important reminder about departure off ships seen today

[Caroldoll]

On 1/18/2020 at 2:46 PM, westmount said:

Not sure of the circumstances today, but when we arrived in miami a couple of weeks ago,  its seems they had issues with the union unloading the bags, thus we were 30 minutes late in starting the disembarking. Once that was done, then it seems Border Security were either working to rule, or on some sort of strike, as there was only two agents, thus once you got off the ship, there was another 30 minute wait to get through customs. 

I believe its been said before, but its simply not worth booking a flight before 1 pm as things happen and its not really the cruise lines fault. 

  It's not like Regent wants departing passengers to be delayed on their way out, the quicker they gert everyone off the happier they are. 

Miami is one of the worst.  Union problems.

[Robroy]

We also disembarked the Explorer on Saturday about 9:40 and were in no rush as we had a 4:00 flight booked. I am pretty sure we were actually docked at 7:00am so I have no idea exactly what transpired to delay disembarkation. When we booked our flights I realized there were eight ships in port Saturday and faced with a choice of a 12 noon flight and the 4pm we went for the later flight as based upon past experience and what we had read about the Miami port situation, I thought in case "stuff" happens, I didn't want to be stewing and worrying about making an early flight.

Frankly I can't imagine why Regent would purposely delay pax leaving the ship as they have another cruise to prepare for - the sooner we're gone, the easier the preparations would be. I thought the fact that Lorraine was making announcements about the delays was fine - if she had any definitive idea of an exact time, I'm sure she would have given it which gives credence to the fact that it was out of Regent's control.

The only real issue we had was the embarkation as there were only nine agents checking people in. We arrived about 12:15 and didn't get processed until close to 1:00. I understand these were not Regent people doing the checkin but it was a far cry from our last experience on Navigator out of Miami which took about ten minutes from the time we arrived at the Terminal.

Fortunately we had a great cruise - despite some rocky weather and two ports being substituted due to weather issues.

[alexandra cruiser]

Think those people that changed to later flight will be much happier and not have to stress.

Just another point to make,,,when we go overseas we always book 1 day prior to cruise and 1 day after,,if different ports.

That way we can rest and relax,,perhaps see a new city for longer time,etc.

Hate to sit and wait in airports,,,like to make up for lost sleep on way over.Then not have to rush or worry about getting to airport on time,,or having the dreaded wait.

We are now retired and have the luxury of taking extra days.Know it costs extra for hotel,meals, taxi ,etc.but we re worth it.haha

[lbastida01]

20 hours ago, Camillus112 said:

Thanks all for your input.  I was also able to change our flight to leave out of Miami Airport at 1:45pm, rather than at noon.  Since you win some and then lose some, our Charlotte to Syracuse connection was changed to Philadelphia and we will have a higher weather risk for not arriving to Syracuse on debarkation date at all.  Oh well!  Hopefully all will be fine.

Hope you make your connecting flight and back to Syracuse!!

[Camillus112]

Thanks, Linda, see you and your mother in exactly one month... yay, Explorer!