Just off Equinox. My first Celebrity cruise. Mixed review.

[gospelle]

I think the disembarkation problems are because of FLL....the last 3 times we have been there it has been a PAIN for non-US, which screws up the works.......(our pals that we cruise with are Canadian). Our last visit.....Navigator, Queen Mary and a large Carnival all came in on the same AM.....and they apparently had a few customs agents call in sick (or whatever). Our friend from Nova Scotia was in line for 4 hours longer than we were....and we sat in the parking lot waiting. It was horrid. Had this problem on Radiance the year before as well. BUT, it depends on the day of the week. Soooo, check your arrival date and see what other ships are coming in that day.....if there are BIGGIES....it will be painful. When in doubt...book out of Miami or Cape Canaveral....we have never had a problem there. Only FLL seems to be the issue.

 

In this case, all customs isles were manned. So I don't think it was a staffing problem.

 

Segregating the cruisers is the problem. US and non-US should all be in one large line, that way everyone keeps their place in line. Those off the ship first would get through the process first and flights wouldn't get missed.

 

As it is, the cruise line has a responsability to INFORM non-US citizens of this backward way of doing customs clearance so we can plan for it at the very least.

[gospelle]

I was on the sailing on November 5th, the 14 night TA that ended in FLL on November 19th, and with Garry and in CC. There are changes from deck to deck and from cruise to cruise.

 

In addition, many experienced cruisers *know* what happens with immigration as a result of these TA trips and plan accordingly. So all the Customs complaining is really getting on my nerves. I knew nothing about it before, and learned about it on these boards from others and planned accordingly. Therefore, it was as predicted and I can't begin to start in with a bandwagon hue and cry of customs. It is what it is.

 

If your experience is such that on your Carribean itin that there were numerous Non-US travelers, well then I guess its good to suggest for future reference that with potential unanticpated numbers of Non-US travelers cruising in recent times its best to plan for delays.

 

Its too bad that an otherwise fantastic cruise is no longer the joy it was before the sailing once guests return and do nothng but moan and groan about customs as though the entire cruise never even existed.

 

So if you want to compare experiences, yes, I heard tons of terse and angry tones before I even caught my cab to the airport, I hated to be among that environment every second that I was, and I came home to find more of it here once I logged on.:rolleyes:

 

Maybe if Customs is too much to handle, people should just stay home.

 

wow. perhaps you would feel different if you were stuck in the non-US citizen line without any warning from anyone that it was going to happen to you. perhaps when you took all the information you learned on this board, from the cruise line and from your experience and planned accordingly you still were late for your flight you may a bit inclined to complain.

 

That is exactly what happened to us. I have been on 8 cruises. I have been on this board for 8 years. I read everything the cruise line gave me. They went so far as to BOAST how smooth their disembarkation was compared to other lines. I planned accordingly. I booked a flight leaving at 1:30PM on a cruise that docked at 7:00am and had my flight not been delayed 40 minutes I would have missed my flight.

 

I just do not see how you can think that I should have known this was going to happen. Further, by posting my experience here dont you think that is helping people plan?? To berate me for posting seems to go against the very advice you give in your post by saying that people should be prepared by reading these boards. How exactly should they do that if people like me dont complain about it here?

 

Further still, had you read my original post, you would see that I did in fact enjoy my cruise. I had many great things to say about it. I did not dwell on the disembarkation. The posts that followed my OP have moved the discussion there as people have concerns. To say I was moaning and groaning like the cruise never existed is wildly inaccurate.

[frannie]

We will be on the January 25th cruise on the Equinox . We also are canadian and hope our debarkation will be smooth . We were on RCCL independence of the seas last febuary and it was a nightmare to leave the ship . It is nice to say carry your luggage but its difficult to carry a 32inch suitcase down 6 flights of stairs when the stairwells are packed with people . We have a 1pm flight home and celebrity knows this from the pre boarding documents you fill in . I could lie i guess and change my flight info but do not want to do this. Just hope to have a good return

[jagoffee]

In this case, all customs isles were manned. So I don't think it was a staffing problem.

 

Segregating the cruisers is the problem. US and non-US should all be in one large line, that way everyone keeps their place in line. Those off the ship first would get through the process first and flights wouldn't get missed.

 

As it is, the cruise line has a responsability to INFORM non-US citizens of this backward way of doing customs clearance so we can plan for it at the very least.

