Crown debarkation "cluster" today

[Piepkorn]

Ooofff...just looked and there are three ships in the day we arrive home. I'm assuming that automatically makes it a cluster. Any advice as to how best to navigate (be first or last group off ship?

Thanks for the great info:)

 

There are only 2 ships on the San Pedro side on 3/28. Carnival docks in Long Beach and won't be a factor.

Edited February 3, 2015 by Piepkorn

[critterchick]

Ooofff...just looked and there are three ships in the day we arrive home. I'm assuming that automatically makes it a cluster. Any advice as to how best to navigate (be first or last group off ship?

Thanks for the great info:)

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

I wouldn't assume anything of the sort. OP didn't like the way it went, but the rest of us thought it was fine, just more time than usual because of the drive. We were half an hour behind Drives Like Mario and, apart from having to witness a few entitled passengers berate the CC hostess because they couldn't go when they wanted to, it was painless.

 

victory2020, there were already two cruise ships at the regular berths, 92 and 93, so embarking passengers had to do what we did in reverse. I don't know if they could have dropped their bags off at 46, parked at 93 (there's no overnight parking at 46) and then shuttled back. I imagine that getting out was a bit easier than getting in.

 

Oh, and there's a dock in Wilmington, under the Vincent Thomas Bridge, that has been used in the past. I remember driving by the pier on a Friday afternoon wondering where Monarch OTS was, as she was a regular. She'd been booted for the day because of the extra load (that was before they were using 46 and before the Iowa had tied up).

[Qcruise]

We got to our waiting lounge at around 745am and were called at 920am....waited in the line around the atrium for about half hour, got to our car around 1015am. We had pretty good luck with anytime dining as our group was 10 people, so we would get a reservation each day. We got 730pm on Saturday night and had to take 8pm for Sunday, then changed it to 5pm which messed up watching super bowl, but preferred that to missing some shows later. Food was overall good in dining room, buffet is buffet, enough said.

[Pam in CA]

Should I request a mattress topper? How are the mattresses and pillows?

My daughter and I disembarked a week ago. We had cabins next door to each other. She felt she needed the egg crate, my mattress was fine... very comfortable and I slept well all four nights.

 

Check your mattress after boarding. You may or may not need an egg crate.

[SoCal Cruiser78]

...The docking thing is pretty rare. There aren't often three ships in port.

 

I now check port schedules when comparing possible cruises. I was booked on today's cruise, but had to cancel due to a schedule conflict. When I learned of the pier 46 docking, I figured it was just well I had to rebook for a later date. Sorry the OP had a bad experience, but glad to hear things went okay for some CCers anyway!

Edited February 3, 2015 by Ryndam2002
grammar

[laughing husky]

We got off the crown on Friday, Jan 30. There were no issues....oh yeh the toilets aft went wonky for about 30 minutes the night before we left the ship. The plumber same and worked on them, they were fine. "They" said it was most of the aft cabins. The ship was great as far as we were concerned. bed was great, no Noro in sight....food was excellent, and Sabatinii's had one of the best meals I have ever had....wines in Vines were excellent. staff enthusiastic...it was a lot of very relaxing fun....It was cool in Mexico, cool in San Diego and we saw no whales..however one of the whale watching boats reported they saw a pod of grey whales in the harbor...?

[Marauder]

I was also on this cruise. I thought debarkation went very smoothly. Maybe that's because I was expecting the worst. As others said, they had told us ahead of time that only one person per party would be allowed on the shuttle to the parking lot (that would have been a cluster...). Instead everybody was allowed on the buses with luggage stored underneath. We showed up at the Wheelhouse bar at about 7:45 and were immediately given a ticket and told to go down to Michelangelo's. The line down there was longer but moved quickly. We breezed through Customs then off the ship and on to the buses. We were on the freeway by 8:45. Much smoother than the debarkation on my last two cruises out of San Pedro.

 

The other thing that surprised me was the lack of lines at anytime dining, especially considering there were over 3400 passengers on this sailing (at least that's what a crew member told me). Anytime dining is usually a madhouse on Princess but this time we never saw any lines and there seemed to be plenty of tables available even at peak times. My suspicion is that since there were a lot of families with kids, probably a lot of them with to the buffet. Since we rarely go to the buffet I can't speak to the crowds there.

[Loonbeam]

Something we learned on our Breakaway cruise, one issue at debarkation can have a domino effect. We decided to get off late and it was a mess but not the ship's fault. Apparently a line jumper started a fistfight with a port guard and that stopped everything for 20 mins or so until the police left. That caused a cascading backup so bad that an hour later the line for immigration (which I still don't know why we needed for a cruise to nowhere) was looped and outside the terminal.

 

Ship didn't clear until almost 11:30 as opposed to the expected 10:00

[racj846]

^^^^ That line for Immigration was more likely Customs focused. Even on a cruise to nowhere you can still rack up some impressive duty free purchases on the ship!!

[laughing husky]

@Maurader....I forgot to mention the lack of lines at anytime dining. one day we had to wait for about 3 minutes or so.....I think that was the 3rd evening...and I thought disembarkation was also a breeze....We waited for about 15 minutes, customs was a breeze....and Enterprise shuttle was there waiting for us to pick up our rental car....Very easy......

[Loonbeam]

That would assume they even looked at the forms we handed in. I mean that literally, the guy did not even glance at it.

 

^^^^ That line for Immigration was more likely Customs focused. Even on a cruise to nowhere you can still rack up some impressive duty free purchases on the ship!!