Allure - Our room was raided and tossed!

[Merion_Mom]

16 minutes ago, Trickie Dickie said:

 Our state room attendant was a wonderful woman with a long career with Royal Caribbean.   Her service was impeccable.   She even popped over to visit us in our new room the following week and made sure we were okay.   I fail to see any reason why she would lie to us about that.   What would be the point? 

 

To make you feel better and not "singled out"?  It's human nature.

[sparks1093]

19 minutes ago, Trickie Dickie said:

 The humiliation was being under guard in the hallway wearing nothing but a bathrobe and bare feet. 

 

 How can you call it random when half the back to back cruisers were raided?   Clearly they targeted the back to back cruisers. It could have been random that we were in the chosen half.

How many other passengers were searched? There's no way to know. Maybe they randomly search half the back to back cruisers and as you say you were in the selected group.

[Trickie Dickie]

10 minutes ago, time4u2go said:

OP, you said the dog got a hit on your room.  When the dog was allowed into the room, what did it do (other than rip things apart)?  Did it target something specifically?

 The dog was in the room the entire time.   The door was always closed.   When I was called in.   The dog was sitting beside his handler while I was questioned.   The officers all watched my reactions as I answered the questions.   The officers made the mess not the dog.   The whole incident lasted around 45 minutes which seemed like an eternity at the time.  

[time4u2go]

7 minutes ago, Trickie Dickie said:

 The dog was in the room the entire time.   The door was always closed.   When I was called in.   The dog was sitting beside his handler while I was questioned.   The officers all watched my reactions as I answered the questions.   The officers made the mess not the dog.   The whole incident lasted around 45 minutes which seemed like an eternity at the time.  

Understood.  Thank you for the explanation.  Sorry you had to go through this!

[Trickie Dickie]

11 minutes ago, Merion_Mom said:

 

To make you feel better and not "singled out"?  It's human nature.

 

 I’m sorry I don’t agree with you.   I was there and you are speculating because of your personal experiences.   I can’t say that I have ever heard of anything like this before, but apparently it happens and now we both know.  I’m sure other people will share their experiences now that I’ve posted mine.   I’m looking forward to hear them. 

[mafig]

18 minutes ago, Trickie Dickie said:

 The dog was in the room the entire time.   The door was always closed.   When I was called in.   The dog was sitting beside his handler while I was questioned.   The officers all watched my reactions as I answered the questions.   The officers made the mess not the dog.   The whole incident lasted around 45 minutes which seemed like an eternity at the time.  

 

45 Minutes??!!!  That is a long time.

[Trickie Dickie]

1 minute ago, mafig said:

 

45 Minutes??!!!  That is a long time.

 

 It could’ve been longer. We were both called in the room multiple times.  They asked me my life story basically.   The last time they called me in the room is when they said the dog got a hit. 

[WpgCruise]

Interesting experience.   As I learn of more and more experiences like the O.P.’s it reinforces that when we are in another country we are subject to their laws, policies and procedures whether we agree with them or not.  We can pretty much forget about “right” or “fair”  Their country their rules.

 

The only thing we can do is choose where to spend our  vacation $$.  I remember many years ago on a cruise the first U.S. port was St. Thomas and everyone had to be cleared by U.S. Immigration.  Long story short it was poorly organized and took pretty much the whole morning before they would let anyone off the ship. Probably ½ the passenger load was Brits and while they love to line up, boy were they vocal in their displeasure.  It wasn't too many years after that I noticed P&O homeporting ships in the Barbados, offering direct fly/cruise packages from Great Britain.  None of the cruises stop in a U.S. port.  It’s quite normal now to see cruises homeported in Mexico, Panama, Jamaica and  other places in the Caribbean, with no port calls on U.S. islands or Territories.  I suspect the reason being the U.S. is making too many vacationers uncomfortable, and the cruise lines of course will provide itineraries their market will buy.

 

I believe every country has the right to make whatever laws they want, and every non citizen has the right to decide if they want to visit that country or not.  It’s all good as long as we have choices.

 

 

Edited March 30, 2019 by WpgCruise

[birdie16]

1 hour ago, Trickie Dickie said:

  If my memory serves me I believe his exact words were... the dog got a hit in your room, what and where is it?  My response was what does the dog hit on? because I have nothing but my prescriptions.  And I pointed out the bag they were in.   I remember thinking that if the dog actually  sniffed something out they would know what and where.  I think they were using some sort of tactics.   I have nothing to hide so I was cool as a cucumber.  

If I was going to guess, I would say a previous cruiser in your cabin was probably smoking pot.  I can’t tell you how many times I have cruised and smelled things that brought back memories of college days.  

