Debarking NYC pier: Instead of Customs & Immigration, NCL personnel man the facial recognition cameras inside the building?!

[fstuff1]

I just debarked today.

 

Scanned my shipcard as I exited the ship, walked out the gangway, and headed towards the Customs and Immigration check point.

I was glad to see the facial recognition cameras since it speeds up the process ALOT!

(It seems like a random crap shoot whether facial recognition is used or not.)

 

I never noticed this before but they were manned by NCL personnel?!

Customs and Immigration officers were a few feet behind them standing around.

 

My face was scanned, and I was cleared.

Walked through without anyone from C&I asking for my passport.

I also didn't see anyone scanned ahead of me being stopped by C&I.

 

How can NCL at NYC pier do C&I's job?

 

Edited September 23, 2022 by fstuff1

[hallux]

12 minutes ago, fstuff1 said:

How can NCL at NYC pier do C&I's job?

It MAY have been the same in Miami when I sailed on the Joy in March.  The C&I folks are there to monitor for exceptions and address those when they come up.  I think anyone with a non-US passport is flagged for scrutiny by C&I, they're shuffled off to the side for that evaluation.

[pickle11]

21 minutes ago, fstuff1 said:

I just debarked today.

 

Scanned my shipcard as I exited the ship, walked out the gangway, and headed towards the Customs and Immigration check point.

I was glad to see the facial recognition cameras since it speeds up the process ALOT!

(It seems like a random crap shoot whether facial recognition is used or not.)

 

I never noticed this before but they were manned by NCL personnel?!

Customs and Immigration officers were a few feet behind them standing around.

 

My face was scanned, and I was cleared.

Walked through without anyone from C&I asking for my passport.

I also didn't see anyone scanned ahead of me being stopped by C&I.

 

How can NCL at NYC pier do C&I's job?

 

 Sounds like disembarkation went off without a hitch.  Maybe your problem is with customs.

[Robkat]

This is also how it went down disembarking from our Getaway cruise, in Port Canaveral, in August this year.

It was a much faster and more efficient process, and we felt that the C&I officers were right there to deal with any appropriate situation.  It was apparent that this new facial recognition process will be dealt with in this manner, and the NCL personnel are there to ensure that the FR equipment doesn't malfunction.

Thought it was terrific.

[fstuff1]

3 minutes ago, Robkat said:

This is also how it went down disembarking from our Getaway cruise, in Port Canaveral, in August this year.

It was a much faster and more efficient process, and we felt that the C&I officers were right there to deal with any appropriate situation. 

 

Thought it was terrific.

 

yes it was terrific.

Just found it surprising that NCL is  doing customs and immigration

 

Edited September 23, 2022 by fstuff1

[Robkat]

16 minutes ago, fstuff1 said:

 

yes it was terrific.

Just found it surprising that NCL is  doing customs and immigration

 

Think the NCL personnel are there at each FR station more in a monitoring capacity, with the C&I officers there to be summoned if necessary and/ or if the FR devices indicate that C&I needs to get involved.

We're loving this new process, and even if occasionally there are some glitches, we think this is definitely a step up in the debarkation process!

Edited September 23, 2022 by Robkat

[ChiefMateJRK]

22 minutes ago, fstuff1 said:

Just found it surprising that NCL is  doing customs and immigration

They're not.  It's not customs and immigration's job to keep facial scanning equipment working.  They are there to check out those who don't "pass."  Like me on my last cruise.  I look shady, so the software flags me and the pros from dover jump in to frisk me, strip search me and drill me about how many bloody Mary's I had for breakfast.  Okay, maybe some of those was my DW.  Let's blame the bloody Mary's in the buffet.  Anyhow, the process does seem to be pretty efficient these days.  If they want to keep bad elements out of the country, their resources are likely much better spent at places other than cruise terminals.

[phillygwm]

That's what happened to me in LA last December.  Coming back to Miami a couple months ago, there were customs guys pulling people aside at random.  I was among them.  He was trying to make it seem like we were having a casual conversation.  I had nothing to hide but it's kind of like instinctively slowing down when you're driving down the street and see a police car behind you 🙂

[BirdTravels]

3 hours ago, fstuff1 said:

I just debarked today.

 

Scanned my shipcard as I exited the ship, walked out the gangway, and headed towards the Customs and Immigration check point.

I was glad to see the facial recognition cameras since it speeds up the process ALOT!

(It seems like a random crap shoot whether facial recognition is used or not.)

 

I never noticed this before but they were manned by NCL personnel?!

Customs and Immigration officers were a few feet behind them standing around.

 

My face was scanned, and I was cleared.

Walked through without anyone from C&I asking for my passport.

I also didn't see anyone scanned ahead of me being stopped by C&I.

 

How can NCL at NYC pier do C&I's job?

 

NCL has a good arrangement with CBP. A few weeks ago, we were on the Breakaway. We we use the NCL facial recognition system on the ship.  Instead of getting one of the cheery "thank you, have a nice day" message on the facial recognition screen, we got a "cleared immigrations" message. The NCL facial recognition system both checked us off the ship and cleared us through customs and immigrations. There were no checks in the terminal. No officers at or near the CBP booths. There were CBP officers at a table near the gangway if someone tripped the system.  

[shof515]

Noticed the same thing last year when i was on the Breakaway and Gem and then the Getaway earlier this year

[NW Pacific]

Off the Bliss, Sept. 17th, Alaska Cruise.  Disembarking in Seattle, we went through face recognition, nothing to do with keycard, like before.    there was an Immigration Officer standing along side NCL employee.  It was hit or miss if you needed to show passport, i did not, hubby did.  took seconds to get through.  Did not go through anything else at all.