Delay boarding Independence of the Seas

[PCWalton1]

could be worse, could be sitting here at my house with no cruise ships within a 1000 miles. :p

[onefishtwofish]

We are in Ft. Lauderdale at the top of the Hyatt looking at her - doesn't look ready to go yet!! Hope you get going soon!! We are on her at the end of the year and can't wait!

[SAS21]

Currently sitting in Hilton room looking at Independence which is still docked. Barely any lights on the ship. We board Allure tomorrow. Wonder what's going on. Another ship docked behind her not moving either. I think it's a Princess ship, but not sure.

[luvteaching]

The one behind is HAL and it's not scheduled to leave until 10:00 PM Florida time. It's a charter.

 

Karen

[W2N]

What time did IOS get into port this morning? Did they give any reason why? I was on IOS last October, getting off the ship was such a cluster that it was almost like they tried to make it hard on everyone. I retired from emergency management and preplanning is everything. While sitting there trying to get off the ship, I thought how can this be such a night mare when they know your going to dock at x time, should be cleared by customs at y time, get passengers off by z time, and they do this every WEEK over and over, should be a simple process. All I could think of is, what if there was a major incident during the cruise how would they handle that?

[PCWalton1]

moving now

[Pumbaamd]

She's moving!!!

[onefishtwofish]

Well her horns were just blowing - a good sign I hope for the passengers! We can hear something being announced - just can't make out the words! Hopefully it's something like "we're on our way"!! :D

[SAS21]

She's leaving now.

[onefishtwofish]

She is moving!!! :D

[canuckcruiselover]

This is all making me nervous. Boarding the IOS on Feb 22 and we have a flight home at 1:20 pm. Normally, that would be plenty of time. Now I'm concerned with all that I'm hearing about the chaotic debarkation and delays that we could miss our flight.

[serious sealeggs]

Previous cruise was a charter. Was that the delay?

[Cravers2015]

We are sailing on 2/22 also. Some in our party have an early flight too!

[Paulette3028]

We are hearing that Independence of the Seas arrived in Port late this morning after 8 o'clock. They are still trying to clear all the passengers off of the ship and we are being told there are still 200 people on board that need to leave before we can board. Hoping to have more information soon.

 

We sailed on Indy in February 2015... getting on the ship in FLL was fine as was debarkation when our cruise was over.

 

Clearly the ship had some problem that caused them to arrive in port so late this morning, which was the initial cause of the issue and that made clearing the ship of its passengers more problematic....as we know there are always passengers who want to squeeze every last moment they can get on the ship before they leave.

 

The ship clearly had to alter its normal protocol to even try to accommodate the newly arriving passengers as quickly as they could providing those cruisers leaving the ship, would leave as quickly as possible.

[Pumbaamd]

We did a B2B on Indy in August and never had a problem getting on or off. Everything went very smooth. Sailing her again on 2/18 and are expecting the same.

R&D

[emory2001]

Part of it is because debarkation is a total nightmare on Independence.

 

Yes, it's not just because the ship got in late, more likely because debarkation has been terrible for a few months now. I'm boarding in 9 days and I'm actually starting to dread it.

[jeneah]

She did look good in the sunset. It was cool seeing the bridge lights all go out at once. I was on the Liberty in March and wasn't very impressed with the customer service or the food. My wife and I sailed our honeymoon on the Grand Princess and it was top notch. RCI wanted to charge me to add lobster to a meal and on more than one occasion, Princess added it for nothing. Also, RCI didn't do a very good job providing gluten free options whereas Princess went out of their way. So my point is that if the Independence is anything like my experience on the Liberty, I'm not surprised you haven't been impressed.

[yogimax]

Yes, it's not just because the ship got in late, more likely because debarkation has been terrible for a few months now. I'm boarding in 9 days and I'm actually starting to dread it.

 

If you can, hang out on the ship for as long as you can, until most people have left. Self Assist and regular debarkation have been horrendous.

[MJonTravel]

We were on the inbound. It wasn't much better getting off the ship today. :) This was our 40th cruise, and I've never.....ever.....seen anything like it. We missed our flight home, and had luggage tag # 1. I was able to arrange a new flight pretty easily, actually did so before we left the port, but there was so much wrong about getting off that ship today.

