Disembarkation

[latebuyer]

I'm wondering if the cruise arrives at the final port at 7am if you have to disembark at that time if you want sleep in and eat breakfast. The final port of my cruise is vancouver and i'm from there so i won't be in any rush.

 

Also how long does it take to disembark at ports if you haven't booked excursions?

[princeton123211]

Disembarkation begins quickly after the ship docks and clears customs-- it will most likely be earlier than 7am. Usually alongside by 5:30am and cleared by 6-630am. 

 

You wont be able to linger in your cabin. Most passengers will be off the ship by 8-9am. Buffet breakfast will be limited and shut down early and room service usually is not available the last morning. They will be knocking on your door by 7-730am to clean it. 

[1025cruise]

There is no such thing as sleeping in on disembarkation day. You will be asked to vacate your cabin by a certain time. While they don't explicitly say it, they want you off.

 

 

[CruiserBruce]

8 minutes ago, princeton123211 said:

Disembarkation begins quickly after the ship docks and clears customs-- it will most likely be earlier than 7am. Usually alongside by 5:30am and cleared by 6-630am. 

 

You wont be able to linger in your cabin. Most passengers will be off the ship by 8-9am. Buffet breakfast will be limited and shut down early and room service usually is not available the last morning. They will be knocking on your door by 7-730am to clean it. 

Wow...lots of misinformation here.

 

First of all, port involved would be important info. But generally, the ship will dock before 7am...maybe 1-2 hours, again, depending on port. But it is quite common for HAL to start disembarking by 7:15 or 7:30...but this is also influenced by Immigration and Customs procedures.

 

You may stay in your cabin until final call for disembarking, which will be around 9:30. Holland America is known for this feature...not all cruise lines allow it. You may eat breakfast...there will be a couple options for breakfast, they start earlier than normal...they don't shut down before 9am.

 

All of the above applies to your final port, when you go home. At stops along your cruise, you will be able to get off within 30 minutes of docking, in most cases.

[wyobean]

We were able to get room service in Seward since we had to catch an early bus to the airport. 

[princeton123211]

2 minutes ago, CruiserBruce said:

You may stay in your cabin until final call for disembarking, which will be around 9:30. Holland America is known for this feature...not all cruise lines allow it.

I wish someone would have let our cabin attendants on the Veendam know that last year. Literally knocking at the door repeatedly at 7:30am after we docked in Boston. 

[SilvertoGold]

You can choose your departure time.  You get info early in the cruise and can check off the time frame you wish to have for departure.  You do not even have to go within that specific time frame:  as long as you know when the very last time frame is, that is the latest you can leave.

 

Your cabin stewards will want to do some work in your cabin once you are up and off to breakfast.

[*Miss G*]

In addition to the corrections made above... 

 

• Room service is available on disembarkation days.
• The Lido buffet will open earlier than usual.
• The MDR and Club Orange are open for breakfast.
• You do not need to vacate your room prior to your disembarkation time.  You will sometimes have the room stewards and/or mini-bar attendant stop by to do what chores they can while you are in your room.
• The deck crew will be opening up the balcony dividers (if you have a verandah) to wash down the decks so don’t open your drapes if you don’t want them to see you.

[CM1984]

 

 Vancouver may be different, but on the last day in Fort Lauderdale and Tampa, we could order room service prior to disembarking.  It was so much easier for us.  HAL is the only cruise line we have been on that allows it.

[boards]

We have had room service on several the ships we been on  debarkation day.

[T8NCruise]

3 hours ago, princeton123211 said:

Disembarkation begins quickly after the ship docks and clears customs-- it will most likely be earlier than 7am. Usually alongside by 5:30am and cleared by 6-630am. 

 

You wont be able to linger in your cabin. Most passengers will be off the ship by 8-9am. Buffet breakfast will be limited and shut down early and room service usually is not available the last morning. They will be knocking on your door by 7-730am to clean it. 

 

?? I have many cruises with HAL and have always had room service breakfast on the last morning.  Also, the Lido buffet doesn't seem to be limited from my observations.

Sometimes the ship is cleared early, and the self-disembarkation passengers are off around 7:30 am.  In Vancouver docking is between 6:30 and 7, usually.   We vacate our cabin around 9, off by 9:30, but we are 4* so we pick our time.

[TheChiefNL]

Thanks for the info. I was curious about getting breakfast in the morning before leaving the ship. I understand that this is possible. 

 

Received a email from HAL today with a change of disembarkation time in Amsterdam. Old time was 0700 PM and new time will be 0530.

[RuthC]

1 hour ago, TheChiefNL said:

Received a email from HAL today with a change of disembarkation time in Amsterdam. Old time was 0700 PM and new time will be 0530.

Are you sure the letter said 'disembarkation time' and not 'arrival time'? They are not at all the same thing.
Other than arrivals in Seward, Alaska, and Singapore (so people could make 6:00 AM flights) I have never been on a ship, even one that arrived very early in the morning, that had a 'disembarkation time' as early as 5:30.
Even on the Singapore disembarkation, we weren't forced to disembark any earlier than most other places.

[wrmiles]

We were notified in writing that we could stay in our cabin until disembarkation time. The cabin attendents were quite obnoxious in trying to get us out earlier. I almost pulled all tips. I understand why they do this, however it appeared contrary to ship's policy. This was on Oosterdam about sever years ago.

[kazu]

8 minutes ago, wrmiles said:

We were notified in writing that we could stay in our cabin until disembarkation time. The cabin attendents were quite obnoxious in trying to get us out earlier. I almost pulled all tips. I understand why they do this, however it appeared contrary to ship's policy. This was on Oosterdam about sever years ago.

