New York (Brooklyn) Embarkation

Could somebody describe embarkation day at Red Hook Terminal. We anticipate arriving at the port around 9:OO am but will delay this if necessary. Can you drop your luggage early if check-in does not start until later? I have read that check-in does not commence until 1:00 pm. Are the lines long at this time? Leaving from Southampton last year, I remember eating lunch on board?

Any advice or recommendations on how to make this as smooth as we can will be much appreciated.

Thank you.

I've never arrived as early as 9:00 AM but most of the baggage handlers are likely to be still working on the off-coming bags at that time. Last Christmas we arrived around 10:30 and they hadn't begun letting pssengers into the check-in queue. Check-in started maybe at 11:00. There isn't very much to do in the area if you drop your bags early (the pastry shop Baked is a little walk away) so you might want to postpone your arrival until 11 or so.

The check-in process is more or less like this:

• You drive your car (or the cabbie drives the cab) up to the front entrance of the terminal and the baggage handlers assist moving your checked bags from the car onto carts. If you're parking you then drive to the adjacent parking lot. You take a ticket on entering the lot and pay after the end of the cruise.
  
• At the entrance to the terminal hall there are a few chairs but if check-in hasn't started there are likely to be more people waiting there than there are chairs.
  
• There's a short queue in the entrance lobby where they inspect your cruise tickets and passports, then you pass to another queue for the X-ray machines.
  
• There are three or four machines in operation. Look carefully and you'll see that some have larger openings than others. I sometimes bring on a few bottles of wine in a collapsible wheeled cooler and one of the machines has a large enough opening for the cooler with the handle retracted to stand upright so I get in that line.
  
• After the X-ray and walk-thru metal detectors you're given the health form to complete and then you join one of two check-in queues depending on your cabin class or Past Guest status. On the Christmas cruise the VIP line is sometimes longer than the regular line but either line moves fairly quickly.
  
• At the desk you show your passports and tickets again and they swipe your credit card(s) and take your photos for the onboard accounts (if you're cruising on a cash account, I'm not sure when/where they take your cash). You receive your cruise cards and a numbered boarding card.
  
• There's a larger hall with rows of chairs where you wait for your boarding number to be called. There may be vending machines (darn CRS is affecting me) but no staffed coffee/snack bar or anything like that. The elite/suites waiting area as coffee and water.
  

Underwatr described the boarding process pretty well. Arriving at 9AM is much, much too early. Cunard will give you a boarding time since they don't want 2600 passengers to all show up at once. I'm not aware of anybody being given a time earlier than Noon for a 5PM sailing.

If you come earlier than your allotted boarding time you won't be turned away but imagine what happens if everyone decides they want to be on the ship early. Earlier this month I arrived about 12:30 for a 12:00 check-in on my ticket and the line for the non-Grill, non-diamond or platinum passengers was quite long.

Lunch is available in King's Court. If you are in the Grills you can however have lunch in your assigned restaurant up to 2:30PM.

As far as boarding time goes, you have to think about all the people who will be getting off the ship and who will have to leave the terminal area. This starts at about 7 a.m. but takes hours and is a process in and of itself…

While the previous voyage passengers exit, the stewards are working like mad to clean and make-up all the cabins for the new passengers, who will be boarding. This takes hours as well.

Some cruise lines allow earlier boarding time, but won't allow entry into one's cabin until after lunchtime. Cunard has all the cabins ready before new passengers are invited to board. This is great because you can go straight to your stateroom and drop off any hand-carries etc.--THEN head to deck 7 for some lunch...

There isn't much at the port except the terminal building, a parking lot, and a bunch of traffic (picking people up and, then, dropping people off). Surrounding buildings are industrial. The area around the terminal building isn't a comfortable, hang-around, kill-some-time environment.

I think the earliest we ever arrived at the Brooklyn dock was 11:30.

Have a great voyage!

We have boarded QM2 many times from the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal at Red Hook and I agree with everything that Underwatr and BlueRiband have told you. We usually arrive from 40 miles away in New Jersey around 11:00AM; we ignore the suggested check in time because we want to have plenty of spare time to cope with any NYC traffic surprises and because we want to eat lunch on board. (Booking a PG cabin assures us a pleasant sit down lunch.)

One piece of advice: photograph each piece of your luggage before you arrive at the terminal. If any pieces are misdirected en route to your cabin, photographs will help the searchers; it worked for us a couple of years ago. Bon Voyage!

