Embarkation Day: Board Early or Later?

[calicakes]

• We board on Wednesday and I chose 11:30.  We're staying a few nights pre-cruise in Ft. Lauderdale( I have family there) and we like to have lunch onboard.  We usually head up to the pool to get a start on our tan.  This will be our first cruise on O, so we also want to get a feel for the ship. 

[welshfamily]

Ships will be in Europe by April. It will be interesting to have actual Experience of boarding etc.

By choice I would be a later boarder however we usually have a timed transfer from our hotel particularly when Oceania have arranged it, regardless of boarding times.  These are always early say around 11.-11.30 am due to check out in Europe tends to be 10am. Check in, in my experience, is the pits. Queues, cross people and never any assistance for the disabled who are not in wheelchairs.  No refreshments, hard to find loos and don’t get me started on different stateroom classes in the same party ( one of our friends is a solo traveler). 

Nothing like the onboard ship experience and this was pre COVID.
Hence I find embarkation ports the first thing I look at. Barcelona's perfect for a taxi from hotel cheap and we are in control.
Who knows this year with Venice!   

 

 

 

[Rob the Cruiser]

On 2/15/2022 at 9:12 AM, lel5344 said:

On embarkation for the Riviera, can we get lunch any place besides the Terrace Cafe? Is Waves Grill open?

Yes. Waves will be open.

 

We board as soon as permitted and head to Waves for amazing surf and turf:

 

Grilled florida lobster medallions, sliced black angus filet mignon, tomato, toasted ciabatta, roasted garlic jus, remoulade dipping sauce!!!

[lel5344]

3 hours ago, Rob the Cruiser said:

Yes. Waves will be open.

 

We board as soon as permitted and head to Waves for amazing surf and turf:

 

Grilled florida lobster medallions, sliced black angus filet mignon, tomato, toasted ciabatta, roasted garlic jus, remoulade dipping sauce!!!

Thanks! That will work.

[Guppy99]

11 hours ago, welshfamily said:

Ships will be in Europe by April. It will be interesting to have actual Experience of boarding etc.

By choice I would be a later boarder however we usually have a timed transfer from our hotel particularly when Oceania have arranged it, regardless of boarding times.  These are always early say around 11.-11.30 am due to check out in Europe tends to be 10am. Check in, in my experience, is the pits. Queues, cross people and never any assistance for the disabled who are not in wheelchairs.  No refreshments, hard to find loos and don’t get me started on different stateroom classes in the same party ( one of our friends is a solo traveler). 

Nothing like the onboard ship experience and this was pre COVID.
Hence I find embarkation ports the first thing I look at. Barcelona's perfect for a taxi from hotel cheap and we are in control.
Who knows this year with Venice!   

 

 

 

You simply cannot compare pre-covid with any current experience.

[LHT28]

11 hours ago, welshfamily said:

  These are always early say around 11.-11.30 am due to check out in Europe tends to be 10am.

 

I have never  had to check out before 11 am in the hotels we have stayed in  some even had noon check out   & would store our bags if we wanted to go to the ship later in the day

[DC225]

Just got back from a fantastic cruise on Riviera.  We opted for a later 3pm boarding and it was a good choice for us.  Boarding was a breeze with no lines anywhere and our stateroom was ready for us.

[jonthomas]

5 hours ago, DC225 said:

Just got back from a fantastic cruise on Riviera.  We opted for a later 3pm boarding and it was a good choice for us.  Boarding was a breeze with no lines anywhere and our stateroom was ready for us.

 

we will also be boarding around 3:30..no choice with flight....

 

did you order room service? or wait till dinner?

 

we will have had no lunch, with flights and waits....

[LHT28]

37 minutes ago, jonthomas said:

 

we will also be boarding around 3:30..no choice with flight....

 

did you order room service? or wait till dinner?

 

we will have had no lunch, with flights and waits....

I do not think room service is an option on embarkation day  at least until dinner hours

Waves is usually open until 4pm  or may find some snacks in Barristas 

Better pack a snack 😉

 

[Harters]

The search facility brought me here, looking for boarding day lunch options,  and it's good to know Waves will be open. My recollection of our previous cruise in 2017 was that it wasnt and we battled our way through the bear pit that was the Terrace.

