FLL cruisers, Share your most recent experience of embarkation and disembarkation del

[Arizona Cruz Chic]

Have you sailed out of FLL with in the last week or so and have any experience of delays due to the Govt cut back of customs?

 

I am not so concerned about embarkation but the disembarkation.

We have a noon flight and now beginning to wonder if that is too early!!!

 

***

[iata]

We did. Equinox arrival march 15. We had number 19 for 09:30 dissembarkation, we were at the airport at 13:00 for a 14:20 flight. Our firiends had no.10 for a 08:30 dissembarkation for a 12:30 flight they missed it. I highly suggest you do the express walk off.

[Lois R]

I moved my flight to a later time....express walk off is not something

I care to do. So, I will let everyone else on the ship disembark and

will be in the very last group...hopefully the last person off:D

I originally booked a noon flight home. I decided to change it

to 3:45pm. After reading all these replies, I didn't want to have to

rush and stress over noon flight. Should be all good for the middle

of the afternoon:D

[rucruisn2]

We got off the Liberty of the Seas on 3/11. Embarkation was horrible. Took us 2 1/2 to get onboard. This had nothing to do with cut backs, this was RCCL employees. Disembarkation was fine. Had an 11:30 flight out of

FLL for our friends, so we got tag #2. They were at the airport by 9AM.

[8milfan]

We had group 2 on the Equinox on 3/15 disembarkation which was 8 am for an 11:30 am flight. It took us 1 hour to clear customs and we arrived at the airport in plenty of time for our flight. We did get out and find our luggage immediately, lines were much longer by the time we got to the customs agent.

[8milfan]

Have you sailed out of FLL with in the last week or so and have any experience of delays due to the Govt cut back of customs?

 

I am not so concerned about embarkation but the disembarkation.

We have a noon flight and now beginning to wonder if that is too early!!!

 

***

If you have priority disembarkation you should be OK, if you don't then I would consider making a change.

[Arizona Cruz Chic]

TY everyone for your experience, I don't think express walk off will be doable for us due to some light disability. Not sure if we can or will change our flights.

 

Right now its a 50/50....or.... six of one and half dozen of another of what can or will happen and all of it is out of our control!

 

Keep your posts coming!

 

***

[CHEZMARYLOU]

Have you sailed out of FLL with in the last week or so and have any experience of delays due to the Govt cut back of customs?

 

I am not so concerned about embarkation but the disembarkation.

We have a noon flight and now beginning to wonder if that is too early!!!

 

***

 

Look into Luggage Valet once you board. You will not have to pick up your luggage at the pier and will not have to take it off the ship with you. There is a fee but you can disembark at any time you please, sans luggage.

 

Mary Lou

[casandbliz]

What if you have an excursion booked thru the ship post cruise? We have, and I'm wondering if everyone on the excursion will be delayed getting off the ship, which in turn will delay the excursion???

 

We have never done a post cruise excursion, so hence my questions.....

[RhondaPerr]

Are you sure you can disembark anytime you want with luggage valet ? I remember sitting and waiting till late morning? But that was a while ago!

 

 

 

Look into Luggage Valet once you board. You will not h

 

 

ave to pick up your luggage at the pier and will not have to take it off the ship with you. There is a fee but you can disembark at any time you please, sans luggage.

 

Mary Lou

[CHEZMARYLOU]

Are you sure you can disembark anytime you want with luggage valet ? I remember sitting and waiting till late morning? But that was a while ago!

 

Although they might have recommended a time to disembark, no one checked on you and they did not attempt to stop you as they scanned your sea pass card for the last time, if the suggested time was even in their system. There is no paperwork that you need to show. If I remember correctly, we were going to stay on board until 9:30 - 10:00 but disembarked around 9:00.

 

If you have to get your luggage at the pier then you need to wait until the appropriate time, otherwise your luggage will not be on the dock when you disembark.

 

Mary Lou

[librarylady19]

I moved my flight to a later time....express walk off is not something

I care to do. So, I will let everyone else on the ship disembark and

will be in the very last group...hopefully the last person off:D

I originally booked a noon flight home. I decided to change it

to 3:45pm. After reading all these replies, I didn't want to have to

rush and stress over noon flight. Should be all good for the middle

of the afternoon:D

 

Sounds like a good idea Lois. Have a great cruise and take notes!! What are Yu looking at for 2014?

[Kevnzworld]

I read somewhere that guests in suites get priority disembarkation, depending on flights, is that correct?

[Lois R]

Sounds like a good idea Lois. Have a great cruise and take notes!! What are Yu looking at for 2014?

 

Hi Sandi:) of course now that I changed the flight, watch...we will

have a speedy disembarkation with everything going smoothly;)

 

As for next year? HOPEFULLY Europe. I am waiting for the rest of the

itineraries to be released.:).