[Charles4515]

 
 I’m sorry I don’t agree with you.   I was there and you are speculating because of your personal experiences.   I can’t say that I have ever heard of anything like this before, but apparently it happens and now we both know.  I’m sure other people will share their experiences now that I’ve posted mine.   I’m looking forward to hear them. 

Someone’s room probably gets searched every sailing. Probably people don’t post about it. It never happened to me but a room in my corridor was searched on a Carnival cruise on debarkation day. They had both ends of the corridor blocked and we had to remain in our cabin while they searched the other passengers cabin. Took them about 30 minutes. We were stressed because we had a flight to catch. I don’t think they found anything in the cabin they searched. I left the door open of my cabin so I would know when they finished so we could leave and overheard some of the questioning. Sounded like a wild goose chase to me.

[Trickie Dickie]

1 minute ago, WpgCruise said:

Interesting experience.   As I learn of more and more experiences like the O.P.’s it reinforces that when we are in another country we are subject to their laws, policies and procedures whether we agree with them or not.  We can pretty much forget about “right” or “fair”  Their country their rules.

 

The only thing we can do is choose where to spend our  vacation $$.  I remember many years ago on a cruise the first U.S. port was St. Thomas and everyone had to be cleared by U.S. Immigration.  Long story short it was poorly organized and took pretty much the whole morning before they would let anyone off the ship. Probably ½ the passenger load was Brits and while they love to line up, boy were they vocal in their displeasure.  It wasn't too many years after that I noticed P&O homeporting ships in the Barbados, offering direct fly/cruise packages from Great Britain.  None of the cruises stop in a U.S. port.  It’s quite normal now to see cruises homeported in Mexico, Panama, Jamaica and  other places in the Caribbean, with no port calls on U.S. islands or Territories.  I suspect the reason being the U.S. is making too many vacationers uncomfortable.

 

I believe every country has the right to make whatever laws they want, and every non citizen has the right to decide if they want to visit that country or not.  It’s all good as long as we have choices.

 

 

 I am from Winnipeg as well! 😄

 My surprise was that the land of the free didn’t feel so free to me 😄 as I was barefoot in a Royal Caribbean bathrobe in the hallway under guard. 

 The other passengers that were raided were from the USA and they were treated the same way as us.  I guess drug smuggling is a real issue in the states and they are willing to give up certain freedoms at the borders to catch these people.

[AnnaNicole]

I would feel humiliated too at being suspected of a crime.  I am sorry this happened to you.    

 

There was a case a year or so ago of two young female Instagrammers and an older man smuggling drugs on a cruise ship.  I believe they were busted in Australia.   I wonder if cruise ship drug smuggling is more common than we realize.  

 

 

 

 

[Trickie Dickie]

7 minutes ago, birdie16 said:

If I was going to guess, I would say a previous cruiser in your cabin was probably smoking pot.  I can’t tell you how many times I have cruised and smelled things that brought back memories of college days.  

 That could’ve been possible. They were in there a very long time and didn’t find anything.  Maybe that confused the dog somehow. 

[WpgCruise]

18 minutes ago, Trickie Dickie said:

 I am from Winnipeg as well! 😄

 My surprise was that the land of the free didn’t feel so free to me 😄 as I was barefoot in a Royal Caribbean bathrobe in the hallway under guard. 

 

I see you're a fellow "Pegger"  

But look at the bright side, you've got a good story to tell about your cruise.🤣

[Vectorboy]

Happened to me about 10 years ago in San Juan coming off a Celebrity cruise.

My wife and I were still asleep when they pounded viciously on the cabin door.

About 5 CBP officers and a Celebrity security guard were outside the door.

Ordered us to stay out of the bathroom and to open the safe.

They suggested it was a "random" search.

Probably lasted 5 minutes or so before they moved on to terrorize some other pax.

I slammed the door behind them with all my force and called them *Nazis* at the top of my lungs.

 

A horrible, terrifying experience.

 

[Chrislynn55]

56 minutes ago, Trickie Dickie said:

 The dog was in the room the entire time.   The door was always closed.   When I was called in.   The dog was sitting beside his handler while I was questioned.   The officers all watched my reactions as I answered the questions.   The officers made the mess not the dog.   The whole incident lasted around 45 minutes which seemed like an eternity at the time.  

Yikes...I would be absolutely incensed at this kind of treatment, especially since my only 'crimes' have been a few speeding tickets in the 1980's! The takeaway for me from your unfortunate experience is that we will do a thorough search of our cabin as soon as we take possession of it on future cruises. You never know what may have been left behind by a previous occupant that we could be blamed for....

