New to Cruising - Transport Upon Returning Home?

Hello! This summer I'm taking my first cruise. I'm going to have a car service take my husband and I to Bayonne, NJ (we live around 20-30 minutes away) and bring us home after. How long after we arrive back should they pick us up? Do I even have to tell them or do they "know" like with a flight? Help?

If you want to be first off the ship you need to sign up for walk off. You will need to carry off all your bags. The timing is not all on the ship. Customs and immigration have been the cause of many delays. My advice would be to request to leave the ship around 8 and you would go get your luggage and go thru customs and immigration. Then you should have your transport wait for you to call as you finish customs. Not sure if there is a CELL lot to wait. He can find the nearest wait area and wait for your call for pickup. Hope this helps. Terry

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Just pick your disembarkation time. Allow 30-45 min for you to get off to be out of the building. That can be the time to tell whoever will pick you up.

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Hello! This summer I'm taking my first cruise. I'm going to have a car service take my husband and I to Bayonne, NJ (we live around 20-30 minutes away) and bring us home after. How long after we arrive back should they pick us up? Do I even have to tell them or do they "know" like with a flight? Help?

It is not like an airline flight where everybody gets off of the plane as quickly as possible.

Since the cruise ship has several thousand passengers, the passengers are assigned to various times to disembark.You can usually request a time of the options offered. All passengers will usually be off the ship by around 10 AM.

The disembarkation process involves getting off of the ship, going through immigration, and locating your luggage that the ship brought ashore.

I suggest picking a time between 8 and 10 AM you would like to be picked up. Then request a disembarkation time (as someone else suggested) about 45 minutes before that.

Please realize that the assigned disembarkation times are approximate. Actual disembarkation could occur at a faster or slower pace.

Thanks all! When/how do I choose my disembark time?

Thanks all! When/how do I choose my disembark time?

Usually the next to the last day you will get luggage tags with an assigned time. You can always change this at Guest Services. I believe the initial assignment is based on what you entered in your online check in for departure time.

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We just sailed the Summit on May 7th-14th. Disembarkation was a breeze, we had zone 11 and were able to be off the ship and through customs by 9 am. The ship was scheduled to dock at 8 am, but we arrived before 7 am so self carry off debarkation started early. From previous experience, with relaxed debarkation (crew sends your luggage ahead) from the larger RCCL's Explorer of the Seas at the same port we had our ride scheduled for 10:00 am. Instead of seeing if we could rush the driver along we opted to just pass the time in the passenger pick-up waiting lounge. (Please note this indoor seating area with all glass views of the pick-up area is unique to Bayonne, I have not seen anything like it at NYC, Baltimore, Cape Canaveral, Miami, nor NOLA.)

There is no guarantee that your cruise will have the exact timetable, but the cruise line does want to start embarking new passenger by 11 am. In general that means they want all of the passengers off the ship before 10 am so they can get whatever clearances or inspections they need from the government and the port authorities. SO the safe bet to avoid the driver charging waiting fees is to schedule them for 10:30. That way if you are among the last off the ship that gives you at least 30 minutes to locate your luggage, grab a porter (optional), and get through customs. If it looks like you might be leaving the ship much earlier, you can always call the company while in the on board waiting area to see if they can pick-up early.