to shore at that spot, too. They accepted my reservation without a deposit but I don't think that will be a permanent practice. It is much closer to the cruise port being in the middle of Mahahual (only a few doors down from the Krazy Lobster).
I had a tamarind margarita that blew my socks off after my dive.
If there is one drawback, the beach is busy with people trying to sell stuff, but they aren't pushy. They just move on.
Selfishly, I hope the word does not spread too quickly, because this resort is an uncut diamond in the rough.

Great perspective. Everyone on Serenade's sailing received three emails from Royal's comms team on 11/26.
Since Brilliance was mentioned in Serenade's I can only assume those on the next Brilliance sailing received similar emails. Below is a link to a detailed description of what I observed and experienced, and there is a screenshot of the last email from them saying to arrive 8 hours after the original check-in time. It's far from a perfect assessment, but it echoed a lot of the conversations we had on board during the sailing.
I think this may be the best Royal could do given that people notoriously fail to pay attention to detail...and there is no way for Royal to consider all of the different circumstances, especially for those who came from out of town and didn't have anywhere else to go. I think a huge majority of people on both sailings began arriving before 7:00 pm even if their original boarding time dictated that they should arrive at 9 or 9:30. We arrived a little after 7 with an adjusted 7:30 boarding time. Given that the first window for this was at 7:00 pm, and assuming there would be a line, I had no way of knowing it would be as long as it was at that time. On the way, we also went by the line for Brilliance and were pretty astounded it was all the way to the street. That was the first clue that it was going to be a long night with up to 10,000 people converging at virtually the same place at the same time with little infrastructure to support it. Terminal 3, where Brilliance was docked is much better than Terminal 6 just north of it where Serenade was docked is nothing more than a very small warehouse. If Brilliance was affected the way it was, Serenade would have the same or worse conditions.

For us, Jaime's at Blue Reef supplanted Maya Chan as a favorite destination at Costa Maya. It is the first all-inclusive I have been to that I plan on returning the next time. The staff is amazing, truly, and I really like the facility and proximity to the beach and other amenities, especially about a half dozen scuba shops within a 2-3 minute walk.
Digby and Rodrigo took GREAT care of us! Despite my dislike of the port area, it is worth navigating to get to a cab to the beach where it is.

Update...we are to check-in 8 hours after the original time with sailing at 11 pm. We made the best of the day.

I have time to kill at the Tampa airport, so below is a fairly detailed description of my wife's and my experience with embarkation and our perceptions on the affect on others for this sailing. This is quite a long post. There are additional posts about this on the ROLLCALL for this sailing.
My wife and I arrived in Tampa the day before our cruise and stayed downtown at the Embassy Suites. As is common when I stay near a cruise port, I woke up early and walked toward the terminals to see Serenade and Brilliance docked together at Terminals 6 and 3 respectively. It was still fairly foggy, but visibility seemed ok.
By the time I reached the terminals, the ships were not there, so I checked Marine Tracker, and Serenade was 40 miles away outside the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. I then searched #serenadeoftheseas on Instagram and found this photo (credit @queensonthehighseas):

As you can see from the comment exchange, the conditions outside Tampa Bay prolonged into the early afternoon, so uncertainty that we were going to embark that day grew. I looked into booking another night if that need materialized. So, my wife and I checked out after extending it and left our bags with the bellman at the hotel and went to Hattricks sports bar (recommended) intending to camp out and watch football.
We were there for about five hours monitoring emails from The Royal Comms team, Marine Tracker, Jim Van Fleet’s (Royal’s head meteorologist) twitter account and Instagram to stay current on what was happening. All provided information which combined to give a pretty full picture of what was happening. We received three emails from the Royal Comms team about the sailing. The last email came at 2:28 pm as shown below:

Our boarding time was 11:30 am, so we chose to stay at the sports bar and eat a meal for a few more hours and plan to arrive a little before our adjusted boarding time of 7:30 pm. About 5:00 pm, we walked back to our hotel, got our bags and waited in the lobby until about 6:45pm when we caught the free downtown trolly to the port area (very nice feature in downtown Tampa, btw). We arrived between Terminal 3 and 6 about 7:00 pm. By then, it was dark, and it was difficult to discern where to go. The way finding signage around the port for foot traffic in the dark is terrible. As Brilliance and Serenade were completing their debarkation process, lines for both sailings were forming. Very few people seemed to know where to go. After overcoming some confusion, we walked around 300 yards with our luggage from the trolly stop to the end of the Serenade line along Channelside drive adjacent to what I believe is an administration building for the Port of Tampa Authority. While we were clearly a little early, the number of people seemed to indicate that not all guests were following the instructions from the last Royal Comms team email, meaning that those scheduled later were arriving at the port and causing a bottleneck. I also noted that some guests bound for Brilliance were in the Serenade line. I would not be surprised if the same was true for Serenade guests in the Brilliance line several hundred yards away.
We were queued along Channelside Drive at E Kennedy for about forty-five minutes until the line started moving. It curved around the Port of Tampa Authority administration building into the port area at E Kennedy, and it was apparent that it wrapped all the way to the access gate to the terminal which was closed. Looking further at the terminal, the line extended from the entrance at the north of the building all along its length toward the south. It had quite a surreal feel to it. This was not a good situation.


the above two pics are at the corner of Channelside and E Kennedy by the Port of Tampa Authority Admin building -- we were at this corner for about one hour

pic shows the line from behind the Port of Tampa admin building to the gate to the terminal area. This line was 200 yards long from where I took it to the gate, and another fifty or so yards from the gate to the terminal building
My first observation was that a man in a blue shirt was directing traffic away from the entrance to Terminal 6 at Channelside and E Kennedy to McKay St which is 2 blocks north. While he was helping with the volume of traffic here at the main entrance, those driving in the area were confused. He did not appear to have any official insignia on his clothing and was not wearing a safety vest. I believe he worked for Intercruises. I feared that he would be run over. Customs and Border Patrol, Tampa Police, and Hillsborough County Sheriff’s vehicles all went through this intersection in their vehicles several times and did nothing to support this man. An ambulance and Tampa Fire responded to a medical call further up in our line. They further blocked ingress and egress for about thirty minutes. When they left, the line began inching along. After two hours, we reached the main gate to the terminal area where port staff and Hillsborough County Sheriff Deputies were managing the flow of foot traffic to the terminal building which was overwhelmed. I was particularly irked when I observed the deputies leaning against the barrier, talking and laughing while the chaos at Channelside and E Kennedy was still going on.
When we were ushered into the area adjacent to the terminal, porters were available to take bags. There was no where near enough of them. With the queue along the building, their entrance into the screening area with the large luggage carts was obstructed by people in line. There is no curb cutout directly in front of the entrance they were using, and as a result, several carts spilled bags and were close to tipping over with people in line right next to it. It was chaotic, poorly managed and unsafe. By the time we reached this point, we had been in line for two and a half hours. Note that it was 75 degrees Fahrenheit, and there was no water available. The only bathrooms were on the side of the terminal building, limited seating, and it was not sufficient for the crush of people. Another point of incredulity is in the fact that the line along the terminal building diverged into three separate lines ostensibly to take advantage of three security screening areas. This was about twenty yards long. It then merged back into two lines causing more confusion and frustration among those around us. The Intercruises staff who were there were overwhelmed and doing the best they could. I did not observe presence of Intercruises management.
I also observed Hillsborough County Sheriff Deputies standing around or leaning along the traffic barrier alongside the terminal building and moving or directing traffic that came up as a result of the infrequent drop offs happening there. I could not understand why one of them wasn’t at Channelside and E Kennedy where the man in the blue shirt was directing traffic.
We entered the building after three hours and started checking in. We finally boarded at about 10:15 pm. Throughout the experience, I was concerned for the elderly and those who were less agile dealing with these conditions. While at one point, I saw two hotel staff officers from Serenade walking along the line, I was not sure if they were assessing the situation or not. I did not get a chance to speak with them.
The Top Tier event was held the next day while at sea. It seemed that Captain Steig was not aware of the scope of the situation the night before as he mentioned only that the Coast Guard prevents vessels from entering the Bay during foggy conditions because of a catastrophe a couple decades ago when a cargo ship hit the previous Sunshine Skyway Bridge and caused it to collapse. Several motorists drove right into the bay where the collapse occurred because they couldn’t see due to the fog and were killed. While this Coast Guard order is completely understandable, at that point, I am not sure he was aware how long people stood in line before boarding. He referred to an instance when he was commanding on Brilliance and there was a fog event that held ships outside Tampa Bay for 36 hours causing the subsequent sailing to cancel. The difference between that event and this led to the bottleneck of people with two ships in the same situation on November 26.
Later in the cruise, I attended the Captain’s Corner to see if the senior officers had any other conclusions about embarkation and to hear additional comments. I was prepared to chip in when another guest articulated exactly what I was thinking. This was that the Port of Tampa seems to bear a great deal of the responsibility, and this reflects extremely poorly on them. I also believe that Intercruises did not have enough staff on hand to deal with checking in guests for two ships which were sailing six to seven hours late. I also believe Royal’s assessment should be quicker with instances like this. At a minimum, I think that water should have been provided to guests in line, and accommodations for the elderly and disabled made clearer. I view the embarkation for this sailing to be a complete breakdown by all parties involved, and I plan to share this information with the Port of Tampa, Intercruises management, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office and the Crown and Anchor Society.
 