[Trickie Dickie]

Just now, WpgCruise said:

I see you're a fellow "Pegger"  

But look at the bright side, you've got a good story to tell about your cruise.🤣

 I waited a while before I posted about it.   To be honest it was very disturbing to me.  Our girlfriend that was cruising with us in another room was deliriously upset as she saw us being detained.  Afterwards,  We had to spend a while with her to calm her down.   She was in tears! she didn’t understand what was going on and she was not allowed to come up to us to find out. 

[Trickie Dickie]

3 minutes ago, Vectorboy said:

Happened to me about 10 years ago in San Juan coming off a Celebrity cruise.

My wife and I were still asleep when they pounded viciously on the cabin door.

About 5 CBP officers and a Celebrity security guard were outside the door.

Ordered us to stay out of the bathroom and to open the safe.

They suggested it was a "random" search.

Probably lasted 5 minutes or so before they moved on to terrorize some other pax.

I slammed the door behind them with all my force and called them *Nazis* at the top of my lungs.

 

A horrible, terrifying experience.

 

 

 I truly understand the emotion in your post.   I was terrified as well as there’s always a possibility of them detaining you for questioning.   As I am not from the United States it never occurred to me to be hostile or uncooperative as I did not want to go to prison.   That would’ve totally ruined our vacation.  

[El Abuelo]

40 minutes ago, Trickie Dickie said:

 I am from Winnipeg as well! 😄

 My surprise was that the land of the free didn’t feel so free to me 😄 as I was barefoot in a Royal Caribbean bathrobe in the hallway under guard. 

 The other passengers that were raided were from the USA and they were treated the same way as us.  I guess drug smuggling is a real issue in the states and they are willing to give up certain freedoms at the borders to catch these people.

Easy for me to say, but don’t take it personally. This has all the signs of a tip, far too much resource invested for a random search. There was no “hit” by the dog, that’s just an interrogation technique. 

 

We always need to keep in mind that our rights are limited until we clear customs and immigration, and US customs is not a pleasant place. Many of the freedoms given up are only appreciated when they are no longer enjoyed.

Edited March 30, 2019 by El Abuelo

[Trickie Dickie]

9 minutes ago, Chrislynn55 said:

Yikes...I would be absolutely incensed at this kind of treatment, especially since my only 'crimes' have been a few speeding tickets in the 1980's! The takeaway for me from your unfortunate experience is that we will do a thorough search of our cabin as soon as we take possession of it on future cruises. You never know what may have been left behind by a previous occupant that we could be blamed for....

 

 But what can you really do about it? We are in a foreign country with drug smuggling problems.  I’m trying not to take it personally even though I’ve spent my entire life being a good person with a clean record.   It doesn’t feel good being put on display like that.  

[Sunkissed Mommy]

2 hours ago, Trickie Dickie said:

 Neither had I until it happened 😄  this was cruise number 28.   Our state room attendant told us that this happens just about every week.  

 

Perhaps the stateroom attendant said it happens every week because she is a crew member.  The crew quarters tend to be searched far more often than vacationing guests.  Often times when you hear news stories about cruise ships and smuggling, it ends up being crew members being caught.  So maybe she didn't specific crew/guests, but that she sees it happen all the time?

[parrotfeathers]

I would have been very upset too!

 

Hopefully the dog didn't pee on you.

[Trickie Dickie]

1 minute ago, Sunkissed Mommy said:

 

Perhaps the stateroom attendant said it happens every week because she is a crew member.  The crew quarters tend to be searched far more often than vacationing guests.  Often times when you hear news stories about cruise ships and smuggling, it ends up being crew members being caught.  So maybe she didn't specific crew/guests, but that she sees it happen all the time?

No.  We discussed this with her and she specifically said it was the guests rooms.  She mentioned that it delays her sometimes from cleaning the rooms and doing her job.  With the size of the mega ships nowadays it’s not surprising that we can’t see what’s happening on other floors.   This probably happens more often than us passengers realize.

[crusinthrough]

2 hours ago, Trickie Dickie said:

 I was in my room on the ship.  I didn’t have to go to the border and do customs until later in the day. 

I'm no expert but when the ship (not you) arrived back in the U.S. it is subject to inspection by U.S. CBP.  While it may seem like you were being searched,  in actuality the cabin which is part of the ship was being searched.  Since you only had interaction with the BB guests and could only see what was happening on your deck within your view, you have no way to tell how many other cabins (BB or non BB) were also searched.  

 

I have not had this experience on any cruise but I can understand how it could happen. 

[Trickie Dickie]

2 minutes ago, parrotfeathers said:

I would have been very upset too!

 

Hopefully the dog didn't pee on you.

 

 The dog was a perfect gentle-person.  I saw that other thread 😄