Immigration Chaos Port Everglades

[Silhouette2017]

Hello. On Friday we arrived back to Florida after an 11 night cruise on the Reflection. While the cruise was truly flawless, I can’t say I’m too impressed by the arrival experience at terminal 18. Non-US passengers were held for hours in the corridors leading to the luggage area (right after the gangway) for hours until every US passenger was cleared. Luckily we left the ship as one of the last passengers so our total wait was “only” 2.5 hours. We were in our taxi slightly after noon.  We were advised by the port agent that CBP did not receive information that the majority of this ship was non-US passengers. Additionally they now fingerprint and take photo of every visitor, which adds a lot of time, a year ago they mearly looked at our European passports. 

 

We we had a hotel waiting for us in Fort Lauderdale but we saw a ton of Canadian passengers missing their flights. 

Edited December 9, 2018 by Silhouette2017

[Barwick Cruiser]

Was there a separate, maybe faster, line for Nexus holders?  How many ships disembarked with you?  Hope it's more organized next month when we sail!!

[Silhouette2017]

I think there were 3 or 4 ships in port so not the most busy time. There were not separate lines for anything just a port agent screaming out that Americans first others have to wait. 

[CHEZMARYLOU]

There were only 2 ships in port on Friday so definitely not busy.  We were off the ship and in a cab in 15 to 20 minutes.  We have global entry so we were able to go the front of one of two customs lines for US passengers.  We used luggage valet so did not have to pick up luggage and just kept asking port personnel to direct us to global entry.

[gerelmx]

I was in the Summit past October (New England and Canada), I enter the USA at DFW before the cruise, when I disembark the Summit and reenter to USA (Bayonne), CBP only take me a photo and by facial recognition the green light turn's on, the lady tell me you are cleared you can go home. I didn't show my passport and/or USA Visa.  This was the fastest and ease USA immigration I have done. Last Eclipse cruise returning to Miami in March the immigration official only ask to see our passport and checked that we have a valid permit to reenter USA (passport stamped when we enter to USA).  All cruises done that are USA Round trip when we reenter the USA after the cruise NEVER has been asked to do again the finger prints and photo because the first time we enter USA the permit is issued for 6 months.

[jagoffee]

2 hours ago, Silhouette2017 said:

I think there were 3 or 4 ships in port so not the most busy time. There were not separate lines for anything just a port agent screaming out that Americans first others have to wait. 

I have always seen at least one line for non US citizens.

Are  you saying that there was not even one non US Citizen line and you were forced to wait at the  end of the US citizen line?

I either have a foggy memory or this was a significant change.  As far as I recall I have always used slower non citizen lines in all non US counties.

 

On the other hand, I can understand that there might be a very large number of non US citizens using one or two non citizen stations.

 

I am sorry  this happened to you.  I can see that is not very welcoming.  I felt the same way when I fly into New Zealand once.

Edited December 9, 2018 by jagoffee

[Silhouette2017]

37 minutes ago, jagoffee said:

I have always seen at least one line for non US citizens.

Are  you saying that there was not even one non US Citizen line and you were forced to wait at the  end of the US citizen line?

I either have a foggy memory or this was a significant change.  As far as I recall I have always used slower non citizen lines in all non US counties.

 

On the other hand, I can understand that there might be a very large number of non US citizens using one or two non citizen stations.

 

I am sorry  this happened to you.  I can see that is not very welcoming.  I felt the same way when I fly into New Zealand once.

We were not allowed to enter the luggage area before all Americans were cleared. So there was no access to any lane, whether US or non-US. So the issue was not that we had to go to a slower line, but that we were held in a corridor for hours before being allowed to proceed. 

Edited December 9, 2018 by Silhouette2017

[chemmo]

After experiencing many cruises where the return to Fort Lauderdale involved a wait, but not an unacceptable wait (about 45 mins to an hour) we met similar to what you describe getting off the Equinox a couple of years ago. Whilst not fully disabled we do have limitations to how long we can stand, it was a very unpleasant experience....We also saw fellow passengers who had thought they had planned their flights at OK times begin to panic and we are aware several did miss flights. At times it did seem that the queues literally were not moving.

 

When we returned to Fort Lauderdale last year. We were in a suite and literally arranged to be last off the ship....We sat in Michael’s until the concierge was told there was no longer any queue...

[jagoffee]

1 minute ago, Silhouette2017 said:

We were not allowed to enter the luggage area before all Americans were cleared. So there was no access to any lane, whether US or non-US. 

That is terrible.

[chemmo]

2 minutes ago, Silhouette2017 said:

We were not allowed to enter the luggage area before all Americans were cleared. So there was no access to any lane, whether US or non-US. So the issue was not that we had to go to a slower line, but that we were held in a corridor for hours before being allowed to proceed. 

 

That is worse than our experience....we, at least got our luggage and got in the non-US queue before coming to a standstill.

[yorky]

That’s why we always book a hotel room for two nights before we cruise and for the night we get back in, too much of a risk for us.

[Barwick Cruiser]

32 minutes ago, chemmo said:

When we returned to Fort Lauderdale last year. We were in a suite and literally arranged to be last off the ship....We sat in Michael’s until the concierge was told there was no longer any queue...