 

I have time to kill at the Tampa airport, so below is a fairly detailed description of my wife's and my experience with embarkation and our perceptions on the affect on others for this sailing. This is quite a long post. There are additional posts about this on the ROLLCALL for this sailing.
My wife and I arrived in Tampa the day before our cruise and stayed downtown at the Embassy Suites. As is common when I stay near a cruise port, I woke up early and walked toward the terminals to see Serenade and Brilliance docked together at Terminals 6 and 3 respectively. It was still fairly foggy, but visibility seemed ok.
By the time I reached the terminals, the ships were not there, so I checked Marine Tracker, and Serenade was 40 miles away outside the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. I then searched #serenadeoftheseas on Instagram and found this photo (credit @queensonthehighseas):

As you can see from the comment exchange, the conditions outside Tampa Bay prolonged into the early afternoon, so uncertainty that we were going to embark that day grew. I looked into booking another night if that need materialized. So, my wife and I checked out after extending it and left our bags with the bellman at the hotel and went to Hattricks sports bar (recommended) intending to camp out and watch football.
We were there for about five hours monitoring emails from The Royal Comms team, Marine Tracker, Jim Van Fleet’s (Royal’s head meteorologist) twitter account and Instagram to stay current on what was happening. All provided information which combined to give a pretty full picture of what was happening. We received three emails from the Royal Comms team about the sailing. The last email came at 2:28 pm as shown below:

Our boarding time was 11:30 am, so we chose to stay at the sports bar and eat a meal for a few more hours and plan to arrive a little before our adjusted boarding time of 7:30 pm. About 5:00 pm, we walked back to our hotel, got our bags and waited in the lobby until about 6:45pm when we caught the free downtown trolly to the port area (very nice feature in downtown Tampa, btw). We arrived between Terminal 3 and 6 about 7:00 pm. By then, it was dark, and it was difficult to discern where to go. The way finding signage around the port for foot traffic in the dark is terrible. As Brilliance and Serenade were completing their debarkation process, lines for both sailings were forming. Very few people seemed to know where to go. After overcoming some confusion, we walked around 300 yards with our luggage from the trolly stop to the end of the Serenade line along Channelside drive adjacent to what I believe is an administration building for the Port of Tampa Authority. While we were clearly a little early, the number of people seemed to indicate that not all guests were following the instructions from the last Royal Comms team email, meaning that those scheduled later were arriving at the port and causing a bottleneck. I also noted that some guests bound for Brilliance were in the Serenade line. I would not be surprised if the same was true for Serenade guests in the Brilliance line several hundred yards away.
We were queued along Channelside Drive at E Kennedy for about forty-five minutes until the line started moving. It curved around the Port of Tampa Authority administration building into the port area at E Kennedy, and it was apparent that it wrapped all the way to the access gate to the terminal which was closed. Looking further at the terminal, the line extended from the entrance at the north of the building all along its length toward the south. It had quite a surreal feel to it. This was not a good situation.


the above two pics are at the corner of Channelside and E Kennedy by the Port of Tampa Authority Admin building -- we were at this corner for about one hour

pic shows the line from behind the Port of Tampa admin building to the gate to the terminal area. This line was 200 yards long from where I took it to the gate, and another fifty or so yards from the gate to the terminal building
My first observation was that a man in a blue shirt was directing traffic away from the entrance to Terminal 6 at Channelside and E Kennedy to McKay St which is 2 blocks north. While he was helping with the volume of traffic here at the main entrance, those driving in the area were confused. He did not appear to have any official insignia on his clothing and was not wearing a safety vest. I believe he worked for Intercruises. I feared that he would be run over. Customs and Border Patrol, Tampa Police, and Hillsborough County Sheriff’s vehicles all went through this intersection in their vehicles several times and did nothing to support this man. An ambulance and Tampa Fire responded to a medical call further up in our line. They further blocked ingress and egress for about thirty minutes. When they left, the line began inching along. After two hours, we reached the main gate to the terminal area where port staff and Hillsborough County Sheriff Deputies were managing the flow of foot traffic to the terminal building which was overwhelmed. I was particularly irked when I observed the deputies leaning against the barrier, talking and laughing while the chaos at Channelside and E Kennedy was still going on.
When we were ushered into the area adjacent to the terminal, porters were available to take bags. There was no where near enough of them. With the queue along the building, their entrance into the screening area with the large luggage carts was obstructed by people in line. There is no curb cutout directly in front of the entrance they were using, and as a result, several carts spilled bags and were close to tipping over with people in line right next to it. It was chaotic, poorly managed and unsafe. By the time we reached this point, we had been in line for two and a half hours. Note that it was 75 degrees Fahrenheit, and there was no water available. The only bathrooms were on the side of the terminal building, limited seating, and it was not sufficient for the crush of people. Another point of incredulity is in the fact that the line along the terminal building diverged into three separate lines ostensibly to take advantage of three security screening areas. This was about twenty yards long. It then merged back into two lines causing more confusion and frustration among those around us. The Intercruises staff who were there were overwhelmed and doing the best they could. I did not observe presence of Intercruises management.
I also observed Hillsborough County Sheriff Deputies standing around or leaning along the traffic barrier alongside the terminal building and moving or directing traffic that came up as a result of the infrequent drop offs happening there. I could not understand why one of them wasn’t at Channelside and E Kennedy where the man in the blue shirt was directing traffic.
We entered the building after three hours and started checking in. We finally boarded at about 10:15 pm. Throughout the experience, I was concerned for the elderly and those who were less agile dealing with these conditions. While at one point, I saw two hotel staff officers from Serenade walking along the line, I was not sure if they were assessing the situation or not. I did not get a chance to speak with them.
The Top Tier event was held the next day while at sea. It seemed that Captain Steig was not aware of the scope of the situation the night before as he mentioned only that the Coast Guard prevents vessels from entering the Bay during foggy conditions because of a catastrophe a couple decades ago when a cargo ship hit the previous Sunshine Skyway Bridge and caused it to collapse. Several motorists drove right into the bay where the collapse occurred because they couldn’t see due to the fog and were killed. While this Coast Guard order is completely understandable, at that point, I am not sure he was aware how long people stood in line before boarding. He referred to an instance when he was commanding on Brilliance and there was a fog event that held ships outside Tampa Bay for 36 hours causing the subsequent sailing to cancel. The difference between that event and this led to the bottleneck of people with two ships in the same situation on November 26.
Later in the cruise, I attended the Captain’s Corner to see if the senior officers had any other conclusions about embarkation and to hear additional comments. I was prepared to chip in when another guest articulated exactly what I was thinking. This was that the Port of Tampa seems to bear a great deal of the responsibility, and this reflects extremely poorly on them. I also believe that Intercruises did not have enough staff on hand to deal with checking in guests for two ships which were sailing six to seven hours late. I also believe Royal’s assessment should be quicker with instances like this. At a minimum, I think that water should have been provided to guests in line, and accommodations for the elderly and disabled made clearer. I view the embarkation for this sailing to be a complete breakdown by all parties involved, and I plan to share this information with the Port of Tampa, Intercruises management, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office and the Crown and Anchor Society.
 