 

I am sure that it would be better for non citizen visitors to not have separate lines, but I do not think that I have ever been though customs in any county that did not have lines for Citizens and non Citizens with the non Citizen lines being much longer and fewer. I believe this is done because it is really a different process for those returning home that are citizens of the home county and non citizens who are entering the county. My personal worst experience was entering New Zealand. Usually the customs lines for citizens returning starts processing non citizens visitors entering the county after the citizens returning are done.

 

I am convinced that a TA is likely to overload the non citizen aspect of customs as it probably would at any county. Of course, I was not on this cruise, so I am assuming that this was the issue. Perhaps keeping all non citizens on the ship until the citizens are processes would be a better process as well. At least more predictable.

 

The custom operations are government run and we certainly do not have a reputation for being eff. in anything run by the government. So to the non citizens visiting the U.S., I apologize for my county's lack of effective custom's processing, but it probably the same most places. While I am on this general subject, how about an apologize when I have to pay a departure tax when leaving some foreign counties when the U.S. does not charge a departure tax? Next time stay and spend some tourist dollars in the U.S. before returning home.

 

Seriously, I understand your frustration, I am truly sorry that you had a bad experience. Let's hope that the Oasis never does a TA.

[AJD]

On the TA the problem was not customs, which we have experienced on previous occasions. In fact there was a point when the customs lanes were all but clear because we were all waiting for luggage. There was a complete breakdown in Celebrity, when people were told to debark by staff who presumably did not know their luggage had not yet been offloaded. This also caused a problem for those whose luggage was available as they couldn't get through the throng to it.

[lssg]

We too just got off the Celebrity Equinox and I agree with the points that you liked. My family and I were very disappointed in this cruise. We have had better food on our Princess and Holland cruises that we went I. I was very disappointed in the Kids club for Teens. There was none, my child was put with the little kids, and alot of times it wasn't open when it should have been. We went to the star gazing at night for my teen and we were told to look for the constellations ourself, and the celebrity staff turned her back on us, so we left. Our wait staff was great in the dining room. The buffet each day was almost the exact same food, not much variation. The cruise director was invisible, mostly only seen on TV and on stage before a few shows. The entertainment was just as good as holland and princess cruises. We have not been on alot of cruises, and are not picky. Boarding the ship was the breeze, the best of any cruise we have been on. Disembarkment was the worst we have ever seen. It got so bad at one point people were taking cuts in line, in front of individuals that had been waiting in line for hours. We thought a fight was going to break out a couple of times. We waited for at least an hour in line once we were off the ship, it was probably longer. The ship is beautiful. Not much activity for our liking, we were bored a number of days. The shows start way to late, 8:45 for the first show. There was more Europeans on this cruise then americans, which was a surprise. We will probably not cruise on Celebrity again.

[gospelle]

I am sure that it would be better for non citizen visitors to not have separate lines, but I do not think that I have ever been though customs in any county that did not have lines for Citizens and non Citizens with the non Citizen lines being much longer and fewer. I believe this is done because it is really a different process for those returning home that are citizens of the home county and non citizens who are entering the county. My personal worst experience was entering New Zealand. Usually the customs lines for citizens returning starts processing non citizens visitors entering the county after the citizens returning are done.

 

I am convinced that a TA is likely to overload the non citizen aspect of customs as it probably would at any county. Of course, I was not on this cruise, so I am assuming that this was the issue. Perhaps keeping all non citizens on the ship until the citizens are processes would be a better process as well. At least more predictable.

 

The custom operations are government run and we certainly do not have a reputation for being eff. in anything run by the government. So to the non citizens visiting the U.S., I apologize for my county's lack of effective custom's processing, but it probably the same most places. While I am on this general subject, how about an apologize when I have to pay a departure tax when leaving some foreign counties when the U.S. does not charge a departure tax? Next time stay and spend some tourist dollars in the U.S. before returning home.

 

Seriously, I understand your frustration, I am truly sorry that you had a bad experience. Let's hope that the Oasis never does a TA.

 

A few points.

 

1. When I fly into the US, the US Customs lines are NOT segregated and they work just fine. When I returned home to Canada, and when I disembarked in Vancouver after my Alaska cruise, there was no segregation of citizens vs non citizens. In Puerto Rico, which also has US Customs, there was no segregation of lines when disembarking. In the UK when we disembarked from our baltic cruise, there was no segregation of citizens vs. non citizens. So I must disagree with your statement that every country has seperate lines.