I don't recommend arriving early at all. We once had a significant delay in boarding in Brooklyn and there was nothing to do except sit around the drab terminal. I don't recommend arriving prior to your assigned embarkation time because you may get caught in a queue of other early-arrivers. In fact, I recommend arriving a little later (about 30 minutes) than your assigned time, but not too late to miss the sail-away. Don't be in a rush to eat lunch at the buffet (King's Chaos), because it's not worth it. Of course, if you are in the Grllls, that's a whole other story. Find some place cool to chill in Brooklyn or Manhattan.

I agree; if you arrive at 2:30 or 3:00 there will be no line. I don't have enough faith in NJ Turnpike traffic flow to cut it that tight, though (we drive about 3.5 hours to Red Hook).

Thank you all, for the great advice. We sail from New York on Monday- we can't wait!

Just one last question - is the Golden Lion Pub still open for lunch on embarkation day? We ate lunch there shortly after boarding in Southampton in 2013. I believe it closed at 2:30pm.

We've tried to eat lunch in the Golden Lion on embarkation day and were rebuffed. It may have been after 2:30 though.

Just to mention that if you park your car in the Red Hook parking lot, you will get a receipt upon entering the parking lot...but you must pay upon exiting the terminal after disembarkation (the machines are on the right immediately prior to the exit doors when disembarking).

I would love clarification on dropping off luggage early. Our boarding time isn't until 3:00, but we expect to arrive in Redhook around 10am. I am hoping we will be able to leave the luggage at the pier with porters, and then leave for the day, to return around 3pm.

Will luggage drop off at 10ish be a problem?

I would love clarification on dropping off luggage early. Our boarding time isn't until 3:00, but we expect to arrive in Redhook around 10am. I am hoping we will be able to leave the luggage at the pier with porters, and then leave for the day, to return around 3pm.

 

Will luggage drop off at 10ish be a problem?

Sara, I think it is highly likely that passengers will still be disembarking around 10 a.m., and embarking passengers luggage will not be loaded until the ship is clear. Personally, I wouldn't plan on dropping my luggage at the pier until after 11 a.m. at the earliest. (And I would stand right next to my luggage until I saw it was in the hands of a longshoreman/woman - along with a tip :))

I would love clarification on dropping off luggage early. Our boarding time isn't until 3:00, but we expect to arrive in Redhook around 10am. I am hoping we will be able to leave the luggage at the pier with porters, and then leave for the day, to return around 3pm.

 

Will luggage drop off at 10ish be a problem?

We do always double tag, with one on the inside as well, but never have thought to take a snapshot. Good idea!

I am fine with it not being loaded until after the debarkation deluge subsides, so long as there are porters to take the bag and the tips. I don't fret too much about the luggage, it always (knock on wood) seems to arrive with us, or some close approximation thereof... Thank you both for the guidance.

I have been to The Cloisters, but since, following the cruise, we will be traveling in France and Italy for a month seeing it 'in situ', I think I will forgo dragging Himself thru a pre-trip museum viewing. I suspect by the end of the trip my fondness for art and architecture will have about exceeded his capacity to willingly indulge me ; -)

Instead I think we will visit the Intrepid Museum, which hits on his special interests. There are a few foodie spots in Redhook I am looking forward to visiting. An artisan chocolate processor in particular! I am planning on picking up a bunch of flowers to take on board and there is a lobster shack I want to try for lunch as well, with key lime pie after, so I think we will pass the time easily.

Since Sandy they have really recovered; http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/dining/eating-and-drinking-red-hook-brooklyn.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

The Intrepid museum is well worth a visit-good choice for a visit, and not just for the men in the family. We were in NY for a wedding last year and planned an extra couple of days to visit. I'm from NY originally, and have certainly seen a lot of the major attractions, but thought my husband would like the Intrepid museum. I was very pleasantly surprised to find that I really liked it as well. Cab to and from Red Hook terminal shouldn't take too long.

We do always double tag, with one on the inside as well, but never have thought to take a snapshot. Good idea!

 

I am fine with it not being loaded until after the debarkation deluge subsides, so long as there are porters to take the bag and the tips. I don't fret too much about the luggage, it always (knock on wood) seems to arrive with us, or some close approximation thereof... Thank you both for the guidance.