 

I have time to kill at the Tampa airport, so below is a fairly detailed description of my wife's and my experience with embarkation and our perceptions on the affect on others for this sailing. This is quite a long post. There are additional posts about this on the ROLLCALL for this sailing.
My wife and I arrived in Tampa the day before our cruise and stayed downtown at the Embassy Suites. As is common when I stay near a cruise port, I woke up early and walked toward the terminals to see Serenade and Brilliance docked together at Terminals 6 and 3 respectively. It was still fairly foggy, but visibility seemed ok.
By the time I reached the terminals, the ships were not there, so I checked Marine Tracker, and Serenade was 40 miles away outside the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. I then searched #serenadeoftheseas on Instagram and found this photo (credit @queensonthehighseas):

As you can see from the comment exchange, the conditions outside Tampa Bay prolonged into the early afternoon, so uncertainty that we were going to embark that day grew. I looked into booking another night if that need materialized. So, my wife and I checked out after extending it and left our bags with the bellman at the hotel and went to Hattricks sports bar (recommended) intending to camp out and watch football.
We were there for about five hours monitoring emails from The Royal Comms team, Marine Tracker, Jim Van Fleet’s (Royal’s head meteorologist) twitter account and Instagram to stay current on what was happening. All provided information which combined to give a pretty full picture of what was happening. We received three emails from the Royal Comms team about the sailing. The last email came at 2:28 pm as shown below:

Our boarding time was 11:30 am, so we chose to stay at the sports bar and eat a meal for a few more hours and plan to arrive a little before our adjusted boarding time of 7:30 pm. About 5:00 pm, we walked back to our hotel, got our bags and waited in the lobby until about 6:45pm when we caught the free downtown trolly to the port area (very nice feature in downtown Tampa, btw). We arrived between Terminal 3 and 6 about 7:00 pm. By then, it was dark, and it was difficult to discern where to go. The way finding signage around the port for foot traffic in the dark is terrible. As Brilliance and Serenade were completing their debarkation process, lines for both sailings were forming. Very few people seemed to know where to go. After overcoming some confusion, we walked around 300 yards with our luggage from the trolly stop to the end of the Serenade line along Channelside drive adjacent to what I believe is an administration building for the Port of Tampa Authority. While we were clearly a little early, the number of people seemed to indicate that not all guests were following the instructions from the last Royal Comms team email, meaning that those scheduled later were arriving at the port and causing a bottleneck. I also noted that some guests bound for Brilliance were in the Serenade line. I would not be surprised if the same was true for Serenade guests in the Brilliance line several hundred yards away.
We were queued along Channelside Drive at E Kennedy for about forty-five minutes until the line started moving. It curved around the Port of Tampa Authority administration building into the port area at E Kennedy, and it was apparent that it wrapped all the way to the access gate to the terminal which was closed. Looking further at the terminal, the line extended from the entrance at the north of the building all along its length toward the south. It had quite a surreal feel to it. This was not a good situation.


the above two pics are at the corner of Channelside and E Kennedy by the Port of Tampa Authority Admin building -- we were at this corner for about one hour

pic shows the line from behind the Port of Tampa admin building to the gate to the terminal area. This line was 200 yards long from where I took it to the gate, and another fifty or so yards from the gate to the terminal building
My first observation was that a man in a blue shirt was directing traffic away from the entrance to Terminal 6 at Channelside and E Kennedy to McKay St which is 2 blocks north. While he was helping with the volume of traffic here at the main entrance, those driving in the area were confused. He did not appear to have any official insignia on his clothing and was not wearing a safety vest. I believe he worked for Intercruises. I feared that he would be run over. Customs and Border Patrol, Tampa Police, and Hillsborough County Sheriff’s vehicles all went through this intersection in their vehicles several times and did nothing to support this man. An ambulance and Tampa Fire responded to a medical call further up in our line. They further blocked ingress and egress for about thirty minutes. When they left, the line began inching along. After two hours, we reached the main gate to the terminal area where port staff and Hillsborough County Sheriff Deputies were managing the flow of foot traffic to the terminal building which was overwhelmed. I was particularly irked when I observed the deputies leaning against the barrier, talking and laughing while the chaos at Channelside and E Kennedy was still going on.
When we were ushered into the area adjacent to the terminal, porters were available to take bags. There was no where near enough of them. With the queue along the building, their entrance into the screening area with the large luggage carts was obstructed by people in line. There is no curb cutout directly in front of the entrance they were using, and as a result, several carts spilled bags and were close to tipping over with people in line right next to it. It was chaotic, poorly managed and unsafe. By the time we reached this point, we had been in line for two and a half hours. Note that it was 75 degrees Fahrenheit, and there was no water available. The only bathrooms were on the side of the terminal building, limited seating, and it was not sufficient for the crush of people. Another point of incredulity is in the fact that the line along the terminal building diverged into three separate lines ostensibly to take advantage of three security screening areas. This was about twenty yards long. It then merged back into two lines causing more confusion and frustration among those around us. The Intercruises staff who were there were overwhelmed and doing the best they could. I did not observe presence of Intercruises management.
I also observed Hillsborough County Sheriff Deputies standing around or leaning along the traffic barrier alongside the terminal building and moving or directing traffic that came up as a result of the infrequent drop offs happening there. I could not understand why one of them wasn’t at Channelside and E Kennedy where the man in the blue shirt was directing traffic.
We entered the building after three hours and started checking in. We finally boarded at about 10:15 pm. Throughout the experience, I was concerned for the elderly and those who were less agile dealing with these conditions. While at one point, I saw two hotel staff officers from Serenade walking along the line, I was not sure if they were assessing the situation or not. I did not get a chance to speak with them.
The Top Tier event was held the next day while at sea. It seemed that Captain Steig was not aware of the scope of the situation the night before as he mentioned only that the Coast Guard prevents vessels from entering the Bay during foggy conditions because of a catastrophe a couple decades ago when a cargo ship hit the previous Sunshine Skyway Bridge and caused it to collapse. Several motorists drove right into the bay where the collapse occurred because they couldn’t see due to the fog and were killed. While this Coast Guard order is completely understandable, at that point, I am not sure he was aware how long people stood in line before boarding. He referred to an instance when he was commanding on Brilliance and there was a fog event that held ships outside Tampa Bay for 36 hours causing the subsequent sailing to cancel. The difference between that event and this led to the bottleneck of people with two ships in the same situation on November 26.
Later in the cruise, I attended the Captain’s Corner to see if the senior officers had any other conclusions about embarkation and to hear additional comments. I was prepared to chip in when another guest articulated exactly what I was thinking. This was that the Port of Tampa seems to bear a great deal of the responsibility, and this reflects extremely poorly on them. I also believe that Intercruises did not have enough staff on hand to deal with checking in guests for two ships which were sailing six to seven hours late. I also believe Royal’s assessment should be quicker with instances like this. At a minimum, I think that water should have been provided to guests in line, and accommodations for the elderly and disabled made clearer. I view the embarkation for this sailing to be a complete breakdown by all parties involved, and I plan to share this information with the Port of Tampa, Intercruises management, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office and the Crown and Anchor Society.
 
