TouchstoneFeste

Sorry if I sounded contentious @Victoria2. I didn't mean to be. But it does sound like it's a persistent problem involving multiple lines (mostly or all Carnival at this terminal, yes?). They ought to be able to bring enough pressure to bear to get some action.

Yeah, I didn't realize that bit about generic staff in multiple uniforms. Not sure it excuses Cunard, however. They really should insist on better treatment for their customers.

I was surprised by this, too, but on my May 1 boarding the only people not in Cunard staff uniforms were the ones running the actual security operation, like the X-ray. The people organizing the crowd, checking boarding papers, guiding people to the security lines, etc., (both before and after the security check), appeared to be Cunard staff.

None of the regular cruisers have answered, and I've only done land crossings into Canada, but here's what I know. Your profile, which you can set up anytime, includes: basic ID information (name, address, etc.), passport (or Nexus) number, vaccine types and dates, and a photograph or PDF of vaccine evidence. Be careful on the last of these items. For an entry last year (before they introduced permanent profiles) I accidentally uploaded an email confirmation of vaccination rather than images of our actual US vax cards, and this caused delays and a "random" test at the border. When I first started using ArriveCan (we go to Canada a half dozen times a year) I did a dummy entry ahead of time to figure out what the process would be - similar to a trial booking on a ship to find out what cabins are available - then bailed out before I did the final "submit". I'm sure you could do the same for a cruise ship entry. For each entry into Canada, you enter: date and time of entry*; port of entry; address you'll be staying at in Canada. I imagine the ship's name would be sufficient? certainly we've never entered a hotel room number. You'll also be asked a few questions about your current state of health - "Any COVID symptoms?", etc. * They won't allow you to enter a date further away than 72 hours. For time of entry I've just made my best guess. I'm not sure if they do "random" testing for ship entries, but if they do: the process is VERY cumbersome and they will phone you relentlessly afterwards to confirm you have completed it. Even after the results have been delivered. I use scare quotes around the word "random" because my wife has been "randomly" tested on three of our last four entries.

Yes - the ArriveCan site now allows you to create a profile for each passenger, so the cumbersome tasks like uploading your proof of vaccination, entering passport numbers, etc., can be done in advance.

How?

Strangely enough, we got an unexpected *credit* on our account about two weeks after disembarking, with no indication why. I decided not to challenge it :) but it is indicative of something systematic being wrong.

Very good observations overall. (I think a lot of our problems boarding that day were related to our early arrival.) Just wanted to emphasize the need to ASK if you are in the right line. I had the luxury of leaving my wife waiting in lines while I went over to an agent and asked "Is this the line for Grills?". That only helped once in our case (there was no line waiting outdoors), but it helped us jump the very long check-in line.

On our May 1 eastbound in QG, we were assigned a time a few days before arrival; we weren't offered multiple choices. I assume we could have requested a different time. Our assigned time was perfectly satisfactory to us. We were checked off on departure, of course, so disembarking *before* our assigned time might have been problematic, but I can't see that departing later would have been so if something had delayed us.

And in May.

Our experience in Brooklyn on May 1: We arrived quite early (for various reasons) and we were held in the main entrance lobby of the terminal until the ship was ready for boarding. Because there were MANY roundtrip passengers who couldn't do daytrips into NYC, they were (re)boarded first, at around 11am. These folks (quite rightly) occupied the couple dozen chairs available in that lobby. Sometime around 11:15-11:30, we were taken into the first security line, passed through the xrays area and waited in a line for a health screening, then went through the actual check-in. This was all pretty quick, but we didn't reach the QG waiting room until about 11:45. There were plenty of seats in that lounge, and we boarded around 12:15-12:30 (which was the stated arrival time on our welcome letters). (As I mentioned in another thread, the entire process was a little ad hoc because the Five Borough bicycle race in New York confused matters. All of this contributed to our late departure from the dock, by the way.) Short answer: Nope, unless they refine the process, you won't be able to wait in a QG lounge before your stated arrival time. Check-in is the final step, not the first.

Our experience on May 8 was as @Camgirl described it. We were issued a time a couple of days before arrival, although I bet we could have requested a change if we'd wanted.

Our first trip on Cunard. We're hooked.

We were QG, and disembarked first (after the fast track folks), at 8am, in Southampton. I assume the others were as you suggested. Went directly from our stateroom to the Grand Lobby.

Our boarding in Brooklyn was no picnic, although the complications may have been due to the race. My understanding is that all of the NYC daytrips were cancelled due to the race, so when we arrived (roughly 10am) the outer entrance area was already getting crowded with roundtrippers waiting to reboard and other early arrivals. By the time they were able to start reboarding the roundtrippers (11am?), the place was packed. Possibly because of this, they had a wacky check in process in the outer lobby. Staff members were checking the basic documents (including proofs of vaccination, by the way) before we even got into the snake-line, and initialing the boarding pass. But this must have been an ad hoc procedure - it was never actually announced for quite a while, different staff were doing it different ways, and there was much retracing of steps. After passing through security, there there was a line for making a declaration of health status; this was handled pretty cleanly and quickly. Then we were sorted into Grills (and diamond members?) and everyone else; we Grills waited an additional half-hour or so in the waiting lounge, then boarded ... about 12:15, which was the boarding time on our passes. We'd intentionally arrived early, expecting problems, but might have been better off arriving right on time. In any case, we just had a wonderful week on the Queen.

We asked at our hotel how long it would take to get to the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, and they said "10-15 minutes. Oh, wait! There's the marathon!" I'm not finding evidence for a marathon in Brooklyn tomorrow, just one starting at Riverside Park, but you may want to allow extra time.

In case anyone has received a strange email from Cunard with the subject line was "Missing Immigration Information" and with an attachment "MissingImmigratnNotice-[trip reference number], here's the story: At some point the US version of the web site site didn't have a field for your emergency contact's state (of the Union, that is). (This was found under Personal Details on MyCunard.) This now needs to be filled it, but at the moment the entire Emergency Contact section has disappeared, probably for repairs. Only a phone call will fix it. This leaves a couple questions, probably all unimportant: Is this true for places other than the US? Why is this considered "Immigration" information?