 

2. The cruise in question was not a Trans Atlantic, it was an 11 night Caribbean sailing, round trip from Fort Lauderdale.

 

3. I've disembarked in the US 4 times previous (3 in Miami and 1 in Tampa). They were all run by the government and all were done without issue. If it were simply a matter of government inefficiency, then I would have experienced this before. This fiasco should not be considered standard and acceptable by any measure.

 

4. Most of the people affected were from Canada and Europe. Neither of which charge departure taxes to US Citizens. In fact, Canada offers foreign travelers forms to get rebates on all the sales taxes they paid on things while in the country. Justifying a crappy customs experience to all non-US citizens because some poor countries charge a departure tax to pay for their customs programs is just ridiculous.

[jagoffee]

A few points.

 

. Justifying a crappy customs experience to all non-US citizens because some poor countries charge a departure tax to pay for their customs programs is just ridiculous.

 

Sorry, I did not realize that it was not a TA, I obviously got confused with the different posts. Perhaps the cruise was a B2B with a TA which would have more non citizens then normal. I also was not trying to justify the performance it by the departure tax comment, I was trying to inject humour into my posting.

 

Most of my return flights are in ORD and they are separate and I am almost certain that Miami and LAX were the same. Obviously from your experience it must be different in some locations. I cannot remember ever arriving in any foreign airport where the lines were the same including Canada.

 

As AJD stated perhaps the problem was not with customs, but I would not think that the luggage unloading would be different for non citizens.

 

If I had your same experience, I would also be upset.

 

Happy cruising.

[Oceangoer2]

I certainly can lay some blame on Celebrity for the mess at disembarkation. They have decades of experience unloading passengers at fort lauderdale. They should know that the Non-US citizens are held back, sometimes for hours. This information should have influence on how they hand out their disembarkation que numbers and certainly we should be informed so as to leave at least 8 hours prior to our flights.

 

I had a 1:30pm flight and am a Canadian. This information was known to celebrity and they still gave me a disembarkation time of 9:15am, which should not have occurred if they knew I could be held up more than 4 hours in customs.

 

There is equal blame between Celebrity and the Customs and Pier folks. Celebrity for the reasons above, and the Pier folks for not keeping people in their que order. People who disembarked at 8am were mixed in with those who got off at 10:30am.

 

What's worse is Celebrity was touting how their way of doing things was so much better than other lines. This was my 8th cruise and all 7 previous (on other lines) were far easier than this debacle.

 

As for the drinks, I didn't "damn" anyone. I simply felt unwelcome. And despite your claims, when I asked if I could have something other than champagne or wine I was told flatly "NO".

This confuses me. We disembarked the Solstice last Feb. in 10 minutes, carrying our own luggage from our room, and we're Canadian. No Customs issues...special line for non U.S. citizens and we went right through. Hopefully it will still work this way next Feb. on the Equinox! Sorry you had to experience this. We have never had this problem on any cruiseline. Perhaps it was your turn....ouch...mine could be coming up!

[poppan]

We got off the Constellation just this last Sunday and on our ship they kept saying NO ONE could get off the ship until all the non-US and non-Canadian citizens had cleared immigration and customs -- and indeed that appears to be what happened. As we sat in the theater waiting to disembark we got regular updates on how many more foreigners were left to get processed. Sounds like this is different than how they did things on the Solstice, which seems strange to me as immigration seems the sort of thing that would be up to the US immigration rules/regulations and not what the ship wants to do??

 

Anyhoo... my husband is a US resident but NOT a US citizen, while myself and our children are US citizens, so we got to see both sides of it. He dutifully reported to immigration at 6:45am while we slept in. (BTW, immigration officers came onboard the ship to process the passengers -- they did not get off the ship to be processed.) When he got there it was a very very long line (our Panama Canal cruise had lots and lots of Brits and Germans onboard -- 1/3 of the 2000 passengers on board is what I heard). The reason for the long line, as interpreted by my husband, is that although there were several US immigrations officers there, only one was actually processing people. The others were enjoying their morning coffee and doing nothing. At any rate, it was nearly 9am by the time my husband was cleared and rejoined us, and he had a 6:45am appointment! Needless to say the entire ship's disembarkation was delayed as we waited for all the other poor Europeans to be processed.