 

I have time to kill at the Tampa airport, so below is a fairly detailed description of my wife's and my experience with embarkation and our perceptions on the affect on others for this sailing. This is quite a long post. There are additional posts about this on the ROLLCALL for this sailing.
My wife and I arrived in Tampa the day before our cruise and stayed downtown at the Embassy Suites. As is common when I stay near a cruise port, I woke up early and walked toward the terminals to see Serenade and Brilliance docked together at Terminals 6 and 3 respectively. It was still fairly foggy, but visibility seemed ok.
By the time I reached the terminals, the ships were not there, so I checked Marine Tracker, and Serenade was 40 miles away outside the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. I then searched #serenadeoftheseas on Instagram and found this photo (credit @queensonthehighseas):

As you can see from the comment exchange, the conditions outside Tampa Bay prolonged into the early afternoon, so uncertainty that we were going to embark that day grew. I looked into booking another night if that need materialized. So, my wife and I checked out after extending it and left our bags with the bellman at the hotel and went to Hattricks sports bar (recommended) intending to camp out and watch football.
We were there for about five hours monitoring emails from The Royal Comms team, Marine Tracker, Jim Van Fleet’s (Royal’s head meteorologist) twitter account and Instagram to stay current on what was happening. All provided information which combined to give a pretty full picture of what was happening. We received three emails from the Royal Comms team about the sailing. The last email came at 2:28 pm as shown below:

Our boarding time was 11:30 am, so we chose to stay at the sports bar and eat a meal for a few more hours and plan to arrive a little before our adjusted boarding time of 7:30 pm. About 5:00 pm, we walked back to our hotel, got our bags and waited in the lobby until about 6:45pm when we caught the free downtown trolly to the port area (very nice feature in downtown Tampa, btw). We arrived between Terminal 3 and 6 about 7:00 pm. By then, it was dark, and it was difficult to discern where to go. The way finding signage around the port for foot traffic in the dark is terrible. As Brilliance and Serenade were completing their debarkation process, lines for both sailings were forming. Very few people seemed to know where to go. After overcoming some confusion, we walked around 300 yards with our luggage from the trolly stop to the end of the Serenade line along Channelside drive adjacent to what I believe is an administration building for the Port of Tampa Authority. While we were clearly a little early, the number of people seemed to indicate that not all guests were following the instructions from the last Royal Comms team email, meaning that those scheduled later were arriving at the port and causing a bottleneck. I also noted that some guests bound for Brilliance were in the Serenade line. I would not be surprised if the same was true for Serenade guests in the Brilliance line several hundred yards away.
We were queued along Channelside Drive at E Kennedy for about forty-five minutes until the line started moving. It curved around the Port of Tampa Authority administration building into the port area at E Kennedy, and it was apparent that it wrapped all the way to the access gate to the terminal which was closed. Looking further at the terminal, the line extended from the entrance at the north of the building all along its length toward the south. It had quite a surreal feel to it. This was not a good situation.


the above two pics are at the corner of Channelside and E Kennedy by the Port of Tampa Authority Admin building -- we were at this corner for about one hour

pic shows the line from behind the Port of Tampa admin building to the gate to the terminal area. This line was 200 yards long from where I took it to the gate, and another fifty or so yards from the gate to the terminal building
My first observation was that a man in a blue shirt was directing traffic away from the entrance to Terminal 6 at Channelside and E Kennedy to McKay St which is 2 blocks north. While he was helping with the volume of traffic here at the main entrance, those driving in the area were confused. He did not appear to have any official insignia on his clothing and was not wearing a safety vest. I believe he worked for Intercruises. I feared that he would be run over. Customs and Border Patrol, Tampa Police, and Hillsborough County Sheriff’s vehicles all went through this intersection in their vehicles several times and did nothing to support this man. An ambulance and Tampa Fire responded to a medical call further up in our line. They further blocked ingress and egress for about thirty minutes. When they left, the line began inching along. After two hours, we reached the main gate to the terminal area where port staff and Hillsborough County Sheriff Deputies were managing the flow of foot traffic to the terminal building which was overwhelmed. I was particularly irked when I observed the deputies leaning against the barrier, talking and laughing while the chaos at Channelside and E Kennedy was still going on.
When we were ushered into the area adjacent to the terminal, porters were available to take bags. There was no where near enough of them. With the queue along the building, their entrance into the screening area with the large luggage carts was obstructed by people in line. There is no curb cutout directly in front of the entrance they were using, and as a result, several carts spilled bags and were close to tipping over with people in line right next to it. It was chaotic, poorly managed and unsafe. By the time we reached this point, we had been in line for two and a half hours. Note that it was 75 degrees Fahrenheit, and there was no water available. The only bathrooms were on the side of the terminal building, limited seating, and it was not sufficient for the crush of people. Another point of incredulity is in the fact that the line along the terminal building diverged into three separate lines ostensibly to take advantage of three security screening areas. This was about twenty yards long. It then merged back into two lines causing more confusion and frustration among those around us. The Intercruises staff who were there were overwhelmed and doing the best they could. I did not observe presence of Intercruises management.
I also observed Hillsborough County Sheriff Deputies standing around or leaning along the traffic barrier alongside the terminal building and moving or directing traffic that came up as a result of the infrequent drop offs happening there. I could not understand why one of them wasn’t at Channelside and E Kennedy where the man in the blue shirt was directing traffic.
We entered the building after three hours and started checking in. We finally boarded at about 10:15 pm. Throughout the experience, I was concerned for the elderly and those who were less agile dealing with these conditions. While at one point, I saw two hotel staff officers from Serenade walking along the line, I was not sure if they were assessing the situation or not. I did not get a chance to speak with them.
The Top Tier event was held the next day while at sea. It seemed that Captain Steig was not aware of the scope of the situation the night before as he mentioned only that the Coast Guard prevents vessels from entering the Bay during foggy conditions because of a catastrophe a couple decades ago when a cargo ship hit the previous Sunshine Skyway Bridge and caused it to collapse. Several motorists drove right into the bay where the collapse occurred because they couldn’t see due to the fog and were killed. While this Coast Guard order is completely understandable, at that point, I am not sure he was aware how long people stood in line before boarding. He referred to an instance when he was commanding on Brilliance and there was a fog event that held ships outside Tampa Bay for 36 hours causing the subsequent sailing to cancel. The difference between that event and this led to the bottleneck of people with two ships in the same situation on November 26.
Later in the cruise, I attended the Captain’s Corner to see if the senior officers had any other conclusions about embarkation and to hear additional comments. I was prepared to chip in when another guest articulated exactly what I was thinking. This was that the Port of Tampa seems to bear a great deal of the responsibility, and this reflects extremely poorly on them. I also believe that Intercruises did not have enough staff on hand to deal with checking in guests for two ships which were sailing six to seven hours late. I also believe Royal’s assessment should be quicker with instances like this. At a minimum, I think that water should have been provided to guests in line, and accommodations for the elderly and disabled made clearer. I view the embarkation for this sailing to be a complete breakdown by all parties involved, and I plan to share this information with the Port of Tampa, Intercruises management, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office and the Crown and Anchor Society.
 