[vivi9909]

We did. Equinox arrival march 15. We had number 19 for 09:30 dissembarkation, we were at the airport at 13:00 for a 14:20 flight. Our firiends had no.10 for a 08:30 dissembarkation for a 12:30 flight they missed it. I highly suggest you do the express walk off.

 

Were the friends Iata is talking about. As mentioned, we had tag #10 scheduled to leave the ship at 8:30. At 9:00, they were still at tag 8 and we decided to leave the ship without waiting they call our number. We were cleared at customs only at 11:00. During our waiting in line, we noticed that people with much higher tag numbers (up to 22) were ahead of us.

We arrived at the airport at 11:20 and were told that it was too late to check luggages. Fortunately, we were lucky to have seats (side by side!) on the 2:05 PM flight probably reserved by other ship passengers also stuck at the ship terminal. Due to the comprehension of the Air Canada personnel at the registration deck we were not charged any additional fee. We are however sorry for passengers who were probably much more delayed and affected than we were.

 

Our perception is that Celebrity was holding passengers on the ship, possibly to give priority to those having excursions or airport transfer with them and that we had to wait too long due to passengers who left the ship much earlier than necessary. Next time, we will probably leave earlier without waiting our tag number to be called. The bad consequence of this is that if too many people make the same decision, the disembarkation process will become excessively disorganized.

[jagoffee]

Were the friends Iata is talking about. As mentioned, we had tag #10 scheduled to leave the ship at 8:30. At 9:00, they were still at tag 8 and we decided to leave the ship without waiting they call our number. We were cleared at customs only at 11:00. During our waiting in line, we noticed that people with much higher tag numbers (up to 22) were ahead of us.

We arrived at the airport at 11:20 and were told that it was too late to check luggages. Fortunately, we were lucky to have seats (side by side!) on the 2:05 PM flight probably reserved by other ship passengers also stuck at the ship terminal. Due to the comprehension of the Air Canada personnel at the registration deck we were not charged any additional fee. We are however sorry for passengers who were probably much more delayed and affected than we were.

 

Our perception is that Celebrity was holding passengers on the ship, possibly to give priority to those having excursions or airport transfer with them and that we had to wait too long due to passengers who left the ship much earlier than necessary. Next time, we will probably leave earlier without waiting our tag number to be called. The bad consequence of this is that if too many people make the same decision, the disembarkation process will become excessively disorganized.

 

I suspect if everyone decides to leave early that it will not improve the situation.

[RhondaPerr]

Thanks for all the info! There is no doubt I am going to do express walk off! I do not have the option of miising my flight home!

[Hydrangea Lady]

Disembarked the Eclipse on 3/9, left the ship at 9am, not out of the terminal til 11am!! 3 customs/immigration agents for 3,000 passengers, taking breaks as well. In the future we will do the luggage valet and walk off at 8am. If you have a disability you can request a wheelchair, those passengers go to the head of the line at immigration. Good Luck!

[velcarl1]

Have you sailed out of FLL with in the last week or so and have any experience of delays due to the Govt cut back of customs?

 

I am not so concerned about embarkation but the disembarkation.

We have a noon flight and now beginning to wonder if that is too early!!!

 

***

Yes the cut back definitely caused delays. We returned on Allure of the Seas on the 10th. They told our son not to expect to make a noon flight. Hope it is better for you. I haven't asked him if he made it or not. He has been out of the country with his job shortly after returning.

[ClevelandOhio]

We disembarked the HAL Maasdam on 3/8/13 in Ft. Lauderdale. We had an 8:30 departure time from HAL. We were not allowed off the ship until 10:00 am. from about 8 am until they didn't release anyone from the ship because there was no room to put more people in line. There were 1050 passengers on the ship and off this group perhaps a third were non-US. So basically there was one agent for each group. After getting in line we waited another hour to be processed.

 

Luckily we driving and were not terribly inconvenienced. I am absolutely certain that there were 100's of passengers who missed flights because of the delays. People were in line crying. It was a pretty sad state of affairs. When we arrived in the line the HAL representative told us that the agents were doing a full finger print check on every person. This is not something that is normally done and was perceived to be evidence of a slow down. By the time we got to the front of line there were four or five agents processing passengers and the US line had significantly improved in speed. However, the non-US line was even longer. I'm sure those people stood in line hours after they got off the ship.

 

I do not fully blame the agents involved. It is my understanding that the furlough letters had gone out the day before our arrival. I understand the frustration of the agents and their interest in showing their displeasure. I do fully blame our non-functional government in Washington DC.

 

In any case plan on enormous delays.

.