 

I have been to The Cloisters, but since, following the cruise, we will be traveling in France and Italy for a month seeing it 'in situ', I think I will forgo dragging Himself thru a pre-trip museum viewing. I suspect by the end of the trip my fondness for art and architecture will have about exceeded his capacity to willingly indulge me ; -)

 

Instead I think we will visit the Intrepid Museum, which hits on his special interests. There are a few foodie spots in Redhook I am looking forward to visiting. An artisan chocolate processor in particular! I am planning on picking up a bunch of flowers to take on board and there is a lobster shack I want to try for lunch as well, with key lime pie after, so I think we will pass the time easily.

 

Since Sandy they have really recovered; http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/dining/eating-and-drinking-red-hook-brooklyn.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Yes, well you see that is the issue: there will be no longshoremen/women to take your bags for loading on the ship until the disembarkation process from the previous cruise has been completed because they will be busy off-loading luggage. If anyone decides to drop their luggage at the pier prior to boarding time (the earliest boarding time is generally noon) please consider that you might not have a claim if anything goes amiss since instructions about boarding time were not followed.

Regarding the history of Red Hook (for those who are interested in maritime history), I found this site to be very interesting and well documented. The illustrations shown are rarely seen. http://www.maggieblanck.com/Occupations/Longshoremen.html

Cheers,

Salacia

Edited to add: are passengers permitted to take flowers on board?

Considering that anyone can book passage, get passage tickets, and luggage tickets - drop their luggage off at the pier and have their luggage loaded on the ship (whether or not they boarded) suggests to me that all luggage will be examined even more thoroughly than it has in the past. And rightfully so, because it is the best interest of all.

So, if our luggage is delayed in arriving in our cabins, please let's not complain. Agreed?

On my disembarkation three weeks ago the last group on deck 4 was scheduled for 10:40AM. Allow for a few stragglers to that time, then the in transit passengers have to be off. Then add the time it takes for US authorities to give the all clear to start boarding. This is why Cunard doesn't assign a boarding time earlier than Noon.

While all this is going on a line of early arrivals is starting to build. There's no lounge until you get past the check in desk.

Arriving very early means hurry up and wait.

Ignore the mis-information above that there will be no one available to take your luggage until disembarkation is completed. There are always plenty of longshoremen available to take the bags of early arriving passengers. Some passengers must arrive early due to airline schedules, so what do you think they do, stand outside on the curb with their luggage until everyone is off the ship?

Ignore the mis-information above that there will be no one available to take your luggage until disembarkation is completed. There are always plenty of longshoremen available to take the bags of early arriving passengers. Some passengers must arrive early due to airline schedules, so what do you think they do, stand outside on the curb with their luggage until everyone is off the ship?

nfcu, I've embarked on QM2 twelve times from the Red Hook Pier, and disembarked there 11 times. The number of longshoremen/women is not always plentiful in my experince, but of course you are free to ingore my information - but to deem it 'mis-information' is incorrect.

BTW, I have also had at least one experience where disembarkation was delayed due to an insufficient number of longshoremen/women to assist in removing luggage from the pick-up area in a timely manner.

Obviously, experiences vary. If passengers wish to arrive early, that is their choice. But at least they can make an informed decision based on a variety of experiences that past passengers have encountered.

Salacia

It's always good to have multiple perspectives and experiences to base you plans on, so everyone's input is appreciated.

And it is always good to remember plans only survive contact with the enemy, after that, the fog of war descends... If we arrive at a bit after ten am and there is no avaliable porter to take charge of the bags we will, of course, adjust our plans. We can always forego the museum and spend more time locally until the baggage may be dropped off. I hadn't planned on just dropping it at the curb with the tip tucked under the handle and strolling off ; -)

If all goes well we might use the water taxi to transport to the museum and back, sounds cheap fast and reliable!

PARTIAL QUOTE

....If all goes well we might use the water taxi to transport to the museum and back, sounds cheap fast and reliable!

There is a water taxi that goes from Red Hook to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum? I didn't know that...sounds great. Could you please share where the water taxi boards and docks? I tend to rely on taxi cabs, but I'm happy to learn there is an alternative. Details appreciated. Thanks. -Salacia

Everything you need to know about the NY Water Taxi: NY Water Taxi

A couple of years ago we arrived at Red Hook terminal earlier than expected at 10:40 and porters had already received luggage from others. We checked in immediately and soon noticed there were many passengers who had checked in before us.

What is there to see / visit / do within walking distance of the cruise terminal in Red Hook? I have never seen anything except warehouses, etc.