We have a hotel booked for our post cruise night so that's exactly what we'll do...not in a suite but think we'll just hang out on the ship until the queue is reasonable.  We'll have GE but in Canadian passports so doesn't sound like it'll be very helpful there.

[Marelaine]

I'm sorry for your experience. I know how horrible it is. After one cruise we had to queue outside for over an hour in record cold Fort Lauderdale temps and then another 2 hours once inside the terminal. They were short staffed because of budget sequestration and I think some of the staffers were deliberately slow to make a point. To make matters worse, there was an east coast snow storm and lots of cancelled and missed flights. People were trying to rebook flights and hotel rooms while waiting in the terminal queues. It just takes that vacation glow off prematurely. 

[Albertabound]

We were on the same cruise. 2.5 hours waiting to be processed by customs agent. They started pulling us Canadians out of the queue just before we got to the CBP desk and didn’t have to be fingerprinted. We were lucky, we managed to arrive at our gate 10 minutes before boarding. Only because we skipped taking the prepaid shuttle arranged through the ship and grabbed a taxi instead. Others around us in line weren’t so lucky. Multiple people in earshot were already calling their airlines to tell them they wouldn’t be making it in time.

[lovescarborough]

14 minutes ago, yorky said:

That’s why we always book a hotel room for two nights before we cruise and for the night we get back in, too much of a risk for us.

Yes , we do exactly the same !  I hope this isn't going to be the norm at Fort Lauderdale. We've been there many times and never had much of a wait. After the horrors of immigration arriving at Miami airport, I don't think we could stand this at the end of the holiday! 

[yorky]

2 minutes ago, lovescarborough said:

Yes , we do exactly the same !  I hope this isn't going to be the norm at Fort Lauderdale. We've been there many times and never had much of a wait. After the horrors of immigration arriving at Miami airport, I don't think we could stand this at the end of the holiday! 

Miami last time was our worst experience at any airport in the world. The over zealous Inspections, even adding another as you tried to leave the terminal plus understaffing with even those doing checks slowing everything to a snails pace was truly awful. There were passengers at the baggage pick up just about fighting with each other in frustration. We also cruise in and out of Fort Lauderdale next year so as with yourself hope it’s not another horror show. 

[TeaBag]

Is this something new?  We came through customs in Ft Lauderdale Nov 18 and had no trouble and basically no wait.  We did have trouble on the ship when we docked in Boston coming from Southampton.  It was a disaster.

[Silhouette2017]

I think it’s new that they are now fingerprinting and taking photos of non-Americans. At least on previous cruises they didn’t do that. 

[TeaBag]

Wow, that's terrible.

[ipeeinthepool]

If CBP wasn't processing any non-US citizens, then it would have seem that Celebrity should have notified the non-US passenger on-board and kept them on the ship until the lines were moving.  Your wait wouldn't have been any shorter but you would have been more comfortable sitting on the ship.

[Turtles06]

As an American, let me say that I am very sorry this happened.  It's a terrible way to welcome anyone to our country.  

[Silvery Seas Cruiser]

We were in this mess. Furthermore, no one told us there was one line for foreign and one for US citizens, so we waited in the very long, non-moving foreign line. Hubby began to wonder why virtually everyone around us was speaking French, Portuguese, etc until he was able to see the sign for US citizens. We scooted under the tape and scurried over there. I felt really bad for the foreign passengers. It looked to me as if they would be hours in line. 

 

Furthermore there was a snafu for folks with luggage tags numbered 18. We weren't allowed to touch our bags for some inexplicable reason while others with tags with higher numbers could collect their bags and leave. Things got heated until finally some official came to his senses and allowed all of us to find our bags.

 

The only explanation I can see for this very poor showing in terminal 18 was that our ship was supposed to dock at terminal 25 from which Reflection had left 11 nights before but we were switched to 18 instead.

Edited December 9, 2018 by Silvery Seas Cruiser

[Nebr.cruiser]

Wow, sorry to hear this.  That must have been awful.  We got off very quickly the 18th, but are US citizens and had a late disembarkation.

 

The fun part was changing our flight to an earlier one because of  learning that a blizzard warning was in effect for our area at home; luckily we were able to get a much earlier flight and although the snow held off until the next morning, our original flight was delayed in Dallas for over 3 hours, which would have gotten us home about 5AM, instead of 10:30.

[bogofman]

We will be returning on the 28th and need to get to miami for our flight to UK,

 

Are you saying if we elect to disembark at say 8am, and walk our bags off, we would have to stand in line until all US passengers have disembarked, they could be disembarking until after 9.30

 

We have never returned to fort lauderdale before, only miami, or honolulu, and all ocasions we just walked off with no queues.

 

 

Edited December 9, 2018 by bogofman

[Silvery Seas Cruiser]

9 minutes ago, bogofman said:

We will be returning on the 28th and need to get to miami for our flight to UK,

 

Are you saying if we elect to disembark at say 8am, and walk our bags off, we would have to stand in line until all US passengers have disembarked, they could be disembarking until after 9.30

 

We have never returned to fort lauderdale before, only miami, or honolulu, and all ocasions we just walked off with no queues.

 

 

 

I suspect the turmoil at Terminal 18 was due to Reflection's docking there instead of Terminal 25 because of some unclear problem with Terminal 25. I would guess that you may not experience what we did if your ship returns to the same dock from which it departs.