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Boarding Early


BillNH

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We just switched our flight, so we arrive a day early because of all the travel delays out there.  Yes, I should have done this from the beginning but made a rookie mistake.  So my question is, any chance of us getting on board earlier than our 2PM scheduled time?  All the slots are taken before ours, so we cant officially move up but thought I might arrive at noon and stand in line hoping they would take us sooner. So am I wasting my time or might this actually work?  Trip is leaving from San Juan April 24th.

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11 minutes ago, SpeedNoodles said:

You can keep checking to see if an earlier time opens up, but in my experience they are sticking to set boarding times.

That was going to be a future question of mine.  Does it seem like Royal, et al, will be relaxing their strict boarding times any time soon, if ever?  I have a funny feeling that they like the strict boarding times as it keep things a little more organized, at least on their side of things, and will keep them going.  

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39 minutes ago, 1st Mate said:

That was going to be a future question of mine.  Does it seem like Royal, et al, will be relaxing their strict boarding times any time soon, if ever?  I have a funny feeling that they like the strict boarding times as it keep things a little more organized, at least on their side of things, and will keep them going.  

Personal opinion? No, I think they'll keep them.  But opinions are .... opinions 🙂

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54 minutes ago, SpeedNoodles said:

Personal opinion? No, I think they'll keep them.  But opinions are .... opinions 🙂

I hope they keep them. While it can certainly be frustrating to get a “later” boarding time, I think the current system “rewards” people who take the steps to stay on top of the reservation. There are also ways to get an earlier boarding time if you want to pay for a higher cabin class.  As a mostly inside GTY cabin cruiser, I’ve been able to get early boarding times with no issues, by just knowing when the dates of different things occur.  It’s all in the app or from your TA, so everyone knows the same thing.

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At this point they are still strongly sticking to the boarding times. I don’t mind this new process as if you time it well you can be curb to on-board in 15 minutes. I remember the madhouse that was boarding pre 2020 that often took hours, you were packed in, sweating and uncomfortable. I hope they stick with the pre selected boarding times.

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Before the pandemic was upon us Royal was making plans to streamline the boarding process.  They were touting frictionless check in and taxi-to-ship in under 15 minutes sort of thing.  Then the industry was shutdown.

I suspect the approach to frictionless check in was always going to leverage enforced check in times.  To achieve 15 minute car to ship you can't have masses of guests showing up at the same time.  They need to distribute arriving guests across the check in window to reduce friction.

Other cruise lines have long had enforced check in times so it made sense that Royal would also shift to enforced check in times. 

I don't think the pandemic created enforced check in time, it was coming regardless.

 

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We were on the Wonder of the Seas last month (3/11/22 sailing date). We had a 2:00 PM check-in time (we booked our cruise 3 weeks before sail date, so early check-in times were long gone). We got to the pier at 11:15 AM, and were on the ship by 11:45 AM, with beer in-hand by 11:47 AM. They did not check our boarding time.

Hope this helps!

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1 hour ago, MrHaga said:

Newbie question. Are checking times automaticly given to us, or do we somehow choose them ourselves? If so where and how?

You select your arrival time when you complete the check in process online or in the app. You can check in about 45 days before your cruise - check your sailing in the app for the exact date you can complete the process.

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17 minutes ago, BillNH said:

Thanks for all the advice.  As a newbie to cruising, I booked everything on my own, so new to any of the processes.  May take my chances and show up early and if I have to sit in the hot sun a couple hours, I guess I get a head start on my Tan:) 

Keep checking.  Early times do open once in while.  

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If they keep the current embarkation system; keeping the pax volume low and moving fluidly through the process; then there won't be a future need for extravagantly decorated and expensive cruise terminals like Miami. 

If it's 15 minutes from car to bar, then a big tent like Long Beach will be just fine.

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9 minutes ago, bobroo said:

If they keep the current embarkation system; keeping the pax volume low and moving fluidly through the process; then there won't be a future need for extravagantly decorated and expensive cruise terminals like Miami. 

If it's 15 minutes from car to bar, then a big tent like Long Beach will be just fine.

They may still need to have waiting areas for the earliest times since CBP is in control of when boarding commences, not the cruise line.  

Star class guests still need to be queued since genies service more than one suite for example. 

Waiting in a tent isn't the start to the cruise experience that Royal is going for. 

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2 hours ago, putinbay said:

We were on the Wonder of the Seas last month (3/11/22 sailing date). We had a 2:00 PM check-in time (we booked our cruise 3 weeks before sail date, so early check-in times were long gone). We got to the pier at 11:15 AM, and were on the ship by 11:45 AM, with beer in-hand by 11:47 AM. They did not check our boarding time.

Hope this helps!

Similar experience at Port Canaveral two weeks ago (Harmony).  No enforcement whatsoever of boarding times.  Maybe other ports enforce it, and maybe my cruise was an outlier, but you could have arrived at any time after ~10:30, gotten in line, and boarded the ship.  No one was checking.  