 

I have time to kill at the Tampa airport, so below is a fairly detailed description of my wife's and my experience with embarkation and our perceptions on the affect on others for this sailing. This is quite a long post. There are additional posts about this on the ROLLCALL for this sailing.
My wife and I arrived in Tampa the day before our cruise and stayed downtown at the Embassy Suites. As is common when I stay near a cruise port, I woke up early and walked toward the terminals to see Serenade and Brilliance docked together at Terminals 6 and 3 respectively. It was still fairly foggy, but visibility seemed ok.
By the time I reached the terminals, the ships were not there, so I checked Marine Tracker, and Serenade was 40 miles away outside the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. I then searched #serenadeoftheseas on Instagram and found this photo (credit @queensonthehighseas):

As you can see from the comment exchange, the conditions outside Tampa Bay prolonged into the early afternoon, so uncertainty that we were going to embark that day grew. I looked into booking another night if that need materialized. So, my wife and I checked out after extending it and left our bags with the bellman at the hotel and went to Hattricks sports bar (recommended) intending to camp out and watch football.
We were there for about five hours monitoring emails from The Royal Comms team, Marine Tracker, Jim Van Fleet’s (Royal’s head meteorologist) twitter account and Instagram to stay current on what was happening. All provided information which combined to give a pretty full picture of what was happening. We received three emails from the Royal Comms team about the sailing. The last email came at 2:28 pm as shown below:

Our boarding time was 11:30 am, so we chose to stay at the sports bar and eat a meal for a few more hours and plan to arrive a little before our adjusted boarding time of 7:30 pm. About 5:00 pm, we walked back to our hotel, got our bags and waited in the lobby until about 6:45pm when we caught the free downtown trolly to the port area (very nice feature in downtown Tampa, btw). We arrived between Terminal 3 and 6 about 7:00 pm. By then, it was dark, and it was difficult to discern where to go. The way finding signage around the port for foot traffic in the dark is terrible. As Brilliance and Serenade were completing their debarkation process, lines for both sailings were forming. Very few people seemed to know where to go. After overcoming some confusion, we walked around 300 yards with our luggage from the trolly stop to the end of the Serenade line along Channelside drive adjacent to what I believe is an administration building for the Port of Tampa Authority. While we were clearly a little early, the number of people seemed to indicate that not all guests were following the instructions from the last Royal Comms team email, meaning that those scheduled later were arriving at the port and causing a bottleneck. I also noted that some guests bound for Brilliance were in the Serenade line. I would not be surprised if the same was true for Serenade guests in the Brilliance line several hundred yards away.
We were queued along Channelside Drive at E Kennedy for about forty-five minutes until the line started moving. It curved around the Port of Tampa Authority administration building into the port area at E Kennedy, and it was apparent that it wrapped all the way to the access gate to the terminal which was closed. Looking further at the terminal, the line extended from the entrance at the north of the building all along its length toward the south. It had quite a surreal feel to it. This was not a good situation.


the above two pics are at the corner of Channelside and E Kennedy by the Port of Tampa Authority Admin building -- we were at this corner for about one hour

pic shows the line from behind the Port of Tampa admin building to the gate to the terminal area. This line was 200 yards long from where I took it to the gate, and another fifty or so yards from the gate to the terminal building
My first observation was that a man in a blue shirt was directing traffic away from the entrance to Terminal 6 at Channelside and E Kennedy to McKay St which is 2 blocks north. While he was helping with the volume of traffic here at the main entrance, those driving in the area were confused. He did not appear to have any official insignia on his clothing and was not wearing a safety vest. I believe he worked for Intercruises. I feared that he would be run over. Customs and Border Patrol, Tampa Police, and Hillsborough County Sheriff’s vehicles all went through this intersection in their vehicles several times and did nothing to support this man. An ambulance and Tampa Fire responded to a medical call further up in our line. They further blocked ingress and egress for about thirty minutes. When they left, the line began inching along. After two hours, we reached the main gate to the terminal area where port staff and Hillsborough County Sheriff Deputies were managing the flow of foot traffic to the terminal building which was overwhelmed. I was particularly irked when I observed the deputies leaning against the barrier, talking and laughing while the chaos at Channelside and E Kennedy was still going on.
When we were ushered into the area adjacent to the terminal, porters were available to take bags. There was no where near enough of them. With the queue along the building, their entrance into the screening area with the large luggage carts was obstructed by people in line. There is no curb cutout directly in front of the entrance they were using, and as a result, several carts spilled bags and were close to tipping over with people in line right next to it. It was chaotic, poorly managed and unsafe. By the time we reached this point, we had been in line for two and a half hours. Note that it was 75 degrees Fahrenheit, and there was no water available. The only bathrooms were on the side of the terminal building, limited seating, and it was not sufficient for the crush of people. Another point of incredulity is in the fact that the line along the terminal building diverged into three separate lines ostensibly to take advantage of three security screening areas. This was about twenty yards long. It then merged back into two lines causing more confusion and frustration among those around us. The Intercruises staff who were there were overwhelmed and doing the best they could. I did not observe presence of Intercruises management.
I also observed Hillsborough County Sheriff Deputies standing around or leaning along the traffic barrier alongside the terminal building and moving or directing traffic that came up as a result of the infrequent drop offs happening there. I could not understand why one of them wasn’t at Channelside and E Kennedy where the man in the blue shirt was directing traffic.
We entered the building after three hours and started checking in. We finally boarded at about 10:15 pm. Throughout the experience, I was concerned for the elderly and those who were less agile dealing with these conditions. While at one point, I saw two hotel staff officers from Serenade walking along the line, I was not sure if they were assessing the situation or not. I did not get a chance to speak with them.
The Top Tier event was held the next day while at sea. It seemed that Captain Steig was not aware of the scope of the situation the night before as he mentioned only that the Coast Guard prevents vessels from entering the Bay during foggy conditions because of a catastrophe a couple decades ago when a cargo ship hit the previous Sunshine Skyway Bridge and caused it to collapse. Several motorists drove right into the bay where the collapse occurred because they couldn’t see due to the fog and were killed. While this Coast Guard order is completely understandable, at that point, I am not sure he was aware how long people stood in line before boarding. He referred to an instance when he was commanding on Brilliance and there was a fog event that held ships outside Tampa Bay for 36 hours causing the subsequent sailing to cancel. The difference between that event and this led to the bottleneck of people with two ships in the same situation on November 26.
Later in the cruise, I attended the Captain’s Corner to see if the senior officers had any other conclusions about embarkation and to hear additional comments. I was prepared to chip in when another guest articulated exactly what I was thinking. This was that the Port of Tampa seems to bear a great deal of the responsibility, and this reflects extremely poorly on them. I also believe that Intercruises did not have enough staff on hand to deal with checking in guests for two ships which were sailing six to seven hours late. I also believe Royal’s assessment should be quicker with instances like this. At a minimum, I think that water should have been provided to guests in line, and accommodations for the elderly and disabled made clearer. I view the embarkation for this sailing to be a complete breakdown by all parties involved, and I plan to share this information with the Port of Tampa, Intercruises management, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office and the Crown and Anchor Society.
 