 

On Constellation I felt the staff did a good job of keeping us apprised of the situation as it progressed, and although some folks no doubt missed their flights, we were in the first group in our waiting area to get off, about 1.5 hours after our original disembark time. We got off at around 10:35am and made our 12:30 flight in San Diego without issues. Luggage and the airport transfer buses were very organized and all the staff had a great sense of urgency.

 

ETA: P.S. On our ship/itinerary US and Canadian citizens did not need to go through immigration checks at all. I never showed my or my children's passports to anyone to be allowed off the ship. The only thing we had to do was turn in our blue customs form (one per family) as we exited the luggage area.

[Oceangoer2]

We got off the Constellation just this last Sunday and on our ship they kept saying NO ONE could get off the ship until all the non-US and non-Canadian citizens had cleared immigration and customs -- and indeed that appears to be what happened. As we sat in the theater waiting to disembark we got regular updates on how many more foreigners were left to get processed. Sounds like this is different than how they did things on the Solstice, which seems strange to me as immigration seems the sort of thing that would be up to the US immigration rules/regulations and not what the ship wants to do??

 

Anyhoo... my husband is a US resident but NOT a US citizen, while myself and our children are US citizens, so we got to see both sides of it. He dutifully reported to immigration at 6:45am while we slept in. (BTW, immigration officers came onboard the ship to process the passengers -- they did not get off the ship to be processed.) When he got there it was a very very long line (our Panama Canal cruise had lots and lots of Brits and Germans onboard -- 1/3 of the 2000 passengers on board is what I heard). The reason for the long line, as interpreted by my husband, is that although there were several US immigrations officers there, only one was actually processing people. The others were enjoying their morning coffee and doing nothing. At any rate, it was nearly 9am by the time my husband was cleared and rejoined us, and he had a 6:45am appointment! Needless to say the entire ship's disembarkation was delayed as we waited for all the other poor Europeans to be processed.

 

On Constellation I felt the staff did a good job of keeping us apprised of the situation as it progressed, and although some folks no doubt missed their flights, we were in the first group in our waiting area to get off, about 1.5 hours after our original disembark time. We got off at around 10:35am and made our 12:30 flight in San Diego without issues. Luggage and the airport transfer buses were very organized and all the staff had a great sense of urgency.

 

ETA: P.S. On our ship/itinerary US and Canadian citizens did not need to go through immigration checks at all. I never showed my or my children's passports to anyone to be allowed off the ship. The only thing we had to do was turn in our blue customs form (one per family) as we exited the luggage area.

just had an awful thought (or two)....is it possible Customs officers are Unionized and there was a protest work slow-down? I don't want to mention the other one....would probably start an international incident.

[txsloth]

just had an awful thought (or two)....is it possible Customs officers are Unionized and there was a protest work slow-down? I don't want to mention the other one....would probably start an international incident.

 

I was wondering if some of the new Homeland Security regs just started being enforced...

[FinelyCruising]

wow. perhaps you would feel different if you were stuck in the non-US citizen line without any warning from anyone that it was going to happen to you. perhaps when you took all the information you learned on this board, from the cruise line and from your experience and planned accordingly you still were late for your flight you may a bit inclined to complain.

 

That is exactly what happened to us. I have been on 8 cruises. I have been on this board for 8 years. I read everything the cruise line gave me. They went so far as to BOAST how smooth their disembarkation was compared to other lines. I planned accordingly. I booked a flight leaving at 1:30PM on a cruise that docked at 7:00am and had my flight not been delayed 40 minutes I would have missed my flight.

 

I just do not see how you can think that I should have known this was going to happen. Further, by posting my experience here dont you think that is helping people plan?? To berate me for posting seems to go against the very advice you give in your post by saying that people should be prepared by reading these boards. How exactly should they do that if people like me dont complain about it here?

 

Further still, had you read my original post, you would see that I did in fact enjoy my cruise. I had many great things to say about it. I did not dwell on the disembarkation. The posts that followed my OP have moved the discussion there as people have concerns. To say I was moaning and groaning like the cruise never existed is wildly inaccurate.

 

I recall the days when people used to comment about going through customs as though it was a curse and I never had a really horrible time of it except once in a Mexican airport.

 

For years there has been a clear and simple path from the ship through customs and I used to think wow, what was all the fuss in dark ages about.

 

But I did earn here about some potential hold ups, and I did recall the days when it used to be a process.

 

That process seems to be back.

