HOUSTON Help Bon Voyage Experience Parking at port?

[Mekamax]

We will be sailing on the CB out of Houston and have a couple doing the Bon Voyage Experience with us. Where can they park? Anyone done the Bon Voyage Experience out of Houston yet??

[trabeler]

We did the BVE for my mother in law last week. We were sailing that day and parked in the long term lot. However, when you approach the port, if you're not sailing, security should direct you to the employee lot which is adjacent to the pay lot.

 

Let me know if you have any other BVE questions for Houston.

 

 

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[Mekamax]

We did the BVE for my mother in law last week. We were sailing that day and parked in the long term lot. However, when you approach the port, if you're not sailing, security should direct you to the employee lot which is adjacent to the pay lot.

 

Let me know if you have any other BVE questions for Houston.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

 

Ton of questions - anything you can tell me. We will be new to Princess (not cruising) and our booking is linked to theirs and we were told to go to the Priority Line with them to get checked in quicker as they wait on the BVE people. Will we have a hard time with this? What time would you recommend arriving? THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

[sminfiddle]

Ton of questions - anything you can tell me. We will be new to Princess (not cruising) and our booking is linked to theirs and we were told to go to the Priority Line with them to get checked in quicker as they wait on the BVE people. Will we have a hard time with this? What time would you recommend arriving? THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

 

Show the BVE boarding pass to the first parking attendant. They know what it is. They get you to the one-day parking lot which is FREE.

Short walk to the front doors and a flash of the boarding pass will get the BVE folks to the right lines. Arrive 10:20 or so. I saw lots of happy BVE people in the terminal and on board today!

 

Rick

[trabeler]

Ton of questions - anything you can tell me. We will be new to Princess (not cruising) and our booking is linked to theirs and we were told to go to the Priority Line with them to get checked in quicker as they wait on the BVE people. Will we have a hard time with this? What time would you recommend arriving? THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

 

We had 8 people sailing plus one person (grandma) doing the BVE. Our only issue was boarding priority. Initially, everyone we talked to said that we couldn't board with the BVE person and if we all wanted to board together, they suggested having the BVE person wait until the folks who are sailing board.

 

After asking a few supervisors and then being polite with the lady who was coordinating the actual boarding, she let us all board together. This way we got a group photo with grandma that she got complimentary as part of the BVE package. BVE people need to be first to board so that the photos are ready before they leave... if someone who is BVE ends up boarding late, I'd expect that their photo would be mixed in with the folks who are sailing.

 

Other tidbits.. arrive around 10:45. On 23 Nov they didn't open up security until around 10:45 or so. Go through check in and then sit together at the BVE chairs (nearest to the entry doors that look like rolled-down garage doors before boarding begins). The BVE people need to be wearing a sticker that says "Bon Voyage" that they should get during check-in. This sticker is key to the early boarding, free photo, and free wine during lunch.

 

We probably boarded around 11:30 or thereabouts. We didn't do the organized tour and just self explored after lunch. Lunch opened at noon and we were one of the first groups seated. Sit-down lunch should be in the Coral dining room. Staff members kept wanting to send us to the buffet and two even said that the dining room wasn't open for lunch.

 

We picked up the photo at the photo gallery around 2 pm or so. They had a few envelopes of BVE photos waiting by then.

 

The announcement for all visitors to depart came around 3 pm and they wanted everyone off by 3:30 pm or so. Finding how to exit was a bit tricky since they were running three incoming gangways and had nothing properly setup for departure. Just walk up to security and explain they need to get off and they'll take care of things.

 

Hopefully they'll have more of the bugs worked out of the procedures by the time you sail. Ours was probably only the second BVE that was done from Bayport.

Edited November 30, 2013 by trabeler

[Mekamax]

Thank you both so much! I really want this to be a good experience for the older couple coming with us doing the tour. Since they are completely new to cruising it will be on our shoulders to get to the right spot at the right time so appreciate all the details!!!! He will be babysitting my dog for the cruise and she was the rescue lady I got the puppy from a couple years ago. They are such sweet people and he has wanted to cruise for a long time so this will be so nice for him to see what they are like up close and personal. Thanks again it is very very helpful. :) Deb