Tampa Dawn embarkation

[BlueJai]

Can anyone shed any light on why there's so much trouble getting on and off the dawn? Seems like every week there is mention of NCL sending emails to passengers telling them not to come to the port before noon and if they come early they will be turned away. What the heck! 

 

Thanks for any input. 

[Laszlo]

1 hour ago, BlueJai said:

Can anyone shed any light on why there's so much trouble getting on and off the dawn? Seems like every week there is mention of NCL sending emails to passengers telling them not to come to the port before noon and if they come early they will be turned away. What the heck! 

 

Thanks for any input. 

It is one of the smaller terminals to begin with. They only have one elevator I believe. If you are carrying off your own luggage you are not allowed to use the escalator. At least that was how the last time we sailed from Tampa. It was a real cluster puck getting of the ship the first time, the second time was a little better since we opted Not to carry our luggage off

[www3traveler]

A lot of the time the issue is weather related.  The channel into Tampa is narrow and the bridge they have to sail under is not very high. The Tampa area subject to a lot of fog in the Winter. They need low tide and clear weather to sail into Tampa.  The issues with a small terminal to do help either.

[BlueJai]

Thanks for your response! Did you have a long wait getting on? I am imagining getting to the port and there being a huge line up outside of the terminal.

[realcindylouwho]

 Currently hanging out at a Starbucks passing time since we received an email LAST NIGHT telling us not to show up to the Tampa port until noon. I can report back here how our embarkation went later today. We are also Platinum Plus suite cruisers so that might make a bit of a difference in how quickly we board.

Edited January 21, 2020 by realcindylouwho

[realcindylouwho]

Arrived to the port at 12 p.m. The line to get through security snaked upstairs and back downstairs but moved quickly. We went through the scanner, paid our $15 fee for the Vueve and immediately checked in and had our photo taken at the Haven check-in. 

We were escorted up the escalator and into the area for Suite guests and waited about 2 minutes before being escorted onto the ship. Total process....28 minutes from the outside drop off to Moderno for suite lunch.

[Luvmypups]

We sailed on the Dawn out of Tampa a couple of years ago.  We got to the terminal around noon and it was a mad house.  Like others have said, I think a lot of the issues are due to the small terminal.  We were in a suite and there was no priority entrance, just waited in line that was all the way down the sidewalk to the next block, finally made it inside, weaved back and forth through the ropes as they allowed only limited numbers upstairs at a time to get to security.  It took at least a couple of hours to get on the ship.

 

It also took a long time to get off the ship, even carrying our own luggage.  It took forever for them to clear the ship and if I’m not mistaken, they made all of the non-US citizen passengers go through customs first....that was before we could ever exit the ship.  So I think the issues getting people off the ship quickly hinder their ability to get passengers on the ship.

 

The issues boarding and exiting the ship definitely discouraged us from ever cruising out of Tampa again.

[rjm11]

we sailed out of Tampa on the Dawn at the end of December.  We got the email saying NOT to come before noon, or you would be turned away.  We went at 10:45 anyway, and were not only NOT turned away, but boarded within about 40 minutes and were onboard well before noon.  The port workers (people checking you in) were upset that the emails were going out, saying it's creating a huge rush at noon and really long lines.  I would suggest going earlier- there were NO lines (because everyone thought they were supposed to go at noon or later). 

[KansasinJune]

We are on the Dawn in February,  How long did disembarkation take (self and/or regular disembarkation) ?  We have a 11:15 am flight out of Tampa that I am concerned about getting to after seeing some comments in this thread and others

[Buckeye10640]

8 hours ago, rjm11 said:

we sailed out of Tampa on the Dawn at the end of December.  We got the email saying NOT to come before noon, or you would be turned away.  We went at 10:45 anyway, and were not only NOT turned away, but boarded within about 40 minutes and were onboard well before noon.  The port workers (people checking you in) were upset that the emails were going out, saying it's creating a huge rush at noon and really long lines.  I would suggest going earlier- there were NO lines (because everyone thought they were supposed to go at noon or later). 

Thanks for that info. Been a few years since we sailed out of Tampa but we are doing so next month. Since we are arriving a day early our plan was to go early and try to board as early as is possible. We will stick with that, if we have to wait at the terminal then we will. 

[BlueJai]

I am sorry I didn't get back to reply to this, Once we got onboard I didn't go back online. So our experience. We received the letter not to show up but we had already made arrangements to be picked up from the hotel at 10. So we changed our pick up time to 11:00 and hoped for the best.

 

We checked out of the hotel around 10:45 and our taxi was already there so we loaded up and headed to the Port. We were expecting the terminal to be closed and people lining up outside but that wasn't the case. We were able to leave our luggage with a porter and head in. We probably arrived at the port around 11:05. We headed inside and filled in our medical forms and there were literally no line ups. We went right up to a port person and completed our check in process and proceeded to grab a seat to wait. My husband sat and I went to get a glass of water and all of the sudden the loud speaker came on and they announced boarding for Platinum plus etc. I hadn't even sat down yet LOL! 

 

I went to get my carry on and away we went. Our first stop is always the pool deck bar where we order a Ceasar and find a place in the sun. I always take a pic of my husbands watch when we get settled and it was exactly 11:30 that day!

 

We asked the Port people why NCL had us come so early and they said that they really didn't know why. They had no issues when disembarkation and it would only serve to create long line ups later on, which apparently it did.

 

Disembarkation: we had Yellow luggage tags and had arranged for transportation from the ship at 10:00 because we had heard it could take hours to get off. We ended up changing that time to 9:00 on disembarkation morning because things were going so fast. We met our driver around 9:15 and were at the hotel on the Gulf side by 10:00 that morning. It was so fast getting off and getting our luggage. The one weird thing was after getting our luggage we expected to go through US Immigration but that didn't happen. We literally walked out of the port after picking up our luggage. This was the first time we haven't had to go through US immigration after leaving a cruise. That was weird!