 

So I booked my air so that I would not miss a flight and thought if I did, how bad could it be to stay overnight in FLL. I did, as a result, wait equally long on board and in the airport. I did some reading and made some phone calls. We were very well informed while on board as to the delays.

 

Aside from that, I was not singling out anyone, just generalizing that there seems to be a littany of complaints about customs, and IMHO, clearing customs is like it used to be. A process.

 

So, to those reading this, pass it on and plan accordingy; and if you can't manage the idea of passing through customs at a slow pace -- the old fashioned way, well then decide if cruising is right for you.

 

Hopefully you decide it is worth the extra hour of effort.:D

[poppan]

just had an awful thought (or two)....is it possible Customs officers are Unionized and there was a protest work slow-down? I don't want to mention the other one....would probably start an international incident.

 

:eek: That could be but I get the feeling they were just government workers and moving about as fast as my local DMV does... at the speed of molasses. Or maybe the guy drinking coffee was the "supervisor" and the one actually working was the worker bee...

 

My husband also mentioned that on the immigration front they sent the 1 officer actually processing people, plus the coffee drinker, but on the customs end there were 3 people all waiting for the one immigration guy to send someone to them. Typical bureaucratic stuff from people with federal job security. ;)

 

P.S. Somewhere on the third page it was said that unlike the cruise in question, airports do not segregate into citizen/non-citizen lines... but this is not true in my experience. (Flying in from Canada is different though. Depending on the city I frequently cleared US immigration while still in Canada, before boarding the flight, and then the airplane actually lands in the domestic terminal not the international one. I guess Canada is our special friend!) When flying in from Europe or Asia and landing in the international terminal, we are always put through separate lines... and there are usually more desks open for citizens/residents (green card holders) than "visitors"/non-citizens. Plus they ask you a lot more questions when you are coming in as a visitor, so unless you are first off your flight, the visitors line quickly gets VERY long. I get the same treatment when I land in Europe -- EU passports in the short line, non-EU passports in the long one! I only note all this because we have one US passport holder and one EU passport holder in the family... and we often had to wait for the other person. Nothing like the fiasco described in the OP though... maybe our ports should learn something from our airports!

[Michidoeme]

A few points.

 

1. When I fly into the US, the US Customs lines are NOT segregated and they work just fine.

 

 

Gospelle, I do not know which cities you fly into, but I have travelled in recent years from Europe to JFK, Newark, Chicago, Boston, Miami and the non-US nationals where always segregated from the US nationals and lines for the non-US were way longer as there is a more extented process to go through (visa waiver documents, fingerprints, photos, questioning, etc.).

[skt4cruise]

Gospelle, I do not know which cities you fly into, but I have travelled in recent years from Europe to JFK, Newark, Chicago, Boston, Miami and the non-US nationals where always segregated from the US nationals and lines for the non-US were way longer as there is a more extented process to go through (visa waiver documents, fingerprints, photos, questioning, etc.).

 

yes, absolutely true, I travel international 4-6 times a year, Europe and back to the States, long lines in Nationals but double in Non Nationals, spend your time people watching, takes the edge off the slow line. Its better than not getting in at all...lol

[gospelle]

 

As AJD stated perhaps the problem was not with customs, but I would not think that the luggage unloading would be different for non citizens.

 

.

 

As far as I could tell, luggage unloading was not a problem. All the luggage seemed to be there waiting. It was A)getting off the ship, B)getting to the luggage once off the ship and C)getting into the customs lines once we had the luggage that was the problem.

[gospelle]

This confuses me. We disembarked the Solstice last Feb. in 10 minutes, carrying our own luggage from our room, and we're Canadian. No Customs issues...special line for non U.S. citizens and we went right through. Hopefully it will still work this way next Feb. on the Equinox! Sorry you had to experience this. We have never had this problem on any cruiseline. Perhaps it was your turn....ouch...mine could be coming up!

 

As I've said before, this was my 8th cruise and the first time I've experienced this. It is also the first time I sailed Celebrity and the first time I sailed from/to Ft. Lauderdale.

 

To me it seemed Celebrity, Ft. Lauderdale pier staff and Ft. Lauderdale customs all had a part to play in this, with the heaviest blame on the pier staff. (they were simply idiotic with some of the things they were doing).