 

Our original flight was 11:50am..... a little risky, but based on past experiences at Port Everglades, seemed imminently doable. It would have been normally....not today. We did make a 1:45pm flight with ease.....but keep in mind we had luggage tag 1. I don't think I'll book a post cruise flight out of FLL earlier than 2pm again.

Edited January 31, 2016 by MJonTravel

[Toddcan]

We were on the inbound. It wasn't much better getting off the ship today. :) This was our 40th cruise, and I've never.....ever.....seen anything like it. We missed our flight home, and had luggage tag # 1. I was able to arrange a new flight pretty easily, actually did so before we left the port, but there was so much wrong about getting off that ship today.

 

Our original flight was 11:50am..... a little risky, but based on past experiences at Port Everglades, seemed imminently doable. It would have been normally....not today. We did make a 1:45pm flight with ease.....but keep in mind we had luggage tag 1. I don't think I'll book a post cruise flight out of FLL earlier than 2pm again.

 

Any details on the reasons for the problems?

[MJonTravel]

Any details on the reasons for the problems?

 

I'll be honest, I did not have a sense that we were late, but don't know as we were in an inside stateroom, and I didn't make it up for breakfast until about 8am. The RCL staffer in the theater where we waited indicated that Customs had not cleared us to disembark. The first announcement for self carry to leave did not happen until nearly 9am.

 

As someone noted up thread, this was a charter cruise, though I don't think that was really a problem. There were a lot of first-timers, and in my opinion too many people trying to carry too many big bags off. The biggest issues I saw onboard were an absence of employees controlling crowds and providing information. Once we left the theater, our assigned waiting area, I did not lay eyes on another RCL employee who appeared to be involved in the disembarkation process until I was exiting the gangway which was on deck 1 aft....a problem all its own. I could probably vent for 2 days about lack of crowd control onboard during disembarkation

 

Another issue, IMHO, is that Terminal 22 is woefully inadequate for a ship the size of Independence. There were 4 customs officials processing passengers, a 5th arrived as we were clearing. So...my sense is there is plenty of blame to go around from a lack of control and information onboard to the logistics of clearing the ship into what is a pretty crappy terminal facility in my opinion.

 

From our tag getting called to getting in the taxi was roughly 2 hours, and I have no doubt it would have been 3 hours or more if we had not gotten proactive and gotten out of the line we wound up in onboard. And for what it's worth, getting on the ship on Monday wasn't that great either.....about a 2 hour process. The cruise before this one was a charter as well, and there were still people disembarking the previous cruise at 11:45 when we arrived.....but that's another post. :)

 

It was a really sorry ending to what was a great cruise.

Edited January 31, 2016 by MJonTravel

[DanJ]

The Indy didn't arrive late. We were at breakfast on the Oasis at 7 and the Indy was already there. We had a flight at FLL at 1140 and had many people on that were from that charter (the Zumba Cruise). I think immigration officers might have been spread thin at the port, with 6 ships in. Not sure how many booths are usually open at terminal 18, but there were something like 8 lines for immigration today for the Oasis. Also I think customs pays extra attention to cruises that go through Jamaica, and maybe the demographic that would be on that cruise might cause even more scrutiny? I would think such a charter would attract a more youthful party crowd than your typical age ranges on any given cruise.

[vickiw0318]

Previous cruise was Rock Legends IV. First time on the Indy - prior cruises have been on the Liberty. There is a tremendous amount of equipment that must be offloaded. 20 -30 bands play. Those cruising on it were told to come late so that the equipment could be put on the ship. Hopefully, the staff on the Indy have now learned that a similar message should be sent to those boarding after the next year's rock cruise that will also be on the Indy.

 

These are fantastic cruises. My first year not to go. My late husband was the diehard rocker in the family.

[foflocruiser]

The Indy was at the dock, but spent 45 minutes shifting back and forth.

 

So, yes, the Independence had issues tying up, therefore debark got a late start.

 

Normal debark start time is 6:30AM.

[CocoCandy]

This was not an exaggeration or joke. Thousands of people waited hours standing outside in the sun for 3 hours. Broward County Fire Rescue came out twice to attend to people in the line. No OBC given and the attitude by the captain and guest services has been dismissive in regards to the delay. Truly, their response should have been better because even a small amount of $15 OBC would have been an appreciated gesture for the hours we waited in line for a trip that set me back a couple of thousand dollars.