 

I have time to kill at the Tampa airport, so below is a fairly detailed description of my wife's and my experience with embarkation and our perceptions on the affect on others for this sailing. This is quite a long post. There are additional posts about this on the ROLLCALL for this sailing.
My wife and I arrived in Tampa the day before our cruise and stayed downtown at the Embassy Suites. As is common when I stay near a cruise port, I woke up early and walked toward the terminals to see Serenade and Brilliance docked together at Terminals 6 and 3 respectively. It was still fairly foggy, but visibility seemed ok.
By the time I reached the terminals, the ships were not there, so I checked Marine Tracker, and Serenade was 40 miles away outside the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. I then searched #serenadeoftheseas on Instagram and found this photo (credit @queensonthehighseas):

As you can see from the comment exchange, the conditions outside Tampa Bay prolonged into the early afternoon, so uncertainty that we were going to embark that day grew. I looked into booking another night if that need materialized. So, my wife and I checked out after extending it and left our bags with the bellman at the hotel and went to Hattricks sports bar (recommended) intending to camp out and watch football.
We were there for about five hours monitoring emails from The Royal Comms team, Marine Tracker, Jim Van Fleet’s (Royal’s head meteorologist) twitter account and Instagram to stay current on what was happening. All provided information which combined to give a pretty full picture of what was happening. We received three emails from the Royal Comms team about the sailing. The last email came at 2:28 pm as shown below:

Our boarding time was 11:30 am, so we chose to stay at the sports bar and eat a meal for a few more hours and plan to arrive a little before our adjusted boarding time of 7:30 pm. About 5:00 pm, we walked back to our hotel, got our bags and waited in the lobby until about 6:45pm when we caught the free downtown trolly to the port area (very nice feature in downtown Tampa, btw). We arrived between Terminal 3 and 6 about 7:00 pm. By then, it was dark, and it was difficult to discern where to go. The way finding signage around the port for foot traffic in the dark is terrible. As Brilliance and Serenade were completing their debarkation process, lines for both sailings were forming. Very few people seemed to know where to go. After overcoming some confusion, we walked around 300 yards with our luggage from the trolly stop to the end of the Serenade line along Channelside drive adjacent to what I believe is an administration building for the Port of Tampa Authority. While we were clearly a little early, the number of people seemed to indicate that not all guests were following the instructions from the last Royal Comms team email, meaning that those scheduled later were arriving at the port and causing a bottleneck. I also noted that some guests bound for Brilliance were in the Serenade line. I would not be surprised if the same was true for Serenade guests in the Brilliance line several hundred yards away.
We were queued along Channelside Drive at E Kennedy for about forty-five minutes until the line started moving. It curved around the Port of Tampa Authority administration building into the port area at E Kennedy, and it was apparent that it wrapped all the way to the access gate to the terminal which was closed. Looking further at the terminal, the line extended from the entrance at the north of the building all along its length toward the south. It had quite a surreal feel to it. This was not a good situation.


the above two pics are at the corner of Channelside and E Kennedy by the Port of Tampa Authority Admin building -- we were at this corner for about one hour

pic shows the line from behind the Port of Tampa admin building to the gate to the terminal area. This line was 200 yards long from where I took it to the gate, and another fifty or so yards from the gate to the terminal building
My first observation was that a man in a blue shirt was directing traffic away from the entrance to Terminal 6 at Channelside and E Kennedy to McKay St which is 2 blocks north. While he was helping with the volume of traffic here at the main entrance, those driving in the area were confused. He did not appear to have any official insignia on his clothing and was not wearing a safety vest. I believe he worked for Intercruises. I feared that he would be run over. Customs and Border Patrol, Tampa Police, and Hillsborough County Sheriff’s vehicles all went through this intersection in their vehicles several times and did nothing to support this man. An ambulance and Tampa Fire responded to a medical call further up in our line. They further blocked ingress and egress for about thirty minutes. When they left, the line began inching along. After two hours, we reached the main gate to the terminal area where port staff and Hillsborough County Sheriff Deputies were managing the flow of foot traffic to the terminal building which was overwhelmed. I was particularly irked when I observed the deputies leaning against the barrier, talking and laughing while the chaos at Channelside and E Kennedy was still going on.
When we were ushered into the area adjacent to the terminal, porters were available to take bags. There was no where near enough of them. With the queue along the building, their entrance into the screening area with the large luggage carts was obstructed by people in line. There is no curb cutout directly in front of the entrance they were using, and as a result, several carts spilled bags and were close to tipping over with people in line right next to it. It was chaotic, poorly managed and unsafe. By the time we reached this point, we had been in line for two and a half hours. Note that it was 75 degrees Fahrenheit, and there was no water available. The only bathrooms were on the side of the terminal building, limited seating, and it was not sufficient for the crush of people. Another point of incredulity is in the fact that the line along the terminal building diverged into three separate lines ostensibly to take advantage of three security screening areas. This was about twenty yards long. It then merged back into two lines causing more confusion and frustration among those around us. The Intercruises staff who were there were overwhelmed and doing the best they could. I did not observe presence of Intercruises management.
I also observed Hillsborough County Sheriff Deputies standing around or leaning along the traffic barrier alongside the terminal building and moving or directing traffic that came up as a result of the infrequent drop offs happening there. I could not understand why one of them wasn’t at Channelside and E Kennedy where the man in the blue shirt was directing traffic.
We entered the building after three hours and started checking in. We finally boarded at about 10:15 pm. Throughout the experience, I was concerned for the elderly and those who were less agile dealing with these conditions. While at one point, I saw two hotel staff officers from Serenade walking along the line, I was not sure if they were assessing the situation or not. I did not get a chance to speak with them.
The Top Tier event was held the next day while at sea. It seemed that Captain Steig was not aware of the scope of the situation the night before as he mentioned only that the Coast Guard prevents vessels from entering the Bay during foggy conditions because of a catastrophe a couple decades ago when a cargo ship hit the previous Sunshine Skyway Bridge and caused it to collapse. Several motorists drove right into the bay where the collapse occurred because they couldn’t see due to the fog and were killed. While this Coast Guard order is completely understandable, at that point, I am not sure he was aware how long people stood in line before boarding. He referred to an instance when he was commanding on Brilliance and there was a fog event that held ships outside Tampa Bay for 36 hours causing the subsequent sailing to cancel. The difference between that event and this led to the bottleneck of people with two ships in the same situation on November 26.
Later in the cruise, I attended the Captain’s Corner to see if the senior officers had any other conclusions about embarkation and to hear additional comments. I was prepared to chip in when another guest articulated exactly what I was thinking. This was that the Port of Tampa seems to bear a great deal of the responsibility, and this reflects extremely poorly on them. I also believe that Intercruises did not have enough staff on hand to deal with checking in guests for two ships which were sailing six to seven hours late. I also believe Royal’s assessment should be quicker with instances like this. At a minimum, I think that water should have been provided to guests in line, and accommodations for the elderly and disabled made clearer. I view the embarkation for this sailing to be a complete breakdown by all parties involved, and I plan to share this information with the Port of Tampa, Intercruises management, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office and the Crown and Anchor Society.
 