[gospelle]

 

Hopefully you decide it is worth the extra hour of effort.:D

 

Well in this case, it was 4 hours effort, and I was not even close to the last group off the ship. To some it was a 6 hour effort.

[FinelyCruising]

Well in this case, it was 4 hours effort, and I was not even close to the last group off the ship. To some it was a 6 hour effort.

 

Really...from what point in time? You were still on board when new guests were checking in???

[gospelle]

A few points.

 

1. When I fly into the US, the US Customs lines are NOT segregated and they work just fine.

 

 

Gospelle, I do not know which cities you fly into, but I have travelled in recent years from Europe to JFK, Newark, Chicago, Boston, Miami and the non-US nationals where always segregated from the US nationals and lines for the non-US were way longer as there is a more extented process to go through (visa waiver documents, fingerprints, photos, questioning, etc.).

 

As mentioned in the post before yours, I fly out of Canada and we have US Customs at the airport there and fly into the domestic terminals. But the US Customs there has only one line, no special line for returning Americans.

 

When I fly back to Calgary or Toronto or Montreal from the US, the Canadian customs take all passengers US, Canadian and Foriegn in the same line. There are no special lines for Canadians.

 

When I fly to London Heathrow, there are no special lines for UK residents, just one big line. (which goes insanely quick).

 

When I cruised round trip from San Juan, the US customs had one line.

 

I don't recall my Miami experience as to what the lines were like, other than to say it went smoothly.

 

Seperate lines are fine, but that is NOT the only thing that happened in this case. There were 3 very seperate things that occured before we ever got to the line.

 

1. We were 2 hours late exiting the ship.

 

2. We were made to sit/stand in a waiting room in the peir (before the luggage) and the order of people was not maintained. it is entirely possible that the first person to sit (presumably with the earliest flight) was the last person out of that waiting area with 200 people in front of them that got there after them.

 

3. Once you were allowed to get your luggage, they wouldn't let you get in line. This was just ridiculous as the holding area where the line was was huge and empty and we all easily could have gone and got in line. Instead, people squeezed and pushed into one corner where the staff kept people there for no apparent reason letting a couple people go get in line every 5 or 10 minutes. It was insane!!

[gospelle]

Really...from what point in time? You were still on board when new guests were checking in???

 

We were supposed to leave the ship at 9:15 and didn't exit until 11:15. I didn't leave the customs area until 1:00pm. We were perhaps in the middle in terms of people exiting. We were group 23 and there were at least 40 groups.

 

The passengers for the next cruise would be able to check in at the regular time I would imagine because they are in a different part of the pier but they certainly were not able to board before noon. likely much later than that.

 

I understand from reading some of the comments from fellow passengers in our roll call that things got much worse after I disembarked. From docking until the last passenger exited customs would easily have been 8 hours.

[poppan]

It all sounds perfectly awful! I'll beware if I ever have to sail into FLL. I thought our San Diego disembarkation went very well, given the circumstances (1/3 of the ship being non-US and non-Canadian and thus required to go through immigration, whereas the rest of us were not inspected). They kept us all on the ship until the "foreigners" had been cleared by immigration, then we disembarked in the correct order, and they let several groups that had flights leaving pretty soon all get off together. Luggage was organized in the arrival hall, we grabbed our suitcases and then as we exited our customs forms were collected by (presumably?) customs personnel. We made our 12:30 flight with time to spare, despite getting off the ship 1.5 hours later than planned.

[Tigrou]

When I fly to London Heathrow, there are no special lines for UK residents, just one big line. (which goes insanely quick).

 

 

I believe you are mistaken on this point.

 

I live in the UK and have returned home through Heathrow, Gatwick, Birmingham and Manchester on numerous occasions. As far as I'm aware, there is always at least 2 separate lines - one for EU passport holders and one for non-EU passport holders. I have never seen just one line at any of these airports.

[Tigrou]

The reason for the long line, as interpreted by my husband, is that although there were several US immigrations officers there, only one was actually processing people. The others were enjoying their morning coffee and doing nothing.

 

We had a similar experience on a Disney cruise a few years ago. We were told to report to a certain area at a certain time (early morning, 0545 - 0600 - 0615 I think) - the time varied slightly according to your cabin number. We duly arrived and sat down in line, as did everyone for whichever time given. About 0630 the Immigration Officers strolled in, put equipment from their bags onto the table. Then they all went over to the coffee and danishes provided for them in the corner of the room. It was 0700 before they started to process anyone.