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2 hours ago, putinbay said:

We were on the Wonder of the Seas last month (3/11/22 sailing date). We had a 2:00 PM check-in time (we booked our cruise 3 weeks before sail date, so early check-in times were long gone). We got to the pier at 11:15 AM, and were on the ship by 11:45 AM, with beer in-hand by 11:47 AM. They did not check our boarding time.

Hope this helps!

This doesn’t help. This encourages people to show up early which will once again lead to pre shutdown chaos at the terminals

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I guess what I was hoping for is maybe a stand bye area group.  Say if they are done booking the 12-12:30 time and they have 10 minutes left over maybe they could pull from that group.  My intention was not to make someone wait that has a valid booking time.

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Since each port is different, you can expect things to be different. I recall reading that San Juan was the strictest in terms of sticking to boarding times. While I can attest that Port Canaveral and Miami are dependent on port workers attitudes. Also being solo might be a determine factor. 

I understand sticking to the rules, but I also don't get blaming people for showing up early. It's a paid vacation, they will either get in early or be forced to wait. 

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46 minutes ago, BillNH said:

I guess what I was hoping for is maybe a stand bye area group.  Say if they are done booking the 12-12:30 time and they have 10 minutes left over maybe they could pull from that group.  My intention was not to make someone wait that has a valid booking time.

I understand and I think the experience will vary by port.  Some people have reported large groups of people crowding the terminal entrance making it difficult for guests arriving on time to see or reach the entrance.   It's just a mass of people standing around, not an organized queue operating on a standby basis.

When I used to sail Carnival they always enforced arrival times even 10 years ago.  There was no standby queue, it was "Come back when it's time, until then you may not enter".  

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Galveston converted the outside queue area into boarding times and when we left in March they started the process right on time with the 11:00am Suite and Pinnacle guests. When they were complete and the lines inside (they added extra lines instead of the forever "snake" line) were down, which did not take long, they let the next line in. We were fortunate in we had a Suite that trip and were on board within 15 minutes of letting folks in. This past week my wife and son left from there and did the same thing. Even with a balcony and 11:30 check in time they were on-board by 11:30. The staggered enforced times work and with the addition of a few folks inside, the curb to ship time has been greatly reduced along with the stress. That said, get to the port and get in your time line. Chances are not everyone will arrive that early and they will let you in.

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On 4/19/2022 at 11:53 AM, twangster said:

I understand and I think the experience will vary by port.  Some people have reported large groups of people crowding the terminal entrance making it difficult for guests arriving on time to see or reach the entrance.   It's just a mass of people standing around, not an organized queue operating on a standby basis.

When I used to sail Carnival they always enforced arrival times even 10 years ago.  There was no standby queue, it was "Come back when it's time, until then you may not enter".  

Update on my post.  For giggles i have been checking each day for additional time slots to open up to no avail.  Well last night around midnight, 2 days before the cruise, low and behold additional slots opened and I was able to move up two hours.  Bingo!  Got what i was hoping for without upsetting the apple cart.

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Personally I think with modern technology that boarding times are kind of archaic.  We've been on many cruises (not as many as some here) dating back to the mid nineties and the only time I ever really waited in a boarding line was in the late nineties/early 2000's.  Since then with more things done pre-arrival we've had very little standing around waiting to board no matter what time we've arrived, this is pre-virus of course.  Time slots are just asking people to congregate while waiting for their time when they could be doing them as guest arrive which after the initial surge isn't that bad.

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FWIW - At Bayonne NJ for our 4/3 sailing, we arrived 25 minutes before our time, and we were prepared to wait outside. But the lady greeting/directing people at the entrance seemed annoyed that we were hanging around outside and told us we HAD to go inside and start the embarkation process. She never even asked what our time was. And we were eating a roast beef sandwich in 270 by the time our actual embarkation time rolled around. That may just be a New York/New Jersey attitude thing. I have also heard most other ports are enforcing the time pretty strictly.

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1 hour ago, Al Miller said:

FWIW - At Bayonne NJ for our 4/3 sailing, we arrived 25 minutes before our time, and we were prepared to wait outside. But the lady greeting/directing people at the entrance seemed annoyed that we were hanging around outside and told us we HAD to go inside and start the embarkation process. She never even asked what our time was. And we were eating a roast beef sandwich in 270 by the time our actual embarkation time rolled around. That may just be a New York/New Jersey attitude thing. I have also heard most other ports are enforcing the time pretty strictly.

The 4/3 cruise was out of the ordinary . I’ve sailed out of Bayonne numerous times since September, each time they make people wait for their check in time, only when they “ran out of people” did they move to the next boarding time. They also checked boarding times on the app (or printout) before letting you in  and if your pass was incorrect they had you step out of line to go and wait. 
 

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