 

Our cabin stewards (and others) need to come in to strip the bed and start the prep for the new occupants.

 

We’ve never had an issue.  If we happen to be in the cabin, we just slip out to the balcony or elsewhere.  They really don’t take long.  It’s all in stages.

 

But you need to remember, just as you enjoyed having your room ready when you boarded the usurpers to your room want the same.  

 

I’m not sure why they would have been obnoxious about trying to get you out.  There’s absolutely no need.  No need for you to get out (although it does make it easier depending on what category cabin you may have) And it is NOT the policy nor required.

 

[kazu]

On 8/6/2019 at 1:52 PM, princeton123211 said:

Disembarkation begins quickly after the ship docks and clears customs-- it will most likely be earlier than 7am. Usually alongside by 5:30am and cleared by 6-630am. 

 

I’ve never seen disembarkation before 7 or 7:15 for those that want to self disembark or get off earlier.  

On 8/6/2019 at 1:52 PM, princeton123211 said:

 

You wont be able to linger in your cabin. Most passengers will be off the ship by 8-9am. Buffet breakfast will be limited and shut down early and room service usually is not available the last morning. They will be knocking on your door by 7-730am to clean it. 

 

Huh?  There’s room service on disembarkation day on every ship and HAL sailing I have been on.  

 

Breakfast is earlier so of course it shuts down earlier.  Most people want to pack up last minute items, etc and some need to get off early.

 

I have never had anyone knock at my door at 7 am.

On 8/6/2019 at 1:57 PM, 1025cruise said:

There is no such thing as sleeping in on disembarkation day. You will be asked to vacate your cabin by a certain time. While they don't explicitly say it, they want you off.

 

 

 

Huh?  Since when?  On other cruise lines, yes.  Not on HAL.

There is no request to vacate the cabin but what is polite is to understand if stewards or other part of the team want to come in to strip bed sheets, mini bar guy comes to check your mini bar for final charges, etc.  

But you’re right, you’re not going to sleep in too late since everyone usually needs to be off by around 9:30 - 9:45.  Doesn’t seem like an abysmally early time to me 😉 🤣

[CruiserBruce]

@kazu, there were many issues with the posts you quoted. Almost made me think the poster was confusing another cruise line with HAL.

[sevenseasnomad]

We attempt to be out of our cabin by 8, not because the stewards are knocking on our door (we've never had that happen to us on our many cruises with HAL) but because we appreciate our cabin being ready when we board, so we hope to assure that the same thing happens for those embarking passengers. 

 

Plus, our stewards have worked hard to please us and to keep the cabin spotless.  One way we show our appreciation is by leaving early, so they can finish preparing the cabin for the next passenger(s).  Housekeeping supervisors must check off each cabin.  The sooner they can do that, the sooner our stewards might get a little well-deserved break before the next group comes aboard.  I'll like to think they get a chance to catch their breaths, have some down-time, but maybe this is a naïve perspective on my part.

[TheChiefNL]

6 hours ago, RuthC said:

Are you sure the letter said 'disembarkation time' and not 'arrival time'? They are not at all the same thing.
Other than arrivals in Seward, Alaska, and Singapore (so people could make 6:00 AM flights) I have never been on a ship, even one that arrived very early in the morning, that had a 'disembarkation time' as early as 5:30.
Even on the Singapore disembarkation, we weren't forced to disembark any earlier than most other places.

This is from my boarding pass..... 

 

A few months ago we received a email that disembark location was changed from Passengers Terminal Amsterdam (PTA) to VCK Waterland Terminal. 

 

If I look at the cruise calendar of the PTA for our disembark day the Nieuw Statendam would be there from 0700AM till 0500AM. 

 

Maybe the ship let's people disembark at VCK and then sets sail to PTA to let new travelers embark???? 

[DaveOKC]

On 8/6/2019 at 11:48 AM, christinand said:

I'm wondering if the cruise arrives at the final port at 7am if you have to disembark at that time if you want sleep in and eat breakfast. The final port of my cruise is vancouver and i'm from there so i won't be in any rush.

 

Also how long does it take to disembark at ports if you haven't booked excursions?

I never have waited to the end, but as I recall with a 7 am port arrival HAL generally wants all customers gone by 9:30 am (or so).  Others hopefully will verify this.

 

[*Miss G*]

6 hours ago, TheChiefNL said:

This is from my boarding pass..... 

 

A few months ago we received a email that disembark location was changed from Passengers Terminal Amsterdam (PTA) to VCK Waterland Terminal. 

 

If I look at the cruise calendar of the PTA for our disembark day the Nieuw Statendam would be there from 0700AM till 0500AM. 

 

Maybe the ship let's people disembark at VCK and then sets sail to PTA to let new travelers embark???? 

 

Holy smokes!  There is no WAY I’d be disembarking at 5:30 am!!  Are they out of their minds?  😂

[kwb101]

We'll be ending a voyage in Quebec City next month,  and our boarding passes also show a 5am disembark time. Woe is us.

[*Miss G*]

Wow.  This is crazy.  I do hope you both report back on what happens!

[RuthC]

The day I am forced to disembark at 5:30, is the day my cruising life with HAL comes to an end.

[DeeniEncinitas]

8 minutes ago, RuthC said:

The day I am forced to disembark at 5:30, is the day my cruising life with HAL comes to an end.

😱😱

OMG!! I ditto that Ruth. 

Denise😊