 

This time, we've taken the boarding time slot of 11.00 to 11.30. It will  fit nicely with checkout from our previous night's hotel. That's about a 30 minute drive away - so a leisurely breakfast, drop the bags with the porters at the terminal, pop over the road to leave the car with the parking company and stroll back over to actually check in. I'll need to find coffee either before or after boarding but can then settle down, catch my breath and start to feel on holiday. Later on, lunch in the Terrace if not crowded, or Waves if it is.

 

I'll have a small carry-on with my photographic kit and medication. It doesnt leave my side until I'm in my cabin.

[Mura]

Just to muddy the waters ...

 

We usually check in early since we like to have lunch on the ship. But fairly often there are things we want to do in the port before boarding. In that case paying for a lunch (or snack) on shore isn't much of a burden.

 

We've rarely had long lines at boarding.  Well, there was the one time that the port didn't have someone at the check-in desk (before you get to the Oceania people taking your information and your photo) ... then we had to wait maybe 10 minutes before someone showed up.  These days we are usually in a suite (usually a lower level suite) and since there are fewer people checking in at that level, that might make our waiting time less.

 

YES, getting there at 3pm rather than noon does generally make for a faster check-in.

 

Mura

 

 

BUT when we're in a port where there are things we want to do before boarding, we board late.

[ToxM]

Post covid (have done two O cruises since the restart) I Would suggest as early an embarkation time as is available until things are more closer to “the old days”. There is a lot of hoops to jump through at certain ports and it can get congested in certain parts.  

[pinotlover]

It’s primarily a Cruiser vs Traveler decision.

 

Here’s the scenario for our next O cruise. We board on a Tuesday in Bilboa, Spain. As is typical in Spain ( and Portugal) most everything is shutdown on Mondays, including the famous Guggenheim Museum in Bilboa. The ship doesn’t depart until 10:00 p.m.The port is about a 30 minute cab ride from downtown.

 

Probable scenario: Cruisers will skip the Guggenheim to board early; while Travelers will visit the Guggenheim, and the other attractions closed on Mondays, and board later in the afternoon. The Cs and the Ts will be easily distinguishable, with each having a different game plan. Each to their own.

 

 

[NattilyAttired]

Here was our April boarding experience:

 

Traveled as a group of four couples from Lisbon to Rome on Nautica on April 23. Two couples had pre-selected an 11am embarkation so they could leave their luggage with the stevedores, get checked in and boarded, then leave the ship to see more of Lisbon. We did not sail until 9pm. They had a full afternoon of sightseeing planned. 

The two other couples (including my wife and I) had pre-selected a 2:30 embarkation. We left our luggage at our hotel and toured Lisbon, and had a wonderful local lunch in town. At 2:15 we gathered our belongings from the hotel and took a cab to the port.

The results: The 11am boarding group experienced total chaos at the port and it took 90 minutes for them to step onto the gangway. There was confusion, crowds, buses of Oceania hotel transfers, and a lot of standing around. Once on the ship, they were told that because of Covid protocols, they were not allowed to leave the ship. Were my friends happy about all this? No, they were not.

Meanwhile, my wife and I and the couple we spent the morning with showed up at 2:30 and were inside the ship at 2:44pm. Fourteen minutes in all, and that was only because we had to walk a quarter of a mile from the registration desk to the ship. Literally no one was checking in when we were. We showed proof of negative test within 3 days and they took our luggage. Then we went upstairs into the terminal and filled out a short health form (they actually filled it out for us and we signed it), and then walked inside to the deserted registration counter and showed our passports and proof of vax and got our cabin keys. And off we went.

Found out later that the delay in early boarding had something to do with covid testing for continuing cruisers (several tested positive) and the need to reposition some passengers to quarantine rooms, and then a thorough cleaning of some cabins before new passengers could be boarded. Our ship, with a capacity of 700, only had 320 on board for our cruise, although there were over 500 on the disembarking leg. 

So.....I realize that not everyone will experience what our group did. I am only sharing our recent experience to give some perspective to this discussion.