 

I have time to kill at the Tampa airport, so below is a fairly detailed description of my wife's and my experience with embarkation and our perceptions on the affect on others for this sailing. This is quite a long post. There are additional posts about this on the ROLLCALL for this sailing.
My wife and I arrived in Tampa the day before our cruise and stayed downtown at the Embassy Suites. As is common when I stay near a cruise port, I woke up early and walked toward the terminals to see Serenade and Brilliance docked together at Terminals 6 and 3 respectively. It was still fairly foggy, but visibility seemed ok.
By the time I reached the terminals, the ships were not there, so I checked Marine Tracker, and Serenade was 40 miles away outside the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. I then searched #serenadeoftheseas on Instagram and found this photo (credit @queensonthehighseas):

As you can see from the comment exchange, the conditions outside Tampa Bay prolonged into the early afternoon, so uncertainty that we were going to embark that day grew. I looked into booking another night if that need materialized. So, my wife and I checked out after extending it and left our bags with the bellman at the hotel and went to Hattricks sports bar (recommended) intending to camp out and watch football.
We were there for about five hours monitoring emails from The Royal Comms team, Marine Tracker, Jim Van Fleet’s (Royal’s head meteorologist) twitter account and Instagram to stay current on what was happening. All provided information which combined to give a pretty full picture of what was happening. We received three emails from the Royal Comms team about the sailing. The last email came at 2:28 pm as shown below:

Our boarding time was 11:30 am, so we chose to stay at the sports bar and eat a meal for a few more hours and plan to arrive a little before our adjusted boarding time of 7:30 pm. About 5:00 pm, we walked back to our hotel, got our bags and waited in the lobby until about 6:45pm when we caught the free downtown trolly to the port area (very nice feature in downtown Tampa, btw). We arrived between Terminal 3 and 6 about 7:00 pm. By then, it was dark, and it was difficult to discern where to go. The way finding signage around the port for foot traffic in the dark is terrible. As Brilliance and Serenade were completing their debarkation process, lines for both sailings were forming. Very few people seemed to know where to go. After overcoming some confusion, we walked around 300 yards with our luggage from the trolly stop to the end of the Serenade line along Channelside drive adjacent to what I believe is an administration building for the Port of Tampa Authority. While we were clearly a little early, the number of people seemed to indicate that not all guests were following the instructions from the last Royal Comms team email, meaning that those scheduled later were arriving at the port and causing a bottleneck. I also noted that some guests bound for Brilliance were in the Serenade line. I would not be surprised if the same was true for Serenade guests in the Brilliance line several hundred yards away.
We were queued along Channelside Drive at E Kennedy for about forty-five minutes until the line started moving. It curved around the Port of Tampa Authority administration building into the port area at E Kennedy, and it was apparent that it wrapped all the way to the access gate to the terminal which was closed. Looking further at the terminal, the line extended from the entrance at the north of the building all along its length toward the south. It had quite a surreal feel to it. This was not a good situation.


the above two pics are at the corner of Channelside and E Kennedy by the Port of Tampa Authority Admin building -- we were at this corner for about one hour

pic shows the line from behind the Port of Tampa admin building to the gate to the terminal area. This line was 200 yards long from where I took it to the gate, and another fifty or so yards from the gate to the terminal building
My first observation was that a man in a blue shirt was directing traffic away from the entrance to Terminal 6 at Channelside and E Kennedy to McKay St which is 2 blocks north. While he was helping with the volume of traffic here at the main entrance, those driving in the area were confused. He did not appear to have any official insignia on his clothing and was not wearing a safety vest. I believe he worked for Intercruises. I feared that he would be run over. Customs and Border Patrol, Tampa Police, and Hillsborough County Sheriff’s vehicles all went through this intersection in their vehicles several times and did nothing to support this man. An ambulance and Tampa Fire responded to a medical call further up in our line. They further blocked ingress and egress for about thirty minutes. When they left, the line began inching along. After two hours, we reached the main gate to the terminal area where port staff and Hillsborough County Sheriff Deputies were managing the flow of foot traffic to the terminal building which was overwhelmed. I was particularly irked when I observed the deputies leaning against the barrier, talking and laughing while the chaos at Channelside and E Kennedy was still going on.
When we were ushered into the area adjacent to the terminal, porters were available to take bags. There was no where near enough of them. With the queue along the building, their entrance into the screening area with the large luggage carts was obstructed by people in line. There is no curb cutout directly in front of the entrance they were using, and as a result, several carts spilled bags and were close to tipping over with people in line right next to it. It was chaotic, poorly managed and unsafe. By the time we reached this point, we had been in line for two and a half hours. Note that it was 75 degrees Fahrenheit, and there was no water available. The only bathrooms were on the side of the terminal building, limited seating, and it was not sufficient for the crush of people. Another point of incredulity is in the fact that the line along the terminal building diverged into three separate lines ostensibly to take advantage of three security screening areas. This was about twenty yards long. It then merged back into two lines causing more confusion and frustration among those around us. The Intercruises staff who were there were overwhelmed and doing the best they could. I did not observe presence of Intercruises management.
I also observed Hillsborough County Sheriff Deputies standing around or leaning along the traffic barrier alongside the terminal building and moving or directing traffic that came up as a result of the infrequent drop offs happening there. I could not understand why one of them wasn’t at Channelside and E Kennedy where the man in the blue shirt was directing traffic.
We entered the building after three hours and started checking in. We finally boarded at about 10:15 pm. Throughout the experience, I was concerned for the elderly and those who were less agile dealing with these conditions. While at one point, I saw two hotel staff officers from Serenade walking along the line, I was not sure if they were assessing the situation or not. I did not get a chance to speak with them.
The Top Tier event was held the next day while at sea. It seemed that Captain Steig was not aware of the scope of the situation the night before as he mentioned only that the Coast Guard prevents vessels from entering the Bay during foggy conditions because of a catastrophe a couple decades ago when a cargo ship hit the previous Sunshine Skyway Bridge and caused it to collapse. Several motorists drove right into the bay where the collapse occurred because they couldn’t see due to the fog and were killed. While this Coast Guard order is completely understandable, at that point, I am not sure he was aware how long people stood in line before boarding. He referred to an instance when he was commanding on Brilliance and there was a fog event that held ships outside Tampa Bay for 36 hours causing the subsequent sailing to cancel. The difference between that event and this led to the bottleneck of people with two ships in the same situation on November 26.
Later in the cruise, I attended the Captain’s Corner to see if the senior officers had any other conclusions about embarkation and to hear additional comments. I was prepared to chip in when another guest articulated exactly what I was thinking. This was that the Port of Tampa seems to bear a great deal of the responsibility, and this reflects extremely poorly on them. I also believe that Intercruises did not have enough staff on hand to deal with checking in guests for two ships which were sailing six to seven hours late. I also believe Royal’s assessment should be quicker with instances like this. At a minimum, I think that water should have been provided to guests in line, and accommodations for the elderly and disabled made clearer. I view the embarkation for this sailing to be a complete breakdown by all parties involved, and I plan to share this information with the Port of Tampa, Intercruises management, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office and the Crown and Anchor Society.
 
 

I have time to kill at the Tampa airport, so below is a fairly detailed description of my wife's and my experience with embarkation and our perceptions on the affect on others for this sailing. This is quite a long post. There are additional posts about this on the ROLLCALL for this sailing.
My wife and I arrived in Tampa the day before our cruise and stayed downtown at the Embassy Suites. As is common when I stay near a cruise port, I woke up early and walked toward the terminals to see Serenade and Brilliance docked together at Terminals 6 and 3 respectively. It was still fairly foggy, but visibility seemed ok.
By the time I reached the terminals, the ships were not there, so I checked Marine Tracker, and Serenade was 40 miles away outside the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. I then searched #serenadeoftheseas on Instagram and found this photo (credit @queensonthehighseas):

As you can see from the comment exchange, the conditions outside Tampa Bay prolonged into the early afternoon, so uncertainty that we were going to embark that day grew. I looked into booking another night if that need materialized. So, my wife and I checked out after extending it and left our bags with the bellman at the hotel and went to Hattricks sports bar (recommended) intending to camp out and watch football.
We were there for about five hours monitoring emails from The Royal Comms team, Marine Tracker, Jim Van Fleet’s (Royal’s head meteorologist) twitter account and Instagram to stay current on what was happening. All provided information which combined to give a pretty full picture of what was happening. We received three emails from the Royal Comms team about the sailing. The last email came at 2:28 pm as shown below:

Our boarding time was 11:30 am, so we chose to stay at the sports bar and eat a meal for a few more hours and plan to arrive a little before our adjusted boarding time of 7:30 pm. About 5:00 pm, we walked back to our hotel, got our bags and waited in the lobby until about 6:45pm when we caught the free downtown trolly to the port area (very nice feature in downtown Tampa, btw). We arrived between Terminal 3 and 6 about 7:00 pm. By then, it was dark, and it was difficult to discern where to go. The way finding signage around the port for foot traffic in the dark is terrible. As Brilliance and Serenade were completing their debarkation process, lines for both sailings were forming. Very few people seemed to know where to go. After overcoming some confusion, we walked around 300 yards with our luggage from the trolly stop to the end of the Serenade line along Channelside drive adjacent to what I believe is an administration building for the Port of Tampa Authority. While we were clearly a little early, the number of people seemed to indicate that not all guests were following the instructions from the last Royal Comms team email, meaning that those scheduled later were arriving at the port and causing a bottleneck. I also noted that some guests bound for Brilliance were in the Serenade line. I would not be surprised if the same was true for Serenade guests in the Brilliance line several hundred yards away.
We were queued along Channelside Drive at E Kennedy for about forty-five minutes until the line started moving. It curved around the Port of Tampa Authority administration building into the port area at E Kennedy, and it was apparent that it wrapped all the way to the access gate to the terminal which was closed. Looking further at the terminal, the line extended from the entrance at the north of the building all along its length toward the south. It had quite a surreal feel to it. This was not a good situation.


the above two pics are at the corner of Channelside and E Kennedy by the Port of Tampa Authority Admin building -- we were at this corner for about one hour

pic shows the line from behind the Port of Tampa admin building to the gate to the terminal area. This line was 200 yards long from where I took it to the gate, and another fifty or so yards from the gate to the terminal building
My first observation was that a man in a blue shirt was directing traffic away from the entrance to Terminal 6 at Channelside and E Kennedy to McKay St which is 2 blocks north. While he was helping with the volume of traffic here at the main entrance, those driving in the area were confused. He did not appear to have any official insignia on his clothing and was not wearing a safety vest. I believe he worked for Intercruises. I feared that he would be run over. Customs and Border Patrol, Tampa Police, and Hillsborough County Sheriff’s vehicles all went through this intersection in their vehicles several times and did nothing to support this man. An ambulance and Tampa Fire responded to a medical call further up in our line. They further blocked ingress and egress for about thirty minutes. When they left, the line began inching along. After two hours, we reached the main gate to the terminal area where port staff and Hillsborough County Sheriff Deputies were managing the flow of foot traffic to the terminal building which was overwhelmed. I was particularly irked when I observed the deputies leaning against the barrier, talking and laughing while the chaos at Channelside and E Kennedy was still going on.
When we were ushered into the area adjacent to the terminal, porters were available to take bags. There was no where near enough of them. With the queue along the building, their entrance into the screening area with the large luggage carts was obstructed by people in line. There is no curb cutout directly in front of the entrance they were using, and as a result, several carts spilled bags and were close to tipping over with people in line right next to it. It was chaotic, poorly managed and unsafe. By the time we reached this point, we had been in line for two and a half hours. Note that it was 75 degrees Fahrenheit, and there was no water available. The only bathrooms were on the side of the terminal building, limited seating, and it was not sufficient for the crush of people. Another point of incredulity is in the fact that the line along the terminal building diverged into three separate lines ostensibly to take advantage of three security screening areas. This was about twenty yards long. It then merged back into two lines causing more confusion and frustration among those around us. The Intercruises staff who were there were overwhelmed and doing the best they could. I did not observe presence of Intercruises management.
I also observed Hillsborough County Sheriff Deputies standing around or leaning along the traffic barrier alongside the terminal building and moving or directing traffic that came up as a result of the infrequent drop offs happening there. I could not understand why one of them wasn’t at Channelside and E Kennedy where the man in the blue shirt was directing traffic.
We entered the building after three hours and started checking in. We finally boarded at about 10:15 pm. Throughout the experience, I was concerned for the elderly and those who were less agile dealing with these conditions. While at one point, I saw two hotel staff officers from Serenade walking along the line, I was not sure if they were assessing the situation or not. I did not get a chance to speak with them.
The Top Tier event was held the next day while at sea. It seemed that Captain Steig was not aware of the scope of the situation the night before as he mentioned only that the Coast Guard prevents vessels from entering the Bay during foggy conditions because of a catastrophe a couple decades ago when a cargo ship hit the previous Sunshine Skyway Bridge and caused it to collapse. Several motorists drove right into the bay where the collapse occurred because they couldn’t see due to the fog and were killed. While this Coast Guard order is completely understandable, at that point, I am not sure he was aware how long people stood in line before boarding. He referred to an instance when he was commanding on Brilliance and there was a fog event that held ships outside Tampa Bay for 36 hours causing the subsequent sailing to cancel. The difference between that event and this led to the bottleneck of people with two ships in the same situation on November 26.
Later in the cruise, I attended the Captain’s Corner to see if the senior officers had any other conclusions about embarkation and to hear additional comments. I was prepared to chip in when another guest articulated exactly what I was thinking. This was that the Port of Tampa seems to bear a great deal of the responsibility, and this reflects extremely poorly on them. I also believe that Intercruises did not have enough staff on hand to deal with checking in guests for two ships which were sailing six to seven hours late. I also believe Royal’s assessment should be quicker with instances like this. At a minimum, I think that water should have been provided to guests in line, and accommodations for the elderly and disabled made clearer. I view the embarkation for this sailing to be a complete breakdown by all parties involved, and I plan to share this information with the Port of Tampa, Intercruises management, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office and the Crown and Anchor Society.
 
 

Update...we are to check-in 8 hours after the original time with sailing at 11 pm. We made the best of the day.

@mpoole3We ended up at Hattricks for about three hours and had a great time. We shared a section of the center bar with a couple on our sailing and two Delta pilots as South Carolina took it to Clemson. Now to make the day complete, Vandy has to take care of the Vols. 🤣🤨

Agree...I think the terminal will be chaos with people scrambling to get out of there. I am following #serenadeoftheseas on Instagram, and someone posted a pic where it is totally socked in...they updated their comments a few minutes ago, and nothing has changed. If we embark today, it will be late this evening. Right now, I don't see it happening because the forecast has fog all day off the coast...if we embark tomorrow, I am checking insurance to see if it will cover an extra room night and am hoping for some OBC as the itinerary changes.